26 h. ago Survivors sue Shell in landmark case over deadly typhoon in Philippines: ‘We swam for our lives’

More than 100 Filipinos affected by Super Typhoon Rai are suing the British company in a case that will likely test whether fossil fuel companies can be held liable for specific climate disasters

Events

27 h. ago Filipino survivors sue Shell in landmark case over deadly typhoon: ‘We swam for our lives’

More than 100 Filipinos affected by Super Typhoon Rai are suing the British company in a case that will likely test whether fossil fuel companies can be held liable for specific climate disasters

Events

3 d. ago Carney’s fossil fuel pivot bewilders climate experts and business leaders

Canadian prime minister’s legacy as one-time UN envoy and clean power advocate undermined by energy shift

Politics

6 d. ago US senator calls for insider trading inquiry over Trump donors buying $12m worth of shares

Co-chairs of LNG firm, who bought stock worth almost $12m each after meeting with Trump officials, deny wrongdoingA senior Democratic senator is calling for an investigation into potential insider trading by fossil-fuel billionaires close to the Trump administration, after a Guardian investigation raised questions about an unusual share buying spree.Robert Pender and Michael Sabel, the founders and co-chairs of Venture Global, a liquefied natural gas (LNG) company headquartered in Virginia, bought more than a million shares worth almost $12m each, just days after meeting with senior Trump officials in March. Continue reading...

Politics

8 d. ago ‘Food and fossil fuel production causing $5bn of environmental damage an hour’

UN GEO report says ending this harm key to global transformation required ‘before collapse becomes inevitable’The unsustainable production of food and fossil fuels causes $5bn (£3.8bn) of environmental damage per hour, according to a major UN report.Ending this harm was a key part of the global transformation of governance, economics and finance required “before collapse becomes inevitable”, the experts said. Continue reading...

Events

8 d. ago Canada’s environmental ‘realism’ looks more like surrender | Tzeporah Berman

At a time when the UK and other countries are finally taking bold steps for climate, Canada is preparing a new oil pipelineLast week, the United Kingdom did something all too rare: it chose leadership by backing science and prioritizing public safety. The Labour government announced it would ban new oil and gas licences in the North Sea, strengthen a windfall tax and accelerate phasing out of fossil-fuel subsidies.These are not symbolic gestures. They are an acknowledgment that the global energy system is shifting and that mature economies must shift with it.Tzeporah Berman is a Canadian environmental activist, campaigner and writer Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago Inside the climate group working everywhere but DC: ‘You can still have huge wins’

Climate Cabinet supports candidates in state and city races as the federal government ignores the climate crisisWith a president who has called climate change a “hoax”, refused to send a delegation to international climate talks, and packed the federal government with former fossil fuel industry employees, this can feel like a dark moment for climate action in the US. But shifting one’s focus to local and state law makes for a very different outlook.Analysts have estimated that 75% of the commitments that the US made at the Paris climate agreement – which Donald Trump pulled the nation out of as soon as he took office – can be reached entirely without federal support. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago What’s behind the massive death toll in floods across Southeast Asia – and why it should serve as a warning

Regional experts warn that without rapid cuts in fossil-fuel emissions and serious investment in resilience – from restoring forests to enforcing planning rules – disasters like this year’s may become regular rather than rare, Stuti Mishra reports

Events

2 w. ago Rising Tide protest: climate activists stop three ships from entering world’s largest coal port in Newcastle

Australian campaigners demand Albanese government cancel planned fossil fuel projects and tax existing operations at 78%Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastActivists have blocked two more coal ships from entering the Port of Newcastle on the fourth day of the Rising Tide protests, bringing the total number of ships turned around by campaigners this weekend to three.Thousands of people have gathered at Rising Tide’s annual climate protest at the world’s largest coal port. The blockade began on Thursday and will continue until Tuesday. Continue reading...

Events

3 w. ago ‘Fossil fuel giants finally in the crosshairs’: Cop30 avoids total failure with last

It took some oblique wording, but Saudi Arabia made a last-minute decision to sign deal that marks departure for CopDawn was breaking over the Amazonian city of Belém on Saturday morning, but in the windowless conference room it could have been day or night. They had been stuck there for more than 12 hours, dozens of ministers representing 17 groups of countries, from the poorest on the planet to the richest, urged by the Brazilian hosts to accept a settlement cooked up the day before.Tempers were short, the air thick as the sweaty and exhausted delegates faced up to reality: there would not be a deal here in Brazil. The 30th UN climate conference would end in abject failure. Continue reading...

Events

3 w. ago The Guardian view on UN climate talks: they reveal how little time is left | Editorial

A fragile Cop30 consensus is a win. But only a real bargain between rich and poor nations can weather the climate shocks that are comingThis year’s UN climate talks in Brazil’s Belém ended without a major breakthrough. The text of the final agreement lacked a deal to shift away from fossil fuels, delayed crucial finance and the “mutirão” decision contained no roadmap to halt and reverse deforestation. But the multilateral system at Cop30 held together at a point when its collapse felt close. This ought to be a warning: next year’s conference of the parties must strike a better bargain between the rich and poor world.Developing countries are far from united on some issues. Over rare earth minerals China sees any move as targeting its dominance, while Africa sees it as essential for governance. Elsewhere petrostates did not support Colombia’s call for a fossil fuel phase-out. Yet the global south broadly coheres around a simple principle: its nations must be equipped to survive a clim...

Politics

3 w. ago Bitter rows and overnight talks: how a fragile Cop30 deal was agreed – podcast

After bitter arguments, threatened walkouts and heated all-night negotiations, delegates eventually reached a deal this weekend at the Cop30 climate summit in Brazil. To unpick what was achieved and what was left out, Madeleine Finlay hears from the Guardian’s environment editor, Fiona Harvey, who has been following every twist and turnEnd of fossil fuel era inches closer as Cop30 deal agreed after bitter standoffSupport the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod Continue reading...

Economics

3 w. ago Another Cop wrecked by fossil fuel interests and our leaders’ cowardice – but there is another way | Genevieve Guenther

The fingerprints of Russia and Saudi Arabia are all over the decision text in Brazil. But a group of nations led by Colombia and the Netherlands offer hopeGenevieve Guenther is the founding director of End Climate SilenceThe 30th conference of the parties (Cop30), the annual climate summit of all nations party to the UNFCCC, just ended. Stakeholders are out in the media trying spin the outcome as a win. Simon Stiell, climate change executive secretary for the UN is, for instance, praising Cop30 for showing that “climate cooperation is alive and kicking, keeping humanity in the fight for a liveable planet”. But let us be clear. The conference was a failure. Its outcome, the decision text known as the Global Mutirão or Global Collective Effort, is, in essence, a form of climate denial.In 2023, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) determined that the world had already developed, or planned to develop, too much fossil fuel to be able to halt global heating at 2C. It ackn...

Politics

3 w. ago UN warns world losing climate battle but fragile Cop30 deal keeps up the fight

Reaching agreement in divisive political landscape shows ‘climate cooperation is alive and kicking’, says UN climate chiefThe world is not winning the fight against the climate crisis but it is still in that fight, the UN climate chief has said in Belém, Brazil, after a bitterly contested Cop30 reached a deal.Countries at Cop30 failed to bring the curtain down on the fossil fuel age amid opposition from some countries led by Saudi Arabia, and they underdelivered on a flagship hope – at a conference held in the Amazon – to chart an end to deforestation. Continue reading...

Events

3 w. ago They’re doing to America what they did to Christianity | Bill McKibben

Trump’s wrecking-ball approach to America has a precedent: the Maga evangelical perversion of Jesus’s message of radical love to one of hate and aggressionTrumpism’s most revealing and defining moments – not its most important, nor cruelest, nor most dangerous, nor stupidest, but perhaps its most illuminating – came earlier this autumn. In the course of a few weeks, the US president started showing everyone his plans for a gilded ballroom twice the size of the White House and then began unilaterally ripping down the East Wing to build it. Then, after nationwide protests against his rule, he posted on social media an AI video of himself wearing a crown and piloting a fighter jet labeled “King Trump”, which proceeded to bomb American cities and Americans with a graphically vivid load of human poop.He has done things 10,000 times as bad – the current estimate of deaths from his cuts to USAID is 600,000 and rising, and this week a study predicted his fossil fuel policies would kill anot...

Politics

3 w. ago Miliband says Cop30 was ‘step forward’ despite lack of explicit fossil fuel plan

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said he ‘would have preferred a more ambitious agreement’ at Cop30 in Brazil.

Events

3 w. ago End of fossil fuel era inches closer as Cop30 deal agreed after bitter standoff

Wealthy countries agree to triple funds for countries to tackle climate impacts, but deforestation and critical minerals blocked from final dealThe world edged a small step closer to the end of the fossil fuel era on Saturday, but not by nearly enough to stave off the ravages of climate breakdown.Countries meeting in Brazil for two weeks could manage only a voluntary agreement to begin discussions on a roadmap to an eventual phase out of fossil fuels, and they achieved this incremental progress only in the teeth of implacable opposition from oil-producing countries. Continue reading...

Economics

3 w. ago Miliband urges Cop30 to find ‘creative’ routes to roadmap on phasing out fossil fuel

UK energy secretary says UN climate talks must find way to keep proposals alive despite significant resistanceSupporters of a global phaseout of fossil fuels must find “creative” ways to keep the proposal alive, including making it voluntary rather than binding, the UK energy secretary, Ed Miliband, has said in the closing stages of the UN climate talks.As the Cop30 summit in Brazil carried on past the Friday night deadline, the prospect of countries agreeing on the need for a roadmap to a global “transition away from fossil fuels” looked increasingly dim. A first draft of the potential outcome text from the summit had contained the formulation, but in the updated draft text produced on Friday by the Brazilian presidency it had been excised. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago Cop30 live: summit president says ‘everybody will lose’ as fears rise that conference will end without a deal

André Corrêa do Lago issues plea to preserve Paris agreement with countries far from reaching agreement on scheduled final dayAn informal stocktake plenary is now underway [see live feed at the top of the blog]. Here the presidency will update parties on the state of the negotiations.My colleague Damian Carrington will be keeping across the main developments. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago Cop30 live: summit president warns ‘everybody will lose’ if countries fail to cooperate

André Corrêa do Lago issues plea to preserve Paris agreement with countries far from reaching agreement on scheduled final dayAn informal stocktake plenary is now underway [see live feed at the top of the blog]. Here the presidency will update parties on the state of the negotiations.My colleague Damian Carrington will be keeping across the main developments. Continue reading...

Events