5 h. ago Can methane cuts pull us back from the brink of climate breakdown?

With temperatures breaching the Paris limit, experts say tackling the powerful gas could buy crucial time as the clean-energy shift stallsCop30: click here for full Guardian coverage of the climate talks in BrazilFor two years, global temperatures have exceeded the 1.5C heating limit laid out in the Paris climate agreement. This overshooting will have “devastating consequences”, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, has warned.The biggest worry for scientists is that further heating could trigger irreversible tipping points, such as the widespread drying out and dying off of the Amazon, or the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, beyond which climate breakdown could spiral out of control. Continue reading...

Politics

31 h. ago Cop30 was meant to be a turning point, so why do some say the climate summit is broken?

Swamped by lobbyists and hobbled by a lack of urgency, there are fears Cop could become a sprawling spectacle that betrays those who depend on it mostThousands of diplomats, activists, journalists and lobbyists are gathering in the sweltering, tropical heat of Belém, at the mouth of the Amazon, for the Cop30 climate talks.Since Brazil was awarded the hosting duties three years ago, hopes have been high that the Amazonian Cop – taking place in the country that hosted the Earth summit where the global fight for the climate first began – could be a turning point in the fight against climate breakdown. Continue reading...

Politics

49 h. ago ‘The water came up to my waist but I carried on walking’ – This is climate breakdown

When the rain started I had to find a way home to my children. I could never have imagined how long it would take. This is Ruchira’s storyLocation Mumbai, IndiaDisaster Maharashtra floods, 2005Ruchira Gupta is an English-to-Hindi interpreter, a former lawyer, and mother of two daughters. In 2005, she was working at a small law firm in Mumbai, India when heavy rainfall flooded the country’s western state of Maharashtra, killing 926 people. Between 1950 and 2015, there was a threefold increase in extreme rain events in India. Continue reading...

Politics

4 d. ago ‘There’s fire all around us, this is it’ – This is climate breakdown

Working with jaguars in Brazil’s Pantanal was a huge source of joy. But the wildfires are getting worse. This is Abbie’s storyLocation Pantanal, BrazilDisaster Wildfires, a number of yearsAbbie Martin splits her time between captaining a boat in the Virgin Islands and doing research in Brazil’s Pantanal, a region that includes the world’s largest tropical wetland and where she founded the Jaguar Identification Project. Fires in the Pantanal have reached new extremes, killing at least 17 million vertebrate animals and burning 27% of the vegetation cover in 2020. Climate breakdown made the Pantanal drier between 2001-21, increasing the occurrence of above-average fires in the region. Continue reading...

Events

5 d. ago ‘She rang me to say there was water coming into the house’ – This is climate breakdown

His mother had lived in the same house for 83 years. When the floods came, no one was ready. This is Paul Gilbert’s storyLocation Chesterfield, UKDisaster Storm Babet, 2023Paul Gilbert’s mother, Maureen, lived in Chesterfield. In 2023, Storm Babet claimed seven lives across the UK, led to more than 10,000 people being evacuated from their homes and caused in excess of £450m in property damage. Extreme rainfall is more common and more intense because of human-caused climate breakdown across most of the world, and experts have linked some of the damage caused by Storm Babet to the climate crisis. Continue reading...

Society

6 d. ago ‘I would give all my life for my brother to come back for one second’ – This is climate breakdown

Ari loved his community and set up a volunteer group to fight wildfires. One day his brother Bilal received the phone call he had long dreaded. This is Bilal’s storyLocation Halabja, IraqDisaster Wildfires, 2025Bilal Mukhtar is a teacher living in Halabja, in the Hawraman region of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region. Wildfires are breaking out here with increasing frequency, caused by natural events and compounded by hotter and drier weather. Iraq is experiencing its worst drought in nearly a century. Climate change makes drought and wildfire in Iraq more likely. Continue reading...

Politics

9 d. ago How thousands of fossil fuel lobbyists got access to UN climate talks – and then kept drilling

Exclusive: Research shows oil, gas and coal firms’ unprecedented access to Cop26-29, blocking urgent climate actionMore than 5,000 fossil fuel lobbyists were given access to the UN climate summits over the past four years, a period marked by a rise in catastrophic extreme weather, inadequate climate action and record oil and gas expansion, new research reveals.Lobbyists representing the interests of the oil, gas and coal industries – which are mostly responsible for climate breakdown – have been allowed to participate in the annual climate negotiations where states are meant to come in good faith and commit to ambitious policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago Still a chance to return to 1.5C climate goal, researchers say

Report calls for scaling-up of renewable energy and electrification of key sectors to limit peak of global heatingThere is still a chance for the world to avoid the worst ravages of climate breakdown and return to the goal of 1.5C if governments take concerted action on greenhouse gas emissions, a new assessment argues.The Climate Analytics report says governments’ goals are inadequate and need to be rapidly revised, and calls for the rapid scaling-up of the use of renewable energy and electrification of key sectors including transport, heating and industry. Continue reading...

Science

3 w. ago Selectively breeding next generation of cows to burp 40% less methane could reduce global warming

The next generation of cows could emit significantly less methane within 20 years, offering a potential boost in the fight against global warming.

Events

3 w. ago How plays like Weather Girl and Kyoto are finally bringing the climate crisis alive for audiences

The complexities of the climate crisis are a tough sell to audiences but these plays in New York show it can be doneDespite (or perhaps because of) its overwhelming awfulness, the climate crisis has been oddly underrepresented on stage and screen. Humanity’s greatest challenge has often been deemed too much of a downer, too complex or too dull a topic to spawn shows and movies.A burst of recent climate-themed cultural output, however, suggests this may be changing. Weather Girl, a one-woman play about the unraveling of a TV meteorologist who can no longer bear to gloss over climate breakdown in California, has just closed in New York City to upbeat reviews. Continue reading...

Society

3 w. ago Is the climate crisis too grim to work on the stage? Sparkling wine and villains might help

A burst of recent climate-themed cultural output suggests views of the topic as too depressing or dull may be changingDespite (or perhaps because of) its overwhelming awfulness, the climate crisis has been oddly underrepresented on stage and screen. Humanity’s greatest challenge has often been deemed too much of a downer, too complex or too dull a topic to spawn shows and movies.A burst of recent climate-themed cultural output, however, suggests this may be changing. Weather Girl, a one-woman play about the unraveling of a TV meteorologist who can no longer bear to gloss over climate breakdown in California, has just closed in New York City to upbeat reviews. Continue reading...

Events