6 h. ago From creaking IT systems to your dirty pants: Edith Pritchett’s week in Venn diagrams – cartoon

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Politics

28 h. ago Deadly heatwaves are the new reality – we need to transform the UK's cities and towns to survive them | Hannah Martin

While we work towards net zero, we also need to adapt. And we can pay for cooling measures like splash pads and trees by taxing the worst pollutersThere’s a lot to be anxious about as a new parent, let alone in a heatwave when the thermometer in your one-year-old daughter’s room is reading 26C. That’s six degrees higher than the upper limit of the recommended temperature for a child’s room. After scrolling my phone for advice on how to cool her room, I couldn’t help waking up every few hours to check she was OK on the baby monitor.In the UK, we are unprepared at every level for the extreme weather caused by climate breakdown. Whether it’s unbearably hot buildings in the summer, our damp and cold homes (some of the leakiest in Europe) filled with mould in the winter, our unprotected towns built on flood plains, or our unfit-for-purpose train tracks that get shut down at the slightest weather warning, the climate crisis is already wreaking havoc on public and private infrastructure – ...

Events

48 h. ago ‘We don’t want contact because you are bad’: loggers close in on uncontacted people in Peruvian Amazon

Logging, drug trafficking and the climate crisis endanger the world’s largest isolated Indigenous group, on the border with BrazilIn 1999, Beatriz Huertas, then a young anthropologist, travelled deep into the Peruvian Amazon to investigate reports of uncontacted Indigenous peoples. Along the Las Piedras River, people in Monte Salvado, a Yine Indigenous village, described how every summer, “aislados” – those who avoid sustained contact with outsiders – would appear across the river.“They were coming into the fields and taking bananas,” says Huertas. Continue reading...

Politics

66 h. ago Aid cuts leave a million facing starvation in Nigeria – as food supplies run out

Exclusive: Huge cuts to international aid – alongside intensifying conflict and the devastating impact of climate change – are creating a humanitarian crisis across Nigeria and its neighbours. Now, the UN’s food charity has warned that supplies of food are set to run out next month. Nick Ferris reports

Economics

2 d. ago Trump’s cuts leave a million facing starvation in Nigeria – as food aid runs out

Exclusive: Huge cuts to international aid – alongside intensifying conflict and the devastating impact of climate change – are creating a humanitarian crisis across Nigeria and its neighbours. Now, the UN’s food charity is warning of the risk of famine, with supplies of food set to run out next month. Nick Ferris reports

Politics

2 d. ago Canada races to build icebreakers amid melting ice and geopolitical tensions

In an Arctic reshaped by the climate crisis, less ice really means more as countries face risks in push for more shipsFor millennia, a mass of sea ice in the high Arctic has changed with the seasons, casting off its outer layer in summer and expanding in winter as it spins between Russia, Canada and Alaska. Known as the Beaufort Gyre, this fluke of geography and oceanography was once a proving ground for ice to “mature” into icebergs.But no more. A rapidly changing climate has reshaped the region, reducing perennial sea ice. As ocean currents spin what is left of the gyre, chunks of ice now clog many of the channels separating the northern islands. Continue reading...

Politics

3 d. ago Latin America’s top human rights court says states have duty to act on climate crisis

Latin America's top human rights court has issued a groundbreaking advisory opinion linking states’ human rights obligations to their duty to address climate change

Events

3 d. ago Somalia has relied on aid for decades – can it survive without it?

Somalia is struggling with hunger, security and the impact of the climate crisis, despite decades of aid money worth billions of dollars, writes Nick Ferris. As aid money gets cut, is this the time for countries to wean themselves off aid dependency – and can they do it?

Events

4 d. ago Droughts worldwide pushing tens of millions towards starvation, says report

Water shortages hitting crops, energy and health as crisis gathers pace amid climate breakdownDrought is pushing tens of millions of people to the edge of starvation around the world, in a foretaste of a global crisis that is rapidly deepening with climate breakdown.More than 90 million people in eastern and southern Africa are facing extreme hunger after record-breaking drought across many areas, ensuing widespread crop failures and the death of livestock. In Somalia, a quarter of the population is now edging towards starvation, and at least a million people have been displaced. Continue reading...

Economics

5 d. ago Frittata, ‘egg and chips’ and a bean feast: Sami Tamimi’s brunch recipes from Palestine

An adaptable and satisfying bean and tomato feast, a moreish frittata packed with herbs and veg, and a Palestinian take on egg and chipsWhat better way to welcome the weekend than with the smell and sound of herb-loaded ijeh frying? This is a thick, delicious frittata-like mixture of courgettes, leeks, peas, herbs and eggs, and in Palestine it’s often made with finely chopped onions, too. I always keep a couple of tins of ful (fava beans) in my pantry for those times when I crave a quick and satisfying late breakfast or weekend lunch. When simple toast and butter won’t do the trick and I’m in need of something more substantial and savoury, that’s when fava beans come to the rescue. Continue reading...

Politics

5 d. ago More than 80% of UK farmers worried about climate crisis harming livelihood, study finds

Farmers warn of risk to Britain’s food supply as more than three-quarters take hit to income from extreme weatherMore than 80% of UK farmers are worried that the “devastating” effect of the climate crisis could damage their ability to make a living, a study has found.Farmers have warned that global heating risks Britain’s supplies of home-grown food amid wild swings in weather conditions, in new research carried out by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU). Continue reading...

Society

5 d. ago Political cowardice hindering Europe’s climate efforts, says EU’s green chief

Teresa Ribera says effects of crisis are becoming increasingly obvious but not translating into proper actionPolitical cowardice is hindering European efforts to face up to the effects of the climate crisis, even as the continent is pummelled by a record-breaking heatwave, the EU’s green transition chief has warned.In an interview with the Guardian, Teresa Ribera said that although the effects of the climate emergency were becoming increasingly obvious, they were still not translating into proper action. Continue reading...

Politics

7 d. ago I’m obsessed with brittle stars: fish often nip off bits of their arms but they regenerate

These starfish relatives have lots of remarkable features and are a keystone species. My hope is that we will recognise how vital these charismatic creatures areBrittle stars have a lot of remarkable features as a species. Many of them are bioluminescent and can flash blue light; some will have patterns and do displays. These slender relatives of starfish can be very beautiful to look at and come in a range of colours – in the tropics, for example, they can be red, black or orange. And they’ve got spines all over them, so they can look quite ornate.They can also regenerate. Fish and other creatures will often nip off bits of their arms – known as sublethal predation – so they are constantly regenerating themselves. You can even break off all their arms, and sometimes even half the disc, and the brittle star will still regenerate. Continue reading...

Politics

7 d. ago UN expert urges criminalizing fossil fuel disinformation, banning lobbying

Rapporteur calls for defossilization of economies and urgent reparations to avert ‘catastrophic’ rights and climate harmsA leading UN expert is calling for criminal penalties against those peddling disinformation about the climate crisis and a total ban on fossil fuel industry lobbying and advertising, as part of a radical shake-up to safeguard human rights and curtail planetary catastrophe.Elisa Morgera, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and climate change who presents her damning new report to the general assembly in Geneva on Monday, argues that the US, UK, Canada, Australia and other wealthy fossil fuel nations are legally obliged under international law to fully phase out oil, gas and coal by 2030 – and compensate communities for harms caused. Continue reading...

Events

7 d. ago From HS2 to an aeroplane toilet: Edith Pritchett’s week in Venn diagrams – cartoon

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Politics

8 d. ago ‘Explosive increase’ of ticks that cause meat allergy in US due to climate crisis

Unusually aggressive lone star ticks, common in the south-east, are spreading to areas previously too cold for themBlood-sucking ticks that trigger a bizarre allergy to meat in the people they bite are exploding in number and spreading across the US, to the extent that they could cover the entire eastern half of the country and infect millions of people, experts have warned.Lone star ticks have taken advantage of rising temperatures by the human-caused climate crisis to expand from their heartland in the south-east US to areas previously too cold for them, in recent years marching as far north as New York and even Maine, as well as pushing westwards. Continue reading...

Events

9 d. ago ‘Positive cascades could help accelerate change’: social tipping points expert on fixing climate crisis

The world has been too optimistic about the risk to humanity and planet – but devastation can still be avoided, says Timothy LentonTimothy Lenton is a professor of climate change and Earth system science at the University of Exeter. He started working on tipping points in the 1990s, making him one of the first scientists in the world to study this form of planetary risk. In an upcoming book, Positive Tipping Points: How to Fix the Climate Crisis, he argues the Earth has entered an “unstable period” but humanity can still prevail if we can trigger positive social and economic tipping points to reverse the damage that has already been done. On 30 June, he will host a global conference on tipping points. Continue reading...

Events

1 week ago Wreckers, money woes and mutirão: 10 things we learned about Cop30 from Bonn climate talks

Key takeaways from two weeks of negotiations aimed at setting out stall for November’s Cop30 in Brazil Two weeks of negotiations on the climate crisis have just concluded in Bonn in preparation for the Cop30 summit taking place in Brazil this November. What did we learn? Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago ‘We are perilously close to the point of no return’: climate scientist on Amazon rainforest’s future

Carlos Nobre, who has fought for decades to save the rainforest, says up to 70% of it could be lost if a tipping point is reachedFor more than three decades, Brazilian climate scientist Carlos Nobre has warned that deforestation of the Amazon could push this globally important ecosystem past the point of no return. Working first at Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research and more recently at the University of São Paulo, he is a global authority on tropical forests and how they could be restored. In this interview, he explains the triple threat posed by the climate crisis, agribusiness and organised crime. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago Antarctic ice has grown again – but this does not buck overall melt trend

Study shows ice sheet gained mass from 2021 to 2023, due to extreme snowfall that was also an effect of climate crisisA new study shows that after decades of rapid decline, the Antarctic ice sheet actually gained mass from 2021 to 2023. This is a reminder that climate change does not follow a smooth path but a jagged one, with many small ups and downs within a larger trend.The research, published in the journal Science China Earth Sciences, showed that while the ice sheet lost an average of 142bn tonnes each year in the 2010s, in the 2021 to 2023 period it gained about 108bn tonnes of ice each year. Continue reading...

Politics