19 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

37 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

40 h. 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

42 h. 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

59 h. 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

62 h. 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

3 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

4 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

4 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

5 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

6 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

6 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

7 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

8 d. 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

9 d. 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

1 week ago ‘It’s death by a thousand cuts’: marine ecologist on the collapse of coral reefs

David Obura believes humans have been using nature for free, and tipping points at some reefs have already passedThe Kenyan marine ecologist David Obura is chair of a panel of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the world’s leading natural scientists. For many decades, his speciality has been corals, but he has warned that the next generation may not see their glory because so many reefs are now “flickering out across the world”. Continue reading...

Events

1 week ago Prince William calls for more united action on the global environmental crisis as he opens London Climate Week

The heir to the throne spoke out during a panel discussion at the start of London Climate Week as he highlighted the 'optimism' of his passion project, the Earthshot Prize.

Politics

1 week ago ‘This is a fight for life’: climate expert on tipping points, doomerism and using wealth as a shield

Economic assumptions about risks of the climate crisis are no longer relevant, says the communications expert Genevieve GuentherClimate breakdown can be observed across many continuous, incremental changes such as soaring carbon dioxide levels, rising seas and heating oceans. The numbers creep up year after year, fuelled by human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.But scientists have also identified at least 16 “tipping points” – thresholds where a tiny shift could cause fundamental parts of the Earth system to change dramatically, irreversibly and with potentially devastating effects. These shifts can interact with each other and create feedback loops that heat the planet further or disrupt weather patterns, with unknown but potentially catastrophic consequences for life on Earth. It is possible some tipping points may already have been passed. Continue reading...

Economics

1 week ago Canada and EU sign defense pact amid strained US relations and global instability

Amid Trump’s disrespect of old allies, EU and Canada vow more support for Ukraine and joint work on climate crisisCanada has signed a wide-ranging defence pact with the EU, as Donald Trump and global instability prompt traditional US allies to deepen their alliances.Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, on Monday joined European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and head of the European Council, António Costa, in Brussels, where they signed a security and defence partnership, pledged more support for Ukraine, as well as joint work on issues from the climate crisis to artificial intelligence. Continue reading...

Events