9 h. ago ‘There is only one player’: why China is becoming a world leader in green energy

As US reneges on climate breakdown pledges, China’s response to crisis will shape geopolitics and our future Continue reading...

Politics

34 h. ago Higher defence spending is pointless without climate aid, says UN chief

Achim Steiner says cuts to development budget are shortsighted in an interconnected global economySpending more on defence will be pointless unless western governments also tackle the climate crisis in poor countries, the UN’s departing chief of international development has warned.“The more you restrict your ability to act by simply focusing on what’s happening inside your country, the more vulnerable you become,” said Achim Steiner, who recently completed his second term as administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), which works on overseas aid and lifting people out of poverty. “Vulnerability can then very quickly translate into a very real crisis scenario.” Continue reading...

Politics

55 h. ago Send in your questions for the Guardian’s climate assembly panel

We would like to hear your questions about the climate crisis and we will put a selection of them to our panelThe Guardian’s climate assembly with George Monbiot and special guestsIn the last few years we’ve witnessed a dramatic shift away from the progress we need to avert climate disaster. A growing lobby of economic and political denial has been empowered by the Trump administration, which has declared war on climate progress, launching more dramatic anti-green moves in its first 100 days than in his entire first term. Around the world, a growing number of lawsuits are being used against governments over environmental laws and other regulations, while groups such as Greenpeace are being targeted too.On Tuesday 16 September, a Guardian panel of experts will be looking to answer questions about the forces driving the pushback against a greener world. Continue reading...

Politics

3 d. ago The Climate 100 List: John Clarke Mills and the battle against wildfires

Ahead of the The Independent’s Climate 100 List published later this month, we are celebrating some of the leading lights being honoured for their work tackling the climate crisis and protecting nature. David Callaway speaks to the unintentional climate advocate, who is making vital information available to millions

Events

3 d. ago Joe Rogan claims study shows Earth cooling – but report’s authors say he’s wrong

Scientists say ‘old-school denier nonsense’ isn’t helpful as podcaster repeatedly airs false claim on his showFor months now, the popular comedian and podcaster Joe Rogan has been telling his vast audience of a study that shows Earth is cooling – even though this research states the complete opposite.Rogan’s false claim about the climate crisis, which he has repeatedly aired on the Joe Rogan Experience, one of the world’s most popular podcasts, has exasperated the scientists who authored the research. Continue reading...

Culture

3 d. ago ‘As more join, it gets less risky’: how Greta Thunberg’s lone strike turned into a movement

In an extract from his new book, Tim Lenton explains how Fridays for Future challenged climate inaction to reach a positive tipping pointIn August 2018, Greta Thunberg was sitting alone on the ground outside the Swedish parliament with a placard reading “Skolstrejk för klimatet” (School strike for climate) and a bunch of pamphlets under a stone.An older woman stood over her and asked: “Why are you on strike? You have to go to school.” Greta retorted: “Why would I need an education if there is no future?”Positive Tipping Points: How to Fix the Climate Crisis is published by Oxford University Press Continue reading...

Events

4 d. ago This was the hottest summer on record. If it happens again next year, Britain’s ecosystems won’t cope | Lucy Jones

A future of extreme heatwaves, drought and collapsing habitats awaits if we continue to ignore the danger signsWhat does British summertime mean to you? Blackberries? Picnics? Festivals? Ticks? This summer has been the hottest on record in the UK. As human-caused climate breakdown intensifies, the outdoor areas we spend time in are changing – and so, too, are our relationships with the land and the ecosystems we live in.My home is in the south of England, near beautiful woodlands. Since moving there in 2016, the number of ticks my family has picked up in the woods has increased each year, but this summer has been astonishing. For a few weeks, our four-year-old came home from nursery with a tick almost every day. I’ve had many: some tiny nymphal ones that could be easily missed. We spend time in Scotland, too, and find ticks often when we go there now.Lucy Jones is a journalist and the author of Losing Eden and The Nature Seed Continue reading...

Politics

4 d. ago ‘You need solidarity and consistency’: Pedro Sánchez on the EU, Trump and fighting the far right

Spanish PM insists ‘migration is an opportunity’ and is not afraid to discuss what he considers Europe’s recent failuresWhen Pedro Sánchez and Keir Starmer meet in Downing Street on Wednesday it will be the first such bilateral summit between a Spanish prime minister and his British counterpart for more than a decade, an interregnum explained by Brexit and the now healed sore of Gibraltar.The absence of highest level diplomacy has become more glaring given the two men are the leading social democratic leaders of Europe, facing similar problems of migration, souring populist parties, the climate crisis and divisions over how to minimise the damage caused to the European global influence by Donald Trump’s erratic unilateralism. Continue reading...

Politics

6 d. ago ‘A common enemy beyond ideologies’: Spain’s PM announces plan to tackle climate crisis

Pedro Sánchez says country’s deadly August wildfires show society needs to mobilise and take immediate actionSpain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has announced a 10-point plan to prepare the country for the climate emergency, warning that “if we don’t want to bequeath our children a Spain that’s grey from fire and flames, or a Spain that’s brown from floods, then we need a Spain that’s greener”.Sánchez said August’s heatwave-fuelled wildfires – which killed four people, burned through an area six times the size of Ibiza, and required “the biggest human and technical deployment” ever seen in Spain – showed immediate action must be taken to mitigate the effects of the climate crisis. Continue reading...

Events

6 d. ago Climate change kills, Spanish PM tells deniers at launch of plan to tackle crisis

Pedro Sánchez says country’s deadly August wildfires show society needs to mobilise and take immediate actionSpain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has announced a 10-point plan to prepare the country for the climate emergency, warning: “If we don’t want to bequeath our children a Spain that’s grey from fire and flames, or a Spain that’s brown from floods, then we need a Spain that’s greener.”Sánchez said August’s heatwave-fuelled wildfires – which killed four people, burned through an area six times the size of Ibiza and required “the biggest human and technical deployment” ever seen in Spain – showed that immediate action must be taken to mitigate the effects of the climate crisis. Continue reading...

Events

8 d. ago Below the Clouds review – a ghostly yet luminous cinematic mosaic of Naples crowns a superb trio

Venice film festivalThere is a real end-of-days quality to Gianfranco Rosi’s utterly distinctive documentary of war, violence, cynicism and the climate crisis in an uneasy cityGianfranco Rosi has made a movie that could be thought of as the last of a conceptual trilogy about normal life and spiritual life in Italy: the first was his Sacro GRA from 2013 about Rome, for which Rosi won the Venice Golden Lion; the next was Fire at Sea about the migration crisis as experienced in Lampedusa in Sicily. Now there is Below the Clouds, in luminous black-and-white. It’s another of his brilliantly composed docu-mosaic assemblages of scenes and tableaux, shot from fixed camera positions without any camera narration.The title is taken from Jean Cocteau: “Vesuvius makes all the clouds in the world.” Rosi reports from Naples, a city uneasily preoccupied with the earthquakes and volcanic eruptions for which it is famed, and with the great catastrophe of AD79 that buried nearby Pompeii. We see the ar...

Politics

9 d. ago Heatwaves, wildfires and the hot summers that could change how we holiday

With rising temperatures causing chaos worldwide, what does it mean to be a tourist in a world on fire?• Don’t get Down to Earth delivered to your inbox? Sign up here to get the newsletter in full“Where shall we go on holiday?” would not, ideally, be a stressful question.But the world in 2025 is far from ideal, and summer breaks in Europe and North America are no exception. Holiday hotspots are being ravaged by heat, fire, floods and drought as fossil fuel pollution warps the climate – and travelling to reach them in planes or on cruise ships spews far more planet-heating gas than anything else you and I are likely to do. (Rocket enthusiasts such as Katy Perry and Jeff Bezos, I assume, have not yet subscribed to Down to Earth.)‘We cannot do it the way our fathers did’: farmers across Europe struggle to adapt to the climate crisis‘Unlike any other kind of fear’: wildfires leave their mark across SpainEurope scorched by wildfires – pictures from space Continue reading...

Events

1 week ago Collapse of critical Atlantic current is no longer low likelihood, study finds

Scientists say ‘shocking’ discovery shows rapid cuts in carbon emissions are needed to avoid catastrophic falloutThe collapse of a critical Atlantic current can no longer be considered a low-likelihood event, a study has concluded, making deep cuts to fossil fuel emissions even more urgent to avoid the catastrophic impact.The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc) is a major part of the global climate system. It brings sun-warmed tropical water to Europe and the Arctic, where it cools and sinks to form a deep return current. The Amoc was already known to be at its weakest in 1,600 years as a result of the climate crisis. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago ‘It’s a warning, set to a dance beat’: Jon Batiste on his new song urging climate action 20 years after Katrina

The global music star, whose home town of New Orleans was devastated by the hurricane in 2005, says ‘people power’ can change the worldTwenty years after Hurricane Katrina ravaged his home town of New Orleans, Jon Batiste has released a new song imploring people to take action against climate change “by raising your voice, and insisting, and voting the right people into office”.“As an artist, you have to make a statement,” the global star said in an interview on Tuesday with the international media collaboration Covering Climate Now. “You got to bring people together. People power is the way that you can change things in the world.” Continue reading...

Events

1 week ago The senate race in Iowa that could signal a blue wave for the 2026 midterms

A win for Democrat Catelin Drey over far-right Christopher Prosch would hamstring the state’s Republican governorHe has compared abortion access to the Holocaust and pushed conspiracy theories about the 9/11 terrorist attacks, 2020 presidential election and climate crisis. Christopher Prosch is betting that Maga still rules in the US heartland.On Tuesday, the far-right Republican will take on Democrat Catelin Drey in a special general election for Iowa state senate district 1 after the previous incumbent, Republican Rocky De Witt, died in June. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago ‘We cannot do it the way our fathers did’: farmers across Europe struggle to adapt to the climate crisis

As wildfires rage in southern Europe and crop losses only set to increase in the coming years, producers are getting creative to beat the heat“I’m not ready to change jobs,” says Stellios Boutaris, a wine producer with vineyards in Naoussa and Amyndeon in northern Greece, as well as on the island of Santorini. But, he adds, “we cannot do it the way our fathers did.”Boutaris is determined to keep producing in the region and keep the family business going but says “the curve is not looking good” as the climate crisis puts pressure on producers across the Mediterranean. Continue reading...

Society

2 w. ago Dining across the divide: ‘I was really hardline about immigration – but her struggles softened me a bit’

Illegal immigration and the climate crisis were hotly debated by the novelist and the former tram driver. But did they end up on the same track?Sunyi, 38, WakefieldOccupation Novelist Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago Don’t let Donald Trump undermine your faith in the climate fight | Gina McCarthy

The president’s fossil-fuel obsession can’t stop global progress, writes the former Environmental Protection Agency headOver the past decade, the United States has turned technologies into tools that strengthened our economy, delivered good-paying union jobs, cleaned up our air and water, conserved our precious natural resources, and saved families money all across our country. Yet now the country is choosing to cede that leadership, letting China dominate and control the clean-energy market across the world. It’s no surprise that people are scratching their heads, wondering what happened.Our president is obsessed with fossil fuels. He wants to resuscitate what everyone knows is a dying coal sector while turning a blind eye to the health, environmental, and economic downsides of the climate crisis. Coupled with inconsistent threats of increased tariffs against virtually all our allies, he has isolated the US and amplified threats to global security.Gina McCarthy is the managing co-c...

Politics

2 w. ago ‘Without water nothing can exist’: the Malawians repeatedly displaced by drought

Unpredictable weather fuelled by the climate crisis is forcing millions from their homes, with many struggling to access waterJulius Chibonda has moved twice in the past 16 months in search of enough water and fertile land to support his entrepreneurial dreams, one of millions of rural Malawians struggling with increasingly unpredictable rainfall and droughts made more ferocious by the climate crisis.The 61-year-old farmer was eager to talk and quick to smile. But his face fell when he saw the dry, empty land in the village of Kampheko 2, where he had grown tomatoes, garlic, okra and maize. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago Edinburgh International Festival dance review: Figures in Extinction

The climate crisis is addressed with empathy, wit and assuredness in a new collaboration between Simon McBurney and Crystal Pite, writes Kelly Apter

Culture