14 h. ago The global battle against the climate crisis needs China. I am going to Beijing, and that’s what I’ll tell them | Ed Miliband

I will be the first UK energy secretary since 2017 to visit. It is negligence towards today’s and future generations not to engage China on this critical topicThe climate crisis is an existential threat to our way of life in Britain. Extreme weather is already changing the lives of people and communities across the country, from thousands of acres of farmland being submerged due to storms such as Bert and Darragh to record numbers of heat-related deaths in recent summers.The only way to respond to this challenge is with decisive action at home and abroad. Domestically, this government’s clean-energy superpower mission is about investing in homegrown clean energy so we can free the UK from dependence on fossil fuel markets while seizing the immense opportunities for jobs and growth. Continue reading...

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14 h. ago The global battle against the climate crisis needs China. I’m visiting Beijing, and that’s what I’ll tell them | Ed Miliband

I will be the first UK energy secretary since 2017 to visit. It is negligence towards today’s and future generations not to engage China on this critical topicThe climate crisis is an existential threat to our way of life in Britain. Extreme weather is already changing the lives of people and communities across the country, from thousands of acres of farmland being submerged due to storms such as Bert and Darragh to record numbers of heat-related deaths in recent summers.The only way to respond to this challenge is with decisive action at home and abroad. Domestically, this government’s clean-energy superpower mission is about investing in homegrown clean energy so we can free the UK from dependence on fossil fuel markets while seizing the immense opportunities for jobs and growth. Continue reading...

Events

35 h. ago Keep your head above water: art show looks at the rising seas

From a high chair to the ocean floor, Can the Seas Survive Us? in Norfolk’s Sainsbury Centre explores our watery world and the climate crisisOne of the most striking things that will be on display at an exhibition in Norfolk this weekend is an oak chair. Ordinary enough, except that it is elevated high in the air. Why? Because this is where it will need to be in 2100, given rising sea levels in the Netherlands, where it was made by the artist Boris Maas.Entitled The Urge to Sit Dry (2018), there is another like it in the office of the Dutch environment minister in The Hague, a constant reminder of the real and immediate threat posed to the country by rising sea levels.The Dutch artist Boris Maas with his 2018 work The Urge to Sit Dry, which uses wooden blocks to lift the chair to the height it needs to be to sit above predicted sea levels Continue reading...

Politics

69 h. ago ‘Global weirding’: climate whiplash hitting world’s biggest cities, study reveals

Swings between drought and floods striking from Dallas to Shanghai, while Madrid and Cairo are among cities whose climate has flippedClimate whiplash is already hitting major cities around the world, bringing deadly swings between extreme wet and dry weather as the climate crisis intensifies, a report has revealed.Dozens more cities, including Lucknow, Madrid and Riyadh have suffered a climate “flip” in the last 20 years, switching from dry to wet extremes, or vice versa. The report analysed the 100 most populous cities, plus 12 selected ones, and found that 95% of them showed a distinct trend towards wetter or drier weather. Continue reading...

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3 d. ago William S Burroughs’s art: ‘He said, I killed the only woman I loved. Then broke down sobbing’

Notorious for his drug-fuelled literary experiments and the fact that he shot his partner, beat writer Burroughs also made art inspired by the climate crisisOne day 51 years ago, out in the wilds of New Mexico, Kathelin Gray asked a question of her hero, the writer and artist William S Burroughs, whom she had just met. “William, I have read your books and I must know: what is your attitude to women?”The question had been eating away at Gray for the best part of a decade. As a teenage babysitter, she read Burroughs’ novel The Naked Lunch and was blown away by it. “The very yuckiness of the imagery, the critique of predatory capitalism, the degrading sex and violence – all that spoke to me,” she says. Continue reading...

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4 d. ago Football Daily | Manchester United, Arsenal and a game of (free

Sign up now! Sign up now! Sign up now? Sign up now!Football Daily can’t help but yearn for the days when footballers weren’t particularly interested in walls. Back in 1978, the players of West Brom went on what was, at the time, a trailblazing end-of-season tour to China. Having taken 90 hours to get there on a combination of planes, trains and automobiles, on one of their free days the Baggies were somewhat reluctantly taken to visit the Great Wall of China, prompting an accompanying BBC documentary crew to ask midfielder John Trewick for his impression of the famous fortification. “When you’ve seen one wall you’ve seen ‘em all, haven’t you?” came the response. And while Trewick insists his deadpan appraisal was made with tongue firmly ensconced in cheek, it is a quote that continues to haunt him. Continue reading...

Sport

4 d. ago Ed Miliband on net zero in the age of Trump – Politics Weekly Westminster

Pippa Crerar and Kiran Stacey are joined by Ed Miliband, the energy security and net zero secretary, to discuss Labour’s plans to tackle the climate crisis, the third runway at Heathrow and how secure the path to a greener future looks in the age of Trump. Plus, are cuts to welfare and foreign aid the best way to balance the budget? Continue reading...

Politics

4 d. ago Sea lions sickened as toxic algae threatens California’s marine mammals

Number of animals affected by neurological toxin increases in past week as experts warn of impact from climate crisisThe number of marine mammals in California affected by a neurological toxin from algae has surged in the past week, in what could be another deadly year for animals such as sea lions, seals, dolphins and larger whales.According to the Marine Mammal Care Center, a rescue facility based in Sausalito, California, the facility is treating more than 30 animals affected by a toxic algal bloom, with eight animals admitted on Wednesday. The algae bloom off the California coast has been on the rise in recent years, producing a neurological toxin called domoic acid. Continue reading...

Events

4 d. ago US will be ‘central’ to climate fight even without Trump, says Cop30 president

André Corrêa do Lago suggests US organisations can play a constructive role even if government limits participationThe US will be “central” to solving the climate crisis despite Donald Trump’s withdrawal of government support and cash, the president of the next UN climate summit has said.André Corrêa do Lago, president-designate of the Cop30 summit for the host country, Brazil, hinted that businesses and other organisations in the US could play a constructive role without the White House. Continue reading...

Politics

4 d. ago The left needs to abandon its miserable, irrational pessimism | Aaron Bastani

A hundred years ago the average person, in one of the the world’s wealthiest societies, could expect to live until 40. Now global life expectacy is 73At the start of the millennium it was widely presumed each successive generation would achieve a higher level of prosperity than the last. Today that is no longer the case. Just 19% of Americans expect their children’s lives to be better than their own, while two-thirds believe their country will be economically weaker by 2050.So our zeitgeist is increasingly one of pessimism, from anxiety about the climate crisis to concern over rising inequality. According to the historian Adam Tooze, we are living through a “polycrisis” – where such challenges are not only simultaneous but mutually reinforcing.Aaron Bastani is the co-founder of Novara Media. He is also the author of Fully Automated Luxury Communism Continue reading...

Politics

6 d. ago Doctor names three perfect conditions for next global pandemic but says it'll spread in bed

EXCLUSIVE: We're half a decade on from the start of the Covid 19 pandemic, but one expert fears that a new type of global health battle could be on the horizon

Events

7 d. ago US exits fund that compensates poorer countries for global heating

Trump pulls out of Cop28 loss and damage deal that recognises harms done by richer, polluting economies to vulnerable nationsThe Trump administration has withdrawn the US from a global agreement under which developed nations most responsible for the climate crisis pledged to partly compensate developing countries for irreversible harms caused by global heating.The loss and damage fund was agreed at the Cop28 UN climate summit in Dubai – a hard-won victory after years of diplomatic and grassroots advocacy by developing nations that bear the brunt of the climate crisis despite having contributed least to greenhouse gas emissions. The fund signalled a commitment by developed, polluting countries to provide financial support for some of the irreversible economic and noneconomic losses from sea level rise, desertification, drought and floods already happening. Continue reading...

Politics

7 d. ago A growing appetite for jellyfish promised a boom for fishers in Honduras. But then the storms came

A decade after Chinese investment, La Mosquitia’s processing plant is sitting idle and jobs have been lost as the climate crisis takes its tollIn 2014, Chinese investors visited La Mosquitia, a remote region in eastern Honduras. Amazed by the abundant jellyfish, they eagerly installed a processing plant to export the product to China, where they are served as a delicacy.Encouraged by the new investments, local communities adopted jellyfish fishing, which quickly became a critical source of income. The trade provided economic benefits in an area with few jobs, increasing local incomes and building community resilience, despite concerns that large-scale jellyfish fishing can disturb marine ecosystems by disrupting food chains. Continue reading...

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7 d. ago Allowing foreign firms to sue governments for lost profits is legal terrorism – it must end | Joseph Stiglitz

Investor–state dispute settlements don’t just mean growing debt burdens for countries: they are also a barrier to action on the climate crisisDonald Trump has thrown a hand grenade into the global economic architecture, destroying some things that are working well. But amid the devastation, some things seem to be surviving that really should be taken down. Among the most notable of these is an arcane set of international agreements by which private investors can sue governments, known as ISDS: investor-state dispute settlement. These disputes are litigated not in public courts with impartial judges but in private arbitration – behind closed doors, and rife with conflicts of interest.Early on, when they were snuck into many trade agreements, no one paid much attention. For instance, these provisions in Nafta, the so-called free trade agreement between the US, Mexico, and Canada, never got a discussion within the cabinet while I served in the Council of Economic Advisers under Preside...

Politics

9 d. ago London exhibition explores design based on needs of nature and animals

Curator of Design Museum show says ‘human-centric’ approach to design needs overhaul amid climate crisisDesigners need to “fundamentally rethink our relationship with the natural world”, according to the curator of a new exhibition which argues the needs of nature and animals should be considered when creating homes, buildings and products.Justin McGuirk, the curator of the upcoming More Than Human exhibition at the Design Museum in London, said our current “human-centric” approach to design needs to be radically overhauled as the world adapts to the climate crisis. Continue reading...

Politics

9 d. ago Half of world’s CO2 emissions come from 36 fossil fuel firms, study shows

Researchers say data strengthens case for holding firms to account for their contribution to climate crisisHalf of the world’s climate-heating carbon emissions come from the fossil fuels produced by just 36 companies, analysis has revealed.The researchers said the 2023 data strengthened the case for holding fossil fuel companies to account for their contribution to global heating. Previous versions of the annual report have been used in legal cases against companies and investors. Continue reading...

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1 week ago Plant diverse tree species to spread risk in climate crisis, study says

Uncertainty over climate and economy means ‘investment portfolio’ approach needed, researchers sayAn “investment portfolio approach” needs to be applied to large-scale tree planting across the world to reduce the risks of the wrong species being planted in the wrong place, economists have said.Countries have made ambitious pledges to plant billions of trees to remove greenhouse gases and tackle global heating. The UK has committed to plant 30,000 hectares (74,000 acres) of trees each year by 2025 and maintain the rate until 2050, the European Commission has pledged to plant 3bn trees across member states by 2030, and the US under the previous administration committed to planting 1bn trees by the same date. Continue reading...

Events

1 week ago BP dropping its green ambitions is a travesty. But that’s exactly how capitalism works

Companies will never solve the climate emergency alone. The impetus for change needs to come from government It would be very easy to be sharply critical of BP, given its sudden volte-face on its environmental commitments. Under pressure from a shareholder, Elliott Management, it has abandoned the green ambitions it announced in 2020 and pivoted squarely back to an overwhelming focus on oil and gas.While easy, it would arguably be unhelpful, and perhaps even misguided. Because viewed in the round, this isn’t really about BP: it’s about capitalism at large, and its inability to respond to the climate crisis in the manner we need.Brett Christophers is a professor in the Institute for Housing and Urban Research at Sweden’s Uppsala University and author of The Price is Wrong: Why Capitalism Won’t Save the PlanetDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters se...

Politics

1 week ago BP dropping its green ambitions is a travesty. But that’s exactly how capitalism works | Brett Christophers

Companies will never solve the climate emergency alone. The impetus for change needs to come from government It would be very easy to be sharply critical of BP, given its sudden volte-face on its environmental commitments. Under pressure from a shareholder, Elliott Management, it has abandoned the green ambitions it announced in 2020 and pivoted squarely back to an overwhelming focus on oil and gas.While easy, it would arguably be unhelpful, and perhaps even misguided. Because viewed in the round, this isn’t really about BP: it’s about capitalism at large, and its inability to respond to the climate crisis in the manner we need.Brett Christophers is a professor in the Institute for Housing and Urban Research at Sweden’s Uppsala University and author of The Price is Wrong: Why Capitalism Won’t Save the PlanetDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters se...

Politics

1 week ago The Americas review – Tom Hanks’ beautiful new nature series pretends the climate crisis doesn’t exist

This look at the wildlife of the American continent is vast, grandiose and awe-inspiring. But its approach to nature is so cosy it’s the eco equivalent of wearing blinkers and sticking your fingers in your earsIt does seem a little spoiled to be critical of a documentary as gorgeous as The Americas, a vast, grandiose Tom Hanks-narrated nature series which explores territory from New England to the tip of Patagonia. But we are living through an extraordinary glut of nature television, and the pool of previously unfilmed and unfilmable natural world scenes must surely be getting smaller. This 10-parter talks up its credentials as something new and different: five years in the making, gathered over 180 separate expeditions, capturing discoveries which have never been on camera before, the most expensive unscripted project ever made by NBC (via BBC Studios). Why, then, does it feel so familiar, and occasionally even tepid?This is nature television that is best enjoyed with your brain cl...

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