2 h. ago New draft of plastic pollution treaty doesn't limit production but calls for a global response

The latest draft of a treaty to end plastic pollution would not put a limit on producing plastics, but recognizes that current levels of production and consumption are “unsustainable” and global action is needed

Politics

8 h. ago Countries urged to ‘hold the line’ in Geneva plastics treaty negotiations

Talks continue amid warnings from environmental groups over being ‘sold out’ without meaningful or legally binding measuresTalks between nations to hammer out a plastics treaty to end plastic pollution continued behind closed doors in Geneva on Thursday, the final day of negotiations, as civil society groups urged countries to “hold the line” to secure a strong agreement.With time running out to seal a deal between 184 countries, environmental groups expressed concern that frontline communities, Indigenous people and others suffering the worst impacts of the world’s growing plastic crisis were being “sold out” in an effort to secure a treaty, without meaningful or legally binding measures that would address the scale of the problem, “at any cost”. Continue reading...

Politics

15 h. ago Countries deadlocked on plastic production and chemicals as talks on a global treaty draw to a close

Negotiations on a global treaty to end plastic pollution are drawing to a close Thursday

Events

32 h. ago Talks stall on world’s first plastic pollution treaty one day before deadline

Almost 100 countries reject draft treaty as ‘unambitious’ and ‘inadequate’Talks on the world’s first legally binding treaty to end plastic pollution have stalled just one day before the negotiations are due to end.Some of the countries calling for an ambitious treaty to include targets to reduce plastic production, including Colombia, the EU and the UK, have rejected as “unacceptable” and “unambitious” a draft treaty text that does not include production caps, nor address chemicals used in plastic products. Continue reading...

Events

37 h. ago New draft of plastic pollution treaty would not limit plastic production

Negotiators working on a treaty to address the global crisis of plastic pollution are discussing a new draft of the text that would not limit plastic production or address chemicals used in plastic products

Politics

40 h. ago Soap, wristbands and scaling the UN: People get creative during final plastic pollution treaty talks

A Swiss ocean protection group is handing out bars of soap to negotiators working on a global accord to end plastic pollution

Sport

46 h. ago Trump swallowing Putin’s lies is a bigger threat to Ukraine than bombs | Rafael Behr

In Alaska the Russian leader will claim to want peace, but only on his terms – and play on the president’s desperation to ‘make a deal’ quicklyWars do not have to be won. Total victories loom largest in the popular imagination because those are the stories nations always tell to sustain patriotic feeling. The fuller version of history is written in stalemates.That is worth remembering when Donald Trump meets Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday. Both leaders have incentives to pretend that Ukraine’s fate can be settled decisively without any Ukrainians at the negotiating table. That doesn’t make it so. Continue reading...

Politics

65 h. ago Groups seek to influence plastic pollution treaty talks at the UN as negotiations wind down

Environmentalists and Indigenous leaders held signs in front of the United Nations buildings in Geneva where talks for a global accord to end plastic pollution are taking place

Politics

3 d. ago The Guardian view on RFK Jr’s vaccine cuts: an assault on science from a politician unfit for his office | Editorial

The decision by the US health and human services secretary to remove mRNA research funding is ill-informed and dangerousScience is not black and white. It’s more complicated and more exciting. It’s a constant process of exploration. An adventure into the unknown. Scientists come up with theories about what might be going on, and then test them. They don’t always get it right. Far from it. But inch by inch, testing, failing and trying again, they make progress.Robert F Kennedy Jr, during Senate confirmation hearings for the role of secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), seemed to get that. Those who feared what a vaccine sceptic might do in that role breathed again. “I’m going to empower the scientists at HHS to do their job and make sure that we have good science that is evidence based I’m not going to substitute my judgment for science,” he said.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to...

Politics

3 d. ago Artist drowns sculpture in plastic waste in front of the UN during plastic pollution treaty talks

As nations began a second week of negotiations Monday for a global accord to end plastic pollution, an artist heaped piles of plastic waste onto a large sculpture in front of the United Nations office

Events

4 d. ago The Guardian view on attacking the ECHR: the real target is judicial independence and the rule of law | Editorial

The populist right sees the European convention as a soft target in a longer campaign to degrade democratic checks and balancesMost British citizens have little contact with human rights law, which is as it should be in a mature democracy. Widespread anxiety about basic freedoms is a feature of more repressive regimes.Many people will only have heard of the European convention on human rights (ECHR) in the context of the last Conservative government’s failed attempts to dispatch asylum seekers to Rwanda, or in a handful of incidents where convicted criminals or terrorist suspects have avoided deportation to jurisdictions where they might face inhumane treatment. Such cases are amplified by politicians who are hostile to the whole apparatus of human rights law. The Strasbourg court that adjudicates on breaches of the ECHR is denounced as an enemy of British sovereignty. Continue reading...

Events

4 d. ago The Guardian view on climate finance: crumbling under a second Trump presidency | Editorial

Voluntary climate commitments were supposed to be a step towards progress. A change in political climate has revealed their weaknessesEarlier this month, as Nordic countries were hit with an unprecedented heatwave and wildfires in the US began spurting “fire clouds”, Barclays pulled out of the net zero banking alliance. The story may have seemed less alarming than extreme weather, but it has existential implications, as the finance sector quietly surrenders its former climate commitments.The initiative forms part of the Glasgow Finance Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), a voluntary network of banks that Mark Carney, formerly the UN’s special envoy on climate action and now Canada’s prime minister, launched in 2021. At the time, the alliance, which encourages banks and asset managers to work towards the goals of the Paris agreement, seemed like an optimistic step in the right direction. Mr Carney described it as a “breakthrough”. Continue reading...

Politics

5 d. ago ‘The ocean is spitting our rubbish back’: Italy’s museum of plastic pollution

Faded items dating back to 1950s have been found on Italian beaches, underscoring plastic’s problematic longevityEnzo Suma, a naturalist guide, has always picked up rubbish during his walks along Carovigno beach, a stretch of coastline lapped by clear blue waters close to his home in Salento, an area of Puglia in the heel of Italy’s boot.During one walk, Suma, 44, spotted a washed-up bottle of Ambre Solaire sunscreen. He was about to throw it away when he noticed something unusual: the price printed on the bottle was in lire, meaning it must have been produced before the euro replaced the lira in Italy. Continue reading...

Politics

6 d. ago The Guardian view on Israel’s Gaza takeover plan: a destructive act that must be stopped | Editorial

Benjamin Netanyahu has embarked on an operation that guarantees fresh miseries and will solve absolutely nothingIsrael’s planned takeover of Gaza would be an act of destructive futility. It would solve absolutely nothing. It will merely pile fresh military, humanitarian and political problems on to the mounds of those already created in the conflict. It will make every human agony worse, not better. Governments around the world must do whatever they can – the US above all – to stop it.There is still time. The plan announced on Friday is for an operation to take military control of Gaza City, home to a million displaced Palestinians. They will be forcibly evacuated, yet again, to the southern Gaza Strip over the coming weeks. Aid distribution is certain to be a secondary consideration, logistically challenging and woefully inadequate for a population where malnutrition is already severe. The threat to life in Gaza, including to the remaining Israeli hostages captured on 7 Octobe...

Politics

8 d. ago The Guardian view on Putin’s propaganda: the strongman myth hides great strategic weakness | Editorial

The Russian president had a friend in Donald Trump but a paranoid addiction to war prevents him doing a dealFor a quarter of a century, Russian media have cultivated a myth of Vladimir Putin’s inspired leadership. State propaganda allows no hint of presidential fallibility. When things go wrong, official news ignores the setbacks. When problems cannot be downplayed, Mr Putin is portrayed as the wise corrector of errors made by underlings.Foreign perceptions of Mr Putin have been shaped by this image. It has been boosted online by Kremlin influence operations and embraced by nationalist politicians who admire the Russian president’s methods of domestic control and contempt for the rule of law.Do 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 section, please click here. Continue reading...

Politics

8 d. ago The Guardian view on the London Stock Exchange: its struggles are symptoms of a broken growth model | Editorial

The Guardian view on the London Stock Exchange: its struggles are symptoms of a broken growth model | Editorial  The Guardian

Politics

8 d. ago Leading global scholars sign letter urging UK to end Palestine Action ban

Exclusive: Naomi Klein and Angela Davis among those demanding stop to ‘attack on fundamental freedoms’ of assembly and protestLetter: Palestine Action ban is an attack on fundamental freedomsNaomi Klein and Angela Davis are among dozens of international scholars and writers who have signed a letter to the Guardian calling on the UK government to reverse the ban on Palestine Action.The letter applauds what it describes as a “growing campaign of collective defiance” against the ban and commends the hundreds of people who plan to risk arrest by declaring their support for Palestine Action during a mass protest in London on Saturday. Continue reading...

Politics

8 d. ago Chemical pollution a threat comparable to climate change, scientists warn

More than 100 million ‘novel entity’ chemicals are in circulation, with health impact not widely recognisedChemical pollution is “a threat to the thriving of humans and nature of a similar order as climate change” but decades behind global heating in terms of public awareness and action, a report has warned.The industrial economy has created more than 100 million “novel entities”, or chemicals not found in nature, with somewhere between 40,000 and 350,000 in commercial use and production, the report says. But the environmental and human health effects of this widespread contamination of the biosphere are not widely appreciated, in spite of a growing body of evidence linking chemical toxicity with effects ranging from ADHD to infertility to cancer. Continue reading...

Events

9 d. ago Increase in vapes found on Britain’s coastline by beach clean volunteers

Marine Conservation Society calls for swift action as its litter surveys show some forms of plastic are on the riseVolunteer beach cleaners are finding more vapes than ever before as plastic pollution chokes Britain’s coastline.The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) on Wednesday launches its annual beach clean, which last year involved more than 15,000 volunteers who completed more than 1,200 litter surveys. Continue reading...

Politics

9 d. ago The Guardian view on asylum myths: when truth loses, scapegoating takes over Britain’s migrant debate | Editorial

Labour’s cautious fixes for immigration and asylum policy face a toxic public mood shaped by fear, falsehoods and far-right provocationIn politics, numbers rarely speak for themselves. They must be framed and interpreted. They are often weaponised. In Britain’s increasingly toxic debate over asylum and migration, the question isn’t just how many asylum seekers arrive on small boats. It’s what those numbers are made to represent – and why polls suggest a large proportion of the public now believes things that are simply untrue.Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, has staked her political credibility on restoring a sense of grip over the asylum system: reducing the backlog by processing cases, accelerating returns of those with no legal claim to stay and launching an as yet small-scale “one in, one out” returns deal with France. In balancing operational realism with symbolic reassurance, Ms Cooper walks a knife-edge between policy and perception. Continue reading...

Events