3 h. 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

16 h. ago Tracking sea ice is ‘early warning system’ for global heating

News comes as research finds record lows of Antarctic sea ice had seen more icebergs splintering off ice shelvesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastScientists analysing the cascading impacts of record low levels of Antarctic sea ice fear a loss of critical US government satellite data will make it harder to track the rapid changes taking place at both poles.Researchers around the globe were told last week the US Department of Defence will stop processing and providing the data, used in studies on the state of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, at the end of this month.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...

Events

16 h. ago Tracking sea ice is ‘early warning system’ for global heating – but the US is halting data sharing

News comes as research finds record lows of Antarctic sea ice had seen more icebergs splintering off ice shelvesScientists analysing the cascading impacts of record low levels of Antarctic sea ice fear a loss of critical US government satellite data will make it harder to track the rapid changes taking place at both poles.Researchers around the globe were told last week the US Department of Defence will stop processing and providing the data, used in studies on the state of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, at the end of this month. Continue reading...

Events

44 h. ago Amber heat health alerts extended as June ends with one of its hottest days ever

Scientists warned heatwaves are becoming more frequent with climate change – and hot spells earlier in the summer are particularly dangerous.

Society

45 h. ago Huge deadly virus warning as scientists find 22 new health threats from Chinese bats

The report was co-authored by Guopen Guang from the Yunnan Provincial Key Laboratory for Zoonosis Control and Prevention, Yunnan Institute of Endemic Disease Control and Prevention, Kunming, China

Events

46 h. 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

49 h. 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

68 h. 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

4 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

4 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

5 d. ago Boffins' plans to build human DNA could lead to real life Frankensteins, experts warn

Medics plan to create life's building blocks in a lab to find treatments for incurable diseases - but in the wrong hands it could unleash horror, scientists warn

Events

5 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

6 d. 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

6 d. ago Scientists warn of surprising amount of microplastics found in glass and plastic bottles

Paint on bottle caps could be main contamination source, researchers suspect

Events

6 d. 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

7 d. 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

7 d. ago Glass bottles may contain more microplastics than plastic ones, scientists warn

Paint on bottle caps could be main contamination source, researchers suspect

Events

7 d. 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

7 d. ago The microplastics lurking in your kitchen cupboards: Experts reveal the popular products that release the most dangerous particles

Plastic food packaging is leaving us constantly exposed to tiny microplastics and even smaller 'nanoplastics', scientists in Switzerland warn.

Politics

7 d. ago More than 500 bird species face EXTINCTION in the next 100 years thanks to climate change, scientists warn

A new study predicts that climate change and habitat loss could cause more than 500 bird species to disappear in the next century.

Events