11 h. ago Underestimating support for climate action limits political decision making, study says

Research reveals huge disparity between perceived and actual willingness of public to contribute to fixing climatePoliticians and policymakers significantly underestimate the public’s willingness to contribute to climate action, limiting the ambition and scope of green policies, according to research.Delegates at the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) were asked to estimate what percentage of the global population would say they were willing to give 1% of their income to help fix climate change. The average estimate was 37%, but recent research found the true figure is 69%. Continue reading...

Politics

31 h. 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

31 h. 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

59 h. ago Is it OK to be happy when the world is falling apart? | Avram Alpert

It is reasonable and moral to think that when others are harmed, you should feel the injury, but our sympathy should not be limited to painA friend of mine called the other day with news of two major life achievements: his first book had been published, and his university had granted him tenure. And yet, he said, he was miserable. How could he be happy about his success when so many terrible things were happening in the world?It’s a good question, and one that I hear from a lot of people these days. As I write these words, humanitarian disasters are unfolding in Gaza, Sudan, Yemen, Myanmar, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Global climate action has not moved fast enough, and we are perilously close to creating an uninhabitable planet. Meanwhile here in the United States, immigrants have been rounded up and shipped to foreign countries without legal protection. Trans people have been demonized. Meaningful government agencies have been cut. Research destroyed. Universities attack...

Politics

5 d. 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 Hamlet by New York Circus Project review – a flashy, dreamy spin on Shakespeare

Assembly Roxy, EdinburghThere’s a hint of Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet in the cocksure, poppy aesthetic of this charismatic display of acrobatics, tumbling and clowningIt wouldn’t be the Edinburgh fringe without at least one new spin on Hamlet. This spunky 60-minute version created by Sam Landa and Emma Owens combines a radically trimmed text with aerial acrobatics, tumbling and clowning. Sensitively delivering Shakespearean verse and executing sophisticated circus requires a niche skill-set; some lines fall flat but Landa and Danielle Diniz’s choreography often deepens a story limited to the personal not the political. The enterprise is executed with panache by a charismatic cast of 10.Who’s there? A ghost in white, twisting and turning to the song Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, later returning to use an aerial pyramid. The show casts Old Hamlet (Arthur Morel Van Hyfte) and Hamlet (Maddox Morfit-Tighe) at a similar age, which movingly emphasises how they see themselves in each oth...

Politics

2 w. ago Greater Manchester's rumoured winners and losers in £69bn deal

The government said no final decisions have been made, but the study comes from a well-respected group

Economics

2 w. ago Labour 'waging war on motorists' after scrapping plans to limit number of new Low Traffic Neighbourhoods

Ministers have also ditched reforms that would have curbed councils from introducing 20mph zones

Events

2 w. ago As Canada wildfires choke US with smoke, Republicans demand action. But not on climate change

Republican lawmakers are blaming Canada for not preventing and containing wildfires, whose smoke has fouled the air in several states this year

Events

3 w. ago Maine can't enforce foreign election interference law that appeals court calls unconstitutional

Maine can’t enforce a voter-approved foreign election interference law that a federal appeals court says likely violates the Constitution by limiting political donations

Politics

3 w. 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

last month Journey times up, deaths down: Welsh 20mph speed limit still divisive two years on

Protests continue against default lower limit in urban areas that supporters say is working ‘exactly as intended’A few weeks ago, two groups of protesters gathered on the steps of the Senedd in Cardiff Bay. One demonstration was against the war in Gaza, the other against the Welsh government’s two-year-old default 20mph speed limit in urban areas.The change from 30mph was brought in by the Welsh Labour government across about 35% of the country’s roads in September 2023, at a cost of £34m. The reduced speed limit applied to any built-up area, defined as roads where lamp-posts were no more than about 180 metres apart. Continue reading...

Events