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Melbourne activist can’t rely on evidence from climate experts to defend protest charges, court finds

The Guardian Climate Change - February 20, 2025 - 22:26

Brad Homewood is charged with four offences after a 2021 Extinction Rebellion protest at the Exxon/Mobil depot in Spotswood

A climate activist cannot rely on evidence from experts in global heating and civil disobedience to beat charges after a protest outside a Melbourne fuel depot, a magistrate has found.

Brad Homewood, 52, was charged with four offences relating to a 2021 Extinction Rebellion protest at an Exxon/Mobil depot in Spotswood.

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Categories: Climate

The $20 Billion Controversy Over E.P.A. Climate Funds, Explained

NYT Global Warming Climate Change - February 20, 2025 - 14:06
An attempt by the agency to claw back billions in climate funds has led to confusion and the resignation of a top prosecutor.
Categories: Climate

Trump Team Plans Cuts at HUD Office That Funds Disaster Recovery

NYT Global Warming Climate Change - February 20, 2025 - 09:45
Staff at the office, a branch of the U.S. housing department that Congress uses to address the worst catastrophes, would be reduced by 84 percent.
Categories: Climate

‘If not fire, we’ll be killed by hunger’: villagers continue to feel fallout from Bolivia’s worst wildfires

The Guardian Climate Change - February 20, 2025 - 06:00

Residents battle food shortages and health issues after vast areas of forest and farmland burned last year

As she walks away from the house where she raised her family, Isabel Surubí pauses to point at the bed of a stream, now covered with dry leaves, that once supplied her entire community. “The water used to come from here,” she says.

In 2024, wildfires in Bolivia burned more than 10m hectares (about 39,000 sq miles) of forest, farmland and savannah – an area greater than the size of Portugal. After the fires, and the drought that preceded them, the spring feeding Surubí’s village of Los Ángeles in Bolivia’s tropical dry forest ran dry.

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Categories: Climate

The climate crisis is a cost of living issue for Australia. My generation will be the first to pay for it | Anjali Sharma

The Guardian Climate Change - February 19, 2025 - 22:56

Politicians have divorced the issue of global heating from soaring prices – Australians must take bold action at the ballot box

I love chocolate. It’s a staple of my diet. I don’t like that, at the best of times, it takes up maybe a fifth of my grocery budget.

I also don’t like that as a country, we’ve been all too quick to blame rising food prices on inflation. We’ve quickly made inflation a priority for our policymakers, while the cost of living is the key issue of the upcoming election.

Anjali Sharma was the lead litigant in Sharma v environment minister, the landmark court case against the then federal environment minister, Sussan Ley, which called for a duty of care to protect children against the impacts of the climate crisis

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Categories: Climate

Climate advocacy groups file two lawsuits against Trump administration

The Guardian Climate Change - February 19, 2025 - 17:04

Groups from Sierra Club to Greenpeace take aim at Trump’s drilling orders in term’s first environmental legal battles

Green advocacy groups filed two lawsuits against the Trump administration on Wednesday, marking the first environmental legal challenges against the president’s second administration.

Both focus on the Trump administration’s moves to open up more of US waters to oil and gas drilling, which the plaintiffs say are illegal.

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Categories: Climate

What Are You Supposed to Do With Climate Numbers Like These?

NYT Global Warming Climate Change - February 19, 2025 - 16:44
A provocative new book asks what we owe one another in a heating world.
Categories: Climate

Alaska Lawsuit Aims to Block Trump’s Offshore Drilling Plans

NYT Global Warming Climate Change - February 19, 2025 - 13:46
The suit, filed in Alaska, is likely to be the first of many challenging the administration’s goal of expanding fossil fuel production.
Categories: Climate

Outrage as Trump cites ‘emergency’ to fast-track fossil fuel projects

The Guardian Climate Change - February 19, 2025 - 13:36

Activists warn new designation for projects such as pipelines threatens US wetlands and waters

Environmentalists were outraged on Wednesday after the Trump administration moved to fast-track fossil fuel projects through the permitting process, with activists describing it as an attempt to sidestep environmental laws that could harm waterways and wetlands.

In recent days, the US Army Corps of Engineers created a new designation of “emergency” permits for infrastructure projects, citing a day one executive order signed by Donald Trump which claims the US is facing an “energy emergency” and must “unleash” already booming energy production.

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Categories: Climate

Melting glaciers caused almost 2cm of sea level rise this century, study reveals

The Guardian Climate Change - February 19, 2025 - 12:24

Decades-long research shows world’s glaciers collectively lost 6.542tn tonnes of ice between 2000 and 2023

Melting glaciers have caused almost 2cm of sea level rise this century alone, a decades-long study has revealed.

The research shows the world’s glaciers collectively lost 6.542tn tonnes of ice between 2000 and 2023, causing an 18mm (0.7in) rise in global sea levels.

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Categories: Climate

EU overhaul of farming strategy ignores vital green proposals, campaigners warn

The Guardian Climate Change - February 19, 2025 - 11:19

The report promises better pay and protections for farmers, but environmentalists say it will not help restore nature or assure food security

European farmers will face fewer rules and less foreign competition, a new vision for agriculture promises, as environmental campaigners warn that key green proposals have been ignored.

The EU’s new farming strategy will overhaul the sector with targeted financial support, stricter import standards and a shift from “conditions to incentives” in the green strings attached to its vast subsidy scheme, according to the report published on Wednesday.

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Categories: Climate

Developing world urges rich nations to defy Trump’s ‘climate nihilism’

The Guardian Climate Change - February 19, 2025 - 08:11

Poorer countries want rapid emission cuts and more financial help in face of US leader’s stance on global heating

Developing countries are calling on the rich world to defy the US president, Donald Trump, and bridge the global chasm over climate action, before the goal of limiting global temperatures to safe levels is irretrievably lost.

Diplomats from the developing world are rallying to support Brazil, which will host a crucial climate summit in November, after last year’s talks in Azerbaijan ended in disappointment and acrimony.

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Categories: Climate

HSBC net zero goal delayed 20 years, as CEO offered 600% bonus

The Guardian Climate Change - February 19, 2025 - 05:29

Bank moves climate targets from 2030 to 2050 and waters down environmental goals in plan for Georges Elhedery

HSBC is delaying key parts of its climate goals by 20 years, while watering down environmental targets in a new long-term bonus plan for its chief executive, Georges Elhedery, that could be worth up to 600% of his salary.

The London-headquartered lender said it had launched a formal review of its net zero emissions policies and targets – which are split between its own operations and those of the clients it finances – after realising its clients and suppliers had “seen more challenges” in cutting their carbon footprint than expected.

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Categories: Climate

Trump Administration Moves to Fast-Track Hundreds of Fossil Fuel Projects

NYT Global Warming Climate Change - February 19, 2025 - 05:02
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has cited President Trump’s claim of a national energy emergency to speed up permits for new gas pipelines and other projects.
Categories: Climate

Clean energy contributed 10% to China’s GDP in 2024, analysis shows

The Guardian Climate Change - February 18, 2025 - 19:01

Study found electric vehicles and batteries added largest amount to country’s clean-energy economy

Clean energy contributed a record 10% of China’s gross domestic product in 2024, an analysis has found.

With sales and investments worth 13.6tn yuan (£1.5tn; $1.9tn), the sector has now overtaken real estate sales in value.

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Categories: Climate

Map: Where Landslides in California Quicken Their Pace

NYT Global Warming Climate Change - February 18, 2025 - 18:17
A new map shows where land movement is accelerating, buckling roads and collapsing homes.
Categories: Climate

Dickson Despommier, Who Championed Farming in Skyscrapers, Dies at 84

NYT Global Warming Climate Change - February 18, 2025 - 18:05
A microbiologist, he popularized “vertical farming” — raising crops in tall buildings — to remediate climate change and feed more people.
Categories: Climate

Trump’s Cuts Could Make Parks and Forests More Dangerous, Employees Say

NYT Global Warming Climate Change - February 18, 2025 - 17:22
Thousands of employees who helped oversee vast areas of wilderness have lost their jobs in President Trump’s moves to shrink the federal work force.
Categories: Climate

Top US prosecutor quits over pressure to investigate Biden climate spending

The Guardian Climate Change - February 18, 2025 - 16:36

Denise Cheung resigns after Trump appointees demand she open grand jury investigation into EPA grants

A top federal prosecutor has quit after refusing to launch what she called a politically driven investigation into Biden-era climate spending, exposing deepening rifts in the US’s premier law enforcement agency.

Denise Cheung, head of criminal prosecutions in Washington, resigned on Tuesday after Trump appointees demanded she open a grand jury investigation into Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) grants based largely on an undercover video, multiple people familiar with the matter told CNN.

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Categories: Climate

USAID Climate Programs Fighting Extremism and Unrest Are Closing Down

NYT Global Warming Climate Change - February 18, 2025 - 14:12
Heat, drought and floods are growing security risks, Western defense officials say, feeding instability and violence that could prove costly in the long term.
Categories: Climate