Climate

There’s a war brewing between those who want to plan for future challenges and those who want to turn back the tide

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The leadership of Australian farming is a club that has strict rules. Like the classic movie Fight Club, the first rule about farm club is you don’t talk about farm club.

But that doesn’t always work out well for farmers. There are clever people in the leadership club who are loath to speak out.

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Corporations such as ExxonMobil and Blackstone also big funders of climate crisis, new trade union report finds

Some of the world’s largest companies have been accused of undermining democracy across the world by financially backing far-right political movements, funding and exacerbating the climate crisis, and violating trade union rights and human rights in a report published on Monday by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).

Amazon, Tesla, Meta, ExxonMobil, Blackstone, Vanguard and Glencore are the corporations included in the report. The companies’ lobbying arms are attempting to shape global policy at the United Nations Summit of the Future in New York City on 22 and 23 September.

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Requiring key sectors to switch to clean energy by specific times could trigger benevolent cascades, report claims

In the terminology of the climate and ecological crises the phrase “tipping point” is loaded with dreadful implications.

It evokes a climate breakdown supercharged by the mass escape of methane locked in Siberian permafrost, or the great currents of the oceans smothered by freshwater melting from the Greenland ice sheet, or the Amazon turning from great rainforest to parched savannah after the felling of one too many trees.

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The Hollywood actor and activist backs Harris for president as she warns of climate emergency and talks Taylor Swift

Young people’s understandable unhappiness with the Biden administration’s record on oil and gas drilling and the war in Gaza should not deter them from voting to block Donald Trump from again becoming president of the United States, the Hollywood actor and activist Jane Fonda has warned.

“I understand why young people are really angry, and really hurting,” Fonda said. “What I want to say to them is: ‘Do not sit this election out, no matter how angry you are. Do not vote for a third party, no matter how angry you are. Because that will elect somebody who will deny you any voice in the future of the United States … If you really care about Gaza, vote to have a voice, so you can do something about it. And then, be ready to turn out into the streets, in the millions, and fight for it.’”

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As climate change brings water shortages to vacation hot spots, we look at Greece’s tourism-dependent islands, where residents sometimes compete with visitors for a dwindling supply.

By tweaking the chemistry of rivers and oceans, humans could remove billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the air. But huge challenges loom.

By tweaking the chemistry of rivers and oceans, humans could remove billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the air. But huge challenges loom.

It looks like and feels like a regular street. But beneath the surface, six layers are working to keep rainwater from overwhelming New York City neighborhoods.

From flooding to drought, extreme weather is devastating our communities. It is time for the world’s heaviest emitters to help mitigate the impacts of climatic breakdown on the countries most affected

Millions of people in my country, Malawi, face unprecedented existential crises driven by climate breakdown. The frequency of extreme weather events and the massive impact they have on communities have left government officials like me with a huge dilemma of how to act fast enough to save lives. In the past three years, we have gone from facing the worst flooding in recent times to the most severe drought in a decade. The impact has been devastating to communities across the country.

When Cyclone Freddy hit us in March 2023, it killed more than 600 people. The cyclone injured many more, tore families apart, destroyed livelihoods, and the long-term effects from diseases were even worse. A little over a year later, we were in the middle of a raging drought, which the president, Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera, declared a national disaster in March. Millions of people are facing acute food insecurity, leading to malnutrition and health issues that are putting lives at risk, not least for people on long-term treatment for conditions such as tuberculosis and HIV.

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Unbearable heat and worsening storms prompt residents of states such as Florida to move elsewhere

As a Rust belt town of 65,000 people in eastern Indiana, Muncie may not be the most exciting place in the world. It doesn’t have beaches, year-round warm weather or much in the way of cosmopolitanism.

But for Laura Rivas, a cybersecurity engineer formerly of North Miami Beach, Florida, Muncie is perfect.

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Electrifying the world could produce the largest development gains since the 1990s.

The Marshall Project and the Prison Journalism Project asked incarcerated reporters to document the impact of extreme heat on their facilities. Their stories reveal the brutal reality

After a summer of record-breaking temperatures, scientists predict that 2024 could end up being the hottest year on record. For people in US prisons and jails – who often lack access to even the most basic cooling measures – conditions behind bars exacerbate the risks of dangerously high temperatures.

Several courts have ruled that extreme temperatures in prison violate the eighth amendment’s provision against “cruel and unusual” punishment. But these rulings have not led to a widespread adoption of air-conditioning or other methods to cool prison facilities or prevent heat-related deaths. Public health researchers at Brown University estimate that just one day of above-average summer temperatures is associated with a nearly 4% increase in deaths of incarcerated people. Suicides spike 23% in the three days following a heatwave. And for every 10 degrees Fahrenheit above the average summer temperature, those deaths increase by 5%.

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Showing climate delivery can be done effectively and fairly would be an extraordinary climate legacy for Keir Starmer

A well-intentioned but badly designed and poorly communicated energy policy from the German government, and more recent protests by farmers in France and the Netherlands, have knocked the confidence of European political leaders that environmental progress can be delivered in a way that works for people and enjoys democratic support. Unashamedly popular climate policies from Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves and Ed Miliband offer the chance to reshape European climate politics and confound these sceptics.

Showing climate delivery can be done fairly, effectively, affordably and with strong public support would be an extraordinary climate legacy for Starmer. It would build on Britain’s relatively strong record of having halved its climate footprint already, and it would offer hope amid all the gloom.

Joss Garman is executive director of the European Climate Foundation

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Are we ready for the future of meat?

Now would be a good time for Congress to pass a federal spending bill to make a permanent pay increase a reality.

The Rev Sue Parfitt has lost right to conduct religious ceremonies after her arrest at a Just Stop Oil demonstration

An 82-year-old retired priest has spoken of her pain at losing her right to conduct religious ceremonies because of her participation in Just Stop Oil protests.

The Rev Sue Parfitt was arrested in May after allegedly causing damage to the glass around Magna Carta at the British Library in London as part of a protest with the climate action group. She is still awaiting trial.

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Some activists are questioning whether the federal government can accurately verify a tax program for facilities that store planet-warming gases.

Cal Fire says Robert Hernandez ignited blazes while off duty in forest land in north of state

A California department of forestry and fire protection employee was arrested on Friday on suspicion of starting five brush fires in northern California in recent weeks, officials said.

Robert Hernandez, 38, was arrested at the Howard forest fire station in Healdsburg, California, on suspicion of arson to forest land, the state agency said in a statement.

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The Middle East crisis, wildfires in Portugal, floods in Poland and London fashion week: the last seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

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Firefighters have been rescuing people stranded on their balconies and rooftops after Storm Boris triggered flooding and landslides in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna. Two people were reported missing in Traversara, a hamlet in Ravenna province, and about 1,000 people have been evacuated from their homes. Storm Boris has battered parts of Italy after causing havoc in eastern and central Europe

• Two missing and 1,000 evacuated as Storm Boris devastates northern Italy

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