The Guardian Climate Change

White House claims university’s work exposed students to ‘climate anxiety’ and ‘exaggerated climate threats’

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Almost $4m in federal funding has been stripped from an Ivy League university’s prestigious climate research department because the Trump administration has determined it exposed students and other young people to “climate anxiety”.

The government research grants to Princeton University have been cut off because the White House considers its work on topics including sea level rise, coastal flooding and global warming to be promoting “exaggerated and implausible climate threats”, according to the New York Times.

Dutch group Follow This says it will not file any resolutions against oil and gas companies this AGM season

A green shareholder activist group has decided to “pause” its work pushing oil companies to reduce their emissions amid a growing investor backlash against climate action.

Follow This has confirmed that it will not file any climate resolutions against oil and gas companies during the forthcoming AGM season for the first time since 2016.

Climate denialism should not blind investors and governments to the very real opportunities to be found in financing solutions

Among the many shocks currently facing the international development community is the new direction of the US administration on climate, and the implications worldwide for mitigation and adaptation efforts.

This is not uncharted territory. While a withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement is undoubtedly a setback, it no longer carries the same level of disruption as it did. The global community has become more resilient and will continue to advance climate action.

Scientists say a complex mix of factors are making seasonal allergies worse for longer in many parts of the world – but why is it happening and is it here to stay?

The first time it happened, László Makra thought he had flu. The symptoms appeared from nowhere at the end of summer in 1989: his eyes started streaming, his throat was tight and he could not stop sneezing. Makra was 37 and otherwise fit and healthy, a mid-career climate scientist in Szeged, Hungary. Winter eventually came and he thought little of it. Then, it happened the next year. And the next.

“I had never had these symptoms before. It was high summer: it was impossible to have the flu three consecutive years in a row,” he says.

For decades, US meteorologists were forbidden from uttering the word ‘tornado.’ Now, US officials have banned the term ‘climate change’

For more than 60 years, US meteorologists were not allowed to use the word “tornado” in their forecasts. No tornado warnings were issued in this period at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th – even when danger was imminent.

Sergeant John Park Finley, of the US Army Signal Corps’ Weather Bureau, was one of the first to work on tornado prediction. By 1884, Finley had trained almost a thousand “spotters” to identify the conditions associated with tornado formation and send reports by the new telegraph system. The resulting trial predictions were not always accurate, but the warnings saved lives by giving people time to get into storm cellars.

The IEA forecast indicates a sharp rise in the requirements of AI, but said threat to the climate was ‘overstated’

The global rush to AI technology will require almost as much energy by the end of this decade as Japan uses today, but only about half of the demand is likely to be met from renewable sources.

Processing data, mainly for AI, will consume more electricity in the US alone by 2030 than manufacturing steel, cement, chemicals and all other energy-intensive goods combined, according to a report from the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Advocacy group contends the firm is using 35 methane gas burning turbines, but has permission for only 15

KeShaun Pearson took a seat in front of the Shelby county board of commissioners in Memphis, Tennessee, on Wednesday morning. In the gallery behind him, a small group of people held up signs that said “Our air = our lives” and “Our water, Our future.” With a manner-of-fact demeanor, Pearson addressed the commissioners.

“I’m here because today we’ve learned that xAI is using 35 methane gas burning turbines,” said Pearson, who is the director of the advocacy group Memphis Community Against Pollution. “They have submitted a permit to our Shelby county health department for 15, yet they are using double that amount with no permit.”

Nasa cuts contract that convened USGCRP, which released assessments impacting environmental decision-making

The White House is ending funding for the body that produces the federal government’s pre-eminent climate report, which summarizes the impacts of rising global temperatures on the United States.

Every four years, the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) is required by Congress to release a new national climate assessment to ensure leaders understand the drivers of – and threats posed by – global warming. It is the most comprehensive, far-reaching and up-to-date analysis of the climate crisis, playing a key role in local and national decision making about agriculture, energy production, and land and water use.

President orders justice department to stop enforcement of critical policies holding fossil fuel companies accountable

Donald Trump is taking aim and city- and state-led fossil fuel accountability efforts, which have been hailed as a last source of hope for the climate amid the president’s ferociously anti-environment agenda.

In a Tuesday executive order, Trump instructed the Department of Justice to “stop the enforcement” of state climate laws, which his administration has suggested are unconstitutional or otherwise unenforceable.

Guardian Australia is highlighting the plight of our endangered native species during an election campaign that is ignoring broken environment laws and rapidly declining ecosystems

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Australia’s most skilled aerial mammal, the yellow-bellied glider, is on an “inexorable slide” to extinction as global heating creates more extreme bushfires that are robbing the species of the food and tree hollows it relies on to survive.

Thanks to large parachutes of skin stretching from their wrists to their ankles, yellow-bellied gliders can travel up to 140 metres in a single jump, the furthest of any Australian mammal, including the larger and better known endangered greater glider.

Amazon, Google and Microsoft are building datacentres in water-scarce parts of five continents

Amazon, Microsoft and Google are operating datacentres that use vast amounts of water in some of the world’s driest areas and are building many more, an investigation by SourceMaterial and the Guardian has found.

With Donald Trump pledging to support them, the three technology giants are planning hundreds of datacentres in the US and across the globe, with a potentially huge impact on populations already living with water scarcity.

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Surangel Whipps Jr says he would be ‘deeply disappointed’ if attempt were abandoned under Coalition

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The president of Palau has strongly backed an Australian bid to host a UN climate conference on behalf of the Pacific, arguing that it would boost regional solidarity and clean energy investment and he would be “deeply disappointed” if the attempt were abandoned under the Coalition.

Speaking in Sydney, Surangel Whipps Jr stressed he did not want to offer a view on the Australian election but said leaders should heed the results of a Lowy Institute survey that suggested 70% of the population supported Labor’s proposal for the country hosting the Cop31 climate summit late next year.

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Guardian Australia is highlighting the plight of our endangered native species during an election campaign that is ignoring broken environment laws and rapidly declining ecosystems

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The bogong moth was once so abundant it was mistaken for weather. During Sydney’s Olympic Games in 2000, a swarm of bogong moths attracted by stadium lights was so huge that meteorologists mistook it for a rain cloud.

But the species known as “deberra” in Taungurung language – an insect with deep cultural and ecological importance, but which is smaller and lighter than a paperclip – has not returned to those numbers since the population collapsed by up to 99.5% in the two years before 2019.

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More than 900 young people tell Guardian Australia they worry about money, housing and healthcare – and feel a sense of dread about the climate emergency, social cohesion and rise of the far right

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“There is a general sense – it sounds melodramatic – of, well, the world is ending, we have no way to deal with that, so we are just going to get on with life,” Axel says.

The 25-year-old is describing a feeling shared by his friends in their mid-20s.

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Conservation groups condemn the move along with the government’s decision to extend the life of coal power stations

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Queensland’s target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 75% by 2035 could face the scrap heap, with the state energy minister ordering a review of the ambitious legislation.

The Clean Economy Jobs Bill was passed into law last year, with the backing of both Labor and the Liberal National party.

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Monica Feria-Tinta is one of a growing number of lawyers using the courts to make governments around the world take action

In November 2024, Monica Feria-Tinta, a veteran of UN tribunals and the international criminal court, strode through a heavy black door into a Georgian building in London’s august legal district for a meeting about a tree in Southend. Affectionately known as Chester, the 150-year-old plane tree towers over a bus shelter in the centre of the Essex seaside town. The council wanted to cut it down and residents were fighting back – but they were running out of options. Katy Treverton, a local campaigner, had travelled from Southend to ask Feria-Tinta’s legal advice. “Chester is one of the last trees left in this part of Southend,” said Treverton, sitting at a large table in an airy meeting room. “Losing him would be losing part of the city’s identity.”

Feria-Tinta nodded, deep-red fingernails clattering on her laptop as she typed. She paused and looked up. “Are we entitled to nature? Is that a human right? I would say yes. It’s not an easy argument, but it’s a valid one.” She recommended going to the council with hard data about the impact of trees on health, and how removing the tree could violate the rights of an economically deprived community. Recent rulings in the European court of human rights, she added, reinforced the notion that the state has obligations on the climate crisis. This set a legal precedent that could help residents defend their single tree in Southend. “It isn’t just a tree,” said Feria-Tinta. “More than that is at stake: a principle.”

A three-yearly environmental update issues stark warning over biodiversity – and reports air pollution has improved in some areas

A major new report on New Zealand’s environment has revealed a worrying outlook for its unique species and highlighted declining water health, while also noting some improvements in air quality.

The ministry of the environment’s three-yearly update, Our Environment 2025, collates statistics, data and research across five domains – air, atmosphere and climate, freshwater, land, and marine – to paint a picture of the state of New Zealand’s environment.

The government’s promise to slash the cost of household batteries should be welcomed – it could drive a change that benefits everyone who uses the power grid

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It’s taken years to get here, but Labor’s election pledge to make household batteries cheaper is a significant step forward that should cut climate pollution and limit power price rises. While it has been criticised by some as a subsidy for the wealthy, it could drive a change that benefits everyone who uses the power grid, and not just those who can afford to put an energy storage unit in their garage.

Labor’s promise is that from July it will cut the cost of a typical household battery by about $4,000, or 30%. The discount will be delivered through a long-running small-scale renewable energy scheme that has helped make rooftop solar panels and hot water systems affordable for more people.

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Adam Morton is Guardian Australia’s climate and environment editor

Nature will reclaim its place as a terrifying quasi-divine force that cannot be mastered. I find this strangely comforting

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At times my work takes me to the big city and the tall buildings where people with power make decisions that affect the rest of us. While I am there, crossing busy roads, wearing tidy clothes and carrying out my duty, I think of faraway places where life is getting on without me.

Logrunners are turning leaf litter on the rainforest floor, albatross are cruising the wind beyond sight of the coast. Why does thinking about these creatures, who have no idea that I exist, bring me such comfort?

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