The Guardian Climate Change

Firefighters carry heavy packs along rugged slopes to calm fast-moving fires, and sweltering weather is compounding already dangerous work

• Life as a roofer in Florida’s sweltering heat: ‘It feels like 120F’
• Life as California warehouse worker: ‘Products matter more than people’
  

After 20 years fighting flames for the US Forest Service, the fire captain Abel Martinez has pretty much seen it all.

His lungs are scarred from the smouldering car tires and scorched homes that fed billowing flames alongside highways, through parched canyons, or over treetops in the Angeles national forest, the mountainous wilderness where he works in southern California. Whether it’s a dry year or a wet one, the decades on the job have taught him that every fire season is likely to be a busy one.

Rescuers search for missing after huge volumes of rain fall in area around Jablanica and Konjic, causing sudden flooding

Rescue teams are searching for survivors after flash floods and landslides hit parts of Bosnia, killing at least 16 people and injuring dozens more.

Construction machines worked to remove piles of rocks and debris covering the central town of Jablanica after the rainstorm early on Friday.

The Middle East crisis, the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Femen activists in Kyiv and Paris fashion week: the last seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

Firms such as Smallhold have lessons to be learned on what business can – and can’t – do in transforming agriculture

When Andrew Carter and Adam DeMartino started their business Smallhold in 2017, they set out with a simple vision they thought could have a big impact: feed people mushrooms.

“Mushrooms are one of the most sustainable calories on the planet, in every aspect,” Carter said, whether you’re looking at water, waste, plastic use or greenhouse gas emissions. “We just wanted to get more people eating them.”

Exclusive: Broadcaster joins board of Climate Emergency Fund and says there needs to be new ways of pushing for change

Climate activists need to stop blocking roads and start holding fossil fuel executives personally to account, Chris Packham has said, after being appointed to the board of one of the biggest activist funds in the world.

The naturalist and broadcaster is the first non-US-based director of the Climate Emergency Fund, which has given almost $15m (£11.4m) to activists taking part in non-violent civil disobedience around the world since 2019.

Behind the violence of extreme weather is that of the fossil fuel industry, and Americans are suffering for it

The weather we used to have shaped the behavior of the water we used to have – how much and when it rained, how dry it got, when and how slowly the snow in the heights melted, what fell as rain and fell as snow. Climate chaos is changing all that, breaking the patterns, delivering water in torrents unprecedented in recorded history or withholding it to create epic droughts, while heat-and-drought-parched soil, grasslands and forests create ideal conditions for mega-wildfires.

Water in the right time and quantity is a blessing; in the wrong ones it’s a scourge and a destroying force, as we’ve seen recently with floods around the world. In the vice-presidential debate, Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor, noted that his state’s farmers “know climate change is real. They’ve seen 500-year droughts, 500-year floods, back to back.” Farmers around the world are dealing with flood, drought and unseasonable weather that impacts their ability to produce food and protect soil.

Analysis of satellite data finds plant cover has increased more than tenfold over the last few decades

Plant cover across the Antarctic peninsula has soared more than tenfold over the last few decades, as the climate crisis heats up the icy continent.

Analysis of satellite data found there was less than one sq kilometre of vegetation in 1986 but there was almost 12km2 of green cover by 2021. The spread of the plants, mostly mosses, has accelerated since 2016, the researchers found.

Exclusive: Study suggests people more willing to reduce own carbon footprint if they see leaders doing the same

Political leaders “walking the talk” on climate action by flying less or eating less meat could be a “crucial missing link” in fighting global heating, according to a study.

Researchers found that people are significantly more willing to reduce their own carbon footprint if they see leaders doing the same. The finding, by psychologists in the UK, was not a given, as green action by high-profile people can sometimes be dismissed as virtue-signalling.

Revitalising the country’s industrial heartlands and creating decent, well-paid jobs is at the heart of our mission

• Rachel Reeves is the chancellor of the exchequer

Three months ago, the British people voted for change. For a Britain that works for working people again, with an economy that is growing, an NHS that is fixed and more money in people’s pockets.

I am determined to deliver that change. But I know it can only happen if we bring investment back to Britain. Investment that can reignite Britain’s industrial heartlands to create good jobs in the industries of the future – like wind power and solar. And this includes carbon capture and storage. That’s why today we have announced up to £21.7bn of funding over 25 years to launch this major new industry for our country in a new era for clean-energy investment and jobs.

Rachel Reeves is chancellor of the exchequer

Sea levels along the US coastline could rise as much as 12in from 2020 to 2050 due to climate crisis, scientists warn

Floods affecting much of the south-east US show the destructive force of higher sea levels and warmer temperatures. Now, researchers at the non-profit Climate Central are using artificial intelligence to predict how climate-related flooding will affect US communities into the next 75 years if warming continues at its current pace.

Previous research has shown that by 2050, sea levels along the US coastline could rise as much as 12in (30cm) from 2020 levels. High-tide flooding, which can occur even in sunny weather, is projected to triple by 2050, and so-called 100-year floods may soon become annual occurrences in New England.

As the Line fire exploded, dense smoke made it difficult to breathe and heat became ‘intolerable’, but work carried on

• Life as a roofer in Florida’s sweltering heat: ‘It feels like 120F’

Uncontrolled wildfires ripped across southern California amid a startling late summer heatwave this month, shrouding the region in thick, dark smoke as temperatures climbed past 110F (43.3C).

But Cynthia Ayala, a ramp agent at one of Amazon’s largest air freight hubs, had to report to work anyway.

Coffee once drove the economy but war, migration, climate and disease crippled the industry. Now, a new generation with women at the fore is focusing on quality as the answer

The new highway has taken chunks out of Ines Ortiz’s coffee farm but the land lost to the Los Chorros Megaproject, El Salvador’s largest-ever infrastructure scheme, is only the latest crisis faced by growers in Central America’s smallest country, who have survived deforestation, civil war, climate change, falling prices for their beans, and infestations of rust disease in recent decades.

A former head of natural resources at the agriculture ministry, Ortiz, 72, still cannot believe what she sees on her farm of shade-grown coffee plants in the hills spreading from the San Salvador volcano. The farmed forest lost to the $410m ($300m) highway graphically illustrate how the government’s construction boom and deforestation have hit the coffee industry.

Forests around world being changed from carbon sinks into carbon sources, making it harder to slow global heating

Wildfires are burning through the carbon budget that humans have allocated themselves to limit global heating, a study shows.

The authors said this accelerating trend was approaching – and may have already breached – a “critical temperature threshold” after which fires cause significant shifts in tree cover and carbon storage.

Devotees of agroecology tell the Guardian about their rejection of chemicals and fertilisers to create diverse and thriving crops

From degraded fields being brought back to fertile life to community gardens flourishing as food co-operatives, a growing revolution is happening in countries across the African continent.

The climate crisis, conflict and the dominance of multinationals with industrial-scale production for export have popularised the concept of agroecology – promoting small-scale farming and farmers, protecting biodiversity and adapting traditional methods that do away with the need for chemicals and expensive fertilisers.

Credibility ‘damaged’ by proposed 12-month delay, which followed lobbying from governments and firms around the world

A former top environment official has said the EU’s credibility on its climate commitments has been damaged by plans for a one-year delay to a law to combat deforestation that followed intense lobbying from companies and governments around the world.

Virginijus Sinkevičius, a Lithuanian MEP who was the environment commissioner until mid-July, said postponing the deforestation regulation would be “a step backward in the fight against climate change”.

Experts are calling for ‘rapid rescue package’ for nature to improve condition of protected sites

The amount of land that is protected for nature in England has fallen to just 2.93%, despite government promises to conserve 30% of it by 2030, new data reveals.

Campaigners are calling for a “rapid rescue package for UK nature”, as government delegates head to Cop16, the international nature summit, which will take place from 21 October in Colombia. They intend to ask other countries to stick to ambitious nature targets.

Event will push for greater transparency and aims to rank AI firms in terms of ability to meet climate goals

World leaders at the next AI summit will focus on the impact on the environment and jobs, including the possibility of ranking the greenest AI companies, it has been announced.

Rating artificial intelligence companies in terms of their ecological impact is among the proposals under consideration, while other areas being looked at include the effect on the labour market, giving all countries access to the technology, and bringing more states under the wing of global AI governance initiatives.

Proponents say using hallucinogens can spark ‘consciousness shifts’ to inspire climate-friendly behaviors

Thousands gathered for New York City’s annual Climate Week last week to promote climate solutions, from the phaseout of fossil-fuel subsidies to nuclear energy to corporate-led schemes like carbon credits. Others touted a more offbeat potential salve to the crisis: psychedelics.

Under the banner of Psychedelic Climate Week, a group of academics, marketers and advocates gathered for a film on pairing magic mushrooms with music, a discussion on funding ketamine-assisted therapy and a panel on “Balancing Investing & Impact with Climate & Psychedelic Capital”.

The emissions impact is obvious but with full employment in construction, approving three mine extensions is saying you want workers there rather than building homes

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When the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, approved three new coalmine expansions last week, she not only failed abjectly to act on climate change, but by diverting scarce workers from constructing homes to expanding fossil-fuel projects, she also made it harder for the government to improve housing affordability through its aim of building 1.2m new homes in five years.

Last week Plibersek posted photos of her releasing a cute little bilby into a wild training zone. Oddly there was no such cute photo, nor mention on her list of “some of the things I’m most proud of”, of her approving those three coalmine expansions, which will generate about 1.3bn tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions over their lifetime.

Bill to formalise state net zero target for 2050 left off list of legislative goals ahead of March election

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The Western Australian Labor government has been accused of shelving plans to introduce climate change laws before a state election next March after it left the bill off a list of legislation it hopes to pass.

The absence of the climate bill – from the list of 14 legislative priorities circulated with the Liberal party and crossbench MPs – reignited claims that WA Labor is in thrall to the gas industry and failing to address the climate crisis.