The Guardian Climate Change

US president also mocks former president’s windmill conspiracy theories at Climate Week event in New York

Joe Biden has lauded the US’s progress in fighting the climate crisis during his presidency, while also criticizing Donald Trump for his dismissal of the “more dangerous world” that global heating poses to future generations.

The US president was speaking at a Bloomberg event on Tuesday being held as part of Climate Week in New York, a summit that runs alongside the United Nations general assembly, which the US president spoke at earlier in the day.

In 27 states, utilities can disconnect power for non-payment on the hottest days, which can have deadly consequences

Michael Crowley runs his air conditioner nonstop on hot summer days to keep his cat, Arya, comfortable. But when the Richmond, Virginia, chef got home after work on 7 August 2022, it “felt like 100 degrees”. His power was out. He phoned his leasing office and was told his electricity bill was unpaid.

Crowley protested, saying his utilities had long been covered by his rent check. But then he learned his building’s new property manager required tenants to pay for power separately – something Crowley said was unclear. No one told him about the delinquent bill, he said.

Letter says technologies to produce blue hydrogen and capture CO2 are unproven and could hinder net zero efforts

Leading climate scientists are urging the government to pause plans for a billion pound investment in “green technologies” they say are unproven and would make it harder for the UK to reach its net zero targets.

Labour has promised to invest £1bn in carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS) to produce blue hydrogen and to capture carbon dioxide from new gas-fired power stations – with a decision on the first tranche of the funding expected imminently.

Lock the UK into fossil fuel production for generations to come.

Result in huge upstream emissions from methane leaks, transport and processing of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the US.

Rely on carbon capture and storage (CCS) during the production of hydrogen – technology they say has been abandoned in the vast majority of similar projects around the world.

Pose a danger to the public if there are any leaks from pipes carrying the captured carbon. At least 45 people had to be taken to hospital after a leak in the US.

Nine climate protesters have stopped a coal train headed to the Port of Newcastle in opposition to the federal government’s approval of three new mining projects. Rising Tide, the group behind the move, said in a statement that the three projects – Whitehaven Coal’s Narrabri thermal coal project to 2066, Mach Energy’s Mount Pleasant thermal coal project to 2058 and Yancoal’s Ashton coal project to 2064 – would create 1.4bn tonnes of emissions

• Tanya Plibersek approves three coalmine expansions in move criticised as ‘the opposite of climate action’

Until the government changes its stance on the environment and the war in Gaza and Lebanon, there is nothing to celebrate

On Monday morning, we walked into the main hall of Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool, before the keynote speech of the chancellor, Rachel Reeves. What we did next, you might have seen.

Shortly after Reeves began her address, two of us stood to speak out on Labour’s complicity in suspected Israeli war crimes, and the party’s ties to climate-wrecking corporations. We were there on behalf of Climate Resistance, a group campaigning to end the cosy relationship between politics and the fossil fuel industry. Just like arms manufacturers, oil companies have been guilty of hindering democratic processes with donations and lobbying, putting human lives on the line for their own profits.

Jack McGinn is a climate activist with Climate Resistance

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Appointee was a climate chief at the World Bank and will lead UK’s return to high-level environmental diplomacy

• Who is Rachel Kyte, the UK’s new climate envoy?

A former climate chief of the World Bank has been appointed to lead the UK’s efforts to forge a global coalition on climate action, the Guardian can reveal.

Rachel Kyte, who previously served as special representative for the UN and a vice-president of the World Bank, will take up the role of climate envoy to lead the UK’s return to the front ranks of global climate diplomacy.

Researchers find climate crisis aggravated the four days of heavy rainfall and deadly floods

• ‘We’re getting rid of everything’: floods destroy homes and lives in Czech Republic

Planet-heating pollution doubled the chance of the extreme levels of rain that hammered central Europe in September, a study has found.

Researchers found global heating aggravated the four days of heavy rainfall that led to deadly floods in countries from Austria to Romania.

Study shows extreme rainfall made twice as likely by planet-heating pollution as EU promises €10bn in aid

• Global heating ‘doubled’ chance of heavy rain in Europe in September

Jarmila Šišmová did not know what to expect when rain began to pound the small town of Litovel in the Czech Republic, and she was not prepared for the nightmare that would await her once it stopped.

The authorities told Šišmová to leave her home, so she took her children to their grandmother to wait out the storm. As the water level rose, a neighbour – one of the few on her street who stayed behind – checked the front of the house and saw the sandbags holding firm. But from the back, Šišmová would soon find out, the flood had burst into the building, drenching her belongings in dirty brown water.

Narrative that transition has stalled ‘demonstrably not true’, researcher says, but investment and construction must accelerate

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Large-scale renewable energy investment and construction in Australia is rebounding this year after a slump, but will need to accelerate to reach the pace needed to meet the Albanese government’s goal for 2030.

The country could add more than 7 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity this year, up from 5.3 GW last year, according to data released by the Clean Energy Regulator.

California could become the first state to tackle the fast fashion waste overwhelming consumers and landfills

Let’s say you bought a new pair of jeans and wore them for a few years before deciding it was time to part ways. You could throw them away, or, if you wanted a more environmentally friendly option, you might try to sell or swap them or donate them to a local thrift store.

Either way, the onus is on you to pass those jeans on, and hope for the best. But a new California bill that tackles the growing problem of fashion and textile waste could change the way we get rid of our clothes, putting the burden on clothing producers to implement a system for recycling the wares that they sell.

Seven states received almost half of funds for clean energy manufacturing, though there is little evidence it will deliver electorally for Democrats

The seven swing states that will decide the upcoming US election have received nearly half of the torrent of clean energy manufacturing dollars unleashed by a landmark 2022 climate bill, a new analysis shows, amid stuttering Democratic efforts to translate new factory jobs into political support.

Since the passage of clean energy incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a bill called the “most significant climate law in the history of mankind” by Joe Biden, nearly $150bn has been announced for a flurry of new American facilities producing electric cars, batteries and components for renewable energy.

The PM will today deliver his leader’s speech to Labour conference. This is what he should say instead

Conference, I stand here ready to bury Britain’s age of decline and usher in the age of ambition. For years, politicians have offered this nation a daily diet of pessimism, demanding ever greater sacrifice from those with nothing left to give. And they have delivered on that pessimism – from stagnant growth to falling wages, from crumbling infrastructure to disintegrating public services, from our declining town centres to a mounting housing emergency.

But that ambition begins with some humility. Our nation expected change, and so far it has seen yet more politicians on the take while imposing hardship on the already struggling. It is far better to change course than double down on mistakes. Our democracy has long been corrupted by those with bottomless pockets, and let’s be candid: they’re not splashing their cash out of generosity. That ends here. If you’re a wealthy individual or private company, invest your money elsewhere, because all such donations to political parties and politicians will now be banned. No more hospitality or freebies: and yes, I will pay for my own Arsenal tickets.

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

Norwegians are putting their natural environment (and weekend activities) ahead of tourism’s economic benefits

In Norway, nature is something of a national obsession. Norwegian children are taught that “there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing”, and Norwegian babies are packed into thermals and overalls and taken on day trips to the woods. Cross-country skiing, hunting for wild mushrooms or cloudberries, or huffing and puffing up a mountain are standard weekend activities.

The recent decision to scrap a campaign that aimed to attract more foreign tourists to the country’s rural landscapes was a stark reminder of this: rather than encouraging tourists and the income they provide, many Norwegians would prefer to protect their natural environment.

Simple measures could raise five times more money than poorer countries are asking for, research claims

Rich countries could raise five times the money that poor countries are demanding in climate finance, through windfall taxes on fossil fuels, ending harmful subsidies and a wealth tax on billionaires, research has shown.

Developing nations are asking for at least $1tn (£750bn) a year of public funds to help them cut greenhouse gases and cope with the impacts of extreme weather.

UN general assembly to hold special session this week as experts say rises already locked in by climate change mean disappearance of many atolls

The Pacific country of Kiribati might be surrounded by water, but on land its population is running dry. The ocean around them is steadily encroaching, contaminating underground wells and leeching salt into the soil.

“Our waters have been infected,” climate activist and law student Christine Tekanene says. “Those who are affected, they now can’t survive with the water that changed after sea level rise.”

Former secretary of state accuses oil and gas companies of ‘business as usual’ at major climate summit in New York

Countries are ignoring commitments they made less than a year ago to shift away from fossil fuels and to provide aid to those most vulnerable to the climate crisis, a host of leading figures have admitted during a gloomy start to a major climate summit in New York.

Al Gore, the former US vice-president, and John Kerry, the former US secretary of state and climate envoy, have led the condemnation of the largest greenhouse gas emitters, led by China and the US, for failing to follow a UN pact signed in Dubai by nearly 200 countries in December to “transition away” from oil, coal and gas.

Chiapas, Oaxaca and Guerrero brace for impact as ‘life-threatening’ category 2 storm to make landfall Tuesday

Mexico’s southern coast was bracing for flash floods and storm surges as Hurricane John quickly intensified into a category 2 storm on Monday afternoon.

Originally forecast as a tropical storm, Hurricane John “rapidly strengthened” into a category 2 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 100mph (160kmh), according to the US National Hurricane Center, which warned of “damaging hurricane-force winds, life-threatening storm surge and flash flooding”.

Ocean acidification close to critical threshold, say scientists, posing threat to marine ecosystems and global liveability

Industrial civilisation is close to breaching a seventh planetary boundary, and may already have crossed it, according to scientists who have compiled the latest report on the state of the world’s life-support systems.

“Ocean acidification is approaching a critical threshold”, particularly in higher-latitude regions, says the latest report on planetary boundaries. “The growing acidification poses an increasing threat to marine ecosystems.”

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.