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The Guardian Climate Change

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Latest Climate crisis news, comment and analysis from the Guardian, the world's leading liberal voice
Updated: 2 hours 2 min ago

How does today’s extreme heat compare with Earth’s past climate?

August 14, 2024 - 06:01

Viewed through a long enough lens, our climate can seem unremarkable – but for humans it is unprecedented

Climate records are tumbling at a galloping pace. The world has just experienced its hottest ever single day on record, amid a string of record-breaking months that followed the planet’s hottest recorded year. But how does this cascade of new highs in the era of modern record-keeping compare with the Earth’s deeper history?

Those who piece together what past climates were like in eras before thermometers and satellites – a practice known as palaeoclimatology – find that today’s temperatures are, when narrowly viewed, unremarkable. For example, the Eocene, an epoch lasting from 56m years to 34m years ago, was “screamingly hotter” than today, by about 10-15C, according to Matthew Huber, an expert in historical climates at Purdue University in the US.

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‘You feel like you’re suffocating’: Florida outdoor workers are collapsing in the heat without water and shade

August 14, 2024 - 06:00

Florida has passed legislation banning local safety rules for outdoor workers, despite heat stress set to cost global economy $2.4tn by 2030

It was a hot, muggy day in south Florida when Cristina Lopez sank to her knees, overcome by a wave of nausea and dizziness, as the sun beat down relentlessly on the plant nursery where the Guatemalan migrant works with three of her children.

Lopez was thirsty, overheating, and unable to continue lugging plant pots as the heat index topped 100F (38C). She could barely see straight, but employers are not required to give outdoor workers regular breaks or access to shade, and Lopez said she was reprimanded for taking a short rest.

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Categories: Climate

Commonwealth Bank to stop financing fossil fuel companies that don’t comply with Paris climate goals

August 14, 2024 - 03:10

Shareholders and customers of ANZ, Westpac and NAB are bound to demand their banks do the same, expert says

The Commonwealth Bank, Australia’s largest lender, has broken ranks with rivals and will stop financing fossil fuel companies that aren’t compliant with the Paris climate goals by the end of this year.

Clients failing to meet an emissions pathway consistent with keeping global temperature increases to the “well below 2C goal of the Paris agreement” would not receive “new corporate or trade finance, or bond facilitation with a maturity beyond 31 December 2024”, CBA said.

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Categories: Climate

Police remove climate protesters from Parliament House in Canberra – video

August 14, 2024 - 00:34

Climate protesters were removed from Parliament House by police on Wednesday morning. In a statement, the protesters said they felt 'betrayed by the Albanese government’s abandonment of major reform to our environment laws earlier this year, following pressure from coal and gas companies'

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Half a billion children live in areas with twice as many very hot days as in 1960s

August 13, 2024 - 19:01

Unicef analysis also finds children in eight countries spend more than half the year in temperatures above 35C

Almost half a billion children are growing up in parts of the world where there are at least twice the number of extremely hot days every year compared with six decades ago, analysis by Unicef has found.

The analysis by the UN’s children’s agency examined for the first time data on changes in children’s exposure to extreme heat over the past 60 years.

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Categories: Climate

‘The dumbest climate conversation of all time’: experts on the Musk-Trump interview

August 13, 2024 - 13:59

Trump talked about ‘nuclear warming’ while Musk said the only reason to quit fossil fuels is that their supply is finite

Donald Trump and Elon Musk both made discursive, often fact-free assertions about global heating, including that rising sea levels would create “more oceanfront property” and that there was no urgent need to cut carbon emissions, during an event labeled “the dumbest climate conversation of all time” by one prominent activist.

Trump, the Republican US presidential nominee, and Musk, the world’s richest person, dwelled on the problem of the climate crisis during their much-hyped conversation on X, formerly known as Twitter and owned by Musk, on Monday, agreeing that the world has plenty of time to move away from fossil fuels, if at all.

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US workers launch Heat Week to fight for ‘the right to water, shade and rest’

August 13, 2024 - 12:00

In probably the hottest summer ever, workers are organizing in 13 cities to raise alarm about workplace heat exposure

As temperatures in Baltimore neared 100F earlier this month, 36-year-old sanitation worker Ronald Silver II died after he was found lying on the hood of a car and asking for water.

It’s the kind of tragic workplace heat-related death that advocates say could have been avoided with the right labor protections. So this week, during what will probably be the US’s hottest summer on record, frontline workers are organizing actions in 13 cities across the country, raising the alarm about workplace heat exposure.

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Greece takes stock of wildfires that raged through Athens suburbs

August 13, 2024 - 11:24

Opposition and media turn on government as firefighters work to contain ‘scattered hotspots’

Greek authorities are continuing to battle scattered fires on the outskirts of Athens as officials take stock of the damage wreaked by a disaster that forced mass evacuations and killed at least one person.

On Tuesday, the third day of one of the worst wildfires in living memory, firefighters were helped by a drop in winds as they sought to contain the remnants of an inferno that had reached the capital’s northern suburbs and decimated homes and businesses.

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Greek minister says wildfires reduced to ‘scattered hotspots’ – as it happened

August 13, 2024 - 07:53

This live blog is now closed

Greece’s opposition wasted little time Tuesday lambasting prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ centre right government for what has been described as a lacklustre response to the inferno.

Stefanos Kasselakis, who heads the main opposition Syriza party, said that he had only witnessed three water-bombing aircraft in action – and not the 35 that officials had cited – when he visited the operational headquarters of the civil protection ministry.

I will say yet again that from the eruption of the fire on Sunday the time that it took to respond by air was five minutes and with fire engines seven minutes.

The reality is this: that despite the speed of the operational response – the new dogma that in combination with the technical support of drones has been enforced with the hundreds of fires confronted this summer – when extreme conditions prevail the problem becomes insurmountable.

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Categories: Climate

Tuesday briefing: How Copenhagen is helping tourists go green

August 13, 2024 - 01:56

In today’s newsletter: As visitors overwhelm Venice, Barcelona and other famous cities, a model rewarding travellers for being more responsible could inspire other municipalities

Sign up here for our daily newsletter, First Edition

Good morning. Today we’re taking a little trip to Copenhagen to explore a new pilot initiative designed to reward tourists for “climate-friendly actions”. The CopenPay scheme has been designed to encourage visitors to act a bit more responsibly and think about their impact on the environment during trips to the Danish capital.

In return for small environmental actions – like cycling to attractions or fishing litter out of the canals – visitors have been rewarded with small gifts such as free ice-cream and museum tours.

Climate crisis | Hot weather inflamed by carbon pollution killed nearly 50,000 people in Europe last year, with the continent warming at a much faster rate than other parts of the world, research has found. Heat-related mortality was highest in Greece, with 393 deaths per million people.

Ukraine | Ukrainian forces have captured 1,000 sq km (386 square miles) of Russia’s bordering Kursk region, Kyiv’s top commander has claimed, as Vladimir Putin vowed a “worthy response” to the attack. 121,000 people have fled the region since the incursion began.

UK news | A shop security guard has described how he overpowered a knifeman as he stabbed an 11-year-old girl and her mother, 34, in a “horrific” and apparently random attack in London’s busy Leicester Square in front of shocked workers and tourists.

UK news | A “series of errors and misjudgments” in Valdo Calocane’s mental health care led to him being discharged, despite repeatedly not taking medication and showing signs of aggression, months before he killed three people in Nottingham, a report says. The Care Quality Commission warned of “systemic issues with community mental health care”.

Technology | Labour MPs have begun quitting X in alarm over the platform’s direction, with one saying Elon Musk had turned it into “a megaphone for foreign adversaries and far-right fringe groups”. Meanwhile, Donald Trump gave a rambling interview to Musk on the platform that was marred with technical issues initially preventing many users from watching the conversation.

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Categories: Climate

Trump would pull out of Paris climate treaty again – and Harris faces tough choices | Barry Eichengreen

August 13, 2024 - 01:00

If elected, the Democrat is likely to face a trade-off over manufacturing jobs and economic independence from China

Every US presidential election is consequential but American voters face an unusually weighty decision in 2024. The outcome will have implications for foreign policy, social policy, and the integrity of the political system. But none of its consequences will be more profound or far-reaching than on global efforts to combat the climate crisis.

As president, Donald Trump pulled the US out of the Paris climate agreement, while the US under Joe Biden rejoined it. Trump has promised to expand oil and gas production, and his campaign has said he will again withdraw the US from the Paris accord if he wins a second term.

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A drowning town: are Bentiu’s dykes high enough to save it from disaster?

August 13, 2024 - 01:00

UN troops are shoring up flood defences in the South Sudan town. But with record rains forecast, the lives of tens of thousands of displaced people could be at risk

Surrounded by towering mud ramparts, the 300,000 residents of Bentiu in South Sudan will spend today, like tomorrow, anxiously scanning the gathering storm clouds. They live in one of the most vulnerable towns on Earth: a sprawling settlement whose streets lie below the water level of a huge lake that is steadily rising on all sides.

Without the dykes built to encircle the capital of the country’s notoriously volatile Unity state, Bentiu would be completely submerged. But fears are mounting that attempts to preserve Bentiu are futile and that it could soon be washed away, potentially with huge loss of life – a catastrophic impact of the climate crisis on a fragile state.

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Categories: Climate

Successful environmental projects benefit nature and people, study finds

August 12, 2024 - 15:00

‘Integrated’ work to help biodiversity and tackle climate crisis can also benefit humanity, says Dr Trisha Gopalakrishna

Restoring and protecting the world’s forests is crucial if humanity is to stop the worst effects of climate breakdown and halt the extinction of rare species.

Researchers have been concerned, however, that actions to capture carbon, restore biodiversity and find ways to support the livelihoods of the people who live near and in the forests might be at odds.

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Heat aggravated by carbon pollution killed 50,000 in Europe last year – study

August 12, 2024 - 11:00

Continent is warming at much faster rate than other parts of world, leading to fires, drought and health problems

Hot weather inflamed by carbon pollution killed nearly 50,000 people in Europe last year, with the continent warming at a much faster rate than other parts of the world, research has found.

The findings come as wildfires tore through forests outside Athens, as France issued excessive heat warnings for large swathes of the country, and the UK baked through what the Met Office expects will be its hottest day of the year.

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Italian hospitals report rise in heat cases as weather fails to deter tourists

August 12, 2024 - 09:20

Number of people seeking emergency care for heat-related illnesses is up in cities including Rome, Florence and Venice

The number of people accessing emergency care for heat-related illnesses has risen sharply in some of Italy’s most popular tourist cities, as the country experiences an intense heatwave that is failing to deter visitors.

Italy has been engulfed in consecutive heatwaves since around the middle of June. Some central and southern areas are expected to record temperatures above 40C in the coming days.

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Greece orders evacuations near Athens as wildfires rage – Europe live

August 12, 2024 - 06:22

Unprecedented summer temperatures after the warmest winter ever have turned terrain into a tinderbox, environmentalists say

AFP reports from Penteli:

Thick smoke from burning trees filled a small square in Penteli where local resident Mariana Papathanasi said they could only pray that their houses would be saved.

“There is still a strong fire. Some houses were burned after midnight and we are trying to protect our local restaurant,” the 49-year-old supermarket employee told AFP.

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Firefighters battle wildfires on the edge of Athens – video

August 12, 2024 - 04:26

Firefighters have been tackling a fast-moving wildfire outside Athens that caused residents to flee their homes as the blaze continued to spread through the night. The fire, fuelled by rising temperatures and windy weather, burned down trees, houses and cars. More than 400 firefighters were deployed as flames quickly reached Varnavas, a village 22 miles (35km) north of the capital. At least 10 areas have been evacuated so far

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‘Losing Noah’s Ark’: Brazil’s plan to turn the Pantanal into waterway threatens world’s biggest wetland

August 12, 2024 - 02:00

Hidrovia project to dredge Paraguay River and build ports may destroy vast biodiversity and refuge of jaguars, giant otters and armadillos – and an age-old riverine way of life

As the evening sky turns violet, the animals of the Pantanal gather near the water. Capybaras swim in tight formation, roseate spoonbills add smudges of pink to the riverbanks, the rumble of a jaguar pulsates from the forest.

This tropical wetland is the largest on Earth, stretching across Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia, and playing host to some of the greatest gatherings of animals anywhere.

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Climate crisis helped drive payouts to seven-year high, say insurers

August 12, 2024 - 01:00

Weather-related claims hit £144m in second quarter of 2024 and total payouts rose by 5% to £1.4bn

Britain’s largest insurance firms have warned that the climate crisis has contributed to driving up insurance payouts to the highest level in seven years, after a sharp rise in damage to households and businesses from weather events.

Figures from the Association of British Insurers (ABI) show that the amount paid out in the three months to the end of June hit £1.4bn, a 5% increase on the first quarter of the year and the highest figure of any quarter since it started collecting the data in 2017.

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Australian fossil fuel exports ranked second only to Russia for climate damage with ‘no plan’ for reduction

August 11, 2024 - 21:17

Coal and gas exports expected to remain roughly at current level until at least 2035 with 4.5% of emissions linked to Australia, report finds

Australia’s coal and gas exports cause more climate damage than those from any other country bar Russia, according to a new study that argues the country is undermining a global agreement to transition away from fossil fuels.

The analysis, commissioned by the University of New South Wales’ Australian Human Rights Institute, found Australia was the third biggest fossil fuel exporter on an energy basis in 2021, trailing only Russia and the US.

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