The Guardian Climate Change

Climate scientists caution, however, that even weakened currents would cause profound harm to humanity

Vital Atlantic Ocean currents are unlikely to completely collapse this century, according to a study, but scientists say a severe weakening remains probable and would still have disastrous impacts on billions of people.

The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc) is a system of currents that plays a crucial role in the global climate. The climate crisis is weakening the complex system, but determining if and when it will collapse is difficult.

Thomas Woldbye says ministers must commit to plans, with decision on second Gatwick runway due this week

The boss of Heathrow has said there is room for both of London’s biggest airports to expand significantly if the government can guarantee steps to a third runway, with ministers expected to approve Gatwick’s second runway this week.

Thomas Woldbye said Heathrow would be seeking government commitments on the airport’s funding model and changes to airspace before construction of a new runway could start.

Analysts and investors have long trumpeted ‘climate-proof’ US communities, but recent disasters show the need for a different way of thinking

A few years ago, while visiting a tiny village, I toured a grand old community hall scheduled to be demolished after a historic flood. Across the street, a phantom row of eight buildings had already come down. Next to go was this beloved structure, built with local lumber by the craftsman grandfathers of the people who still lived there. One of the two local officials escorting me had been married here, she told me. There was a plan to repurpose the six soaring arches, the other official said, gazing towards the ceiling. “The other part of it, knocking the rest of it down … ,” he trailed off, emotionally. “I won’t be in town to see that.”

This village isn’t located on the rapidly eroding Gulf coast, or any coast. It isn’t on the edge of a drought-stricken wildland. It isn’t anywhere typically named as existentially threatened due to the impacts of climate change. Forever altered by floods, the village of Rock Springs, in my home state of Wisconsin, is instead located smack in the middle of what’s often been called a “climate haven”.

Workers at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration fear crackdown will have global fallout

The Trump administration has set its sights on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), the US’s pre-eminent climate research agency, with significant cuts and a political crackdown on climate science. As Trump takes aim at the agency, the impact is likely to be felt across the US and around the world.

Noaa provides essential resources to the public and has helped make the US a scientific leader internationally. Operating 18 satellites and 15 research and survey ships, the agency’s scientists, engineers and policy experts issue forecasts relied on by aviation, agriculture and fishing industries; ocean floor mapping depended upon for shipping; advises on species protection, and increasingly precise and accurate modeling on what to expect as climate crisis unfolds.

It’s time to rethink how climate action succeeds. The key is to acknowledge that it’s never the sole force driving political decisions

We are witnessing the most devastating climate disasters on record: wildfires ravaging Los Angeles, deadly floods in North Carolina, and global temperature records shattered month after month. We have officially surpassed 1.5C of warming, a critical threshold scientists have long warned against. At the same time, the US is scaling back policies, freezing critical programs and shifting priorities away from climate action.

But now isn’t the time to give up on climate action. Instead, it is high time to rethink how it succeeds.

Photographs from across the globe capture the impact of people on the climate – and of the climate on people

The word anthropocene has been proposed to denote an ongoing epoch in which human activity is a primary driving force of geological change. Although the word has caught on like wildfire in a colloquial sense, it was ultimately rejected as a descriptive scientific term, not so much because it was inaccurate but because of disagreements over when exactly it would have started – 1945, marking the unlocking of nuclear power; 1610, which may be the first time human activity affected the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; 1964, when the so-called Great Acceleration may have begun – or some other date altogether?

These questions point to deeper challenges in understanding just what the Anthropocene is: do we think of it in terms of nuclear fallout, the composition of the atmosphere, the size of the human population, or so many other worthy metrics? Hoping to help us better understand this substantial concept, the Cantor Arts Center’s new exhibition Second Nature: Photography in the Age of the Anthropocene brings together 44 photographic artists from across six continents, offering breathtaking and provocative looks at what humanity has wrought on this earth.

Wildfires are devastating Patagonia. In response, Argentinian authorities are removing environmental protections and raiding Indigenous communities

Soraya Maicoñio lives in Mallín Ahogado, a rural area in the Comarca Andina,a region of sparkling rivers, mountains, lakes and lush forests in Argentinian Patagonia. It is an area well-known for its small-scale agriculture, forestry and tourism.

In recent weeks, however, the region, which spans the provinces of Rio Negro and Chubut, has been in the news for its large-scale wildfires – and the authorities’ crackdown on the local population.

He said Peter Dutton was trying to kill everyone on Earth with his energy policy

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A new ‘golden passport’ scheme aims to raise funds to relocate people inland as climate change raises sea levels

The Pacific island nation of Nauru is selling citizenship to fund its retreat from rising seas, the country’s president, David Adeang, announced on Tuesday, opening a contentious “golden passport” scheme as climate financing runs dry.

The low-lying island nation of 13,000 residents is planning a mass inland relocation as the human-caused climate crisis raises global sea levels, eating away at the country’s fertile coastal fringe.

Climate Change Committee issues advice to government on meeting carbon emissions target by 2050

• What would reaching net zero mean for life in 2040s Britain?

Giving up two doner kebabs’ worth of meat a week will be enough to keep the UK within safe climate limits by the end of the next decade, as more drastic changes in behaviour can be avoided if the government takes action on greenhouse gases from energy, transport and industry, the UK’s climate advisers have said.

People would need to change their behaviour in some ways, such as by eating about 260g less meat each week, but this was likely to happen gradually and in line with health trends. “We are absolutely not saying everyone needs to be vegan. But we do expect to see a shift in dietary habits,” said Emily Nurse, head of net zero at the Climate Change Committee, which on Wednesday published its official advice to the government on meeting the UK’s target of reaching net zero emissions by 2050.

Appeal from officials, including two senior figures from Trump’s first term, comes amid reports National Science Foundation’s budget will be slashed

• US politics live – latest updates

Chuck Hagel, the former US defense secretary, and other former US national security officials, including two senior figures from Donald Trump’s first term, on Tuesday warned that China was outpacing the US in critical technology fields and urged Congress to increase funding for federal scientific research.

The appeal comes a week after the National Science Foundation (NSF), which funds science research, fired 170 people in response to Donald Trump’s order to reduce the federal workforce. An NSF spokesman declined comment on reports that hundreds more layoffs were possible and that the agency’s budget could be slashed by billions.

Exclusive: The ‘deeply troubling’ move comes amid concerns US ignoring international climate ramifications

US officials have missed recent international climate forums sparking concerns about a potentially significant shift from Donald Trump’s first term, a review of meeting records and interviews with meeting attendees by the Centre for Climate Reporting and the Guardian show.

On his first day back as president, Trump signed an executive order on stage in front of supporters at an arena in Washington DC which he said was aimed at quitting what he called the “unfair one-sided Paris climate accord rip off”. Trump’s exit from the Paris agreement means the US will join Iran, Libya and Yemen as the only countries outside the international agreement adopted in 2015 to limit global warming.

Protesters who tried to disrupt completion of Mountain Valley pipeline to defend themselves in Virginia court

Climate activists who tried to disrupt the completion of a fossil-fuel pipeline through Appalachian forests will appear in court in Virginia on Tuesday to face serious criminal charges that they vehemently deny.

The Mountain Valley pipeline (MVP) was pushed through by the Biden administration in mid-2023 – overriding court orders, regulatory blocks and widespread opposition to the 300-mile (480km) fossil fuel project. Biden’s decision triggered a wave of non-violent protests and civil disobedience against the pipeline in Virginia and West Virginia as work crews rushed to finish construction of the pipeline through sensitive waterways and protected forests.

For more than 20 years, scientists have followed the animals in Norway’s Arctic archipelago to understand how they may adapt to changing threats as the ice they depend on melts

When Rolf-Arne Ølberg is hanging out of a helicopter with a gun, he needs to be able to assess from a distance of about 10 metres the sex and approximate weight of the moving animal he is aiming at, as well as how fat or muscular it is and whether it is in any distress. Only then can he dart it with the correct amount of sedative. Luckily, he says, polar bears are “quite good anaesthetic patients”.

Ølberg is a vet working with the Norwegian Polar Institute, the body responsible for the monitoring of polar bears in Svalbard, an archipelago that lies between mainland Norway and the north pole. Every year he and his colleagues track the bears by helicopter, collect blood, fat and hair samples from them and fit electronic tracking collars.

Result is further evidence that political conversation around the climate crisis has shifted

• German election live – latest updates

In the final days of an election campaign dominated by migration, the likely new chancellor of Europe’s biggest polluter sought to assure voters that its economy ministry would not be occupied by NGOs. Instead, the conservative lead candidate Friedrich Merz posted on social media that it would be led by “someone who understands that economic policy is more than being a representative for heat pumps”.

Climate action barely featured on the campaign trail before Germany’s federal elections on Sunday – except when right-leaning parties used it to swipe at the Greens. Merz’s jab was at the tamer end of attacks aimed at the Green party candidate, Robert Habeck, the economy and climate minister who pushed through an unpopular law to promote clean heating, but is a sign of how far the political conversation around climate action has shifted.

Emissions estimated at 55m tonnes in 2024 and nearly 230m tonnes in three years of war

The burning of Ukraine’s forests at unprecedented rates over the past year has helped push the total greenhouse emissions from the war since Russia’s full-scale invasion to almost 230m tonnes, analysis shows.

The study, published on the third anniversary of the invasion, found the fighting and its consequences had led to 55m tonnes of emissions in the past 12 months.

Environment Agency warns of risk of river and surface flooding, as climate crisis brings warmer and wetter winters

Flood warnings are in place across the UK after a weekend of heavy rain and high winds.

As sunshine and scattered showers moved in on Monday, flood warnings were issued across much of Wales, the south and south-west of England and a few in central Scotland.

Green sector growing at triple the rate of the UK economy, providing high-wage jobs and increasing energy security

The net zero sector is growing three times faster than the overall UK economy, analysis has found, providing high-wage jobs across the country while cutting climate-heating emissions and increasing energy security.

The net zero economy grew by 10% in 2024 and generated £83bn in gross value added (GVA), a measure of how much value companies add through the goods and services they produce.

The eclectic neighborhood was devastated by the wildfire last month; galleries and artists are now working to protect its legacy

A charred baby Slinky, a handful of book ash, blackened cowrie shells from a necklace made in Ghana. These are some of the remnants of precious things the artist Kenturah Davis has salvaged from what is left of her Altadena home.

Nearby, there is virtually nothing left of her parents’ home of 40 years. Gone are her mother’s intricately stitched quilts and a trove of paintings and sketches Davis’s father made of Hollywood backlots during his decades of working on television and movie sets.

Exclusive: Top officials and climate policy experts believe delays in cutting emissions make it improbable 2045 target will be met

Scotland is likely to miss its legally binding climate target by up to 20m tonnes, according to official data seen by the Guardian.

The Scottish government set itself the world-leading target of reaching net zero – the point where any excess carbon emissions are soaked up by trees, peat or carbon capture – by 2045.