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How ‘out of touch’ Tony Blair became a serious threat to climate action
Even before his call for a net zero ‘reset’, there had been criticism of ex-PM’s lucrative links with fossil fuel nations
From the lush gardens of the Four Seasons luxury hotel in Sharm el-Sheikh, amid banks of bougainvillaea and trailing jasmine, green lawns and air-conditioned courtyards, the surrounding desert is kept at bay by hidden sprinklers, and the chaotic poverty of the rest of Egypt by high walls and discreet security.
In late 2022, on the sidelines of the Cop27 UN climate conference, the former UK prime minister Tony Blair was holding high-level meetings with senior figures from politics and business. His role in the negotiations raised questions for some, who began to worry that, having been a respected elder statesman on the subject – one who as prime minister crafted the UK’s first real climate measures, and made it the priority for the UK presidency of the G8 group of countries in 2005 – he might now be becoming, in the words of one Whitehall insider, “a serious threat to sensible climate policy”.
Continue reading...Trump cuts will lead to more deaths in disasters, expert warns: ‘It is really scary’
Layoffs and funding cuts to Fema and Noaa will impact how they predict and respond to disasters, warns professor Samantha Montano
The Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to disaster management will cost lives in the US, with hollowed-out agencies unable to accurately predict, prepare for or respond to extreme weather events, earthquakes and pandemics, a leading expert has warned.
Samantha Montano, professor of emergency management at Massachusetts Maritime Academy and author of Disasterology: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the Climate Crisis, said the death toll from disasters including hurricanes, tornadoes and water pollution will rise in the US unless Trump backtracks on mass layoffs and funding cuts to key agencies. That includes the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), whose work relies heavily on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), which is also being dismantled.
Continue reading...How the climate crisis threatens Indigenous traditions in Canada: ‘It’s not the way it used to be’
Shorter winters and thinning ice are imperiling cultural activities in the north, including hockey, broomball and hunting
Janelle Oombash stands on the smooth ice of an outdoor rink, keeping score and watching the time as two teams of teenagers run across the ice, whacking a ball with sticks under the afternoon sun. Outside the rink, a bonfire crackles, keeping spectators warm as they watch the game.
Broomball has been played for more than a century in northern Ontario. The game is similar to hockey, but players use a ball instead of a puck and wear specialized shoes rather than skates. Now 31, Oombash started playing the game at age 11. Her dad is a coach and taught her to play. “It’s a big sport. Everybody plays broomball or hockey,” she said.
Continue reading...Labor must heed the warnings wrapped up in its election win. Young voters are crying out for action | Intifar Chowdhury
Gen Z want the government to address the big structural problems: housing supply, inequality and climate
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I often write about how younger Australians are carving out a different political identity from older generations. But the election result has reminded us of what cuts across age and sits in our national core. That deep-seated Aussie reaction: “yeah-nah, that’s a bit much” when things go too far. We’re allergic to imported bravado, anything too loud, too messianic. And, when pushed, we don’t shout – we shrug.
This election was one long shrug. A rejection of chaos and division, not through fury but through an assertive, ballot-powered recoil.
Dr Intifar Chowdhury is a youth researcher and a lecturer in government at Flinders University
Continue reading...Cost of emissions from five major Australian resource companies more than $900bn, study finds
US researchers link BHP, Rio Tinto, Santos, Whitehaven Coal and Woodside Energy to specific climate harms over three decades
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Five of Australia’s biggest fossil fuel producers could be on the hook for hundreds of billions of dollars in damages after a US research team developed a method to link individual companies to specific climate harms and put a dollar figure to the impact.
This is the result of a new peer-review study published in the journal Nature that sought to establish a method that would allow courts to quantify the economic loss caused by fossil fuel producers for one kind of climate impact – extreme heat.
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Continue reading...Democrats Have Been at War With Oil Barons for Far Too Long
Scientific societies to do climate assessment after Trump administration dismissed authors
Two groups join forces for peer-reviewed research after key contributors on Congress-mandated report dismissed
Two major US scientific societies have announced they will join forces to produce peer-reviewed research on the climate crisis’s impact days after Donald Trump’s administration dismissed contributors to a key Congress-mandated report on climate crisis preparedness.
On Friday, the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and the American Geophysical Union (AGU) said that they will work together to produce over 29 peer-reviewed journals that will cover all aspects of climate change including observations, projections, impacts, risks and solutions.
Continue reading...Extinct Species Are Honored in a New York Art Show
Weed Manager of the Year: One Man’s Quest to Save the Sonoran Desert
Former Weather Service Leaders Warn Staffing Cuts Could Lead to ‘Loss of Life’
Puerto Rico drops climate lawsuit after DoJ sues states to block threats to big oil
Territory’s voluntary move comes as Trump administration makes good on pledge to end lawsuits against oil and gas
Puerto Rico has voluntarily dismissed its 2024 climate lawsuit against big oil, a Friday legal filing shows, just two days after the US justice department sued two states over planned litigation against oil companies for their role in the climate crisis.
Puerto Rico’s lawsuit, filed in July, alleged that the oil and gas giants had misled the public about the climate dangers associated with their products. It came as part of a wave of litigation filed by dozens of US states, cities and municipalities in recent years.
Continue reading...New ‘Climate Superfund’ Laws Face Widening Legal Challenges
Two Scientific Groups Say They’ll Keep Working on U.S. Climate Assessment
Ugandan activist asks HSBC to put ‘lives before profit’ as campaigners target bank’s AGM
Patience Nabukalu, who has experienced climate-related flooding, joins protestors from around the world to deliver a letter to CEO Georges Elhedery criticising the financing of oil, gas and coal projects
At nine years old, Patience Nabukalu was devastated when her friend, Kevin, died in severe flooding that hit their Kampala suburb, Nateete, a former wetland. Witnessing deaths and the destruction of homes and livelihoods in floods made worse by extreme rainfall has had a profound impact on her.
She decided to try to bring about change – to do what she could to amplify the voices of those in the Ugandan communities worst affected by the climate crisis.
Continue reading...Revealed: Forecasts of greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels soar in Trump’s first 100 days
Tariff chaos hampers Trump’s pledge to ‘drill, baby, drill’, but analysis still shows surge in planet-heating emissions
Donald Trump’s ambitions for the US to “drill, baby, drill” for more fossil fuels have ironically been hampered by the economic chaos unleashed by his own tariffs, but the US is still on track to increase oil and gas extraction, causing a surge in planet-heating emissions, a new analysis shows.
The US was already the world’s leading oil and gas power, producing more of the fossil fuels than any country in history during Joe Biden’s administration. But Trump has sought to escalate this further, declaring an “energy emergency” to open up more land and ocean for drilling and launching an unprecedented assault on environmental regulations in his first 100 days back in the White House.
Continue reading...Weather tracker: State of emergency as high winds and floods hit New Zealand
Met Service issues red warning amid deepening low pressure, while Europe experiences above average temperatures
Strong winds and flooding spread across New Zealand last week, with a state of emergency declared in Christchurch, after the country was battered by a destructive area of low pressure. A red warning, the highest warning level, was issued by the MetService (the national meteorological service).
The area of low pressure quickly deepened in the Tasman Sea off the west coast of New Zealand and travelled eastwards, with the centre of low pressure moving across the northern island and creating very strong winds, particularly through the Cook Strait, the body of water that separates the two islands. The wind direction was a south-easterly to southerly, which caused the winds to strengthen as they were funnelled between the islands.
Continue reading...Glut of early fruit and veg hits UK as climate change closes ‘hungry gap’
Warm weather means strawberries, aubergines and tomatoes have come weeks earlier than expected
A glut of early strawberries, aubergines and tomatoes has hit Britain with the dry, warm weather eliminating the usual “hungry gap”, growers say.
It has been a sunny, very dry spring, with the warmest start to May on record and temperatures predicted to reach up to 30C at the earliest point on record, forecasters have said.
Continue reading...A climate election? The Coalition wants to take Australia backwards, while Labor is standing still | Clear Air
Depending on where things end up after Saturday, the biggest climate push may come from the crossbench
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If further confirmation was needed that the Peter Dutton-led Coalition would take Australia aggressively backwards on dealing with the climate crisis, his final election costings released on Thursday tell the story in black and white.
The Liberal and National parties plan to gut programs designed to cut emissions and help create green industries to give the country an industrial future as demand for fossil fuels falls. They also plan to ignore advice that Australian nature is in poor and deteriorating health and strip back already limited funding for environment programs.
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