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The party’s agenda is about energy security, lower bills, economic growth and good jobs

• Ed Miliband is the Labour MP for Doncaster North and secretary of state for energy security and net zero

During four years in opposition and in the seven months since this government came to office, we have been clear: smart climate policy means not only protecting future generations from the biggest existential threat we face, but fighting to make working people better off today, growing our economy and confronting the economic injustices we face.

In a world where climate policy is being questioned, this government’s message to those in the Tory and Reform parties who say that we should go backwards on climate is simple: you are wrong, and this government is going to speed up, not slow down, the clean energy transition, because that is how to grow our economy and fight for working people through our Plan for Change.

Ed Miliband is the Labour MP for Doncaster North and secretary of state for energy security and net zero

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Scotland’s botanic gardens suffer ‘unimaginable’ loss of rare specimens

For more than a century, whenever winter came to Scotland, they stood tall against the wind and rain and snow. But last month, battered by Storm Éowyn, hundreds of rare and historic trees in the living collection of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh were lost.

The charity has four sites in Scotland. Its tallest tree in Edinburgh, a 166-year-old Himalayan cedar, fell during Éowyn’s gusts of up to 80mph, while Benmore Botanic Garden on the west coast has suffered “unimaginable” devastation.

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Aid projects were designed to help Central Americans withstand extreme weather at home. Their end could undercut Trump’s goal of reducing migration.

President Trump tangled with its forecasters during his first term. As he slashes government spending, many wonder what that means for weather data.

Developing countries urge biggest polluters to act as Trump’s return to the White House heightens geopolitical turmoil

The vast majority of governments are likely to miss a looming deadline to file vital plans that will determine whether or not the world has a chance of avoiding the worst ravages of climate breakdown.

Despite the urgency of the crisis, the UN is relatively relaxed at the prospect of the missed date. Officials are urging countries instead to take time to work harder on their targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions and divest from fossil fuels.

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Exclusive: Analysis suggests development in flood regions result of Labour push for 1.5m new homes in five years

More than 100,000 new homes will be built on the highest-risk flood zones in England in the next five years as part of the government’s push for 1.5m extra properties by the end of this parliament, Guardian analysis suggests.

Building on areas with the highest risk of serious flooding is supposed to be discouraged. Experts say development should be avoided unless absolutely necessary because there is a significant chance of regular deluges, which will flood the properties, cause hundreds of millions of pounds of economic damage and make homes uninsurable.

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Some have halted work on the Biden-era $5 billion program to build E.V. charging stations. Others plan to keep building. Most are confused.

The move would run counter to a Biden administration push to cut back on single-use plastic, which was considered a milestone.

Musk believes Tesla’s rivals are more vulnerable to Trump’s moves against electric vehicles

Donald Trump’s attempts to slash incentives for electric cars would cause sales of the vehicles to plummet, with this effort cheered on by a seemingly confounding supporter – Elon Musk, the billionaire chief executive of Tesla and erstwhile champion for action on the climate crisis.

Trump has said that he “will revoke the electric vehicle mandate, saving our auto industry and keeping my sacred pledge to our great American auto workers”.

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The central bank has halted hiring to align with a White House directive and pulled back its work on climate change.

Emboldened by President Trump, West Virginia and other states are challenging a law that makes corporate polluters pay for past emissions.

Billions of pounds from energy bill payers to run out in 2027 but could be extended as soon as Monday

Green campaigners fear ministers are poised to award billions of pounds in fresh subsidies to Drax power station, despite strong concerns that burning trees to produce electricity is bad for the environment.

Drax burns wood to generate about 8% of the UK’s “green” power, and 4% of overall electricity. This is classed as “low-carbon” because the harvested trees are replaced by others that take up carbon from the atmosphere as they grow.

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By using a fiber-optic cable to detect tiny vibrations a mile below the surface, scientists discovered a surprising way that ice sheets move.

What the economics of coal-rich states like Wyoming tells us about the transition away from the dirtiest fossil fuel.

Producers are struggling to stave off environmental threats to Chablis’s distinctive character.

A green belt circling the capital of Burkina Faso is preparing the country for the climate crisis

As far as the eye can see is a hodge-podge of trees, vegetable plots and water tanks. Up close it may look like a gigantic allotment, but this unusual project actually stretches for 2,000 hectares (4,942 acres), a green belt that now completely rings the city of Ouagadougou.

The green belt began life many years ago in the 1970s, with the aim of building a protective wall against the encroaching desert that lies beyond the greenery, just a few steps away. In Burkina Faso, one-third of the territory – about 9 million hectares of productive land – is degraded, with an estimated average degradation rate of 360,000 hectares per year, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). “Burkina Faso is not a climatically favoured country, but the drought of the 1980s exacerbated the problem, leading to significant population movements toward less degraded areas,” explains Sidnoma Abdoul Aziz Traoré, an environmental economist and expert in land degradation at the Centre Universitaire de Ziniaré (CUZ). But the situation, he says, is not irreversible.

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The Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney has sold a majority stake in his Jigsaw Productions to the philanthropist Wendy Schmidt.

Concerns raised as $10bn Bezos Earth Fund halts funding for Science Based Targets initiative, which monitors companies’ decarbonisation

Jeff Bezos’s $10bn climate and biodiversity fund has halted its funding of one of the world’s most important climate certification organisations, amid broader concerns US billionaires are “bowing down to Trump” and his anti-climate action rhetoric.

The Bezos Earth Fund has stopped its support for the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), an international body that assesses if companies are decarbonising in line with the Paris agreement. Earth Fund had been one of two core funders of the SBTi, with the Ikea Foundation: the two accounted for 61% of its total funding last year. Earth Fund’s decision was first reported by the FT.

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New EPA administrator Lee Zeldin’s pillars pledge to help auto industry and have no mention of the climate crisis

A new and starkly different vision for the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been outlined by the Trump administration – one that involves mass staff cuts, an influx of industry lobbyists and, unusually, the promotion of artificial intelligence as a key agency priority.

A set of five “pillars” issued by new EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, to guide the agency, set up under President Richard Nixon in 1970 to protect US public health and the environment, does include one referencing “clean land, air and water for every American”.

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EU monitor says global temperatures were 1.75C above preindustrial levels, extending run of unprecedented highs

A run of record-breaking global temperatures has continued, even with a La Niña weather pattern cooling the tropical Pacific.

The Copernicus Climate Change Service said last month was the warmest January on record, with surface – air temperatures 1.75C above preindustrial levels.

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