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UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Monday that there is no sign that governments are planning to effectively manage climate risks, urging the private sector to step up efforts and avoid greenwashing well ahead of November's COP27 UN climate talks in Egypt.

Global heating of 2C would cause billions in damage each year by 2050, according to risk assessment

The climate crisis will wipe at least 1% a year off the UK’s economy by 2045 if global temperatures are allowed to rise by 2C, the government has said.

More action would be needed on key areas such as flood defences, restoring natural protections such as peatlands and wetlands, and making the built environment more resilient to extreme weather, ministers said.

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EU member states should pursue emissions-cutting efforts in non-ETS sectors without resorting to flexibilities that may keep longer term targets out of reach, according to the lead parliamentarian for the bloc's revised Effort-Sharing Regulation (ESR).

Companies may be using the positive impacts of sport to divert attention from their roles in furthering climate change. Robin Canniford, Department of Management & Marketing, The University of Melbourne Tim Hill, Lecturer in Marketing, University of Bath Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Sponges are ancient marine animals and have already shown robustness against stresses from climate change. New research now shows they can also tolerate low-oxygen conditions. James Bell, Professor of Marine Biology, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington Rob McAllen, Professor of Marine Conservation, University College Cork Valerio Micaroni, PhD Candidate in Coastal and Marine Biology and Ecology, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Standardised nature-based voluntary emissions reductions (VER) prices found strength this week while technology-based CORSIA-eligible credits and others generally flatlined or sank.

Whales still face many threats, mostly from us, so let us savour this rare congregation of them in the Antarctic Peninsula

Good news doesn’t get any more in-your-face than this. One thousand fin whales, one of the world’s biggest animals, were seen last week swimming in the same seas in which they were driven to near-extinction last century due to whaling. It’s like humans never happened.

This vast assembly was spread over a five-mile-wide area between the South Orkney islands and the Antarctic Peninsula. A single whale is stupendous; imagine 1,000 of them, their misty forest of spouts, as tall as pine trees, the plosive sound of their blows, their hot breath condensing in the icy air. Their sharp dorsal fins and steel-grey bodies slide through the waves like a whale ballet, choreographed at the extreme south of our planet.

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In blow to climate campaigners, state encourages miners to ramp up output to avert winter gas crisis

China’s coal production reached record levels last year as the state encouraged miners to ramp up their fossil fuel output to safeguard the country’s energy supplies through the winter gas crisis.

The world’s biggest coal producer and consumer mined 384.67m tonnes of the fossil fuel last month, easily topping its previous record of 370.84m tonnes set in November, after the government called for miners to work at maximum capacity to help fuel the country’s economic growth.

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Lots of factors are at play in new data, including better home insulation and flu vaccinations.

Fund manager Carbon Cap's World Carbon Fund closed 2021 with a 59% annual gain, as allowances prices in the five main cap-and-trade systems rose to an average of $60/tonne, the company said on Monday.

Ministers say coping even with low levels could cost the country billions of pounds a year.

EUA prices dipped in line with weaker gas and power markets on Monday morning amid forecasts for milder weather, as demand for EUAs remained modest and trading activity was very limited.

China’s domestic carbon price could rise 400% above current levels by 2030 and kick on from there as part of the country’s efforts to decarbonise by 2060, oil major Shell said in a report Monday.

New Zealand carbon allowances hit a new record again on Monday, as the market continues to anticipate rising prices in the year ahead.

Nasa fixes malfunctioning equipment on a new rocket designed to take astronauts to the Moon.

Fish Legal calls for Environment Agency to reveal details on 2,000 sites under investigation

A campaign group is challenging what it says is an information blackout imposed by the Environment Agency on its investigation into suspected illegal sewage dumping in England.

The inquiry began after water companies admitted to the agency they may have been illegally discharging raw sewage from treatment works into rivers and streams.

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England’s water is bad and getting worse, with regulators too poor or politically cowed to do anything about it

Last year the Environment Agency received more than 100,000 reports of water, air and land pollution in England. The public told of rivers flowing with human faeces, chemicals dumped, fish killed, factories emitting dangerous fumes, nature reserves and the countryside trashed, as well as unbearable noise and dirty air.

Nearly all these reports were ignored and now we know why. According to shocking leaked documents, the agency, which is the statutory protector of England’s natural environment and therefore of much of its health and safety, had ordered its staff to ignore all but the most obvious, high-profile incidents. Its staff were sent to observe only 8,000 of the 116,000 potential pollution incidents and only a handful of companies were taken to court.

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Animal lacking dorsal fin last seen in Antarctic labouring to swim and considered unlikely to survive

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A juvenile humpback whale has been spotted in the Antarctic entangled in fishing gear, leading to calls from conservationists for better protections along migration corridors.

The sighting last Wednesday by scientists aboard the Crystal Endeavour occurred at Mikkelsen Harbour on Trinity Island, on the western side of the Antarctic peninsula.

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Tracking a wild cougar and swapping its collar battery is all in a day’s work for the Olympic Cougar Project, a partnership between a coalition of Native American tribes, a renowned cougar expert and the Washington Department of Transportation

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China’s thermal power generation rose 8.4% in 2021, government data showed Monday, with the nation’s Covid recovery causing a surge in carbon emissions.