Around The Web

There is a growing effort to reconnect swimmers with city waterways once thought permanently lost to pollution

From the time he first felt the water around his ankles when his family filled up their new pool, to his first tentative steps into Sydney Harbour, Pete Magner has always been swimming.

The 47-year-old says the water is where he feels most free.

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For three hours I fend off traffic and protect the ducklings like a crazy lollipop lady with a fishing net. I’m exhausted but as determined as that mother duck

Pacific black ducks are common in Melbourne parks. They’re beautiful birds with chocolate plumage and brown heads bisected by toffee-coloured stripes. But last weekend, I had no time to appreciate their looks when I heard quacking coming from outside my flat.

It was a Pacific black duck with eight ducklings. Half a dozen people herded them around the garden, taking photos with their phones. I called rescue group Wildlife Victoria and their advice nearly floored me.

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The first week of negotiations over Article 6 rules to govern international emissions trade under the Paris Agreement ended on Saturday without agreement, leaving ministers with unwieldy documents to work on when they convene at COP26 in Glasgow on Monday.

Organisers say about 100,000 people joined a rally on Glasgow Green to demand more action on the climate crisis.

The new Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Markets (IC-VCM) is focused on advancing its role as a governing body for the entire voluntary marketplace, but is also open to working with jurisdictions and organisations that operate compliance markets, senior IC-VCM officials said in Glasgow in Friday. A Carbon Pulse subscription is required to read […]

These elegant birds have long held a special place in the nation’s heart and imagination. But now they are dying in untold numbers

To the British, the swan is not so much a bird as a national treasure – the avian equivalent of Dame Judi Dench or Sir David Attenborough. Its unique status is a result of its long and complex history living alongside us, a relationship that goes back well over a thousand years.

Alarm at reports last week that dozens of swans and cygnets have died of bird flu in Shakespeare’s home town of Stratford-upon-Avon – up to half of the town’s population – reminded us just how passionate the British public are about the bird.

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Up to 100,000 people expected at Glasgow march amid criticism over heavy policing at Cop26 summit

People on almost every continent were preparing for marches and rallies on Saturday to mark a Global Day for Climate Justice, halfway through the Glasgow climate change summit.

Activists in the Philippines, which is eight hours ahead of the UK, had already finished their rally as protesters gathered in Scotland.

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Fighting climate change is a huge opportunity for Brazil to catalyze the country’s sustainable economic development while also protecting the planet

Science is clear: climate change is unequivocal, and a result of human activity. The planet is already 1.1C warmer than pre-industrial levels and on a route to reach 2.5C or more this century, which could be catastrophic. The poorest and the most vulnerable populations will suffer more and earlier.

Climate change will bring droughts, floods, extreme temperatures and hurricanes that may become more intense and frequent overtime and impact billions of people. The rise of sea levels, lack of water and food, and regions becoming unfeasible to live may generate massive migrations in a planet already closing frontiers.

Luís Fernando Guedes Pinto is the knowledge director of SOS Mata Atlântica

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Congress must help usher in a new energy age - a clean energy age with the same level of support that fossil fuels companies have received for over a century

Over a century ago, our families were central in unlocking fossil fuels. Government embraced this technological advancement and invested in the infrastructure and production needed for its growth. Our personal histories compel us to publicly acknowledge what we have known for many years: the extraction and burning of fossil fuels is killing life on our planet.

Fossil fuels killed 8.7 million people globally in 2018 – disproportionately impacting Black, Brown, Indigenous, and poor communities. Human lives aren’t the only ones being lost. More than 1 billion sea creatures along the Canadian coast were cooked to death during this summer’s record-breaking heatwave in the Pacific Northwest.

Aileen Getty is the founder of the Aileen Getty Foundation and the co-founder of the Climate Emergency Fund

Rebecca Rockefeller Lambert is the co-founder of the Equation Campaign and serves on the boards of the Rockefeller Family Fund and the David Rockefeller Fund

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Thomas Vilsack says US does not ‘have to reduce the amount of meat or livestock produced’ to tackle climate crisis

Americans can carry on eating meat while keeping the world within safe limits on global heating, the US secretary of agriculture has insisted.

Thomas Vilsack said: “I do not think we have to reduce the amount of meat or livestock produced in the US. And a significant percentage is exported. It’s not a question of eating more or less or producing more or less. The question is making production more sustainable.”

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Open and fair reporting of progress on targets is crucial for any climate deal to succeed, says an insider

One of the key negotiating issues for Cop26 remains unresolved at this late stage: transparency. Under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, nations set targets on their future greenhouse gas emissions, but we don’t yet know how we will ensure that the ways they report and account for those targets and emissions are transparent and fair.

The discussions on transparency to finalise the nuts and bolts of the framework set up in Paris are stalled. Discussions should have been finalised in 2020 but were postponed owing to the pandemic. We are a year behind in the mandate and with most talks happening in a challenging virtual format throughout last year and this one, there is still no clear path toward agreement. If we do not get this right it threatens to undermine any agreement to close the gap between the targets countries set and the emissions cuts needed to keep warming to 1.5C.

Every week we’ll hear from negotiators from a developing country that is involved in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations and is attending the Cop26 climate conference.

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Despite rescue efforts to plant ‘twite meadows’ only 12 pairs of seed-eating bird bred this summer

A small bird once so abundant it was called “the Pennine finch” is teetering on the brink of extinction in England after just 12 pairs bred this summer.

The twite, an inconspicuous, seed-eating bird that nests in the uplands and spends winters on coastal marshes, has suffered a precipitous decline this century, with the breeding population falling by 75% between 1999 and 2013.

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Analysis: the ‘significant outcomes’ came thick and fast but there are question marks about credibility

Long before delegates gathered in Glasgow, the scene for Cop26 was set by the starkest warning yet from the world’s scientists that human activity was unequivocally disrupting the climate, extreme weather was growing more intense, and urgent action was needed to prevent still worse chaos in the future.

“Code red,” declared the UN secretary general, António Guterres, as evidence mounted this summer of ever fiercer heatwaves and increasingly deadly storms and floods. No pressure, then, on the climate diplomats who were told they represented the “last best chance” of holding global heating to 1.5C.

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Politician says droughts and climate-induced famine in the country are a result of the behaviours of rich nations

More than a million people facing the first climate-included famine in Madagascar are paying the price for cheap flights in Europe and appliances such as gas heaters, the country’s environment minister has said.

For several years now, the south of Madagascar has suffered successive droughts of increasing severity, and the situation has deteriorated sharply over the last few months. In August, the UN said the country was facing the world’s first climate change famine. On Tuesday, a World Food Programme representative spoke of a “heartbreaking” visit to the country with more than one million people facing famine.

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Like the activists I believe in action, not words. Global leaders mouth good intentions, but they are woefully insufficient

Say what you like about how dismally difficult it is to get a ticket, but “global Britain” still knows how to put on a show. Cop26 has now finished its first act – the world leaders’ summit – starring more than 120 heads of state, thousands of their aides and hangers-on, and the city of Glasgow.

I’m one of the hundreds from the British civil service working with the UN to stage-manage by far the most ambitious summit in either’s history. There was no shortage of volunteers – thousands of us applied, and for all the reasons you’d expect: idealism, ambition and simply to be present at a critical moment in modern world history.

The civil servant is a serving member of the UK civil service

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A daily summary of our news plus bite-sized updates from around the world.

Germany’s domestic carbon price should be at least doubled from 2022 as the country’s transport emissions are “heading in the wrong direction”, the German environment agency’s boss has said.

Callum Isted wants all primary children in Scotland to have a reusable bottle which they can refill at school.

Youth climate activists appeared sceptical about how genuine the political will to change is when they spoke at the Fridays for Future protest in Glasgow discussing youth empowerment.

 Campaigners and pressure groups have been underwhelmed by the commitments made by governments during the Cop26 conference's first week, many of which are voluntary or set deadlines decades away

• 'Cop26 is a failure': Greta Thunberg rallies climate activists in Glasgow – video

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US climate envoy and COP veteran John Kerry gave assurances on Friday that the wave of climate commitments announced during the first week at the Glasgow UN conference will result in “real money being put on the table” and allow for concrete action to avoid catastrophic climate change.