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Canada narrows CCS crediting scope as it delays final Clean Fuel Standard regulations
COP26: Climate talks into overtime as nations near deal
COP26: REDD+ moving ahead of Article 6, but questions remain on approach, integrity
Success or failure?: Cop26 protesters give their verdict on the climate summit – video
After two weeks of negotiations, protests and climate action, the deadline for the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow came and went with leaders continuing to negotiate over the final details of a potential deal. The Guardian spoke to activists on the ground to find out their verdicts on the historic climate conference
Continue reading...Martin Rowson on attempts to phase out fossil fuel subsidies at Cop26 – cartoon
Sound the alarm: bees ‘scream’ when murder hornets attack, study finds
Royal Society Open Science research finds bees release ‘rallying call for collective defence’ that is ‘quite harsh and noisy’
A study has revealed a new defense mechanism used by bees when attacked by giant “murder” hornets: screaming.
When left unchecked, the giant Asian hornets can destroy a honeybee hive in hours, feeding on larvae and decapitating bees in what scientists call a “slaughter phase”. The hornets then feed severed body parts to their young.
Continue reading...Thinking of buying an electric car? Here’s what you need to know about models, costs and rebates
The upfront price of a new EV is still high in Australia but incentives such as rebates and interest-free loans can help. We look at what’s on offer
Scott Morrison once claimed electric vehicles might end the weekend, but the prime minister changed his tune this week when he announced the Australian government’s new EV policy.
While the strategy may not actually do much to help get people into an electric vehicle, it’s the start of a shift as state and territory governments are already setting up incentives to get more people into EVs.
Continue reading...Amazon birds shrink but grow longer wings in sign of global heating
Some species in Brazil have shrunk by nearly 10% over 40 years of measurements, say researchers
Birds in the Amazon are becoming smaller but growing longer wings, a study has found, with scientists saying global heating is the most likely explanation.
Several recent papers have reported birds getting smaller, but as their subjects were migratory birds there were many confounding factors that could have explained the results, such as hunting, pesticide use or habitat loss.
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Transform approach to Amazon or it will not survive, warns major report
Panel of 200 scientists tells Cop26 Indigenous people, business, governments and scientists must collaborate
The world’s approach to the Amazon rainforest must be transformed to avoid an irreversible, catastrophic tipping point, according to the most comprehensive study of the region ever carried out.
More than 200 scientists collaborated on the new report, which finds that more than a third of the world’s biggest tropical forest is degraded or deforested, rainfall is declining and dry seasons are growing longer.
Continue reading...COP26: How might decisions at the climate summit change our lives?
Cop26 guards slept in 40-person ‘dorm’ at Gleneagles despite Covid fears
Staff guarding delegates at five-star venue were asked to sleep on cots in cramped hotel lounge where they also ate meals
Government delegations staying at the five-star Gleneagles hotel for Cop26 were guarded by security personnel who slept on camping cots in a 40-person dormitory set up in a lounge at the venue, raising concerns about Covid safety at the climate summit.
The team of men were recruited and housed by a security company under a Foreign Office contract just days before the world leaders summit opened at the Glasgow climate talks. Three individuals have now come forward to raise their concerns about the cramped and unsanitary conditions in which they were housed at the luxury hotel.
Continue reading...The US-China climate agreement is imperfect – but reason to hope | Sam Geall
The surprise Cop26 announcement could herald a crucial era of climate cooperation between the two carbon superpowers
It could have been so much worse. At this critical juncture, talks between the world’s two carbon superpowers – together accounting for some 40% of global greenhouse-gas emissions – could easily have collapsed into a blame game, and a standoff that would have seriously set back global efforts. Instead, the surprise China-US agreement announced on Wednesday night offers renewed hope for joint leadership at last. After the bruising years of the Donald Trump presidency, and the impact of Covid-19 on the negotiations themselves and those poor countries most vulnerable to the climate crisis, trust in multilateralism hangs in the balance.
The new agreement is far from perfect and doesn’t go far enough. Despite promises to cooperate on reducing methane emissions, details in the plan are patchy and need more substance. It could even risk distracting from the multilateral work needed in these crucial last moments of the UN-led Cop26 talks. But it is still important, even inspiring, to see new cooperation emerge. The US and China climate envoys, John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua, shared warm words, the latter announcing that “there is more agreement between China and the United States than divergence.”
Sam Geall is CEO of China Dialogue and associate fellow at Chatham House
Continue reading...It’s half-time in Humanity v Climate Crisis, and Boris Johnson is our captain | Marina Hyde
The prime minister loves a metaphor, but is anyone looking forward to the outcome of this particular match?
Time’s a great healer. It may feel incredible now, but I think Boris Johnson will eventually look back on his final appearance at his own climate conference and regard it as a win that he spent it answering questions about some pompous Devonian QC-slash-MP. Let’s face it: the question of why Geoffrey Cox was allowed to coin it in the British Virgin Islands is ultimately going to feel a lot easier to handle than the question of why the British Virgin Islands were allowed to be permanently submerged under six feet of water.
So yes – right now, there are those who might imagine it embarrassing for the prime minister to have to spend so much as one nanosecond of Cop26 podium time addressing the institutionalised chiselling that still riddles both houses of parliament. But look at the bigger picture, guys! You’ve simply failed to consider how much more awks it’s going to be when we’re all distilling urine for drinking water, composting the dead, and fighting our own vengeful children for control of the higher ground. If Cop26 ends disappointingly, Johnson will eventually judge it a dodged bullet that the most significant failure of his premiership was veiled by 10 days of ferocious sleaze coverage.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
Continue reading...Hundreds of global civil society representatives walk out of Cop26 in protest
Indigenous people, representatives of farmers and environmental NGOs carry red ribbons as they exit convention centre
Carrying blood-red ribbons to represent the crucial red lines already crossed by Cop26 negotiations, hundreds of representatives of global civil society walked out of the convention centre in Glasgow on the final morning of the summit in protest.
The audience at the People’s Plenary in the conference blue zone heard speakers condemn the legitimacy and ambition of the 12-day summit before walking out to join protesters gathered on the streets beyond the security fencing.
Continue reading...Euro Markets: Midday Update
The changes to the Cop26 draft text and what they mean
Some parts of the crucial climate document have been strengthened while others have been softened
A second draft of the outcome of the Cop26 climate summit has been published. It will be subject to many further revisions before the final outcome is published, probably on Saturday or even Sunday.
Key provisions are still in there, including one calling for countries to return to the negotiating table next year because current targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions are inadequate to limit global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, the tougher of two goals in the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
I. Science and urgency
1. Recognizes the importance of the best available science for effective climate action and policymaking;
3. Expresses alarm and utmost concern that human activities have caused around 1.1 °C of warming to date, that impacts are already being felt in every region, and that carbon budgets consistent with achieving the Paris Agreement temperature goal are now small and being rapidly depleted;
II. Adaptation
6. Notes with serious concern the findings from the contribution of Working Group I to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report, including that climate and weather extremes and the adverse impacts on people and nature will continue to increase with every additional increment of rising temperatures;
18. Urges developed country Parties to at least double their collective provision of climate finance for adaptation to developing country Parties from the current level by 2025 as a step towards achieving a balance between mitigation and adaptation in the provision of scaled-up financial resources, recalling Article 9, paragraph 4, of the Paris Agreement;
III. Mitigation
20. Reaffirms the Paris Agreement temperature goal of holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels;
28. Urges Parties that have not yet communicated new or updated nationally determined contributions to do so as soon as possible in advance of the fourth session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement;
29. Recalls Articles 3 and 4, paragraphs 3, 4, 5 and 11, of the Paris Agreement and requests Parties to revisit and strengthen the 2030 targets in their nationally determined contributions as necessary to align with the Paris Agreement temperature goal by the end of 2022, taking into account different national circumstances;
36. Calls upon Parties to accelerate the development, deployment and dissemination of technologies and the adoption of policies for the transition towards low-emission energy systems, including by rapidly scaling up clean power generation and accelerating the phaseout of unabated coal power and of inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels;
V Finance, technology transfer and capacity-building for mitigation and adaptation
40. Urges developed country Parties to provide enhanced support, including through financial resources, technology transfer and capacity-building, to assist developing country Parties with respect to both mitigation and adaptation, in continuation of their existing obligations under the Convention and the Paris Agreement, and encourages other Parties to provide or continue to provide such support voluntarily;
VI. Loss and damage
61. Acknowledges that climate change has already caused and will increasingly cause loss and damage and that, as temperatures rise, impacts from climate and weather extremes, as well as slow onset events, will pose an ever-greater social, economic and environmental threat;
Continue reading...Delegates and a dinosaur: penultimate day of Cop26 – in pictures
Attendees on day 11 of UN summit in Glasgow included London mayor Sadiq Khan and a Tyrannosaurus rex
Cop26 climate summit: day 11 – as it happened
Continue reading...COP26: UN talks enter final phase as campaigners raise concerns about voluntary offsetting
The week in wildlife – in pictures
The best of this week’s wildlife pictures, including a swinging gibbon, a cheeky macaque and a preying crocodile
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