The Guardian

The challenges we face are enormous – economic, environmental, political. Our future is at stake, so let’s come together and win

We are living in the most difficult moment in modern history. If you feel anxious and overwhelmed about what’s going on, you’re not alone. The extraordinarily challenges we face are very real, but we can never let them become excuses for checking out of the political struggles that address these crises and will define our future.

Our nation and, indeed our planet, are at a critical juncture. It is imperative that we recognize what we are up against, and what we must do to move our politics toward justice and human decency. And we can start by acknowledging that the American people have been through a lot, and that their confidence in politics and in government has been shaken.

Agreements have been struck with African states home to crucial biodiversity hotspots, for land representing billions of dollars in potential carbon offsetting revenue

• Who is the UAE sheikh behind deals to manage vast areas of African forest?

The rights over vast tracts of African forest are being sold off in a series of huge carbon offsetting deals that cover an area of land larger than the UK. The deals, made by a little-known member of Dubai’s ruling royal family, encompass up to 20% of the countries concerned – and have raised concerns about a new “scramble for Africa” and the continent’s carbon resources.

As chairman of the company Blue Carbon, which is barely a year old, Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook al-Maktoum has announced several exploratory deals with African states that are home to crucial wildlife havens and biodiversity hotspots, for land that represents billions of dollars in potential offsetting revenue. The sheikh has no previous experience in nature conservation projects.

UN secretary general insists the 1.5C climate goal ‘is not dead, it’s alive’ on day one of summit in Dubai

At the Guardian we’ve been working hard to get you up to speed with what to expect from Cop28. If you can’t stop to read, you can listen.

The Guardian’s Science Weekly podcast this week focuses on everything you need to know about the climate talks, with host Ian Sample talking to Fiona Harvey, our environment editor and resident Cop expert.

As Rishi Sunak lands in Dubai, we are deeply concerned by the message the UK government is sending to countries in the global south affected by its alarming inaction on climate change. Ahead of the Cop summit this week, the UK claims that it is more ambitious on climate than any other major economy, but this couldn’t be further from the truth.

As it issues licences for over 100 new oil and gas fields and fails to provide a proper roadmap on how it will deliver £11.6bn in loss and damage finance to climate-stricken countries, the UK’s decisions today will continue to cause environmental catastrophe well into the future and cause immense harm to women and girls disproportionately affected by climate breakdown.

The UK is also the heart of the global financial sector, which our recent research found has poured hundreds of billions of pounds into fossil fuels and agribusinesses since the Paris agreement. With UK banks like HSBC and Barclays among the largest funders of climate chaos, it also has a responsibility to regulate the sector, ensuring that money stops flowing towards climate-wrecking industries.

Instead of accelerating investments into fossil fuels and continuing its harmful, polluting legacy, it should show strong leadership in Dubai and commit to phasing out fossil fuels entirely.

The disease left me debilitated and jobless. What will it take for the water companies to clean up their act?

Surfing was my life. In 2022, I even moved to Devon to work as a teacher so that I could be closer to the waves. As a surfer, I’ve always had a respect for the sea and the power of the tides. But I never realised that it was perhaps the quality of the water that was the biggest risk to my health.

At work one day, I suddenly experienced deafening tinnitus in my left ear. At an emergency doctor’s appointment I was told I had an ear infection and was given antibiotics. The doctor said the likely cause was exposure to sewage in the sea. I was eager to surf again, but I waited the recommended month before getting back in at Saunton Sands beach in north Devon. Perhaps naively, I forgot to check the sewage warnings and only noticed afterwards that there had been a sewage alert in place.

Reuben Santer is a surfer based in Devon

Success at Cop28 and in the future lies in equipping a new generation to lead the transition to a greener planet. Countries such as Kenya have already laid the groundwork

The faces of young climate activists have become familiar in reports of UN climate talks. Their frustration and anxiety are understandable. We are off-track in achieving global climate goals, and their generation faces a crisis it did not create.

But what often goes unnoticed in climate discussions is the proactive work of dynamic young people in low- and middle-income countries. From the Kenyan Youth Biodiversity Network engaging in national policy discussions to social entrepreneurs in the Philippines creating green business opportunities, young people are taking matters into their own hands by actively educating their communities and seeking green opportunities.

Speaking in the lead up to Cop28 in Dubai, Christiana Figueres said she has lost faith in oil companies

People must balance outrage and optimism after a “hellish summer” of extreme weather, the UN’s former climate chief has urged at the start of the Cop28 climate summit.

“We have to keep the outrage really high because we are so darn late,” said Christiana Figueres, a veteran negotiator hailed as the architect of the Paris climate agreement. She pointed to the weak policies that governments have set in order to cut planet-heating pollution and the $7tn with which they directly and indirectly subsidise fossil fuels.

This year’s summit in Dubai must be the moment when the developing world finally meets its climate crisis promises

• Ban Ki-moon and Graça Machel are deputy chairs of the global human rights organisation The Elders

After a year marked by unparalleled global temperature highs and climate impacts, leaders are set to meet in Dubai for the 28th conference of the parties to the UN framework convention on climate change – Cop28. We have entered an unprecedented era of global heating: 2023 is near certain to be the hottest year on record.

We have seen extreme wildfires blanketing North America, more than 15,000 killed by extreme weather events in Africa, record-breaking heatwaves in China, southern Europe and the United States, as well as deadly hurricanes and cyclones including Storm Daniel, which killed at least 10,000 people in Libya, Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria, and caused at least $20bn (£16bn) of damage. Ocean temperatures also soared to record-breaking highs, posing a critical threat to the health of coral reefs and causing widespread disruption to marine ecosystems.

Graça Machel is a deputy chair of the global human rights organisation The Elders, and a women and children’s rights advocate. Ban Ki-moon is a deputy chair of The Elders, co-chair of the Ban Ki-moon Centre for Global Citizens, chair of the Global Center on Adaptation, and the 8th secretary general of the United Nations

We are belatedly waking up to the many health risks of microplastics. Yet too little research focuses on the most exposed demographic of all

For the last 70 years, we have all been lab rats in the biggest health experiment of human history, one that none of us signed up for, least of all our children.

In the run-up to attending the global plastic treaty negotiations in Nairobi, I was feeling frustrated about the coverage of microplastics and their impact on human health, so I wrote a report, Babies v Plastics. I wanted to emphasise that these tiny, insidious fragments of plastic are associated with not just one health risk, but with an entire range of health issues, from elevated miscarriage rates to early puberty.

Opposition vows to tackle rural connection delays to the grid while Conservatives call for offshore network to preserve landscapes

Labour is promising to “rewire Britain”, making its case to the UK’s rural communities that it will connect farmers and businesses to the National Grid at record-breaking speed.

The pledge comes as Rishi Sunak faces a battle over electricity pylons with the trade secretary, Kemi Badenoch, and former ministers urging him to pull the plug on crucial grid infrastructure.

The threatened bird index reveals largest declines in Queensland and South Australia

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Australia’s populations of threatened and near-threatened bird species have declined by 60% on average in the past 40 years, new research shows.

The threatened bird index, which is produced by scientists working with the University of Queensland, reveals some of the largest declines were among species found in South Australia and Queensland.

Of more than 8 million deaths worldwide from outdoor air pollution, 61% linked to fossil fuels, finds study

Air pollution from fossil fuel use is killing 5 million people worldwide every year, a death toll much higher than previously estimated, according to the largest study of its kind.

The stark figures, published on the eve of the Cop28 climate summit in Dubai, will increase pressure on world leaders to take action. Among the decisions they must make at the UN conference will be whether to agree, for the first time, to gradually “phase out” fossil fuels.

Study finds the significant rise is comparable to effect of a high-sodium diet and can contribute to cardiovascular problems

Getting stuck in traffic is one of the most common stressors that millions of Americans face every day. The bumper-to-bumper traffic can come at the cost of wasted gas, environmental pollution, and as new research shows, even spikes in blood pressure.

Air pollution from traffic can cause a significant rise in blood pressure that can last up to 24 hours, according to a study via the University of Washington. The spike is comparable to the effect of a high-sodium diet and can contribute to cardiovascular problems. Long-term exposure to vehicle exhaust has been widely linked with respiratory problems such as asthma, especially in children.

Fewer than 300 of the endangered carnivores believed to remain in lower 48 states, primarily in fragmented groups at high elevation

The North American wolverine, a species from the badger family that resembles a small bear with a bushy tail, will receive government protections under a Biden administration proposal after scientists warned that its harsh, prairie mountain habitat was being threatened by climate change.

The proposal by the US Fish and Wildlife Service to grant wolverines, sometimes called “mountain devils”, federal protections under the Endangered Species Act brings a close to 30-year fight by conservation groups who first petitioned for the species to be listed as threatened in 1994.

Guardian Australia's data and interactives editor Nick Evershed and data journalist Josh Nicholas crunch some numbers to get to the bottom of what Australia's love affair with the SUV means for the environment and safety on the roads

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Sultan Al Jaber calls allegations false as the United Arab Emirates prepares to host the biggest Cop meeting yet

Sultan Al Jaber, the president of the UN Cop28 climate summit, has hit back strongly at reports he abused his position to try to sign oil deals with other governments, as the United Arab Emirates prepares to host the biggest Cop meeting yet.

Al Jaber’s role is to act as an “honest broker” for the 190-plus governments gathering at the global climate talks, charged with leading them to a successful conclusion. He is also the chief executive of UAE’s national oil company, Adnoc, and campaigners say the two roles are in conflict.

It’s obscene that the super-rich can criminalise protest, while they burn the world’s resources and remain untouched by the law

Don’t they have children? Don’t they have grandchildren? Don’t rich and powerful people care about the world they will leave to their descendants? These are questions I’m asked every week, and they are not easy to answer. How can we explain a mindset that would sacrifice the habitable planet for a little more power or a little more wealth, when they have so much already?

There are many ways in which extreme wealth impoverishes us. The most obvious is money-spreading across our common ecological space. The recent reporting by Oxfam, the Stockholm Environment Institute and the Guardian gives us a glimpse of how much of the planet the very wealthy now sprawl across. The richest 1% of the world’s people burn more carbon than the poorest 66%, while multibillionaires, running their yachts, private jets and multiple homes, each consume thousands of times the global average. You could see it as another colonial land grab: a powerful elite has captured the resources on which everyone depends.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

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Bushfire season has begun, followed by school students striking for climate action and 97-year-olds blockading ports. Elsewhere, Australia celebrated 50 years of jousting, the Arias served up glamour, Melbourne shone a spotlight on homemade fashion and working dogs were put through their paces

• Australia’s best photos of the month

Move builds on decisions by states like Oregon to fully or partially prohibit the use of M-44s used to kill predators and other wildlife

A campaign to end the use of so-called “cyanide bombs” within the United States has received a major boost after the country’s largest public land management agency banned the poison devices on hundreds of millions of acres across the nation.

The move builds on decisions by states such as Oregon to fully or partially prohibit the use of cyanide bombs, also known as M-44s, within their jurisdictions. The US Department of Agriculture uses these devices to kill predators and other wildlife.

The Australian Automotive Association has found some SUVs use up to 13% more fuel on the road than reported in laboratory tests. Is your vehicle underperforming?

• The Crunch: what Australia’s love for SUVs means for emissions and safety – video
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A real-world testing program at the Australian Automobile Association has shown that some SUVs have much better fuel consumption than others.

The program, which compares the fuel consumption and emissions of vehicles in Australian driving conditions with each vehicle’s laboratory test result, showed some SUVs used up to 13% more fuel on the road than reported in laboratory tests.