The Guardian

Simon Stiell calls for reform at development banks to enable governments to provide more climate finance to developing world

The World Bank must take a “quantum leap” to provide new finance to tackle the climate crisis or face “climate-driven economic catastrophe” that would bring all the world’s economies to a halt, the UN climate chief has said.

Simon Stiell warned that there were just two years left to draw up an international plan for the climate that would cut greenhouse gas emissions in line with the goal of limiting temperature rises to 1.5C above preindustrial levels.

EPA takes action for first time in 27 years against ‘forever chemicals’ feared to be contaminating water for over 200 million

The US Environmental Protection Agency has set legally enforceable drinking water limits for a group of the most dangerous PFAS compounds, marking what public health advocates hailed as “historic” rules that will dramatically improve the safety of the nation’s water.

PFAS, known as “forever chemicals”, are ubiquitous in the environment and thought to be contaminating drinking water for over 200 million people across the US. Any exposure to some highly toxic varieties of the compounds is considered a health and cancer risk.

Reduction in yields means UK will be dependent on imports for wheat in coming year and possibly beyond

Record-breaking rain in recent months has drastically reduced the amount of food produced in the UK, farming groups have said.

Livestock and crops have been affected as fields have been submerged since last autumn.

Heat stress from global heating could lead to impaired vision and increased deaths of pregnant mothers and their unborn young, Australian researchers say

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Octopuses could lose vision and struggle to survive due to heat stress by the end of the century if ocean temperatures continue to rise at the projected rate, a new study has found.

While previous research has suggested octopuses are highly adaptable, the latest research found heat stress from global heating could result in impaired eyesight and increased deaths of pregnant mothers and their unborn young.

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Exclusive: Report finds lack of funding has led to just 6% of land being managed effectively for nature

National parks are failing to tackle the biodiversity crisis, with just 6% of national park land in England and Wales managed effectively for nature, according to the first full assessment of how well they are supporting nature recovery.

National parks, which cover 10% of England and 20% of Wales and this year celebrate their 75th anniversary, are not restoring nature because of a chronic lack of government funding and because they were designed for a different era, according to the report by the Campaign for National Parks (CNP) charity.

Court finds in favour of group of older Swiss women who claimed weak policies put them at greater risk of death from heatwaves

Weak government climate policies violate fundamental human rights, the European court of human rights has ruled.

In a landmark decision on one of three major climate cases, the first such rulings by an international court, the ECHR raised judicial pressure on governments to stop filling the atmosphere with gases that make extreme weather more violent.

Weak government climate policies violate fundamental human rights, the European court of human rights has ruled.

In a landmark decision on one of three major climate cases, the first such ruling by an international court, the ECHR raised judicial pressure on governments to stop filling the atmosphere with gases that make extreme weather more violent.

The court’s top bench ruled that Switzerland had violated the rights of a group of older Swiss women to family life

• Human rights violated by inaction on climate, ECHR rules in landmark case

Florida is on track to ban cell-cultivated meat while three others float it – but experts say the reasoning has little to do with safety, ethical or environmental questions

At a press conference in February, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, told a room full of reporters: “We’re not going to do that fake meat. That doesn’t work.” He’d been discussing legislation under debate in the statehouse that would ban cell-cultivated meat – an emerging technique that, instead of slaughtering animals for consumption, grows meat in a lab using a small sample of animal cells.

A few weeks later, a Republican member of the Florida legislature – and cattle rancher – Dean Black took to the House floor, saying, “Cultured meat is not meat … it is made by man, real meat is made by God Himself … If you really want to try the nitrogen-based protein paste, go to California.”

Landfill trash is the third-largest source of human-caused methane pollution in the US. To fight global heating, curb waste

An elusive climate menace is now easier than ever to see. In early March, a rocket launched into the sky with a satellite that spots methane emissions from space. MethaneSAT joined more than a dozen similar satellites now in orbit, scanning the Earth for pollution and feeding that information back to scientists, policymakers, industry, and the public.

What story does the data tell? One of methane on the rise, or one of collective efforts that avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis? Slashing methane is the most efficient way to slow global warming in our lifetimes. We have the chance – and the obligation – to do so.

Through the G20, Brazil’s president is challenging the dominance of the richest countries. This year will be a huge test of his strategy

The world stage often seems sepia-toned, dominated by the dusty international structures of the post-second world war era, favouring the world’s richest countries. However, it is increasingly clear that this setup isn’t sufficient to respond to the interests of the global south, including combating climate breakdown and expanding economic development.

Recognising this mismatch, Brazil under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has positioned itself as an international leader, focused on the agenda of emerging economic powers who prize stability, and in fact have much to lose from conflict and power struggles between rich countries.

Onshore wind and solar could provide 226GWh of electricity without impairing food production, says Friends of the Earth

England could produce 13 times more renewable energy than it does now, while using less than 3% of its land, analysis has found.

Onshore wind and solar projects could provide enough electricity to power all the households in England two and a half times over, the research by Exeter University, commissioned by Friends of the Earth (FoE), suggested.

G20 countries spent $142bn in three years to expand operations despite a G7 pledge to stop doing so, study finds

The world’s biggest economies have continued to finance the expansion of fossil fuels in poor countries to the tune of billions of dollars, despite their commitments on the climate.

The G20 group of developed and developing economies, and the multilateral development banks they fund, put $142bn (£112bn) into fossil fuel developments overseas from 2020 to 2022, according to estimates compiled by the campaigning groups Oil Change International (OCI) and Friends of the Earth US.

If the anomaly does not stabilise by August, ‘the world will be in uncharted territory’, says climate expert

Another month, another global heat record that has left climate scientists scratching their heads and hoping this is an El Niño-related hangover rather than a symptom of worse-than-expected planetary health.

Global surface temperatures in March were 0.1C higher than the previous record for the month, set in 2016, and 1.68C higher than the pre-industrial average, according to data released on Tuesday by the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Leaders need to persuade others of the need for environmental measures rather than capitulate in the face of political headwinds

Last month, a survey of public opinion in Germany, France and Poland found that a majority in each country would support more ambitious policies to tackle the climate emergency. The same study also found unexpectedly widespread support for pan-European action linking green goals to other priorities such as economic security. Who knew, at a time when warnings of a popular “green backlash” are rife?

Unfortunately, Europe’s politicians are now on a very different page. Rattled by farmers’ protests – which radical-right parties have swiftly co-opted as a new front in their culture wars – Brussels and national governments have been busily sounding a disorderly, panicked retreat on environmental targets. Since the turn of the year, the U-turns and capitulations have come thick and fast.

Australian limits on acceptable levels of these toxic chemicals in drinking water ‘orders of magnitude’ higher than in US

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High levels of so-called forever chemicals have been found in surface and groundwater all over the world, with Australia one of several hotspots for toxic PFAS, a University of New South Wales study has found.

Researchers examined groundwater samples from around the world and found 69% had per-and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) at levels above Canada’s safe drinking water criteria and 32% had levels higher than the US proposed drinking water hazard index.

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Around 1m people, including 13,000 youths, especially vulnerable because they can do little to protect themselves, co-author says

Nearly half of US prisons draw water from sources likely contaminated with toxic PFAS “forever chemicals”, new research finds.

At least around 1m people incarcerated in the US, including 13,000 juveniles, are estimated to be housed in the prisons, and they are especially vulnerable to the dangerous chemicals because there is little they can do to protect themselves, said Nicholas Shapiro, a study co-author at the University of California in Los Angeles.

Livestock bosses celebrate outcome at online summit, while critics condemn failure to tackle meat and dairy consumption

Lobbyists for the world’s biggest meat companies have lauded a better than expected outcome at Cop28, which they say left them “excited” and “enthusiastic” for their industry’s prospects.

US livestock bosses reflected on the conference’s implication for their sector on a virtual panel, fresh from “sharing US agriculture’s story” at the climate summit in December.

Campaigners and climate scientists had hoped the summit, which was billed as a “Food Cop” because of its focus on farming, would result in governments agreeing to ambitious action to transform food systems in line with the goals of the Paris climate agreement.

Slowing anthropogenic climate change is the ONLY thing that will save the reef

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Footage captures flooding near the rural township of Charleville following a weekend of heavy rain in parts of southern Queensland and northern New South Wales. Communities across the region have been impacted by flooding, with some isolated by road closures.

According to the Bureau of Meteorology, the Warrego River gauge near Bakers Bend, in south-west Queensland, recorded a peak of 10.16m on Monday morning

• Australia news live: major flooding in south-west Queensland

• It’s not just the total rainfall – why is eastern Australia experiencing such sudden, devastating downpours?

• Weather tracker: flood warnings after heavy rain in south-eastern Australia