The Guardian
Labour can win in 2024 with my plan to tackle the climate emergency | Rebecca Long-Bailey
Where is Boris Johnson? As flooding devastates large parts of the north, the Midlands and Wales, the prime minister’s strategy is to hide from public scrutiny and hope the whole thing blows over. It’s now 11 days and counting since his last public appearance.
This is a huge miscalculation. Because for all of Dominic Cummings’ talk of “superforecasting”, the government is ignoring the issue that will define politics for decades to come: our response to the climate crisis. From wildfires in Australia and the Amazon, to extreme heat in India, to drought in east Africa, climate-induced extreme weather is already reshaping our planet in disastrous ways.
Continue reading...Greenpeace faces hefty fine after admitting defying court order
Environmental group’s lawyers said they knew boarding North Sea rig was in contempt of court
Greenpeace faces a heavy fine after admitting its climate activists boarded a North Sea oil rig in defiance of a court order last year.
Transocean, the US-based drilling contractor, has asked the court of session in Edinburgh to impose unlimited fines on Greenpeace UK and consider jailing its executive director, John Sauven, for contempt of court.
Continue reading...Bohai Bay: the Chinese region disappearing inch by inch – in pictures
Farmland, abandoned seaside resorts and salt fields are slowly being claimed by the rising waters, with 100 million people predicted to be affected in China by 2050
All photographs by Sean Gallagher for the Guardian
Continue reading...We have a chance to halt biodiversity loss. The stakes have never been higher
Negotiations over a 10-year agenda for nature are about to begin. Our ecological future depends on the engagement of every global citizen
The year 2020 has been designated a “super year for nature”, when the global community will rededicate itself to halting biodiversity loss with a 10-year action agenda, scheduled for agreement at the conference of the parties to the UN Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) in Kunming in China in October.
On 13 January we published an initial “zero” draft of an action framework, which will be considered at negotiations being held in Rome from 24 February.
Continue reading...Australia's carbon emissions fall just 0.3% as industrial pollution surges
Emissions from electricity generation and agriculture decline, but tiny overall decline shows shortcomings of Coalition policy
Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions have dipped slightly on the back of new clean energy and a sharp fall from agriculture due to the drought, but the decline was almost entirely wiped out by surging industrial pollution.
Official data released on Monday revealed national emissions were down 0.3% in the year to September.
Continue reading...Victoria to introduce container deposit scheme to tackle recycling crisis
State trails the rest of the country in offering such a program but it will be part of ‘massive overhaul of recycling industry’
Victoria is set to get a container deposit scheme to tackle its recycling and waste crisis, just months after the state government rejected the idea.
It is the only Australian jurisdiction not to offer such a program and has resisted calls by the public, the opposition and the Greens to implement one.
Continue reading...The dead sea: Tasmania's underwater forests disappearing in our lifetime
The sea along the Tasmanian east coast is a global heating hotspot -- temperatures there have risen at nearly four times the global average. One man has watched entire sea forests disappear in his lifetime
Continue reading...Tories ignored expert flood advice and courted austerity. Behold the results | Simon Wren-Lewis
It has become an almost annual event. Heavy rain leads to widespread flooding, and people claim that we didn’t see it coming. Except we did. In 2007 the UK experienced a series of floods and the government commissioned a report from Michael Pitt, which stated: “The scale of the problem is, as we know, likely to get worse. We are not sure whether last summer’s events were a direct result of climate change, but we do know that events of this kind are expected to become more frequent. The scientific analysis we have commissioned as part of this review (published alongside this report) shows that climate change has the potential to cause even more extreme scenarios than were previously considered possible. The country must adapt to increasing flood risk.”
The Labour government acted on the report’s recommendations. Central government spending on flood defences increased by 10% in the financial year 2008-09, with an additional 10% increase in 2009-10. But then austerity happened. In 2011-12 and 2012-13, spending on flood defences was cut sharply.
Continue reading...More than 11,000 homes in England to be built on land at high risk of flooding
Exclusive Guardian and Greenpeace analysis finds areas hit by recent storms are planning houses on floodplains
More than 11,000 new homes are planned to be built on land at the highest risk of flooding in the regions battered by the worst winter storms in a generation, the Guardian has learned.
An analysis of planning documents reveals that 11,410 new homes have been planned for land the government considers high-risk in the seven English counties where thousands of properties have been devastated by flooding since November.
Continue reading...Believe the hype - budget 2020 is very important
Chancellor Rishi Sunak needs to satisfy competing audiences – but there is a way he can do it
Every budget is billed in advance as the most crucial in recent times, but are then instantly forgotten. The one Rishi Sunak will deliver in just over two weeks time may be one of the few that justifies the hype.
The reason so much is resting on the shoulders of the tyro chancellor is that the budget needs to satisfy a number of different audiences: the voters in the Midlands and the north of England who gave Boris Johnson his 80-seat majority; traditional Conservative voters; the financial markets; and foreign governments looking to see whether the UK will take a lead ahead of the COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow in November.
Continue reading...UK flood defence plans are inadequate, warn scientists
More investment in flood defences and improved planning for future disasters are urgently needed, scientists have warned.
They predict that the number of extreme wet days – which have already increased this century – will continue to rise in the coming decades and will bring even greater devastation than that experienced this month after Storm Ciara and Storm Dennis swept across the country.
Continue reading...Greta Thunberg’s mother reveals teenager’s troubled childhood
Greta Thunberg’s extraordinary transformation from a near-mute 11-year-old into the world’s most powerful voice on the climate crisis is revealed today by her mother.
In an emotional account, Malena Ernman describes how her daughter came to be diagnosed with autism, and how activism helped her overcome an eating disorder.
Continue reading...California street shut down after 40,000 bees swarm from hotel
Several people hospitalized in Pasadena after Africanized bees emerge from hotel’s eaves: ‘Something set them off’
A swarm of as many as 40,000 Africanized bees sent several people to hospital and closed a street in California, after swarming from the eaves of a Howard Johnson Inn.
Related: Ursus urbinus: 'elderly' 400lb bear spotted roaming Los Angeles suburb
Continue reading...Getting to zero net emissions in 2050 is going to be tough - but Labor committing to it is a damn good thing | Greg Jericho
It won’t be an easy task, but achieving zero net emissions will have a huge payoff for both the economy and the nation
When we look at the path to zero net emissions by 2050 two things stand out – firstly it is exactly in line with Labor’s old policy of a 45% cut by 2030, and secondly the government’s target of a 26% cut is woefully below what is needed.
This week, Anthony Albanese announced that Labor will commit to achieving zero net emissions by 2050.
Continue reading...Greta Thunberg to visit Bristol for youth climate protest
Teenage activist will make her second UK trip in past year to join next week’s event
Greta Thunberg will visit the UK next week to take part in a youth protest in Bristol.
The 17-year-old climate activist, who launched a global youth-based movement when she began a “climate strike” outside Sweden’s parliament in 2018, plans to join protesters on College Green on Friday.
Continue reading...With every flood, public anger over the climate crisis is surging | Gaby Hinsliff
The fossil-fuel companies know they’ll face increased social stigma unless they change
Sometimes it has felt as if the rain might never stop.
These storms have gone beyond the point of simply being storms now, each blurring into the next to create a strangely end-of-days feeling. Everything is freakishly sodden and swollen, and while the rural flood plain on which I live fortunately hasn’t flooded anything like as badly as some, the rivers are rising alarmingly. Yet still the lashing winds and biblical downpours keep coming. Suddenly the 40 Days of Action campaign that Extinction Rebellion (XR) will launch on Ash Wednesday (26 February), encouraging people to reflect on the environmental consequences of their actions in a kind of green Lent, feels ominously well named.
Continue reading...Great Barrier Reef could face 'most extensive coral bleaching ever', scientists say
This year’s bleaching likely to be widespread although less intensive than previous outbreaks, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says
The Great Barrier Reef could be about to experience its most widespread outbreak of mass coral bleaching ever seen, according to an analysis from the US government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
But the analysis, seen by Guardian Australia, says while bleaching could hit the entire length of the world heritage-listed reef, the impacts may not be as intense as previous major outbreaks.
Continue reading...Morrison’s roadmap to emissions reduction could turn out to be pap – but it’s not a terrible idea | Katharine Murphy
Some in the government do want to shift on climate policy, but it remains to be seen whether they have the guts
Given the Coalition’s unconscionable track record, it is very, very hard to assume the Morrison government will approach anything in climate change policy from a position of good faith.
But brace yourself, because I’m going to say something that might surprise you. I don’t think it’s dumb for Scott Morrison to be arguing that the Coalition should develop a roadmap before settling on a long-term emissions reduction target.
Continue reading...The Guardian view of Boris Johnson: neglecting the nation | Editorial
He ignores the floods while pursuing immigration plans and an attack on the BBC, which are destructive and divisive. The prime minister does not care
Two weeks after Storm Ciara rolled across Britain and Ireland and a week after Storm Dennis did the same, extensive parts of rural Britain remain under many feet of flood water. Heavy rains in the last 48 hours have prolonged the misery. The floods extend from Surrey to Cumbria, and from the Scottish Borders to the Welsh Marches. The counties in the Wye, Severn, Trent and Yorkshire Ouse watersheds are again hard hit. As the climate crisis deepens, such events are likely to be both increasingly common and increasingly severe.
People are extraordinarily resilient in the face of this kind of emergency. But human hardiness, community solidarity and individual kindness are not enough when floods repeatedly lay waste to homes, livelihoods, land, infrastructure and services. Ultimately it is only the state, both at local and national level, that can ensure the scale of preventive and responsive measures necessary to show that the whole nation is committed to enabling diverse ways of life to continue with reasonable security.
Continue reading...The Guardian view on the blue whale’s comeback: an ocean’s glory restored | Editorial
“Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.” Captain Ahab’s splenetic, dying declaration of defiance, as Moby Dick destroys his whaling ship and sends it below the waves of the Pacific Ocean, is among the most famous passages in Herman Melville’s extraordinary novel.
In reality, such triumphs of the hunted over the hunter were a fantasy in the brutal world of industrial whaling. The biggest cetacean of them all, the blue whale, had all but disappeared from the Southern Ocean by the time a ban on hunting it was introduced in 1967.
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