Environment news

• Starmer denies mounting class war as farmers claim they have been ‘betrayed’

  19-11-2024 18:46
  Prime minister says government is taking balanced approach amid protest in Westminster over proposed inheritance tax changes Farmers protest in Whitehall – live updatesWhat are the tax changes affecting UK farmers?Keir Starmer has denied that he is mounting a class war by targeting wealthy landowners and private schools, after the head of the National Farmers’ Union accused the government of an extraordinary “betrayal” over inheritance tax changes.In an escalating war of
  
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• China and India should not be called developing countries, several Cop29 delegates say

  19-11-2024 18:02
  
  Delegates from poorer nations say classifications that date back to 1992 are obsolete and two countries ‘should be contributing’China and India should no longer be treated as developing countries in the same way as some of the poorest African nations are, according to a growing number of delegates from poorer country at the Cop29 UN climate talks.China should take on some additional responsibility for providing financial help to the poorest and most vulnerable, several delegates told
  
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• England’s national parks facing financial peril due to budget cuts, say CEOs

  19-11-2024 16:00
  
  Exclusive: Leaders warn cost savings will lead to mass redundancies and that spaces could become ‘paper parks’England’s national parks face a 12% real-terms cut to their budget which would lead to mass redundancies of wardens and the closure of visitor centres and other facilities, park leaders have warned.The chief executives told the Guardian that soon the spaces would become “paper parks” designated by a “brown sign on the motorway” and they will have
  
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• Cop29 live: Slashing methane emissions is ‘our emergency brake’, UN says

  19-11-2024 13:47
  Cop29 presidency announces new drive to cut methane emissions from waste dumps as G20 reaffirms transition from fossil fuelsThe UK government has conceded that Australia was mistakenly included on a list of countries that were expected to sign up to a US-UK civil nuclear deal agreed at Cop29 on Monday, writes Adam Morton, Guardian Australia’s climate and environment editor.The Albanese government flatly denied media reports on Tuesday that it would join the UK and the US in a collaboration
  
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• Cop29 live: UK, New Zealand and Colombia join coalition to phase out fossil fuel subsidies

  19-11-2024 13:24
  
  Dutch-led coalition has 16 member countries who committed to coming to COP30 with national plan for phasing out inefficient fossil fuel subsidiesThe UK government has conceded that Australia was mistakenly included on a list of countries that were expected to sign up to a US-UK civil nuclear deal agreed at Cop29 on Monday, writes Adam Morton, Guardian Australia’s climate and environment editor.The Albanese government flatly denied media reports on Tuesday that it would join the UK and the
  
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• Farmers ‘betrayed’ by ministers, says NFU as protest reaches Westminster

  19-11-2024 13:13
  
  Proposed inheritance tax changes targeted by body for agricultural industry in England and WalesFarmers protest in Whitehall – live updatesWhat are the tax changes affecting UK farmers?The head of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) has accused the government of an extraordinary “betrayal” over its budget changes to inheritance tax for agricultural properties, as he addressed hundreds of farmers who have travelled to London to lobby their local MPs.Speaking to about 600 far
  
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• What we’ve learned in the five years since our first environment pledge

  19-11-2024 13:00
  
  An update on our progress from the Guardian’s head of sustainabilityThe Guardian environment pledge 2024Support urgent, independent climate journalism todayFive years ago the Guardian made a pledge that we would “play a part, both in our journalism and in our own organisation, to address the climate emergency” with our first annual environment pledge. That commitment reflected our long history of environment reporting and our view that individual companies had to take greater r
  
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• The Guardian environment pledge 2024

  19-11-2024 13:00
  
  Five years on from our original pledge – here are six things the Guardian is doing to confront the emergency facing our climate and the natural worldSupport urgent, independent climate journalism todayWhat we’ve learned in the last five yearsIn late 2019, we took a stand. Of all the crises facing the world, the most alarming is climate breakdown. We asked ourselves: what can the Guardian do? The answer: to report relentlessly on this emergency each day – its causes, consequence
  
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• ‘I’m imagining what my mother went through in her last seconds’ – This is climate breakdown

  19-11-2024 13:00
  
  My brother called saying there was a storm. I was waiting, waiting, waiting. This is Elisa’s storyLocation Saint-Martin-Vésubie, FranceDisaster name Storm Alex, 2020Elisa is a women’s clothing designer who runs her own label in Montreal, Canada. She was born and grew up in Nice, France, where much of her family remained, but was in Canada with her children and partner when Storm Alex gusted towards France and the mountain village where her mother lived. The storm was a powerfu
  
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• Hundreds of lobbyists for industrial farming attend Cop29 climate summit

  19-11-2024 11:40
  
  Nearly 40% of food sector lobbyists have travelled to Baku as part of countries’ delegationsCop29 climate summit – live updatesHundreds of lobbyists for industrial agriculture are attending the Cop29 climate summit in Baku, analysis shows.They include representatives from some of the world’s largest agribusiness companies including the Brazilian meatpacker JBS, the animal pharmaceuticals company Elanco, and the food giant PepsiCo, as well as trade groups representing the food s
  
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• Construction is the world’s biggest polluter, yet Labour still refuses to tackle it | Simon Jenkins

  19-11-2024 11:00
  
  Refurbishing an old building is subject to full VAT, but it isn’t if you build a polluting new one. The government’s priorities are all wrongYou can damn oil companies, abuse cars, insult nimbys, kill cows, befoul art galleries. But you must never, ever criticise the worst offender of all. The construction industry is sacred to both the left and the right. It may be the world’s greatest polluter, but it is not to be criticised. It is the elephant in the global-heating room.It&r
  
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• Farmers ‘betrayed’ by ministers, says NFU head before London protest

  19-11-2024 09:47
  Proposed inheritance tax changes targeted by body for agricultural industry in England and WalesFarmers protest in Whitehall – live updatesWhat are the tax changes affecting UK farmers?The head of the farmers’ union has accused UK ministers of betraying the agricultural industry with changes to inheritance tax before a protest in Westminster.Tom Bradshaw, the president of the NFU, told Sky News that the environment secretary, Steve Reed, promised a year ago that a future Labour gover
  
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• Cop29 live: boost to summit as G20 reaffirms transition away from fossil fuels

  19-11-2024 09:09
  
  G20 communique in Rio contains key lines on climate confirming world set to transition away from fossil fuelsIn keeping with previous Cop summits in authoritarian countries, authorities in Azerbaijan appear to have made some limited allowances for civil society interventions during the conference.Here are some pictures of the activism taking place so far on Tuesday at Cop29.Brazil has shown leadership during its G20 presidency and this signal could pave the way for unlocking a transformative fin
  
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• UK’s intensive farming hotspots have 79 times more chickens than people, data shows

  19-11-2024 07:00
  
  Despite large poultry units being a key driver of river pollution, their number has soared near the Wye and Severn‘The sores on the fish are nasty’: what’s behind the changes in the Severn river?More than 51 million chickens are being industrially farmed in the river valleys of the Severn and Wye – the equivalent of 79 chickens for every person in the region, according to new figures.The exponential rise in large intensive poultry units (IPUs) in the valleys is a key driv
  
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• ‘The sores on the fish are nasty’: what’s behind the changes in the Severn river?

  19-11-2024 07:00
  
  Faced with a dearth of data on the impact of local mega farms, volunteers have shown sewage pollution has soaredThe sores were unlike anything veteran anglers had seen before. Black, swollen and blister-like, they started appearing on fish being caught in the River Severn in early summer.For anglers who spend many hours on the banks of the Severn around Shrewsbury, the blistering skin was yet another warning that the river, and its wildlife and habitats, are suffering. Continue reading...
  
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• ‘The sores on the fish are nasty’: what’s behind the changes in the River Severn?

  19-11-2024 07:00
  Faced with a dearth of data on the impact of local mega farms, volunteers have shown sewage pollution has soaredUK’s intensive farming hotspots have 79 times more chickens than people, data showsThe sores were unlike anything veteran anglers had seen before. Black, swollen and blister-like, they started appearing on fish being caught in the River Severn in early summer.For anglers who spend many hours on the banks of the Severn around Shrewsbury, the blistering skin was yet another warning
  
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• I’m obsessed with a historic shipwreck: it’s murky and dangerous but diving in the Thames, I feel like a detective

  19-11-2024 07:00
  
  When exploring wrecked warship the London I can barely see six inches ahead, but I’ve dived 500 times to document and save the secrets of thisvessel built by Oliver CromwellWhen I dive to the shipwreck of the London, a warship which was accidentally blown up in the murky waters of the Thames estuary in 1665, I dive in darkness. I can barely see six inches in front of me. And if I turn my torch off, I cannot see anything at all.But I love it. I’ve dived to the London about 500 times a
  
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• Country diary: The redwings have arrived – but why are they so skittish? | Mark Cocker

  19-11-2024 06:30
  
  Monsal Dale, Derbyshire: Of the five common thrushes that call Britain home, these are the most unpredictable and least approachableIt was that dusk moment when the brown-green of the fields merged with the green-brown of the trees and Great Shacklow Wood ran a chromatic scale down its steep slope into gathering, unresolved darkness by the river; and over everything was palest ice-blue.It was then that the redwings went to roost – a dozen silhouettes twisting and appearing almost to fall s
  
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• Cop29 negotiations aren’t moving fast enough. The Pacific is running out of time | Surangel Whipps Jr

  19-11-2024 05:24
  Small island states must continue to be protected by special circumstances and need access to sufficient climate-based finance, Palau’s president writesA week into Cop29 negotiations, we’re not moving fast enough – or anywhere for that matter – on some key issues.Climate finance, or more specifically the new collective quantified goal (NCQG) to replace the current $100bn a year goal, and the work to operationalise the loss and damage fund, are key expected outcomes here i
  
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• ‘Graveyard of corals’ found after extreme heat and cyclones hit northern Great Barrier Reef

  19-11-2024 01:13
  
  Marine scientists say one area around Cooktown and Lizard Island had lost more than a third of its live hard coral after bleaching eventFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastReefs across the north of the Great Barrier Reef have seen “substantial losses” of coral cover after a summer of extreme heat, two cyclones and major flooding, according to the first results of surveys from government marine scientists.Aft
  
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• Let’s not waste another summer debating climate science – Australia’s energy transition can work for everyone | Peter Lewis

  19-11-2024 00:45
  When the heat is on, the onus should be on the Coalition to explain why they don’t support measures to ensure their newly discovered battlers have access to rooftop solar Guardian Essential poll: almost half of Australian voters want Aukus reviewed after Donald Trump’s election winGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastAustralia is facing the extreme risk of dangerous concentrations of high pressure and hot air this summer. There is also a strong likelihood of hea
  
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