Environment news

• Labour’s clean energy plan will not only cut emissions but lift hundreds of thousands out of fuel poverty | Ed Miliband

  08-02-2025 20:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The party’s agenda is about energy security, lower bills, economic growth and good jobsEd Miliband is the Labour MP for Doncaster North and secretary of state for energy security and net zeroDuring four years in opposition and in the seven months since this government came to office, we have been clear: smart climate policy means not only protecting future generations from the biggest existential threat we face, but fighting to make working people better off today, growing our economy and
  
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• Where the heart is: the artist memorialising homes lost in the LA fires – in pictures

  08-02-2025 18:00 via theguardian.com
  
  On 10 January, as fires raged across Los Angeles, local portrait artist Asher Bingham made an offer via an Instagram reel: “ To anyone that has lost a home in the #LAfires I will draw [it] for free.” She had already drawn the house of a close friend that had burned down; by offering her services more widely, she hoped to help others grieve for what they’d lost. She wasn’t prepared for the response. So many people sent in photos – 1,300 and counting – that she
  
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• Western food was unhealthy and costly. So they turned back to bison and mushrooms

  08-02-2025 17:00 via theguardian.com
  The Siċaŋġu Nation in South Dakota is building community and climate resilience through traditional foodsOn a Wednesday summer evening on the Rosebud Reservation, members of the Siċaŋġu Nation arrange 12 tables to form a U in the parking lot of a South Dakota Boys & Girls Club. The tables at the Siċaŋġu Harvest Market are laden with homemade foods for sale: tortillas, cooked beans, pickles and fresh-squeezed lemonade.The market is one of many ways
  
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• Kew’s rescue mission: arborists head to Scotland after hundreds of trees and plants felled by Storm Éowyn

  08-02-2025 17:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Scotland’s botanic gardens suffer ‘unimaginable’ loss of rare specimensFor more than a century, whenever winter came to Scotland, they stood tall against the wind and rain and snow. But last month, battered by Storm Éowyn, hundreds of rare and historic trees in the living collection of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh were lost.The charity has four sites in Scotland. Its tallest tree in Edinburgh, a 166-year-old Himalayan cedar, fell during Éowyn’s gusts o
  
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• ‘Backsliding’: most countries to miss vital climate deadline as Cop30 nears

  08-02-2025 09:00 via theguardian.com
  Developing countries urge biggest polluters to act as Trump’s return to the White House heightens geopolitical turmoilThe vast majority of governments are likely to miss a looming deadline to file vital plans that will determine whether or not the world has a chance of avoiding the worst ravages of climate breakdown.Despite the urgency of the crisis, the UN is relatively relaxed at the prospect of the missed date. Officials are urging countries instead to take time to work harder on their
  
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• UK conservation goals insufficient to save ants and bees, says expert

  08-02-2025 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Science committee chair calls for monitored species to include groups such as moths, lice and hymenopteraThe UK’s targets to stop the destruction of the natural world are so inadequate that they could be met even if all the country’s bees, wasps, ants and moths were to go extinct, the government has been warned.Natural England’s red list and the government’s biodiversity indicators are used to measure changes in species abundance and as the baseline measures for targets t
  
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• Country diary: The first, early stages of awakening as the Earth tilts towards the south | Sara Hudston

  08-02-2025 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Bridport, Dorset: Dormant buds formed at the end of last summer are responding to an alchemy of hormones, stored sugars and the gradual lightening of daysLeafless trees are thickening and blurring, their twigs swelling. Wooded hill-lines that a month ago showed sharp outlines against the sky have become smudged with a smoke of developing buds.This is the first, early stage of awakening, a slow, subtle infill that comes with the return of birdsong and the gradual lightening of days. Dormant buds
  
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• More than 100,000 homes in England could be built in highest-risk flood zones

  08-02-2025 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Exclusive: Analysis suggests development in flood regions result of Labour push for 1.5m new homes in five yearsMore than 100,000 new homes will be built on the highest-risk flood zones in England in the next five years as part of the government’s push for 1.5m extra properties by the end of this parliament, Guardian analysis suggests.Building on areas with the highest risk of serious flooding is supposed to be discouraged. Experts say development should be avoided unless absolutely necess
  
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• The indigenous community fleeing its drowning island

  08-02-2025 02:47 via bbc.com
  
  Rising sea levels threaten homes in Panama, but not everyone wants to leave.
  
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• What lies beneath: Melbourne’s often maligned surf has created a growing snorkelling scene

  08-02-2025 00:00 via theguardian.com
  One dedicated Facebook group now has almost 20,000 members, attracted by sea life found just metres from Port Phillip Bay’s shoreGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastWading into the warm crystal-clear water at the northern end of Melbourne’s Port Phillip Bay – bearing flippers, a snorkel and a mask – a colourful underwater wonderland teeming with life opens up just metres from the shoreline.Within a few minutes, we spot a tiny headshield slug and a p
  
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