Environment news

• Can pornography help save Tasmania’s rainforests? Kirsha Kaechele hopes so

  13-11-2026 20:00 via Environment | The Guardian
  The ‘first lady’ of Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art has launched an OnlyFans portal with an ambitious – and controversial – goalThe forestry workers took unusual care as they picked their way through the mossy undergrowth of a Tasmanian forest. They were carrying a small group of furries – humans in animal suits that can cost thousands of dollars – mindful of not letting any tails drag in the mud. Hired as production crew for the day, they were more used to hearing the drone of
  
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• Cop31 as it happened: ‘You cannot build peace on a burning planet’, warns UN chief Guterres in final climate summit speech

  13-11-2026 16:27 via Environment | The Guardian
  Debate over climate science, transition away from fossil fuels, electrification and climate finance can begin in earnest as world leaders leave UN summitFar away from the conference centre, Norway’s supreme court has declared the state’s decision to award three permits for oil and gasfields in the North Sea invalid, as it had not accounted for the harm caused by burning the fuels.The decision, hailed as a win by climate campaigners, does not automatically revoke the permits or demand an imme
  
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• Cop31 live: ‘You cannot build peace on a burning planet’, warns UN chief Guterres in final climate summit speech

  13-11-2026 15:24 via Environment | The Guardian
  Debate over climate science, transition away from fossil fuels, electrification and climate finance can begin in earnest as world leaders leave UN summitFar away from the conference centre, Norway’s supreme court has declared the state’s decision to award three permits for oil and gasfields in the North Sea invalid, as it had not accounted for the harm caused by burning the fuels.The decision, hailed as a win by climate campaigners, does not automatically revoke the permits or demand an imme
  
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• Cop31 live: ‘I will never give up’ UN chief tells climate summit ahead of last address

  13-11-2026 13:53 via Environment | The Guardian
  Debate over climate science, transition away from fossil fuels, electrification and climate finance can begin in earnest as world leaders leave UN summitFar away from the conference centre, Norway’s supreme court has declared the state’s decision to award three permits for oil and gasfields in the North Sea invalid, as it had not accounted for the harm caused by burning the fuels.The decision, hailed as a win by climate campaigners, does not automatically revoke the permits or demand an imme
  
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• New York is running out of room for its waste even with Statue of Liberty-sized landfill

  13-11-2026 13:30 via Environment | The Guardian
  One company is proposing elongating the life of the dump, pungent smell and all, several more decadesAs a visual representation of how New York is running out of places to put its waste, the largest active landfill in the state is a striking one. The hulking Seneca Meadows landfill is already the height of the Statue of Liberty and its operators are seeking to raise it even further, to the consternation of nearby residents.The landfill, situated in the scenic Finger Lakes region in the northern
  
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• New York is running out of room for its waste even with Statue of Liberty sized landfill

  13-11-2026 13:30 via Environment | The Guardian
  One company is proposing elongating the life of the dump, pungent smell and all, several more decadesAs a visual representation of how New York is running out of places to put its waste, the largest active landfill in the state is a striking one. The hulking Seneca Meadows landfill is already the height of the Statue of Liberty and its operators are seeking to raise it even further, to the consternation of nearby residents.The landfill, situated in the scenic Finger Lakes region in the northern
  
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• El Niño will increase risk of death in childbirth for millions, say midwives

  13-11-2026 13:00 via Environment | The Guardian
  
  Effects of extreme weather expected in countries that already have high maternal and newborn death ratesEl Niño stokes a higher risk of death in childbirth for millions of women in the world’s harshest crisis zones, midwives have warned.Converging waves of weather – floods, cyclones and extreme heat – forecast to peak in the coming months will prove fatal for many, especially pregnant women, who face being cut off from hospital when in labour. Continue reading...
  
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• A super El Niño brings startling changes for marine life on California coast: ‘like nothing we’ve ever seen’

  13-11-2026 13:00 via Environment | The Guardian
  Water temperatures are climbing the charts, high tides are swallowing the shoreline and vital parts of the food web that feed ocean diversity are disappearingOn a picturesque autumn afternoon last week, the beaches of California’s Monterey Bay were teeming with life and death.A cadre of shorebirds charged and retreated in a synchronized dance with the raging surf. Nearby, the receding tides had deposited lifeless bundles of feathers and bone, tangled in piles of glistening kelp. Swollen sea li
  
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• Week in wildlife: Scottish beavers, running giraffes and good news for dormice

  13-11-2026 09:00 via Environment | The Guardian
  This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world Continue reading...
  
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• Cop31 live: Climate crisis negotiations heat up on fifth day of talks

  13-11-2026 08:55 via Environment | The Guardian
  Debate over climate science, transition away from fossil fuels, electrification and climate finance can begin in earnest as world leaders leave UN summitChina has ruled out hosting the Cop33 UN climate summit in 2028 after months of deliberations, leaving the field open for other Asian countries to hold it, the Guardian understands.The decision will disappoint many countries and climate experts, who had hoped the world’s biggest emitter would take the lead on the global stage, as the US under
  
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• Children’s exposure to home wood-burning could be as significant as traffic exhaust, study suggests

  13-11-2026 07:00 via Environment | The Guardian
  Research finds highest levels of cancer-related PAH pollutants in cities that have widespread wood heatingChildren’s exposure to home wood-burning could be as significant as exposure to traffic exhaust, suggests new research across six European towns and cities.Scientists measured the air in buildings where children spend much of their time; in schools, sports centres and homes. Specifically, they looked at polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), a family of pollutants that are given off when
  
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• Country diary: Why did some trees fall in the storms and others not? It could be spalting | Kate Blincoe

  13-11-2026 06:30 via Environment | The Guardian
  Caistor St Edmund, Norfolk: The woodland floor is littered with sycamore and ash, some revealing a pattern that runs through trunks like words in a stick of rockAn ash tree swayed, audibly groaning, a split in the trunk opening and closing like a mouth. Suffering from ash dieback, it seemed it could topple at any second here in the quiet of the woodland. A few weeks ago, Dad set the trail camera on it, to capture the moment of fall. Since then, two storms have churned through Norfolk – treatin
  
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• World is now in ‘age of electricity’, energy agency chief says

  13-11-2026 06:00 via Environment | The Guardian
  Exclusive: Fossil fuels no longer dominant energy source, IEA leader says, as summit considers electrification pledgeThe world has left behind the age of coal, oil and gas and is now firmly in “the age of electricity”, the world’s leading energy economist has said.Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), said more than twice as much electricity generation would be added to the global economy in the next decade than in the last, as countries scramble to
  
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• ‘I spend less, that’s all that matters’: life in the world’s most electrified countries

  13-11-2026 06:00 via Environment | The Guardian
  Owning an electric car, driving an electric motorbike taxi, riding scooters – we speak to people in Oslo, Kigali and Shanghai about their everyday routinesThe race to electrification has emerged as a key theme of this year’s UN climate summit: increasing the use of electricity – particularly from clean sources – has the potential to improve daily life for people around the world.The summit’s co-hosts are now trying to get countries to promise to increase their electricity use to 35% of
  
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• ‘El Niño turned off the taps’: factors behind Indonesia’s wildfires revealed

  13-11-2026 05:00 via Environment | The Guardian
  Country’s fiercest blazes in at least a decade produced toxic smog blamed for 400,000 respiratory infections Indonesia’s fiercest fires in at least a decade were amplified by an “El Niño that turned off the taps” and “fossil fuels that turned up the heat”, scientists have revealed.Along with the conversion of forests to plantations, this created the conditions for blazes that have burned almost 3m hectares (7.4m acres) – 19 times the size of Greater London – this year, and cast
  
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