Environment news

• Oil climbs as Venezuela sees output deal

  19-09-2016 12:55
  By Dmitry Zhdannikov LONDON (Reuters) - Oil prices rose on Monday from multi-week lows after Venezuela said OPEC and non-OPEC producers were close to a deal to stabilise the market and as clashes in Libya disrupted attempts to boost crude exports. Brent crude futures were at $46.32 per barrel at 1043 GMT (11.43 a.m. BST), up 55 cents from their previous settlement and off an earlier peak of 46.62. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has said a deal could be announced this month to stabilise oil
  
  Read more

• Grinding up fish to feed to fish is ‘absurd’: fears over UN fish farm plan

  03-09-2026 18:59 via theguardian.com
  Huge rollout of farms could harm ecosystems and threaten food sources of vulnerable communities, say expertsNearly half of the world’s wild fish catch will be ground into animal feed for farmed fish if plans to expand aquaculture go ahead, a report has found.The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is aiming to increase aquaculture – where fish are farmed rather than caught in the wild – production by 75% by 2040. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Grinding up fish to feed to fish is ‘absurd’: fears over UN aquaculture plan

  03-09-2026 18:59 via theguardian.com
  Huge rollout of fish farms could harm ecosystems and threaten vulnerable communities’ food sources, say expertsNearly half of the world’s wild fish catch will be ground into animal feed for farmed fish if plans to expand aquaculture go ahead, a report has found.The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is aiming to increase aquaculture – where fish are farmed rather than caught in the wild – production by 75% by 2040. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• There’s a quick way to slow climate change. Why isn’t everyone doing it? - video

  03-09-2026 17:01 via theguardian.com
  Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that traps more than 80 times as much heat than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period and causes 25% of global heating today. We definitely don’t want this gas spewing needlessly into the atmosphere, but in 2023 that’s exactly what environment editor Damian Carrington found was happening when he reported on 1,000 super-emitting methane leaks across the globe. Now Turkmenistan, the worst country for mega-leaks, has begun to plug them. Damian tells Mad
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Razed by wildfire, erased by USPS: Hawaiians fight to restore mail delivery

  03-09-2026 16:00 via theguardian.com
  Wildfire victims rebuilt their homes in Lahaina only to find USPS had ‘eliminated’ their addresses – while houses that didn’t burn receive mail as normalTwo months after a devastating wildfire whipped through Lahaina in August 2023, Pam Reader was allowed back to see what was left of her home. With a heavy heart, she returned to the Hawaiian oceanside town now filled with endless blocks of burned houses. As she rounded her corner, she saw the only thing remaining was her
  
  Read more

• A sun goddess, hundreds of devotees – and polluted water: the Nigerian festival threatened by gold mining

  03-09-2026 15:00 via theguardian.com
  Each year, people from across the world gather in a grove sacred to the Yoruba goddess Osun to be healed, conceive or realise their deepest wishes. But toxic lead, mercury and cyanide is leaching into the river7Devotees in white clothing line the riverbank, praying as they carry offerings of fruit, kola nut and sacrificial animals in supplication to Osun, the Yoruba goddess of fertility, beauty and healing, whose carved form stands with arms outstretched a few metres away in the Osun River.It is
  
  Read more

• Invasive tropical mosquito found breeding in east London

  03-09-2026 14:51 via theguardian.com
  Climate crisis could increase incursions of Aedes aegypti, which can transmit Zika virus and dengue, experts sayAn invasive mosquito capable of transmitting tropical diseases has been found breeding in homes in east London, with warnings that the rapidly warming climate will lead to greater “incursions of invasive mosquitoes”.This is the first time the species has been identified breeding in the UK and the fourth time it has been detected. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Iguazú Falls' water level rises by five times the average – video

  03-09-2026 14:22 via theguardian.com
  Water levels at Iguazú Falls, on the border of Brazil and Argentina, have reached five times the average volume after heavy rains. The national park has stayed open to visitors with a safety protocol in place fortheir safety. The park's biologist and sustainability manager has said the water levels may be influenced by the El Niño phenomenon Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Bring on the drones: how a technology revolution is being rolled out across Africa’s nature reserves

  03-09-2026 11:00 via theguardian.com
  As graduates of an online training course gather from across the continent, the consensus is overwhelming: computers and saving animals go togetherOn a bitingly cold night in Lapalala Wilderness nature reserve in South Africa’s Limpopo province, Duncan Kanyakera watches as instructor Jacques Viljoen deploys a thermal drone in search of a lone cheetah. Once the drone has disappeared into the inky sky, Kanyakera, from Tsavo in Kenya, and 20 other conservation professionals from across Africa
  
  Read more

• Country diary: A stranded traveller that looks more plastic than animal | Elizabeth-Jane Burnett

  03-09-2026 08:33 via theguardian.com
  Appledore, Devon: By-the-wind sailors have been washed up in great numbers this summer. I stumble on a single one of these bright blue beautiesAmid the hot grit of the estuarine beach, a cool light glints. Not the habitual shade of mussel shells, nor even the shimmer of sea glass, this is a blue so bright that at first I mistake it for a kind of plastic, perhaps the discarded part of a pair of goggles.I’m about to pick it up when something prompts me to pause, mid-swoop; an
  
  Read more

• ‘Supersizing before our eyes’: UN warns of record El Niño approaching

  03-09-2026 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Event is likely to be largest in at least 1,000 years and will pile extra heat into a world already in a climate crisisThe El Niño climate phenomenon is “supersizing before our eyes”, the UN has said. The event is near certain to shatter temperature records, according to the latest forecasts.The El Niño is likely to be the largest in at least 1,000 years and will pile extra heat into an atmosphere where temperatures are already rising rapidly due to global heating. The
  
  Read more

• I camped in one of Britain’s last remaining rainforests

  03-09-2026 08:00 via theguardian.com
  A fragment of temperate rainforest lies on the edge of Dartmoor, and following years of conservation work, its owners have now opened up a sustainable campsite next to this fragile ecosystemMist blankets the valley as I wheel my camping gear down the small hill towards a clearing ringed by trees and shrubs. A picnic bench sits at its edge, angled towards the reason why I’m here: one of the last remaining fragments of temperate rainforest in Britain. I’m pitching my tent at Wray Valle
  
  Read more

• Why El Niño can mean less rain but heavier downpours for India

  03-09-2026 07:00 via theguardian.com
  El Niño is associated with weaker monsoons in India – but research suggests it can also bring more extreme rainfallThe world is bracing for a “super” El Niño, and its effects are already being felt in India, where the monsoon has brought less rain than average but more intense downpours.Meteorologists predict that the current El Niño, which is developing over the Pacific, could be one of the strongest in living memory. India is likely to be heavily affected
  
  Read more

• The September reset is real. I’m about to become a better person, flaxseed by flaxseed | Emma Brockes

  03-09-2026 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Small changes are what I’m aiming for – 10-minute workouts, cleaning out my handbag. Then I’m less likely to have failed come OctoberAre you a January resolutions or a September reset person? The latter has always felt more propitious to me, light of the exhaustion of Christmas and with the weather still on our side. Last week, when the Pavlovian response to buying new stationery (for my kids) kicked in, I found myself following a rote impulse to sort my life out by replacing t
  
  Read more

• There’s a quick way to slow climate change. Why isn’t everyone doing it? – podcast

  03-09-2026 06:00 via theguardian.com
  Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that traps more than 80 times as much heat than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period and causes 25% of global heating today. We definitely don’t want this gas spewing needlessly into the atmosphere, but in 2023 that’s exactly what environment editor Damian Carrington found was happening when he reported on 1,000 super-emitting methane leaks across the globe. Now Turkmenistan, the worst country for mega-leaks, has begun to plug them. Damian tells Mad
  
  Read more

• The place that never freezes: the Arctic habitat where global heating threatens more ice, not less

  03-09-2026 06:00 via theguardian.com
  The race to study the North Water between Canada and Greenland before it changes has led to a bold plan for an Inuit-run protected areaElectric-blue meltwater sprays up under Terry Noah’s snowmobile as he races across sea ice extending out from Canada’s northernmost public community: Grise Fiord in Nunavut, a hamlet of 144 people closer to Murmansk in Russia than the Canadian city of Toronto. The bay’s cliffs loom higher and higher like stone icebergs as he approaches his desti
  
  Read more

• Ben Jennings on the rise of datacentres in Britain – cartoon

  02-09-2026 19:14 via theguardian.com
  Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• After the flood: human suffering on an unfathomable scale in Nepal’s worst-hit districts

  02-09-2026 18:42 via theguardian.com
  Thousands remain missing and aid is hampered by treacherous conditions in communities almost wiped out of existenceSearching for the body of his wife in the mud, Dil Bahadur Shrestha lamented that he did not even have a shovel left. For now, he has been using his hands to try to find her as he picks through the ruins of his house.On Wednesday morning last week, Jamuna Shrestha, his wife of 50 years, had been at home in Betrawati on the banks of Nepal’s Trishuli River, feeding her beloved c
  
  Read more

• Temperature check: alarm as prediction markets lean into weather and climate bets

  02-09-2026 17:00 via theguardian.com
  Climate experts warn US Kalshi and Polymarket users are ‘gamifying disasters’ as they bet on events like heatwaves and daily temperaturesOnline prediction markets, saturated by money staked on sport, crypto and politics, have now set their sights on a promising new area of growth: betting on the future livability of the planet itself.The rise of gamified predictions on the unfolding climate crisis, and shorter-term weather forecasts, has been underscored by a new deal that allows Kal
  
  Read more

• Mass breeding of game birds without welfare checks may be curtailed in England

  02-09-2026 16:29 via theguardian.com
  Campaigners say pheasants and partridges reared ‘on industrial scale’ do not have same protections as chickensThe government is considering a crackdown on pheasant shooting in England as part of a consultation on strict new animal welfare laws that would affect shoot organisers.Ministers are already considering plans for the issuing of licences for those who run game bird shoots. The proposals mean anybody associated with wildlife crime, such as the poisoning or shooting of birds of
  
  Read more

• Transforming toxic: a new vision for urban waterways takes shape in Brooklyn – in photos

  02-09-2026 14:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Designers are rethinking one of New York City’s most polluted sites with climate adaptation and community benefitsThe Guardian receives support for visual climate coverage from the Outrider Foundation. The Guardian’s coverage is editorially independent Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Thames Water, I refuse to pay the sewage charge in my bill while you pollute Britain’s rivers and coastlines | Jenny Jones

  02-09-2026 12:00 via theguardian.com
  I will calmly read all the threatening letters and await the court case against me. But I will take a stand even if our government won’tI can’t even remember when I decided to stop paying the sewage element of my Thames Water bill. It might have been after reading this headline from the Guardian in July 2025: “Serious pollution incidents by English water companies rose 60% last year,” with the subheading: “Environment Agency records 75 serious incidents among total
  
  Read more

• Britain is OK with public ownership, but only by foreign powers. Why?

  02-09-2026 09:00 via theguardian.com
  Arthur Downing, author of Power and the People: A History of British Energy, says all-encompassing rapid transition will need a mutualised systemHave you ever wondered why it is that most houses in the UK are reliant on gas boilers? Not what’s stopping more people from replacing them with heat pumps, but instead why and how the gas boiler became so ubiquitous in the first place?Arthur Downing, the author of the new book Power and the People: A History of British Energy, can tell you exactl
  
  Read more

• Almost half of world’s farmers poisoned by pesticides every year, experts find

  02-09-2026 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Study reveals that pesticide poisoning kills 11,000 people each year, with India accounting for nearly 60% of fatalitiesAlmost half of the world’s farmers are poisoned by pesticides every single year, a study has found.Using publicly available data from 2006-2023, the study, which was commissioned by Pesticide Action Network, found there to be an estimated 402-433m cases of unintentional acute pesticide poisoning of farmers and farm workers every year. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Specieswatch: Deciduous trees are marching north and ousting evergreens

  02-09-2026 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Northern landscapes could soon look different, as wildfires and storms disturb boreal forestsA warmer world is making high latitude forests more deciduous and less evergreen, research shows. Global heating has increased the likelihood of extreme events such as wildfires and storms and this warmer and less stable environment is favouring deciduous trees over evergreens.Boreal forest stretches for miles and miles across high northern latitudes, covering huge swathes of Canada, Russia, Alaska and S
  
  Read more

• ‘It smelled like dead people’: the plan to tackle England’s illegal waste problem

  02-09-2026 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Andy Burnham has announced a crackdown, but doubts remain over authorities’ ability to take on organised crime“There were parents dropping their children off and then heaving from the smell,” says Liz Thompson, 45, who runs Blessings Nursery in Bradford, West Yorkshire.During the recent heatwaves, the smell from an illegal waste dump on Midland Road, just metres from the nursery, became so unbearable that staff had to keep the doors and windows shut and the children couldn&rsqu
  
  Read more

• Prakrit has already lost her father. As Nepal’s morgues fill, she hopes her DNA can be used to find her mother

  02-09-2026 04:16 via theguardian.com
  A week on from the flash flooding disaster, authorities are urging relatives of the thousands of missing and dead to provide blood samples An army official calls out a name. A young woman stands, two pieces of identification in her hands. She fills out a form, takes another and moves to the back of the hospital to give a vial of blood.With so many people killed by Nepal’s floods, and hundreds of bodies being buried because the morgues are full, there is now a push to identify victims throu
  
  Read more

• As Nepal’s morgues fill, Parkrit hopes her DNA can be used to find her mother

  02-09-2026 04:16 via theguardian.com
  A week on from the flash flooding disaster, authorities are urging relatives of the thousands of missing and dead to provide blood samples An army official calls out a name. A young woman stands, two pieces of identification in her hands. She fills out a form, takes another and moves to the back of the hospital to give a vial of blood.With so many people killed by Nepal’s floods, and hundreds of bodies being buried because the morgues are full, there is now a push to identify victims throu
  
  Read more

• Hungry bears are wandering into US homes and shops in record numbers – video

  01-09-2026 20:16 via theguardian.com
  Experts say more bears are wandering into human's homes and shops in search of food, due to drought-driven food shortages across the US west Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Sydney’s beaches enter the drone age to get swimmers back in the water after spate of shark attacks

  01-09-2026 18:00 via theguardian.com
  Seventy beaches across New South Wales are part of the $34m dawn-to-dusk drone monitoring program, which one expert has called ‘the best technology we have at the moment’Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast“Hey Taha, what’s the visibility like?” shouts a man with a towel slung over his shoulder.“Uh, nice,” says Surf Life Saving New South Wales drone operator Taha Kafil-Hussain. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

Follow @UK_Environment on Twitter!