Environment news

• Oil prices off session highs, U.S. rig count up by 11

  21-10-2016 20:08
  
  By Ethan Lou NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices drifted around unchanged on Friday, retreating from early highs after data showed the first double-digit growth in U.S. oil rigs since crude prices hit $50 a barrel. A closely watched report from oil services firm Baker Hughes showed the number of active U.S. oil rigs rose by 11 this week, the 17th week without a decline in the rig count. U.S. crude prices then ranged between $44 and $48.
  
  Read more

• New Orleans residents on warning to abandon sinking city: ‘Nobody wants to leave home’

  01-07-2026 14:00
  After a recent study found New Orleans is at a ‘point of no return’ amid the climate crisis, some locals say they will ‘only leave if forced to’. But what would it take to stay?When a study in May concluded that New Orleans has hit a “point of no return” due to the climate crisis that will require people to eventually retreat from their storied yet ultimately doomed city, the local reaction was swift and fiery.The onward march of rising seas around a sinking c
  
  Read more

• Sycamore Gap tree sapling stolen from castle grounds months after planting

  01-07-2026 12:01
  Cumbria police and National Trust appeal for information after young tree taken from Wray parkland and castle A sapling taken from the Sycamore Gap tree has been stolen from the grounds of a castle just months after it was planted.The Sycamore Gap tree, on Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland, was one of the UK’s best-known and most loved trees. It was criminally felled for no apparent reason on a stormy night in September 2023. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• What is the United States of America now? | Rebecca Solnit

  01-07-2026 12:00
  The United States of America is ... so many things, horrific and magnificent, good and evil, promising and cursedThe United States of America is a truck that has driven into a ditch. The United States of America is a program that has been hacked. The United States of America is ... so many things, horrific and magnificent, good and evil, promising and cursed, as it approaches its quarter millennium mark. I say it as though the US was one thing, but it is a thousand things.It is the masked ICE ag
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Toxic for 100 years: the UK golf course built on chemical waste

  01-07-2026 11:42
  Despite contamination at Malkins Bank in Cheshire, it is deemed suitable for golf … and now a children’s play areaOne morning in Sandbach, a neighbour appeared at Graham Warner’s door with a large folder: a delivery, she said, from an unidentified source.“I think you’ll find this very interesting. Happy reading,” she said. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• A 1,000kg mammal is wreaking havoc in Tasmania – and Neil the seal is loved for it

  01-07-2026 08:46
  The elephant seal has been crushing fences, blocking traffic and bashing into parked cars, in what experts say is play-fighting behaviourFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastBollards, traffic cones, fences and LandCruisers stand little chance against a 1-tonne giant known as Neil the seal, now a local legend in southern Tasmania.Neil – a five-year-old elephant seal – has once again taken up residence in Tasma
  
  Read more

• When the right promotes heat-stress denial, ask yourself this: whose children’s lives is it willing to risk? | George Monbiot

  01-07-2026 08:00
  The class politics of extreme heat are very real and very dangerous – but that doesn’t stop the billionaire press from peddling its agendaEvery time you think the idiocy has hit rock bottom, it discovers a new level. It turns out there’s an even deeper hole you can dig for yourself than climate-science denial: heat-stress denial. Across the billionaire press last week, columnists and leader writers minimised the health impacts of the heatwave, particularly in schools. Expect mo
  
  Read more

• When the right denies the true danger of heatwaves, ask yourself this: whose children’s lives is it willing to risk? | George Monbiot

  01-07-2026 08:00
  The class politics of extreme heat are very real and very dangerous – but that doesn’t stop the billionaire press from peddling its agendaEvery time you think the idiocy has hit rock bottom, it discovers a new level. It turns out there’s an even deeper hole you can dig for yourself than climate-science denial: heat-stress denial. Across the billionaire press last week, columnists and leader writers minimised the health impacts of the heatwave, particularly in schools. Expect mo
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• ScottishPower owes me £1,000 in solar panel payments

  01-07-2026 08:00
  For months I’ve been trying to receive my FIT payment, which should be more than £1,000I moved into my new house 14 months ago, and soon afterwards applied to ScottishPower, with whom the solar panels are registered for a feed-in tariff (Fit), for transfer of ownership of the panels and the tariff.After many emails back and forth, I got a response saying they had all the information required. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Three beaver kits born in Wyre Forest enclosure

  01-07-2026 07:38 via bbc.co.uk
  
  New beaver kits are captured on camera after a family of six beavers were first released in 2024.
  
  Read more

• Tears and celebrations as river 'wiggle' restored

  01-07-2026 07:29 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The meander in the River Kemp has been restored in a project led by Severn Rivers Trust.
  
  Read more

• Neil the seal wreaks beautiful havoc in southern Tasmania – video

  01-07-2026 07:27
  Bollards, cones, fences and LandCruisers stand little chance against a 1,000kg giant known as 'Neil the seal'. The five-and-a-half-year-old elephant seal is already a local legend and has once again taken up residence in towns in southern Tasmania. He's bypassing barricades, he's crushing fences, he's lying in roadsTasmania's Neil the seal has found viral fame, leaving experts concerned for his welfare Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Beavers stop station from flooding, ecologists say

  01-07-2026 07:11 via bbc.co.uk
  
  A colony of beavers reintroduced to Ealing has also helped other wildlife to thrive, ecologists say.
  
  Read more

• Specieswatch: How heatwaves play havoc with bees’ fertility

  01-07-2026 07:00
  
  Study reveals extreme heat causes sharp drop with knock-on effect for pollination of food crops in following yearsWe know heatwaves have serious health consequences for humans, but what about other species? A study has shown they severely diminish bees’ fertility, with significant implications for the pollination of food crops in the following years.Prof James Gilbert of the University of Hull his and colleagues simulated a three-day UK heatwave in the lab and measured its effect on solita
  
  Read more

• Country diary: A story of water pollution, told in seaweed | Sara Hudston

  01-07-2026 06:30
  Charmouth, Dorset: On a busy beach day, I find bright green gutweed thriving by the river mouth. It’s resilient – and loves the nutrients found in sewageCharmouth beach is always busy. Even on grey and stormy winter days, walkers and their dogs patrol the hissing waves, and fossil hunters pick over rubble newly fallen from the black cliffs.With summer here and school holidays approaching, the sands are strewn with visitors and the car park packed with glittering windscreens. It&rsquo
  
  Read more

• Ocean surface temperatures hit a record high for June

  01-07-2026 04:00
  
  European scientists warn of consequences for weather patterns, the global climate and marine lifeTemperatures on the ocean surface have hit a record high, raising fears of another burst of extreme heat this summer.On 21 June, temperatures outside the polar regions exceeded the extraordinary highs observed at the same time in 2023 and 2024, the Copernicus Climate Change Service said on Wednesday. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Dangerous heatwave to hit US ahead of holiday weekend

  01-07-2026 00:08 via bbc.co.uk
  
  North America will bake in extreme temperatures amid celebrations for the United States' 250th birthday.
  
  Read more

• ‘But we’re just 1% of emissions’: do smaller countries’ climate efforts matter?

  30-06-2026 17:53
  Past and present leaders of wealthy nations such as UK and Germany have argued their actions are insignificantOn first hearing, it is a position that sounds reasonable. “When our share of global emissions is less than 1%,” Rishi Sunak argued when he was the UK prime minister in 2023, “how can it be right that British citizens are now being told to sacrifice even more than others?”Sunak is not the only world leader to have cited such figures while delaying cuts to pollutio
  
  Read more

• Potentially dangerous heatwave to sweep across the eastern United States

  30-06-2026 17:42 via bbc.co.uk
  
  A heatwave developing across the eastern United States will bring daytime heat, high humidity and stifling overnight temperatures as Ben Rich explains.
  
  Read more

• ‘Is there a way out of this mess?’: Your questions answered on Europe’s week of hellish heat

  30-06-2026 16:14
  As the the shocking heatwave continues, our European environment correspondent Ajit Niranjan answered your questions about which countries have responded best, who is being held to account, and why people are surprised after decades of warningssloth_101 asks: Most reports still talk about this issue in terms of “records”? Technically, that might be correct but it feels like it’s missing the urgency of the matter. “Records” are meant to be broken. These records clear
  
  Read more

• Researchers find millions more insect species

  30-06-2026 14:35 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Scientists estimate at least between 14 and 30 million insect species, not just six million.
  
  Read more

• Flooding hits Ghana's capital killing 13 people - with another storm forecast

  30-06-2026 13:20 via bbc.co.uk
  
  People have been urged to relocate to high ground or stay indoors as more rain is expected to come.
  
  Read more

• Reform UK chair of Welsh environment committee may ‘undermine scrutiny’, says thinktank

  30-06-2026 13:00
  Climate campaigners question choice of James Evans for role given past criticism of green energy projectsUK politics live – latest updatesThe appointment of a Reform UK member of the Senedd Cymru as the chair of a key Welsh environmental committee could “undermine the hard graft of ministerial scrutiny”, a green thinktank has warned.James Evans, a former Conservative party MS who defected to Reform UK in January last year, has been appointed chair of the Welsh climate change, e
  
  Read more

• ‘Living laboratory’: Suffolk agroforestry farm seeks community ownership to survive

  30-06-2026 12:00
  Wakelyns needs £1.2m to save its diverse organic crops and ‘micro’ enterprises including a bakery and honeybee hivesThe aerial view of Wakelyns matches the experience of visiting it at ground level: in a region dominated by prairie fields of industrial agriculture, here lies a vivid green lung of land. Its sounds and sights in summer – the sleepy purr of the turtle dove, the vivid pink flash of a bullfinch – have vanished from most of the British countryside.But Wak
  
  Read more

• ‘Doves and food and fun’: the fight to save a farming pioneer

  30-06-2026 12:00
  Wakelyns needs £1.2m to save its diverse organic crops and ‘micro’ enterprises including a bakery and honeybee hivesThe aerial view of Wakelyns matches the experience of visiting it at ground level: in a region dominated by prairie fields of industrial agriculture, here lies a vivid green lung of land. Its sounds and sights in summer – the sleepy purr of the turtle dove, the vivid pink flash of a bullfinch – have vanished from most of the British countryside.But Wak
  
  Read more

• Full Strawberry Moon captured over the UK in stunning photos

  30-06-2026 11:33 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Skygazers captured stunning photos of the first full Moon of summer shining bright above the UK
  
  Read more

• Delhi plans to ban petrol rickshaws and scooters in effort to cut toxic fumes

  30-06-2026 10:39
  Government hopes for 30% of city’s fleet to be electric by 2030, in move hailed as ‘gamechanger’ on air pollutionThe unruly chaos of Delhi’s roads would be unrecognisable without the rickshaws and scooters that zip through India’s capital in their millions, emitting toxic fumes in their wake. But now, ambitious policies aim to give the city’s most recognisable vehicles an environmental makeover.On Monday, Delhi’s government announced plans to eventually
  
  Read more

• In pictures: Stunning Strawberry Moon lights up the sky

  30-06-2026 09:31 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Clear night skies over Hampshire and Dorset give stunning shots of the Strawberry Moon.
  
  Read more

• Cost to rewire Great Britain’s electricity network could reach £90bn in 2030s

  30-06-2026 08:00
  Energy system operator says sum needed to deliver clean power targets while meeting rising demand is up by 50%The cost of rewiring Great Britain’s electricity networks through the 2030s is now 50% higher than before the Labour government came to power, and could reach almost £90bn in the next decade, according to the energy system operator.Building new high-voltage transmission lines and infrastructure to connect low-carbon energy to the grid in the 2030s was initially forecast by th
  
  Read more

• Cambridge college swift boxes used for first time

  30-06-2026 07:33 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The endangered birds are nesting for the first time at the college, which delights its master.
  
  Read more

Follow @UK_Environment on Twitter!