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Fire chief says summer, the UK’s hottest on record, was ‘one of the most challenging for wildfires that we’ve ever faced’
Ten English fire services tackled a record number of grassland, woodland and crop fires during what was the UK’s hottest spring and summer on record, figures show.
In total nearly 27,000 wildfires were dealt with by fire services in England during the prolonged dry weather of 2025, according to analysis by PA Media.
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The ‘border adjustment mechanism’ aims to create a level playing field while also encouraging decarbonisation
The biggest shake-up of green trade rules for decades comes into force today, as companies selling steel, cement and other high-carbon goods into the EU will have to prove they comply with low-carbon regulations or face fines.
But a lack of clarity on how the rules will be applied, and the failure of the UK government to strike a deal with Brussels over the issue, could lead to confusion in the early stages, experts warned.
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For 10 years, the scientist and photographer Jeroen Hoekendijk has been observing pinnipeds such as seals and walruses on the fragile North Sea archipelago stretching along the Dutch, German and Danish coastline. A remainder of the now-drowned Doggerland, left behind after the ice age, the low-lying islands are an advance warning sign of the warming and rising seas of the climate crisis
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Greinton, Somerset Levels: Instead of drying the peat to make it fit for agriculture, a small group of farmers have decided to work with the wet
It looks like nothing more than a few soggy acres of bulrush, brown and broken, edged by a striding line of electricity pylons. But this modest patch of reeds and weeds is at the forefront of a novel farming method that upends ideas about how to manage some of our wettest landscapes.
For centuries people have worked to drain the Somerset Levels, transforming what was once a seasonal, shifting inland sea of islands, bogs and lakes into fertile pasture crossed by an intricate network of ditches, drains, rivers and rhynes. As usual in winter, December’s rain swept sheets of water across the lowest ground, leaving hedges and tracks sketched in broken lines on fallen sky.
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I’ve spent six years writing about environmental justice. The uncomfortable truth is that we’re not all in it together – but people power is reshaping the fight
It’s been another year of climate chaos and inadequate political action. And it’s hard not to feel despondent and powerless.
I joined the Guardian full time in 2019, as the paper’s first environmental justice correspondent, and have reported from across the US and the region over the past six years. It’s been painful to see so many families – and entire communities – devastated by fires, floods, extreme heat, sea level rise and food shortages. But what’s given me hope during these six years of reporting as both an environmental and climate justice reporter are the people fighting to save our planet from catastrophe – in their communities, on the streets and in courtrooms across the world.
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Post-Fukushima nuclear closures of dozens of reactors forced the country to rely heavily on imported fossil fuels
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Bereaved relatives say delays over risks at village churchyards are causing distress and call for council action
Families of people buried in graves vulnerable to coastal erosion say indecision over how to tackle the problem is causing them avoidable anguish about the final resting places of their loved ones.
North Norfolk district council (NNDC) has identified three church graveyards in the villages of Happisburgh, Trimingham, and Mundesley as being at risk of being engulfed by the sea in the coming decades.
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As the Trump administration derides climate policy as a ‘scam’, emissions-cutting measures are gaining popularity
A group of progressive politicians and advocates are reframing emissions-cutting measures as a form of economic populism as the Trump administration derides climate policy as a “scam” and fails to deliver on promises to tame energy costs and inflation.
Climate politics were once cast as a test of moral resolve, calling on Americans to accept higher costs to avert environmental catastrophe, but that ignores how rising temperatures themselves drive up costs for working people, said Stevie O’Hanlon, co-founder of the youth-led Sunrise Movement.
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Guardian US readers share how global heating and biodiversity loss affected their lives in ways that don’t always make the headlines
The past year was another one of record-setting heat and catastrophic storms. But across the US, the climate crisis showed up in smaller, deeply personal ways too.
Campfires that once defined summer trips were never lit due to wildfire risks. There were no bites where fish were once abundant, forests turned to meadows after a big burn and childhood memories of winter wonderlands turned to slush.
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When developers began circling Espíritu Santo island in the 1990s, a private conservation effort saw them off. But today the Unesco site faces a new threat: mass tourism
On a clear day over the Sea of Cortez, Espíritu Santo looks untouchable. Turquoise water laps at the shores of the island’s rocky coves; whale sharks cruise past snorkellers; seabirds caw over ancient cliffs. The pristine island and its Unesco-protected surroundings – informally called “Mexico’s Galápagos” – are a cocoon of biodiversity.
Yet an increase in tourist numbers has led to growing unease among the island’s longstanding stewards, as environmentalists report a decline in the area’s marine life and call for stricter regulations.
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pub. W.W.Norton & Co. Inc., New York, London, 1999 (paperback edition)
