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Bleak report finds greenhouse gas emissions are still rising despite ‘exponential’ growth of renewables
Coal use hit a record high around the world last year despite efforts to switch to clean energy, imperilling the world’s attempts to rein in global heating.
The share of coal in electricity generation dropped as renewable energy surged ahead. But the general increase in power demand meant that more coal was used overall, according to the annual State of Climate Action report, published on Wednesday.
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Campaigners say figures reveal a lack of enforcement with just 24 fines issued by councils for rule violations
Not one prosecution for illegal wood burning has been made in the past year, despite 15,195 complaints across England, data shows.
Additionally, just 24 fines were issued by local authorities between September 2024 and August 2025, responses to freedom of information requests by the campaign group Mums for Lungs revealed.
This article was amended on 22 October 2025. The original version stated that there had been just one prosecution in the last year; in fact there have been none.
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LA wildfires and storms this year cost $101bn, new study by non-profit resurrecting work axed by Trump says
The first half of 2025 was the costliest on record for major disasters in the US, driven by huge wildfires in Los Angeles and storms that battered much of the rest of the country, according to a climate non-profit that has resurrected work axed by Donald Trump’s administration that tracked the biggest disasters.
In the first six months of this year, 14 separate weather-related disasters that each caused at least $1bn in damage hit the US, the Climate Central group has calculated. In total, these events cost $101bn in damages – lost homes, businesses, highways and other infrastructure – a toll higher than any other first half of a year since records on this began in 1980.
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Interviews with experts and key players across four countries reveal why efforts to stop the multibillion-euro trafficking industry have failed – and how to save the endangered fish
By 10am on the midsummer Day of the Ox, the city of Narita smells of charcoal and sugar. The cobbled road is thronged with visitors lining up to buy grilled eel, a traditional delicacy believed to cool the body and keep spirits up in the humid weather.
“We’ll be so sad if it becomes extinct and we can’t eat eel any more,” says a customer sitting on the tatami-mat floor in Kawatoyo, a popular restaurant specialising in grilled eel, which has been operating for more than 115 years.
Kabayaki-style eel, grilled with tare sauce, served at Kawatoyo restaurant in Narita. Photograph: Toru Hanai
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‘The objectives of the Paris agreement are slipping further out of reach,’ say researchers from LSE
No major bank has yet committed to stop funding new oil and gas fields or coal capacity, research has found.
Most banks that have recently updated their climate policies have weakened them, according to the research by the TPI Global Climate Transition Centre (TPI) at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
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Human-wildlife conflict has now overtaken poaching as a cause of fatalities – and is deadly for people too. Some villages are finding new ways to live alongside them
At nearly 3.5-metres tall and weighing as much as a bus, you could be forgiven for assuming that Goshi – one of an estimated 30 “super-tusker” elephants left in Africa – would be easy to find. The radio tracker picking up his signal beeps encouragingly, indicating the giant bull is within 200 metres. But the dry season has turned the mass of arid acacia scrubland grey, and everything seems to resemble an elephant.
Even when they are invisible, the huge herbivores shape the landscape here. There are 17,000 elephants across the Tsavo region, Kenya’s largest protected area, which is divided in two. Each year, elephants wander huge distances between feeding grounds, following the seasonal rains as they have done for thousands of years.
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Government consults on allowing regulator to use lower civil standard of proof and introducing automatic penalties
Water companies in England could face more, and automatic, fines for sewage dumping under new Environment Agency powers.
The government is consulting on allowing the regulator to use a lower, civil, standard of proof instead of the higher criminal standard, for minor to moderate environmental offences.
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Data analysis found higher than average migration growth to the US from areas in Guatemala, Bangladesh and Senegal hit by repeated climate disasters
This article was produced in partnership between Columbia Journalism Investigations and Documented.
Mohamed* sat cross-legged on the carpet before Friday afternoon prayers at a mosque in the South Bronx in New York City and shared memories of his crops.
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Green groups defend ‘essential’ levy, but Gü desserts and Belvoir drinks among those who say shoppers pick up bill
A packaging tax designed to end our throwaway society is under fire for inadvertently adding to food price inflation as it pushes up the cost of everything from sausages to soft drinks.
“It’s about 3p on a pack of sausages,” says Andrew Keeble, the co-founder of Heck, of the new extended producer responsibility (EPR) tax.
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Of the 2m flood-prone houses across the country, at least 70% have had values reduced, a new report by Climate Council and PropTrack has found
When Warwick Irwin returned home after a week away, he was shocked by the ruin inside.
It was February 2022 and two days earlier his North Lismore house had flooded to the ceiling. “It was quite a mind-blowing experience when I got into the house when the water went down.”
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