-
Exclusive: Mukhtar Babayev says clear accounting crucial to build trust as developing world seeks trillions in support
Poor countries must demonstrate clearer accounting and transparency to back up their calls for trillions of dollars of climate finance, the president of global climate negotiations has said.
Mukhtar Babayev, the ecology minister of Azerbaijan, who will lead the Cop29 UN climate summit in November, urged governments in developing countries to draw up reports showing their progress on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and their spending on the climate crisis.
Continue reading...
-
Scientists have returned 18 red handfish to Tasmanian waters months after they were removed to protect them from record high sea temperatures. Marine ecologist Dr Jemina Stuart-Smith said removing the fish had been a difficult decision but was the ‘right approach’ despite the risks. Three of the fish died in captivity. Dr Andrew Trotter, who leads the red handfish conservation project at the University of Tasmania’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, said the three deaths were disappointing but highlighted the need to better understand disease in the critically endangered species. There are fewer than 100 red handfish estimated to be left in the wild in two patches of rocky reef south-east of Hobart
Continue reading...
-
Three Shires Head, Derbyshire: The peace of our walk was destroyed by bikers – something nature here has to contend with every day, at great cost
The sounds of curlews rippling overhead and stonechats’ song were instantly drowned out. Instead, all you could hear was the brutal revving of motorbikes as a caravan of offroad bikers – almost a default encounter in parts of this region at weekends – ground up the gritstone path, then minutes later came roaring down. They repeated it all twice. The inconvenience was intermittent as one after the other they forced us from the path. Yet the noise pollution, which was a violation of this whole landscape as well as surely the very meaning of a national park, was constant.
“You do your thing, mate, this is ours,” was their justification when confronted, as if it were a matter of individual liberty; as if each pedestrian or biker were an equal and thus free to find their own path to fulfilment in the Peak District. I wish we could pose the same issues to the stonechats and curlews.
Continue reading...
-
This part of South America is no stranger to major rainfall, but last week’s storms were particularly devastating
Torrential rainstorms in Brazil’s southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul have caused the worst flooding the country has seen in 80 years, many deaths and the displacement of thousands of families. Central parts of the state were hit the hardest after the storms began last Monday, with unofficial weather stations in the area recording 50-100cm (20-40in) of rain over the past week.
Widespread floods and landslides have caused major damage to homes and infrastructure, most alarmingly triggering the partial collapse of a small hydroelectric dam on Thursday, which sent a 2-metre-high wave through the surrounding area. At least 57 deaths have been reported and 24,000 people have been displaced, alongside an estimated 500,000 being without power and clean water.
Continue reading...
-
Audio collected with underwater microphones suggests numbers at least stable after centuries of industrial whaling left only a few hundred alive
Centuries of industrial whaling left only a few hundred Antarctic blue whales alive, making it almost impossible to find them in the wild.
New research suggests the population may be recovering. Australian scientists and international colleagues spent two decades listening for their distinctive songs and calls, and have found the whales – the largest animals ever to have lived – swimming across the Southern Ocean with growing regularity.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup
Continue reading...
-
About 6,000 have been installed this year, a quarter of them rapid chargers that can power up a car in under an hour
The UK has installed a record number of public electric car chargers this year, as companies race to keep up with the growing number of battery vehicles on British roads.
Nearly 6,000 new chargers were installed during the first three months of 2024, according to quarterly figures from data company Zapmap published by the Department for Transport. About 1,500 of those were rapid chargers, capable of charging a car in less than an hour.
Continue reading...
-
People living in Nairobi’s Mathare slum fear that if catastrophic flooding does not bring down their homes, the government will
Jane Kalekye trudges through the narrow muddy alley to her tin-roof house in Mathare, one of Kenya’s largest slums. Ever since the devastating floods that forced her out of her home last month, she and other residents who live by the rubbish-choked Mathare River, which runs through their area of Nairobi, have begun an anxious countdown.
It is only a matter of time before their homes are brought down, they say, either by another bout of flooding, or by the government’s ongoing demolition of houses along riverbanks prone to flooding.
Continue reading...
-
Abalobi provides a real-time marketplace for fishers to sell their catch, while also monitoring fish populations, and the tech could go global
The 59-year-old Wilfred Poggenpoel is a fisher from Lambert’s Bay, a picturesque town 170 miles north of Cape Town that’s popular with surfers and home to 17,000 breeding pairs of Cape gannets. Five years ago, he made the decision to join a virtual marketplace called Abalobi, which enables fishers such as him to sell their catch directly to restaurants, retailers and consumers using a custom-built app.
“I get a better price and I can sell more species now,” he says. “I’ve bought a 60-horsepower motor that I’d never have been able to afford before. I’ve bought a second boat.” He joined, he says, because he didn’t want to spend all day walking around town in the sun trying to sell fish. “My quality of life has improved. I’ve even been able to help some old people in the community.”
Continue reading...
-
Developing a daily practice of sustainability can help ease your anxiety about the future – so I tried it out for a week
When it comes to climate change, I, like many others, often wonder: does it matter if we adjust our individual behaviors to be more sustainable, or are these efforts insignificant?
Many experts argue that focusing too granularly on individual responsibility can shift the burden from destructive industry and policy on to regular folk. Eventually, we can burn out on the endless micro-responsibilities and not have juice for the big stuff.
Continue reading...
-
Your daily caffeine habit is not good for the planet. Thankfully, researchers are finding alternatives to ground coffee beans
Name: Synthetic coffee.
Age: Three.
Continue reading...
