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Candidate defeats Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns to lead Greens in England and Wales with vision for ‘eco-populism’ movement
Zack Polanski has won the election to lead the Green party in England and Wales, with an overwhelming mandate for the party to adopt his vision to become a mass membership “eco-populism” movement directly taking on Reform UK.
Polanski, who was the party’s deputy leader and is a Green member of the London assembly, defeated Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns by 20,411 to 3,705 votes in a ballot of party members. Ramsay and Chowns, who were standing as a co-leadership team, are two of the Greens’ four MPs.
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Exclusive: Redcar and Cleveland tops rankings for most allotment land per person, while there is a dearth of supply in Scotland
The north-east of England is Great Britain’s allotment heartland, with Redcar and Cleveland and County Durham the two councils with the highest rate of allotment provision per person, an analysis has found.
It also revealed that Scotland on average has just a quarter of the space per person that is available in England.
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Research reveals huge disparity between perceived and actual willingness of public to contribute to fixing climate
Politicians and policymakers significantly underestimate the public’s willingness to contribute to climate action, limiting the ambition and scope of green policies, according to research.
Delegates at the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) were asked to estimate what percentage of the global population would say they were willing to give 1% of their income to help fix climate change. The average estimate was 37%, but recent research found the true figure is 69%.
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Tzeporah Berman’s campaign group believes Cop30 will help its initiative to phase out oil, coal and gas take shape
The fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty initiative aims to sidestep slow-moving UN climate talks by gathering together nations, cities and companies that want to rapidly phase out oil, coal and gas. At the coming Cop30 summit in Belém, it hopes to gather support so it can launch negotiations for a new treaty next year. The group’s founder, Tzeporah Berman, explains why the Amazon rainforest and the global south are an ideal springboard for the movement.
Why will you be campaigning for afossilfuelnon-proliferationtreaty?
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Trial in only continent untouched by avian flu suggests jabs will be key to survival as migration season approaches
It is easy to imagine how it could happen. A petrel, flying east from the Indian Ocean at the end of the Austral winter, makes landfall at New Zealand’s southern Codfish Island/Whenua Hou. Tired from its long journey, the petrel seeks refuge in the burrow of a green kākāpō: a critically endangered flightless species that is the world’s fattest parrot.
If the seabird intrudes when the kākāpō is primed to breed, the male parrot may attempt to mate with the smaller petrel, accidentally smothering it in the process.
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Climate phenomenon cools surface of Pacific but won’t stop human-induced climate change increasing temperatures and exacerbating extreme weather
The cooling La Niña weather phenomenon may return between September and November, but even if it does, global temperatures are expected to be above average, the United Nations has said.
La Niña is a naturally occurring climate phenomenon that cools surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. It brings changes in winds, pressure and rainfall patterns.
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Campaigners say only 82 sites have been fully examined and classified as contaminated, so scale of threat not known
Research from Friends of the Earth Cymru has found that at least 45,000 sites across Wales could be contaminated with toxic waste but have never been adequately inspected, leaving communities and wildlife vulnerable to a potential environmental crisis.
Despite Wales’s extensive industrial history, Tuesday’s publication found that due to a lack of funding and oversight, only 82 sites across the country have ever been fully examined and classified as contaminated, meaning the actual scale of the threat is unknown.
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A two-week tour produces the equivalent of an average household’s yearly carbon emissions. So some bands, including Lime Cordiale and Cloud Control, are trying small changes – like ditching confetti – and big ones – like building solar farms
In 2023 the Australian indie-pop band Lime Cordiale tested a pair of electric tour vans, driving from Sydney to a festival in the Hunter Valley via gigs in Wollongong and Canberra. With gear stacked high and a map dotted with charging stations, the band got a promising, if imperfect, glimpse of their touring future. “At each gig, we’d have to convince someone to let us plug the cars in,” recalls the band’s guitarist and vocalist, Oliver Leimbach. As it transpired, they ran out of charge en route to the festival and had to call for a lift.
Lime Cordiale are part of a growing number of Australian musicians who are recognising the climate cost of touring and finding ways to lessen their impact. While no definitive emissions audit exists for Australia’s music sector, a 2010 study found the UK music industry produced about 540,000 tonnes of greenhouse-gas emissions annually. It’s estimated that a typical two-week, 15-stop tour in Australia produces about 28 tonnes of carbon emissions – the equivalent of an average household’s yearly output.
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Shock, panic, guilt and grief grip survivors as mental health experts warn of chronic trauma from repeated exposure to natural disasters
For a 10-year-old, the loss is proving hard to grasp. “It has been four days since I last saw my home,” says Ahsan. He has not yet understood that the floods completely swept away his house in Dogoro Basha village in Shigar, Pakistan.
His confusion is part of the devastating aftermath of long months of rain and floods that have devastated thousands of families in the country’s northern provinces and left more than 860 people dead so far.
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With two-thirds of Glaswegians living in flats, allotments are in demand, but a lack of plots means few are available
Nestled among tenement flats and light industrial units in Glasgow’s south side is one of the oldest allotment sites in Scotland, having moved to its current location in 1872.
New Victoria Gardens (NVG) is not a huge site, with just 70 or so plots. But according to Andrew Greg, a committee member and longstanding plot-holder at NVG, there are about 300 people on the waiting list and just three to four will get a space every year.
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