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Campaigners criticise frequent use of storm overflows when parts of the country were in drought for months
Raw sewage was discharged into rivers and seas almost 300,000 times last year after the driest spring for more than 100 years and the sunniest and warmest year on record in England.
Water companies released raw sewage into rivers and seas from storm overflows – designed to be used in extreme wet weather conditions – 291,492 times. This was a 35% reduction on record spills in 2024. Average discharges were 20.5 spills for each overflow, compared with 31.8 in the previous year.
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Here’s what to know about how the current crisis could shape the expansion of renewable energy
As the deadly war in Iran triggers what the International Energy Agency has described as the worst oil crisis in history, climate advocates are calling for a faster shift away from fossil fuels, but the conflict may also hamper that transition.
US-Israeli strikes on Iran have disrupted supply routes through the strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of global oil flows. The US, Israel and Iran have also all launched strikes on fossil fuel facilities, creating additional market shocks.
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Rising energy bills give Reform and Tories opening to attack net zero while government hesitant to make case for clean energy
Could net zero become “the next Brexit”? That is the fear stalking climate advocates as the oil crisis caused by the war on Iran starts to bite.
A powerful coalition of the well-funded Reform party, led by Nigel Farage, the Conservative party, some business interests, and the UK’s right-wing media, are engaged in an onslaught against the longstanding target of reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
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As species vanish and the unique ecosystem radically changes, Ukrainian scientists can only wait until it is safe to properly assess the damage
In the embattled harbours of Odesa, a scientific vessel lists in its mooring. No one has been able to take a look at the damage to the Boris Alexander from Russian drones and shelling that have hit the port city over the past four years of war in Ukraine. It is too dangerous, just as no one has been able to fully monitor the damage the war is doing to the Black Sea.
“We can only wait,” says Dr Jaroslav Slobodnik, the director of the Environmental Institute, headquartered in the Slovak Republic. “The biodiversity landscape is completely altered. A number of species seem to have disappeared, but we need more data. Data which the war makes it impossible to collect.”
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The Marches, Shropshire:The call of the chiffchaff and the turning of the allotment soil – these are seasonal rituals honed over time
A pair of ravens, barking mad, perform their shuttling flight in glorious sunshine above Old Racecourse Common. A charm of chaffinches flash white wing-bars through the shadows of mossy willows around the pond. A queen red-tailed bumblebee orbits a hedgebank boundary stone, then buzzes off to feed on gorse flowers or prospect for possible colony chambers below.
A lesser-spotted woodpecker hammers out rapid bursts of drumbeats from a stand of beech across the misty distances of the hills. Chiffchaffs find their rhythm in the oaks. These constantly repeated two-note phrases are not what they seem when you hear the writer and musician Mark E Smith say of his own work: “It’s not repetition, it’s discipline.” A chiffchaff flies out from tree cover, across the open common, an apparition so slight compared with the powerful, hidden voice, to resume their discipline in further oaks.
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Regulator for England lacks powers to deal with what the public accounts committee calls an ‘out-of-control plague’
The Environment Agency is too weak to tackle an “out-of-control plague” of waste dumping, a powerful group of MPs has said.
The public accounts committee (PAC) said the EA had gaps in its powers and intelligence gathering which meant it was not set up to deal effectively with the rise in waste dumping.
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US, top carbon emitter in history, has ‘a lot of responsibility’ for causing ‘substantial’ harm globally, scientist says
The US has caused an eye-watering $10tn in global damages to the world over the past three decades through its vast planet-heating emissions, with a quarter of this economic pain inflicted upon itself, new research has found.
By being the largest carbon emitter in history, the US has caused greater harm to worldwide economic growth than any other country, ahead of China, now the world’s largest emitter that is responsible for $9tn in GDP damage since 1990, according to the findings of the paper.
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During the second world war, farmers received forecasts in code and railway announcers were banned from blaming delays on fog or snow
Data security is not just a modern issue. The BBC stopped its daily weather forecasts as soon as the second world war started. They had been a feature of the radio schedule since 1923 but continuing them would have given vital weather intelligence to the Germans.
In particular, the forecast provided information about when skies would be clear, what winds were blowing and when storms were expected, all of which would be helpful for the Luftwaffe when planning bombing raids.
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Small farmers and community-led conservation groups are trying to protect one of the biggest semi-arid forests in the world – under threat from expanding agriculture, wildfires and the ‘logging mafia’
Jorge Luna stands in a piece of Argentina’s Gran Chaco forest that he calls his own. Birds sing as he surveys skyscraping molle trees, known as pepper trees, palo santo and algarrobo, or carob trees. “It’s good wood,” says Luna, 55. “I was about to cut them down.”
Selling timber promises quick and easy money in the sprawling ecosystem that covers parts of Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Brazil. But it comes at a steep price, contributing to rampant deforestation and irreversible damage to the forest.
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The fishery is regulated but experts say it is wrecking the food chain. Gordon Peake joined a Sea Shepherd mission to observe the giant ships compete for catch
It is bitterly cold on the deck of the Allankay and the bosun, Luca Massari, is checking that none of us are wearing contact lenses before we descend into Antarctic waters. There is a risk, he warns, that lenses will freeze solid over the eyes. Massari himself is prepared for his surroundings. He is wearing thick goggles that make him look like an Olympic ski jumper.
Massari is a burly, heavily tattooed veteran of the environmental organisation Sea Shepherd, which campaigns against exploiting the oceans. His deck team are preparing to launch the ship’s small boat, which Massari will helm. Eight of us are bundled in bright red dry suits, helmets and lifejackets; the average time to survive hypothermia in this wind-whipped water is just five minutes.
The Allankay sailed to Coronation Island from New Zealand to document the krill fishing. Photograph: Alice Bacou/Sea Shepherd
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