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It took some oblique wording, but Saudi Arabia made a last-minute decision to sign deal that marks departure for Cop
Dawn was breaking over the Amazonian city of Belém on Saturday morning, but in the windowless conference room it could have been day or night. They had been stuck there for more than 12 hours, dozens of ministers representing 17 groups of countries, from the poorest on the planet to the richest, urged by the Brazilian hosts to accept a settlement cooked up the day before.
Tempers were short, the air thick as the sweaty and exhausted delegates faced up to reality: there would not be a deal here in Brazil. The 30th UN climate conferencewould end in abject failure.
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The Nature inFocus photography competition 2025 announced its winners at the Nature inFocus festival hosted at Jayamahal Palace in Bengaluru, India.
Close to 16,000 images were submitted by more than 1,250 photographers from more than 38 countries.
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Scarborough and Bognor Regis among places where water is so polluted it is not recommended for swimming
One in seven (13%) of England’s bathing waters are rated as polluted, and one in 14 so polluted they are not recommended for swimming.
Famous beaches including Bognor Regis, Scarborough’s South Bay and Littlehaven Beach in South Shields were all rated “poor” in the latest classifications from the Environment Agency, which means they are not recommended for swimming.
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At Maple Farm, nature is returning in droves: nightingales, grass snakes, slowworms, bats and insects. All due to the vision of a group determined to accelerate its recovery
The manically melodic song of the nightingale is a rare sound in Britain these days, but not at Maple Farm. Four years ago, a single bird could be heard at this secluded spot in rural Surrey; this summer, they were everywhere. “We were hearing them calling all night, from five different territories,” says Meg Cookson, lead ecologist for the Youngwilders, pointing to the woodland around us. A group of Youngwilders were camping out at the site, but the birds were so loud, “we couldn’t sleep all night,” says Layla Mapemba, the group’s engagement lead. “We were all knackered the next day, but it was so cool.” An expert from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them net and ring one of the nightingales the next morning, Cookson recalls: “He’d never held a nightingale in his hands before. He was crying.”
Rewilding is by definition a slow business, but here at Maple Farm, after just four years, the results are already visible, and audible. The farm used to be a retirement home for horses. Now it’s a showpiece for the Youngwilders’ mission: to accelerate nature recovery, in one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, and to connect young people (18-30-year-olds) with a natural world they are often excluded from, and a climate crisis they are often powerless to prevent. Global heating continues, deforestation destroys natural habitats, and another Cop summit draws to a disappointing conclusion in Brazil – so who could blame young people for wanting to take matters into their own hands?
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Campaigners say closure of loophole making it cheaper to export rather than recycle will boost circular economy
The UK could end its reliance on exporting plastic waste by 2030 to support the creation of 5,400 new jobs and take responsibility for the environmental impact of its waste, according to research.
The report said up to 15 new recycling facilities could be built by the end of the decade, attracting more than £800m of private investment. The increase in capacity would help generate almost £900m of economic value every year, providing at least £100m in new tax revenues annually.
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Evidence that the whales and other marine animals are particularly vulnerable to sound is driving calls for quieter vessels
The delicate clicks and whistles of narwhals carry through Tasiujaq, locally known as Eclipse Sound, at the eastern Arctic entrance of the Northwest Passage. A hydrophone in this shipping corridor off Baffin Island, Nunavut, captures their calls as the tusked whales navigate their autumn migration route to northern Baffin Bay.
But as the Nordic Odyssey, a 225-metre ice-class bulk carrier servicing the nearby iron ore mine, approaches, its low engine rumble gives way to a wall of sound created by millions of collapsing bubbles from its propeller. The narwhals’ acoustic signals, evolved for one of Earth’s quietest environments, fall silent.
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As Mumbai sees increased energy demand from new datacenters, particularly from Amazon, the filthiest neighbourhood in one of India’s largest cities must keep its major coal plants
Each day, Kiran Kasbe drives a rickshaw taxi through his home neighbourhood of Mahul on Mumbai’s eastern seafront, down streets lined with stalls selling tomatoes, bottle gourds and aubergines–and, frequently, through thick smog.
Earlier this year, doctors found three tumours in his 54-year-old mother’s brain. It’s not clear exactly what caused her cancer. But people who live near coal plants are much more likely to develop the illness, studies show, and the residents of Mahul live a few hundred metres down the road from one.
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Alison Gaffney believes her son’s rare leukaemia was caused by dumped toxic waste from the town’s steelworks
Alison Gaffney and Andy Hinde received the devastating news that their 17-month-old son, Fraser, had a rare type of leukaemia in 2018.
Two years of gruelling treatment followed, including chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy, before a stem cell transplant. Fraser, then aged three, made a “miraculous recovery” from the surgery, before doctors declared the cancer in remission.
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Cross-party coalition behind proposals hope eco-friendly scheme for million people could begin before end of decade
In the next few years, spades could be in the ground for a city made of wood, in the middle of the largest new nature reserve created in England in decades, with four-bedroom homes on sale for £350,000.
It sounds too good to be true, but a cross-party coalition of campaigners is trying to make a “forest city” to house a million people a reality, with construction commencing by the end of this parliament. It would be the first such project in England since the purpose-built new town of Milton Keynes in the 1960s.
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Australia’s largest synchronous condenser begins testing in Victoria, joining an expanding network operators say will reduce the grid’s reliance on fossil fuels
Nestled amid green rolling hills in western Victoria, 150 tonnes of metal has begun spinning to help secure the electricity grid.
Next to the Ararat terminal station and inside a large grey shed, a steel blue “pony motor” turns a massive rotor at 750 revolutions a minute.
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