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Millions given to party and MPs last year came from entities linked to fossil fuels, high-polluting industries and climate denial
The Conservative party received £3.5m from individuals and entities linked to climate denial, fossil fuels and high-pollution industries last year, according to new analysis.
The climate website DeSmog analysed Electoral Commission records, which show that the party and its MPs received funds from the aviation and construction industries, mining and oil interests, and individuals linked to the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), a thinktank which has denied the legitimacy of climate science.
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Thirsty or damaged plants produce up to 50 staccato pops in an hour, which nearby creatures may respond to, researchers find
There comes a time in a plant’s life when the head sags, the leaves go pale and the body releases a barrage of sounds that are the ultrasonic equivalent of stamping on bubble wrap.
While any gardener is familiar with the wilting and discoloration that comes with drought, a shortage of water or a sudden wound can also prompt plants to produce staccato pops, which nearby creatures may respond to, scientists say.
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Resolution hailed as ‘win for climate justice of epic proportions’ should make it easier to hold countries accountable for failures
A UN resolution was adopted on Wednesday that should make it easier to hold polluting countries legally accountable for failing to tackle the climate emergency, in a vote which was hailed as a historic victory for climate justice.
The UN general assembly adopted by consensus the resolution spearheaded by Vanuatu, a tiny Pacific island nation vulnerable to extreme climate effects, and youth activists to secure a legal opinion from the international court of justice (ICJ) to clarify states’ obligations to tackle the climate crisis – and specify any consequences countries should face for inaction.
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The global response to an escalating water crisis is belated and inadequate. But last week’s UN conference was an important marker
The more than 700 pledges that emerged from the UN water conference, which concluded last weekend, were an insufficient response to the worsening global water crisis. But the scientific panel that the UN has committed to create, along with a new water envoy, should help bring greater clarity and raise awareness of the multiplying risks. These include sea level rises, floods, droughts and other extreme weather caused by global heating, and the lack of access of about 2 billion people to clean drinking water. The trouble is that the commitments made by attenders – who included very few world leaders – are voluntary and unenforceable. Given the broken climate pledges of the past, there is every reason to worry that the promises will not be kept.
Many participants in the three days of talks in New York were angered by the prominent role played by corporations, including manufacturers who are heavy users of water, and the lack of representation of grassroots organisations from the poorer countries that are the worst affected. As with recent reports of the influence of oil companies in US universities, there are growing concerns about the ways in which businesses are seeking to shape environmental legislation, and public understanding of the threats, to promote their own short-term economic interests.
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Creating more green areas could also save up to £40m a year in costs linked to mental health issues, say researchers
An ambitious push to create more green spaces in Barcelona – a city with one of the highest population and traffic densities in Europe – could improve the health of more than 30,000 people, reduce the use of antidepressants and save up to €45m (£40m) annually in costs associated with mental health issues, research suggests.
It builds on a growing body of evidence that has linked urban green spaces to better mental wellbeing as well as the prevention of depression, anxiety and insomnia.
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Group of Swiss women and French ex-mayor suing their governments in first such cases heard by rights court
The governments of Switzerland and France have been accused of breaching the human rights of their citizens by not acting decisively enough on climate change, at a landmark legal hearing in Strasbourg.
A panel of judges at the European court of human rights heard petitions from a group of Swiss women and a French former mayor seeking to bolster climate action in their countries. Although climate litigation has spread quicklyaround the world, these are the first such cases to be heard by the ECHR.
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New research by Australian scientists suggests 40% slowdown in just three decades could alter world’s climate for centuries
Melting ice around Antarctica will cause a rapid slowdown of a major global deep ocean current by 2050 that could alter the world’s climate for centuries and accelerate sea level rise, according to scientists behind new research.
The research suggests if greenhouse gas emissions continue at today’s levels, the current in the deepest parts of the ocean could slow down by 40% in only three decades.
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UK tops all league tables for highly polluting form of travel, with a flight taking off every six minutes last year
The UK is the private jet capital of Europe, with more flights than anywhere else on the continent, analysis has found.
Last year, a private jet set off from the UK once every six minutes, putting the country ahead of the rest of Europe when it comes to the extremely polluting form of travel. Many of these journeys have been called “polluting and pointless” by Greenpeace, as they are so short they could have easily been taken by train – and in one case, cycled in 30 minutes.
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In latest blow to Joe Biden’s reputation as the ‘climate president’, 73.3m acres of the gulf will be offered for fossil fuel extraction
An enormous swathe of the Gulf of Mexico, spanning an area the size of Italy, was put up for auction on Wednesday for oil and gas drilling, in the latest blow to Joe Biden’s increasingly frayed reputation on dealing with the climate crisis.
The president’s Department of the Interior offered up a vast area of the central and western Gulf, including plunging deep water reaches, for drilling projects that will stretch out over decades, despite scientists’ urgent warnings that fossil fuels must be rapidly phased out if the world is to avoid disastrous global heating. The auctions also come despite Biden’s own pre-election promise to halt all drilling on federal lands and waters.
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The Marches, Montgomeryshire: The ones here, at the home of rebel leader Owain Glyndŵr, know how to wait till the coast is clear
There is a moment when the old oaks hold fast to winter. Their centuries taught them about betrayal: sunshine before the lash of hail whips round the hill; sweet birdsong stiff with frost, late snows and other silences. They are reluctant to unclench buds, hesitant to loosen pollen smoke. That day, when the vernal equinox tips into the light, and we wind clocks forwards to return a stolen hour; when timbers shiver with a pulse that opens up the leaves across the land; is that now?
Sycharth is a green ring in the valley a mile, as the crow flies, across the border into Montgomeryshire, Powys. It is a circular earthwork of a motte around the central mound of a bailey under a wooded hillside by the Cynllaith brook. On the ring are oaks and in the oaks are histories, and of those histories, the one about Owain Glyndŵr is the most famous.
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