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Ecuadorian ambassador to the UK is hopeful impasse can be overcome at treaty negotiations in Ottawa
As UN talks begin to agree the first global treaty to reduce soaring plastic waste, the chair of the meetings has said he is confident countries will come together to secure an agreement.
Luis Vayas Valdivieso, the Ecuadorian ambassador to the UK, admitted it would be a challenge to overcome an impasse that has emerged between countries which produce plastic and others that have ambitions to tackle plastic pollution over its whole life. But Valdivieso, who will chair the UN intergovernmental negotiations on a future international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution in Ottawa, Canada, this week, said: “We have to face those challenges and work with them. Compromise is an important word that we need to take into account.
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Claire O’Neill, a former climate minister, says PM’s move was to ‘try and create political division and dividing lines’
The UK government’s decision to weaken some of its climate commitments was a “retrograde step” that would set back vital cross-party action to cut carbon emissions, Claire O’Neill, a former Conservative climate minister, has said.
O’Neill, who was known as Claire Perry when she served as a minister under David Cameron and Theresa May, said the rolling back of emission reduction efforts by Rishi Sunak appeared to be a ploy for political advantage.
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International Energy Agency says 17m vehicles will be sold this year, up more than 20% compared with 2023
Electric and plug-in hybrid car sales will jump to a new global record in 2024 despite slowing growth in some markets, according to forecasts from the influential International Energy Agency (IEA).
The Paris-based forecaster said that 17m battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles will be sold in 2024, up more than 20% compared with 2023.
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Chris Stark says populist response and culture war around the term is inhibiting environmental progress
The concept of “net zero” has become a political slogan used to start a “dangerous” culture war over the climate, and may be better dropped, the outgoing head of the UK’s climate watchdog has warned.
Chris Stark, the chief executive of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), said sensible improvements to the economy and people’s liveswere being blocked by a populist response to the net zero label, and he would be “intensely relaxed” about losing the term.
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In the past 10 years the idea that trees communicate with and look after each other has gained widespread currency. But have these claims outstripped the evidence?
There are a lot of humans. Teeming is perhaps an unkind word, but when 8 billion people cram themselves on to a planet that, three centuries before, held less than a tenth of that number, it seems apt. Eight billion hot-breathed individuals, downloading apps and piling into buses and shoving their plasticky waste into bins – it is a stupefying and occasionally sickening thought.
And yet, humans are not Earth’s chief occupants. Trees are. There are three trillion of them, with a collective biomass thousands of times that of humanity. But although they are the preponderant beings on Earth – outnumbering us by nearly 400 to one – they’re easy to miss. Show someone a photograph of a forest with a doe peeking out from behind a maple and ask what they see. “A deer,” they’ll triumphantly exclaim, as if the green matter occupying most of the frame were mere scenery. “Plant blindness” is the name for this. It describes the many who can confidently distinguish hybrid dog breeds – chiweenies, cavapoos, pomskies – yet cannot identify an apple tree.
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Stories of dismay but also resilience as crisis in food production builds after 18 months of exceptionally wet weather
Farmers have been dealing with record-breaking rainfall over at least the past year, meaning food produced in Britain has fallen drastically.
Livestock and crops have been affected as fields have been submerged since last autumn on account of it being an exceptionally wet 18 months.
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The activist on her year being pursued by lawyers determined to prosecute her over a placard
Two days before Trudi Warner faced court under threat of a contempt of court prosecution, she fell off her bike and ruptured the tendons in her hand.
Now the hand is black and blue, tightly bandaged, and requires surgery. It is an indication that 69-year-old Warner, who spent her working life as a child social worker and has committed her retirement to climate action, is not as tough and unflappable as her demeanour suggests.
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As diplomats search for a way to curb the world’s growing problem of plastic, bottles, buoys, nets and packaging are piling up on what should be one of the most pristine environments
As our small fishing boat slows to a halt in a shallow bay south-east of Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz, in the Galápagos Islands, a green turtle surfaces next to us, followed by a second, then a third a few metres away. A spotted eagle ray glides underneath the vessel.
The skipper, Don Nelson, steps on to the black volcanic reef, slippery with algae. We follow, past exposed mangrove roots and up on to higher ground. Pelicans swooping into the trees and small birds, perching on branches, ignore our approach.
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Replacing red meat with fish could prevent diabetes, reduce our carbon footprint and save lives. So who’s for spaghetti and fishballs?
“What’s for supper?” my wife asks. We are watching the six o’clock news and the pause I leave before answering is longer than I mean it to be. I’m trying to find the words.
“Fish wellington,” I say, finally. The silence that follows is longer still.
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Though touted as a model of environmental preservation, the country has recently signalled a shift from phasing out fossil fuels to boosting the economy. Franz Tattenbach on the tension between green credentials and growth
“This country is what the world would like to be but is not,” says Franz Tattenbach, Costa Rica’s minister of environment and energy. The 69-year-old economist is keenly aware of his role as guardian of the country’s reputation for forward-looking biodiversity initiatives and forest restoration. Since the 1970s, successive governments have sought to do justice to its wildlife, enacting a widely praised conservation policy that has boosted the country’s image as a model of environmental preservation.
From his ninth-floor office window in San José, Tattenbach can see the mountains surrounding the Central Valley. Beyond them lie the jungles, the wild beaches and the areas where nearly 6% of the world’s biodiversity resides in just 51,100 sq km (19,700 sq miles) of land, and extensive marine protected area.
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