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Critics accuse leading firms of sabotaging climate action but say data increasingly being used to hold them to account
Just 32 fossil fuel companies were responsible for half the global carbon dioxide emissions driving the climate crisis in 2024, down from 36 a year earlier, a report has revealed.
Saudi Aramco was the biggest state-controlled polluter and ExxonMobil was the largest investor-owned polluter. Critics accused the leading fossil fuel companies of “sabotaging climate action” and “being on the wrong side of history” but said the emissions data was increasingly being used to hold the companies accountable.
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Government opts against phasing out new boilers by 2035 in effort to cut energy bills by as much as £1,000 a year
There will be no phaseout date for gas boilers in the government’s warm homes plan despite its pledge to wean the UK off fossil fuels, but billions of pounds will go towards heat pumps and insulation upgrades.
Labour’s principal attempt to solve the UK’s cost of living crisis, the £15bn warm homes plan, will overhaul 5m dwellings, aiming to cut energy bills by as much as £1,000 a year, in the biggest public investment yet made into home upgrades.
£5bn for upgrades, including insulation, solar panels, batteries and heat pumps, for people on low incomes.
£2bn towards low-cost loans for people who can afford them.
£2.7bn for the boiler upgrade scheme, by which people can swap their existing gas boilers for £7,500 on a new heat pump.
£1.1bn for heat networks, which distribute heat from a central source, which could be a large heat pump or geothermal or other low-carbon source.
£2.7bn towards innovative finance through the warm homes fund, which could include schemes such as green mortgages offering a lower interest rate to homes that have been insulated and equipped with solar panels and heat pumps.
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Overuse and pollution must end urgently as no one knows when whole system might collapse, says expert
The world has entered an era of “global water bankruptcy” that is harming billions of people, a UN report has declared.
The overuse and pollution of water must be tackled urgently, the report’s lead author said, because no one knew when the whole system could collapse, with implications for peace and social cohesion.
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Ecosystem destruction will increase food shortages, disorder and mass migration, with effects already being felt
The global attack on nature is threatening the UK’s national security, government intelligence chiefs have warned, as the increasingly likely collapse of vitally important natural systems would bring mass migration, food shortages and price rises, and global disorder.
Food supplies are particularly at risk since “without significant increases” the UK would be unable to compete with other nations for scarce resources, a report to ministers says.
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Actor says it is ‘more important than ever’ to safeguard city’s parks as report finds more than 50 are at risk
Dame Judi Dench has called for greater protections for London’s parks and green spaces, as research finds more than 50 of the city’s parks are at risk from development.
The Oscar-winning actor has long loved trees, and in 2017 fronted a BBC documentary about her love for them. She plants a tree every time a close friend or relative dies, including for her late husband, Michael Williams, who died in 2001, and the actor Natasha Richardson, who was killed in a skiing accident in 2009, and one for her brother Jeffery Dench, who died in 2014.
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Swillington Ings, West Yorkshire: I’m counting, but not counting. The highlight, though, has to be those those gentleman thugs, the greater black-backed gulls
Last week, three guys I know took a winter walk around this patch of water, wetland and waterside scrub, and saw 84 bird species. I’m going to write that out in full, like they used to on the football results when someone notched up an improbable score: eighty-four. Most people would be hard-pressed to name 84 bird species, let alone find that many on this frost-bitten stretch of post‑industrial West Yorkshire. And they do this every year (in a good cause: the Michael Clegg Memorial Bird Race, in aid of Yorkshire Swifts).
And now here I am. I do keep a list when I go birdwatching, but really only for form’s sake. My lists will never impress anyone, nor will they ever be of use to ornithologists of the future.
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A study of Arabidopsis thalianaplants found that plants growing together activated genes to protect themselves, while isolated plants did not
Plants growing close to each other can warn each other about stresses in their lives.
Thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana) plants were grown on their own or crowded so close together they were touching each other. When all the plants were then stressed with intense light, the isolated plants suffered severe damage, but the crowds of plants were able to cope with the stress. In fact, it just took an hour for the crowded plants to switch on more than 2,000 of their genes that were involved in protecting against a host of different stresses; in contrast, the isolated plants showed little sign of any extra gene activity.
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As Labour shakes up regulation, suppliers are finally investing – but face problems such as contractor shortages and inflation
When a sluice gate failed 24 metres below the water’s surface at Thames Water’s Queen Mother reservoir near London’s Heathrow airport, there were no easy fixes available. Emptying 37m cubic metres (1,307m cu ft) of water was not an option, meaning that helmeted divers were limited to 98-minute stints in the high-pressure environment.
The risky project required a team on a floating platform with a crane to cut out the broken equipment with thermal lances, bolt a plate on to the reservoir wall, and install the new equipment. It took more than a year until last October to complete, according to Glenfield Invicta, the contractor that carried out the work for Thames Water.
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The Andaman coast was one of very few places in the world with a viable population but then dead dugongs began washing up. Now half have gone
A solitary figure stands on the shore of Thailand’s Tang Khen Bay. The tide is slowly rising over the expanse of sandy beach, but the man does not seem to notice. His eyes are not fixed on the sea, but on the small screen clutched between his hands.
About 600 metres offshore, past the shadowy fringe of coral reef, his drone hovers over the murky sea, focused on a whirling grey shape: Miracle, the local dugong, is back.
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Studies detecting microplastics throughout human bodies have made for alarming reading in recent years. But last week, the Guardian’s environment editor, Damian Carrington, reported on major doubts among a group of scientists about how some of this research has been conducted.
Damian tells Ian Sample how he first heard about the concerns, why the scientists think the discoveries are probably the result of contamination and false positives, and where it leaves the field. He also reflects on how we should now think about our exposure to microplastics
Clips: Vox, Detroit Local 4
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