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RHS predicts big shift in gardening habits as green-fingered Britons adapt to climate breakdown
Bouquets of cut flowers will be swapped for tabletop vegetable plants next year, the Royal Horticultural Society has said, as the UK charity announces its top plant trend predictions for 2026.
Mini-planters of aubergines, chillies, peppers and tomatoes will be displayed in homes instead of flowers, as breeders develop dwarf varieties that are decorative and capable of supplementing the weekly shop, the RHS says.
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I went from selling flats in Paris to being alone in a cabin in Guinea looking after primates. It changed my life, but one relationship marked me like no other
In 2022, I had a job at an estate agents in Paris selling ridiculously expensive flats, and decided I needed to do something more meaningful with my life. I resigned, and six months later arrived in Guinea.
In hindsight I was a young kid, full of anger, not happy with his life. That 26-year-old is definitely not me now – and it was living with primates that changed my life.
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Party would also abolish zero-emission vehicle mandate, cutting legal requirement on carmakers to sell EVs
The Conservatives have announced proposals to end the 2030 ban on new petrol and diesel cars and cut the legal requirement on car manufacturers to sell electric vehicles.
A Conservative government would abolish the zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate, ending the legal requirement for manufacturers to sell a fixed rising percentage of zero-emission vehicles each year – 80% of new cars and 70% of new vans by 2030, increasing to 100% by 2035. It would also completely end the 2030 ban on new petrol and diesel cars.
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Dartmoor, Devon: In these treacherous conditions for the moorland walker, one false move and a wary wader will burst into the air
Days of torrential rain have yet to drain from this broad ridge at the westernmost edge of Dartmoor. The wide path to the top of Gibbet Hill, with views of Wheal Betsy, the nearby abandoned mine, is glazed with puddles, and I am forced to hop between tussocks of sedge to avoid treading ankle-deep in the liquid earth.
This is my favourite season on Dartmoor – a time when it most feels like a moor: wet, muddy, bleak, empty. The wind-bent grass and dark scuffs of peat appear devoid of life. But winter walks promise fleeting encounters with a species that always takes you by surprise: snipe.
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The watershed summit in 2015 was far from perfect, but its impact so far has been significant and measurable
Ten years on from the historic Paris climate summit, which ended with the world’s first and only global agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions, it is easy to dwell on its failures. But the successes go less remarked.
Renewable energy smashed records last year, growing by 15% and accounting for more than 90% of all new power generation capacity. Investment in clean energy topped $2tn, outstripping that into fossil fuels by two to one.
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Extreme heat follows blazes in New South Wales, while winds plunge Brazil’s largest city into darkness
Extreme heat and bushfires have ravaged the parched landscape of Western Australia. With temperatures expected to continue soaring above 40C (104F) over the coming days, the Bureau of Meteorology has issued a severe heatwave warning across much of the south-west.
The conditions follow bushfires in New South Wales this month, which resulted in the destruction of homes and loss of life. Severe heatwave warnings have also been issued for later this week in parts of South Australia and New South Wales, as a ridge of high pressure moves eastward, bringing blazing sunshine to much of the region.
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In sprawling landfills, thousands of Argentinian families scavenge for survival amid toxic waste and government neglect, dreaming of steady jobs and escape
The sun rises over the plateau of Neuquén’s open-air rubbish tip. Maia, nine, and her brothers, aged 11 and seven, huddle by a campfire. Their mother, Gisel, rummages through bags that smell of rotten fruit and meat.
Situated at the northern end of Argentinian Patagonia, 100km (60 miles) from Vaca Muerta – one of the world’s largest fossil gas reserves – children here roam amid twisted metal, glass and rubbish spread over five hectares (12 acres). The horizon is waste.
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Unless urgent action is taken life will be fundamentally altered for the ancient communities who live on its banks
As a leader of one of the oldest gnostic religions in the world, Sheikh Nidham Kreidi al-Sabahi must use only water taken from a flowing river, even for drinking.
The 68-year-old has a long grey beard hanging over his simple tan robe and a white cap covering his equally long hair, which sheikhs are forbidden from cutting. He says he has never got ill from drinking water from the Tigris River and believes that as long as the water is flowing, it is clean. But the truth is that soon it may not be flowing at all.
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Ten years after I first followed the proposed route, I retraced my steps to see what life was like along the world’s most expensive, heavily delayed railway line
Ten years ago, I walked the route of HS2, the 140-mile railway proposed to run from London to Birmingham, to discover what lay in its path. Nothing had actually been constructed of this, supposedly the first phase of a high-speed line going north. The only trace was the furtive ecological consultants mapping newts and bats and the train’s looming presence in the minds of those who lived along the route. For many, it was a Westminster vanity project, symbolising a country run against the interests of the many to line the pockets of the few. People whose homes were under threat of demolitionwere petitioning parliament, campaigning for more tunnels or hoping the project would collapse before their farms, paddocks and ancient woodlands were wiped out.
The line, we were told a decade ago, would be completed by 2026. Like many of the early claims about the longest railway to be built in Britain since the Victorian era, that fact no longer stands. The fast train is running – very – late. The official finish date of 2033 was recently revised upwards. “The best guess is that it will begin with a ‘4’ when you can catch a train,” one well-informed observer told me. There’s similar uncertainty about its cost, but one thing is sure: it is catastrophically over budget. When complete, HS2 will almost certainly be the most expensive railway in the world. Nearly 20 years ago, HS1, the line from the Channel tunnel to St Pancras, was completed on time and on budget for £51m per mile (£87m in today’s prices). It was criticised for being twice as expensive as a high-speed route constructed in France. HS2 may cost almost £1bn per mile.
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Despite billions in investment and backing from the federal government, carbon capture and storage technology ‘should be in no way treated as a climate solution’, critics say
The US energy company Chevron describes it as the world’s largest industrial carbon dioxide injection project of its kind. But it has a problem. It still isn’t working as promised and the results are getting worse.
The $3bn Gorgon carbon capture and storage (CCS) development, on Barrow Island off Western Australia’s Pilbara coast, was supposed to start operating in 2016, backed by $60m in federal government funding. Chevron and its partners in the project, including Shell and ExxonMobil, said it would capture up to 4m tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) from an underwater gas field each year and inject it in a reservoir more than 2km beneath the island.
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