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Energy and net zero secretary lays out stark picture of how climate crisis and nature depletion is affecting UK
Ed Miliband has accused the Conservatives of being “anti-science” by abandoning a political consensus on net zero as he gave MPs a stark outline of how the climate crisis and nature depletion are already affecting the UK.
In the first of what is promised to be an annual “state of the climate” report, the energy and net zero secretary set out the findings of a Met Office-led study that detailed how the UK was already hotter and wetter, and faced a greater number of extreme weather events.
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Class action led by two community leaders argued government had legal duty of care to prevent or deal with damage linked to global heating
The federal court has dismissed a landmark case brought by two Torres Strait community leaders that argued the Australian federal government breached its duty of care to protect the Torres Strait Islands from climate change.
In delivering the decision, however, Justice Michael Wigney noted: “There could be little if any doubt that the Torres Strait Islands and their inhabitants face a bleak future if urgent action is not taken to address climate change and its impacts.”
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With a bottlenose population threatened by fishing gear, boats and pollution, campaigners on South Korea’s Jeju island are lobbying to extend legal status to the vulnerable cetaceans
It is a beautiful sunny day on the island of Jeju in South Korea and as the boat cuts through the water all seems calm and clear. Then they start to appear – one telltale fin and then another. Soon, a pod of eight or nine dolphins can be seen moving through the sea, seemingly following the path of the boat.
But as they start to jump and dive, fins cutting through the air, it becomes apparent that one dolphin is missing the appendage, his body breaking the surface but without the telltale profile of his companions. His name, given to him by a local environmental group, is Orae, which literally translates as “long”, but in this context means “wishing him a long life”.
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Hogshaw, Buxton: House martins are breeding in just one specific spot here, and it’s the old town tip that tells us why
If you came to this Derbyshire spot in winter, with all its down-at-heel problems of congested traffic, air pollution, dense housing and largely garden-free conditions, the bottom of Fairfield Road would be about the last place in Buxton you’d imagine to find breeding house martins. Yet it is about the only place in town with a good-sized colony of these exquisite if declining summer migrants, so unpicking why they have persisted here and gone almost everywhere else locally is instructive.
One element may be the height of the terrace housing. The buildings are on three floors and the overhanging eaves, where martins locate their mud-cup nests, are beyond the reach of “tidy-minded” souls worried about droppings below. A more certain factor is that the back of Fairfield is only a house martin’s swoop away from what was once the town tip called Hogshaw. Yet in the last half-century it has been redeemed by nature and smothered in sallow and birch woodland. Those two are among our most insect-friendly tree species, and the resulting abundance of invertebrates which not only accounts for the birds’ presence here, but determines almost everything about house martins.
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Up to five areas could enter drought status and more hosepipe bans expected after three heatwaves and lack of rain
As many as five areas of England are expected to go into drought this summer after the hottest June since records began in 1884.
Three heatwaves, which tend to increase water consumption, combined with a lack of rain means that large swathes of England are heading towards drought status and the damage to the environment that entails.
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UK’s energy system operator forecasts emissions a third over target by 2035, in second official warning in a month
Britain is expected to fall short of the progress needed to meet its climate targets over the next decade because it is not growing its supply of clean electricity quickly enough, according to the government’s energy system operator.
The latest 10-year forecast of Britain’s carbon emissions by the government-owned body has revealed that by 2035 the UK will be producing almost a third more carbon emissions than in scenarios where it is on track to meet its legally binding climate targets by 2050.
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Jane McCarthy, who has terminal cancer, withheld payments for three years in protest at Buckinghamshire council’s fossil fuel investments
A woman who withheld council tax payments for three years in protest at her local authority’s continued investment in fossil fuels fears losing her home.
Jane McCarthy, 74, said she decided on the protest after becoming increasingly fearful about the impact of climate breakdown on future generations, particularly when she learned about climate tipping points at a local meeting.
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Crucial for coastal communities, mangroves are threatened by land clearing, development and rising seas
As the morning light hits Oibola village in Solomon Islands, the receding tide drains water through a maze of tangled mangrove roots.
Dressed in muddy jeans and a worn T-shirt, Ben Waleilia moves carefully through the thick mangrove forest, searching for seedlings. Rows of young mangrove shoots stand high as Waleilia gently drops seedlings into a small plastic bucket.
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Household energy bills in some Republican-leaning states could rise by more than $600 every year, analysis of the so-called ‘big, beautiful bill’ finds
The cost of electricity is poised to surge across the US in the wake of Republican legislation that takes an axe to cheap renewable energy, with people in states who voted for Donald Trump last year to be hardest hit by the increase in bills.
As air conditioners crank up across the US during another sweltering summer amid an unfolding climate crisis, rising energy costs will become even more severe for households due to the reconciliation spending bill passed by Republicans in Congress and signed by Trump, who called it the “big, beautiful bill”, on 4 July.
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The Fourth of July tragedy was described as something no one could have seen coming. But in ‘flash flood alley’, an eerily similar event 40 years ago holds important lessons
The rain was pouring down in Texas in the early morning hours of 17 July 1987. James Moore, a reporter for a local NBC news station, was stationed in Austin when his editors called and told him to grab his camera operator and head to Kerrville, a Hill Country town about 100 miles (160km) away. They had heard reports of flash flooding on the Guadalupe River.
“We just jumped in the car when it was still dark … we knew there were going to be problems based on how much rain there was,” Moore said. En route, he got another call over the radio that told him to head instead for the small hamlet of Comfort, just 15 miles from Kerrville.
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