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Brazil’s André Corrêa do Lago says countries should follow China’s lead on clean energy as conference begins
Rich countries have lost enthusiasm for combating the climate crisis while China is surging ahead in producing and using clean energy equipment, the president of the UN climate talks has said.
More countries should follow China’s lead instead of complaining about being outcompeted, said André Corrêa do Lago, the Brazilian diplomat in charge of the Cop30 conference, which begins on Monday.
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Destructive winds and rainfall hit archipelago, while a cold spell in Florida prompts fears of falling iguanas
Typhoon Fung-Wong, locally known as Uwan, is the second in a week to affect the Philippines after making landfall on Sunday evening. The weather system prompted warnings for heavy rainfall and life-threatening storm surges across much of the country, with sustained winds of 115mph (185km/h) and gusts of about 140mph recorded on Sunday by the national meteorological agency.
By the time Fung-Wong moves past the Philippines early this week, more than 200mm of rainfall is expected to have fallen on Luzon, the country’s most populous island.
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The spread of African swine flu among the wild boars the animals eat has led to the deadliest winter for attacks on people in the Russian region for decades – and a spike in tiger killings
The attacks seemed to come from nowhere. At first, the tigers snatched guard dogs on the edge of villages in Russia’s far east, emerging from the forest at night to prey. Others went for livestock, going after horses and cattle.
Then the attacks on people began. In January, an ice fisher was mauled at night and dragged away by a big cat, just weeks after a forester had been killed. In March, another man was attacked and partly eaten by a tiger. It was the deadliest winter for tiger attacks in Siberia for decades.
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Fall reported by Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors as UN calls for accelerated action in buildings sector to meet global climate goals
The growth in global demand for “green” office buildings has slowed after Donald Trump’s assault on environmental protection policies caused a slump in interest in the US, according to a survey of construction industry professionals.
Building occupiers and investors across North America and South America expressed significantly lower growth in demand for green commercial buildings, a shift that “seems to be in response to a change in US policy focus”, according to a survey of members of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics). Reported demand across the rest of the world also fell, albeit not as sharply.
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Allendale, Northumberland: It’s not too late to set the trap for some wonderful species – not least the remarkable angle shades moth
Last night was forecast to be wet, but I set the moth trap anyway, hoping a temperature of 10C would encourage species that are active in November. Some moths can fly in the rain, thanks to the super-hydrophobicity of their wings, which are angled like sloping roofs, their microscopic scales the overlapping tiles so that water droplets simply roll off. Wind may be a problem for them, but rain isn’t.
First I check the wall next to the trap and am delighted to find my first December moth of the season. Despite its name, I’m more likely to find the handsome Poecilocampa populi in November. I can tell this is a male from its resplendent antennae, comb‑shaped to increase the surface area with which to detect female pheromones at a great distance. A furry head like a Cossack hat, wings cloaked in charcoal grey and russet with cream cross lines, it is well insulated against the cold. My garden being close to woodland and, with their larvae feeding on broad-leaved trees, I’ve recorded December moths every winter since I’ve been sending data to the Garden Moth Scheme.
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Exclusive: Leading ecologists say warnings over threat to wildlife have been ignored in drive to build 1.5m new homes
The scale of lobbying of ministers by developers on Labour’s landmark planning changes, which seek to rip up environmental rules to boost growth, can be exposed as campaigners make last-ditch attempts to secure protections for nature.
The government published its planning and infrastructure bill in March. Before and after the bill’s publication the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, and housing minister Matthew Pennycook have met dozens of developers in numerous meetings. The body representing professional ecologists, meanwhile, has not met one minister despite requests to do so.
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Exclusive: report by Stand.earth says subsidiary of power plant received truckloads of whole logs at biomass pellet sites
Drax power plant has continued to burn 250-year-old trees sourced from some of Canada’s oldest forests despite growing scrutiny of its sustainability claims, forestry experts say.
A new report suggests it is “highly likely” that Britain’s biggest power plant sourced some wood from ecologically valuable forests as recently as this summer. Drax, Britain’s single biggest source of carbon emissions, has received billions of pounds in subsidies from burning biomass derived largely from wood.
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At 104, Betty Reid Soskin has had the most extraordinary life, from protest singing to civil rights activism to meeting the Obamas. She reflects on what it takes to stay strong and keep going
Betty Reid Soskin was 92 when she first went viral and became, in effect, a rock star of the National Park Service. She was the oldest full-time national park ranger in the US – this was back in 2013; she’d become a ranger at 85 – but she had been furloughed along with 800,000 other federal employees during the government shutdown. News channels flocked to interview her. She was aggrieved not to be working, she told them; she had a job to do.
“In a funny way, I suppose that started lots of things,” Soskin says. Her memoir, Sign My Name to Freedom, was published in 2018, and a documentary about her work, No Time to Waste, was released in 2020. Another film is in the works. Barack Obama called her “profoundly inspiring”. Annie Leibovitz photographed her. Glamour magazine named her woman of the year. Now, Reid Soskin is 104, and “all of whatever I was supposed to do, I’ve done”, she says.
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Before Peter Betts died in 2023, he wanted to pass on what he had learned over many years of negotiating at Cops – including how Paris 2015 was saved at the last bell
By Peter Betts. Read by Andrew McGregor
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Brace for the cold with these clever accessories made and tested by people who know long, dark winters
Scandinavians know how to dress for forbidding weather. The long Scandinavian winter, which typically stretches from November until late March, demands layers of clothing and plenty of protection against the cold. While temperatures can plummet to -30C (-22F) farther north in Sweden and Norway, winters farther south in Sweden, Norway and Denmark tend to be milder and wetter, requiring breathable materials that also withstand rain.
Moving abroad to the UK and then returning to Sweden, I realized how underdressed people were outside Scandinavia. It became even more obvious after having kids and noticing how we always try to dress them appropriately, including several layers of clothing that are finished off with a pair of thick shell pants.
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