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‘The climate issue is the security issue,’ says Turkish minister at Pacific pre-Cop summit in Fiji
Wealthy countries should spend far more on dealing with the climate crisis than the 5% of GDP promised by Nato members for defence because “the climate issue is the security issue”, the host of the next UN summit has said.
But, in comments that are likely to prove contentious, the Cop31 president-designate, Murat Kurum, hedged on whether countries should try to repeat a previous agreement to “transition away from fossil fuels” – the primary cause of the climate crisis – when they meet in Turkey next month.
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Exclusive: Firms made more than £340m last year from processing industrial and commercial wastewater at sewage works that are unable to remove many chemical pollutants
Water companies in the UK made more than £340m in revenue last year by pouring billions of litres of industrial and commercial wastewater into sewage treatment works that experts say are not designed to remove most chemicals, leaving pollutants to pass into rivers, seas and farmland.
Water companies in England are required by law to take industrial wastewater and issue permits called “trade-effluent consents” that allow businesses to send it to sewage works, though water companies can refuse applications.
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Storm expected to make landfall on US’s northern Gulf coast with risk of flash floods and isolated river flooding
Isaias has become the first Atlantic hurricane of the 2026 season, with wind speeds of 80mph and a minimum pressure of 975mb. It is expected to strengthen to a category 2 hurricane as it approaches the US’s northern Gulf coast on Friday, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
As a result of the strong El Niño, it has been a notably quiet Atlantic hurricane season. The first hurricane of the season has not formed this late since 8 October 1905, which pre-dates the satellite era (1960s) for tracking hurricanes that has allowed for more non-landfall hurricanes to be discovered.
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Species with leaves large enough to be seen from space is already critically endangered – and plans are afoot to protect it
A chance social media encounter has led to the race-against-time discovery of a new species of giant waterlily that has until now been hidden in the depths of Colombia’s jungle.
But the plant, which is so huge it is visible from space, is already considered critically endangered.
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Installation of eight canopy bridges in Alta Floresta has enabled 15,000 safe crossings by animals including spider monkeys and marmosets – and more bridges are planned elsewhere
By about 7am, with dense fog blanketing the landscape, Gabriel Falquetto had already come across several road-killed animals along the ES-164 highway in Brazil’s Espírito Santo state. The biologist was on his way to Kaetés private natural heritage reserve (RPPN) in the Atlantic Forest, where he monitors wildlife and roadkill.
Then he spotted the lifeless body of a primate on the pavement. It was a buffy-headed marmoset (Callithrix flaviceps), a species listed as critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature red list. An estimated 2,500 individuals remain in the wild, making it one of the world’s most threatened primates.
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Free-roaming Aldabra population far exceeds human population of Seychelles after decades-long recovery programme
A survey of the world’s largest free-roaming giant tortoise population has discovered that the once endangered species is thriving.
A population of Aldabra giant tortoises lives on an island in Seychelles called Aldabra Atoll.
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The strongest El Niño recorded is expected to bring a cascade of hazards to a state still facing wildfire and heat risks, while budget cuts have weakened disaster response agencies
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Before this year, the US National Weather Service had never issued a September coastal flood advisory for the San Francisco Bay Area. In the past month, it has had to issue two.
As flood water swallowed intersections and eroded beaches up and down the California coast last week, scientists and emergency managers warned that this is just an early signal of a coming tumultuous winter as an already exceptional El Niño continues to strengthen. It’s been called everything from “super” to “Godzilla”, as forecasters hammer home the message that conditions brewing in the Pacific Ocean could soon climb off the charts, and fuel extreme weather around the world.
Comebacks for wild tigers, tuna and sea turtles prove nature loss can be reversed, scientists say
Revealed: the methane mega-leaks from UN climate summit host Turkey
To cull or not to cull: Greenland debates fate of world’s slowest shark
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Raijūis normally docile but gets agitated in storms and leaps up to run among the clouds, according to folklore
The Japanese raijū (thunder beast) is said to fall to Earth in a bolt of lightning. It is generally described as looking like a weasel, but is also compared to a cat, a wolf or a badger.
According to folklore the raijū is normally docile, but becomes agitated during storms and leaps up to run among the clouds. Trees struck by lightning are said to have been scratched by its claws.
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Claudia Galeno-Sánchez has turned her home into a sanctuary for the insects by planting native milkweed and wildflowers – and sharing her experience
Along the concrete streets of Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood, a vividly colored home stands out among the rest.
Over the past few years, Claudia Galeno-Sánchez has transformed her modest family home, which she shares with her husband and two children, into a sanctuary and educational space dedicated to the monarch butterfly.
Galeno-Sánchez painted her home with the help of neighbors, her kids, and the renowned muralist and painter Héctor Duarte.
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The Norwegian government has given a permit to a mining company to release waste into Førde fjord despite a 17-year battle by campaigners and a supreme court ruling against it
Shortly after the Norwegian stock market closed on 17 June 2026, a few dozen local people from the small west coast town of Vevring crowded around a laptop in a school. Surrounded by children’s drawings and windows looking out over Førde fjord, they listened as news arrived from Oslo. Norway’s supreme court had ruled against its government: a permit to release mining waste directly into the fjord two miles upstream was illegal, the court said.
The moment marked the end of a 17-year fight, one of Norway’s most protracted environmental battles in living memory. In Oslo, Ingvild Fonn Asmervik, the project leader for Naturvernforbundet (Friends of the Earth Norway), compared the joy she felt to giving birth to her child. For Anne-Line Thingnes Førsund, a third-generation fisher living on the banks of the fjord in Vevring and a volunteer for the charity’s local branch, it was more of a relief. Like a mountain lifting off her shoulders, she said.
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