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António Guterres says climate action central to every aspect of UN’s work, as leaders depart Cop31 and talks go on
Tackling the climate crisis is central to all of human life and must be at the forefront of global governance, the outgoing UN secretary general has said in an emotional farewell address at the Cop31 climate summit.
“You cannot build peace on a burning planet,” António Guterres said at his final climate press conference as secretary general on Friday. “You cannot eradicate poverty when climate disasters keep throwing people back into it. You cannot promise young people a better future while destroying the natural systems on which that future depends.”
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Activists dumped rocks off Norfolk coast on site of Burnham-backed project in protest against seabed trawling
The giant offshore windfarms backed by Andy Burnham this week may face unexpected stumbling blocks after Greenpeace activists unwittingly dumped about 15 tonnes of boulders on to the site as part of a campaign against seabed trawling in the North Sea.
Greenpeace created the “boulder barrier” to safeguard harbour porpoises off the Norfolk coast by dropping giant stone blocks, each weighing up to 2 tonnes, on to the sea floor to prevent a method of fishing known as bottom trawling.
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People around the world have contended with unprecedented weather events and their fatal effects caused by the climate catastrophe
After the world’s hottest summer since records began in 1850, the death toll from extreme weather in 2026 is already in the high tens of thousands. That is a conservative estimate and is certain to rise much higher.
As Cop31 continues and scientists warn that climate breakdown may be accelerating, the Guardian looks back at a year of droughts, fires and floods as a reminder that, unless the world takes urgent action to cut emissions, this disastrous year will be one of the best of the rest of our lives.
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This week the Soil Association withdrew certification from organic salmon after 20 years. What went wrong?
The first haul of farmed salmon in Britain was a relatively modest 14 tonnes, produced off the west coast of Scotland near Fort William in 1971.
For Unilever, the vast multinational that pioneered salmon farming, it was a triumph after years of experimenting with how to cage fish, battle against diseases and cope with the wild weather. Unilever had spotted in the 1960s that farming salmon, which until then was caught wild and remained a relative luxury, would create a mass market, lower costs and provide steady profits. By 1976, it had expanded into three Scottish sites producing 116 tonnes of fish each year.
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Five-year project will create wildlife corridors by building wetlands and increase access to green and blue spaces
Bristol could become home to the UK’s first “wetland city” thanks to a charity’s efforts to create vast wildlife corridors that will reduce flood risk and give people more access to green and blue spaces.
The Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) said the five-year initiative would include more than 200 projects to restore and create wetlands across the city. These will range from small household rainwater ponds and street-level rain gardens to restoring river habitats, reconnecting rivers with their floodplains, and creating new wetlands.
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The environmental and economic dilemmas he faces are formidable but, with a bold plan, he could set an example for leaders around the world
For politicians of the centre-left especially, it’s the great dilemma of the age. How do you do what everyone can see is essential to save the planet from boiling – even as your voters demand action to get the economy growing and to make life more affordable? Plenty of activists will tell you there’s no contradiction, that tackling the climate crisis makes economic as well as ecological sense and, in the long term, you know they’re right. But you don’t live in the long term. You’re running the government right now and facing several unavoidable, binary choices.
Andy Burnham is a prime example. This week, he addressed the Cop summit in Antalya, promising “a new era of British leadership” in the struggle against global heating. It’s important to him to talk that way: his political strategy relies on shrinking the appeal of the Green party, whose electoral success earlier this year helped remove his predecessor. But talk only takes you so far. Eventually the words have to be matched by action.
Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist
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Siberian rubythroat was thousands of miles off course from its route to winter in south or south-east Asia
A bird that flies south from its breeding grounds in Siberia to winter in south and south-east Asia has been found thousands of miles off course in Cumbria. Regrettably, it was found by a cat.
Chris Hind, Cumbria’s county recorder for birds, said it was “extraordinary” that a Siberian rubythroat was found on his patch, albeit dead. There have been only 17 recorded instances of the bird in the UK, 15 of those in the northern Scottish isles.
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Delegates from more than 190 countries are gathering in Turkey for climate talks, but the US will be absent
As the planet faces unprecedented human-caused global heating, heads of government are meeting for the next fortnight for the latest round of climate talks. We ask why it matters and what is likely to be achieved.
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High-stakes talks involving 190 countries begin on Monday as world grapples with El Niño supercharged by fossil fuels
The Cop31 summit must produce progress, “a tangible outcome... that people can see is real”, its host has said as scores of world leaders and representatives of close to 190 countries gather in Turkey for the UN climate talks.
The high-stakes meeting begins on Monday, as countries around the world grapple with the strongest El Niño weather system on record, supercharged by fossil fuels, which is set to take hundreds of thousands of lives and cause damage costing trillions of dollars.
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What are the relationships and dominant interests in play, as the summit kicks off after a bitter row over its hosting?
Hosting Cop was a key pledge from Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese in 2021, while in opposition, before his successful election campaign. But arcane rules meant the country had to wait its turn to bid and was then embroiled in an angry row with Turkey over the hosting. The final compromise put Australia in charge of the negotiations which will take place in the Turkish city of Antalya. The bitter taste left by the row lingers and Australia has seemed to some a rather half-hearted host. The country’s media has been much quieter on Cop than previous host countries, and although Albanese will speak at the opening of the leaders’ segment, he is unlikely to stay long.
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