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Chris Packham says £24bn earmarked for projects with ‘ludicrously uncertain results’ should be redirected to help lower bills and cut emissions
Campaigners are calling on the chancellor to cut the government’s £24bn spending plans for “fairytale” carbon capture technologies in favour of funding green schemes that can reliably cut emissions and lower energy bills.
The environmentalist Chris Packham is leading an 11th-hour appeal for the Treasury to use this week’s budget to scale back the government’s “exorbitantly expensive” support for carbon capture, which is now more than the planned spending for the US, the EU, Norway and Japan combined.
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Boiler upgrade scheme, which provides grants of up to £9,000 for sustainable alternatives, expected to be slashed in budget
When Bill Tuck first started installing air source heat pumps six years ago, other heating engineers were skeptical about whether the green technology would take off. “Now, the conversation is completely different,” he said.
“I’m getting approached by them saying: ‘Mrs Jones, my customer for 15 years, she’s enquiring about a heat pump. What can you tell me?’ The whole narrative has changed.”
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Oxfam says investing by rich in disaster recovery widens inequality and gives incentive to delay climate action
The world’s wealthiest people are not just profiting from the polluting causes of climate breakdown, they are also increasingly cashing in on the catastrophic consequences, according to a study by Oxfam.
The global equality organisation has found that the richest 0.1% of the world’s population are heavily invested in disaster preparedness, recovery and reconstruction – a market that is projected to grow from $70bn to $92bn a year by 2029.
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President has taken an axe to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, stalling climate research on and response to extreme weather events
Sweeping cuts to the premier US climate agency under Donald Trump have severely hampered the country’s capacity to forecast, research and respond to extreme weather events, former government officials and scientists have warned, as the US faces a cascade of hazards fueled by a potentially historic El Niño this winter.
From the start of his second term, the president has taken aim at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), slashing staff levels, canceling contracts and grants, and shutting down databases and research laboratories. The agency that has long been considered a global crown jewel in climate science and forecasting, has lost roughly 20% of its staff since January 2025.
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Letter to PM argues series of wrong choices on North Sea oil, Heathrow, EVs and heat pumps will scupper net zero plans
Andy Burnham will “sleepwalk” into climate disaster if he fails to get a grip on a series of important policies whose combined impact could scupper plans to reach net zero, campaigners have said.
Big decisions on North Sea drilling, the expansion of Heathrow airport, electric vehicles (EVs) and grants for heat pumps are awaiting decisions from ministers.
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My mother was a keen swimmer, and she lived with depression. I wonder if she found the same respite in the water that has helped heal me since she passed away
It was early morning in late September, off the coast of Kaş in Turkey. Watching the slightly choppy sea from a boat, the last thing I felt like doing was embarking on another 5km (3-mile) swim. Mind fog had sapped my energy, and my mood was decidedly Eeyore-like. But as I pulled on my cap and flippers, adjusted my goggles and took the plunge, something shifted.
Head in the water, the knotted feeling in my throat began to loosen. Breathing came properly. There was respite.
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Both private and public schools in tech regions are limiting the use of tech in classrooms. But will low-income districts be able to follow suit?
German Gil spends most of his waking hours looking at screens. Since moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2015, the software engineer has bounced between startups and giants including Netflix, Facebook and GitHub.
But when it came to the education of his daughter, Victoria, he wanted her to have a different experience, one in which his “kid could be a kid”.
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All it took was one or two careless teenage girls giving the vermin a taste of their snacks and they became the most well-fed animals imaginable
I’ve written a fair amount about my boarding school years in Nigeria in the 90s, but never about the rats that accompanied my school experience. Picture it: thousands of girls from across the country, each bearing a suitcase or two of a term’s worth of “provisions” – cornflakes, sugar cubes, powdered milk, hot chocolate powder, and so on. All it took was one or two careless girls giving the rats a taste of the exotic and they became among the most well-fed rats in the country, enjoying a steady stream of delicious teenage-girl snacks.
I will never forget the sight of rats – six or seven deep – congregating at dusk on the scraggly lawn next to my dormitory, like an illegal gathering of political dissidents. They were large (what with their rich diet), thick tails twitching, noses pushed together, damn near whispering. At first, they would scatter when humans approached. Then we had to clap and stomp to get them to shift. Like the proletariat, the rats began to understand their power, and stand their ground. They were no longer pests but now a sort of predator. If this sounds like the beginning of a highbrow horror, that’s how it felt.
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Company imitates reflection of sun from mirrors, prompting pushback from some scientists, environmentalists and California locals
Locals in a rural area of California were recently startled to see dazzlingly bright light shining down from nearby mountains at night, illuminating a swathe of the desert below.
Unbeknown to them, the strange nocturnal illumination was the latest step in a company’s plan to erect thousands of giant mirrors in space to reflect sunlight on to the Earth during night-time.
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Concrete sprawl in Yaoundé has devastated the city’s trees and parks, so volunteers are stepping up, shrub by shrub
A little piece of paradise is buried under the asphalt that is now lined with parked cars. The romantic spot where Sosthène Hugues Ngono used to bring his first dates had been green and beautiful. “It wasn’t just a park,” he says, standing at the edge of what is now a private car park in Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé.
“It was where I came to clear my head when things felt confused,” he says. “Where I met people; where I fell in love, more than once.”
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