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Rafael Moreno, whose company has opened demo plant in Brazil, says market is ‘nervous’ as Trump-Xi summit looms
The head of a mining company hoping to supply the EU with rare earths in two years’ time has said it is “paramount” to end China’s stranglehold on the supply of the raw materials used in everything from cars to wind turbines and military jets.
As Donald Trump and China’s president, Xi Jinping, prepare to meet on Thursday in their second summit of the year, Rafael Moreno said it was also “imperative” that they do a deal for Beijing to ease up, once again, on its threat to ban exports of rare earths.
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Amid record-shattering heatwaves and popular demand for climate action, why are politicians often timid or in denial?
It was, according to the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, the “summer of truth”. Climate chaos ripped through Europe and the northern hemisphere, sending heat records tumbling, scorching crops in the fields, burning forests, emptying rivers and reservoirs, warping train tracks, melting roads and killing about 35,000 people in Europe alone.
The EU has estimated the damage at about €180bn, and the full bill is yet to arrive: harvests have been depleted, which will probably raise food price inflation, and expensive repairs to infrastructure have only just begun.
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Much of the UK is still officially in drought after its hottest summer on record, but grasslands are slowly recovering their colour
The landscapes of southern England and Wales are slowly regaining their colour after this summer’s extreme heat.
The UK’s hottest summer on record left the south of the country dried out and brown, making the impact of the drought particularly visual.
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After summer’s heatwaves, prepare for winter of storms and heavy rain, with millions of UK homes at risk of flooding
The accelerating climate crisis and this year’s record-breaking El Niño mean that, although the summer’s heatwaves are still fresh in the memory, households in the UK are already being told to prepare for a potentially destructive winter of storms and heavy rain – leaving millions of homes at risk of flooding.
Government action is needed to improve flood defences and build reliance on a national and regional level. But with the UK’s flood season just weeks away, the Guardian spoke to experts to find out what action communities and individuals can take to make their neighbourhoods and homes more resilient, from self-closing airbricks to deflated children’s footballs.
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The world is suddenly full of webs and hairy legs. But why? And what do they belong to? Meet the spiders you’re most likely to encounter, from cardinals to false wolves
Summer is at an end, and suddenly spiders seem to be everywhere – in your house, in your garden, in your hair. Fresh webs hang from doorways, walls, shrubs and fence posts, creating invisible obstacle courses. Where do all these spiders come from, what kind are they and what, if anything, should we do about them?
The short answer to the question “Why are there so many more spiders at this time of year?” is: there aren’t. They are just more obvious. Dave Clarke, an ectotherm (“cold-blooded” animal) specialist at the Zoological Society of London, says: “There are more spiders around in the spring, because that’s when they hatch from their egg sacs, and there are hundreds of babies in each egg sac. But they’re small and not very obvious. They grow up during the summer and, at this time of year, they reach their maximum size.” Their webs are also correspondingly larger.
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Stanhope, Weardale: I’ve realised in that time that beauty and fascination can lie in the most mundane of plants – in this case, broad-leaved dock
After another exceptionally dry summer, there’s a nagging question lurking at the back of naturalists’ minds: which species will be the winners and losers in our evolving climate?
Throughout summer’s heatwaves and drought, I watched a dense stand of broad-leaved docks, Rumex obtusifolius, thrive while surrounding fields turned the colour of bleached straw. They have promising credentials as drought survivors, thanks to a deep taproot, fast, early spring growth and a long-lasting dormant seed bank in the soil.
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Northern Roots is launching Britain’s biggest urban farm and eco-park, in an effort to boost people’s health and wellbeing
Standing in the open green space of Northern Roots, it is hard to imagine the landscape as it once was.
Two cotton mills, two coalmines and an industrial railway once occupied this 65-hectare (160-acre) site in Oldham, Greater Manchester. Later, about 24 hectares became a tip, with much of the space left to nature.
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Trump says he digs coal – but pneumoconiosis cases are at a 50-year high, and sick miners are mired in benefit delays
For 38 years, Josh Armes worked as a coal miner in West Virginia and Virginia.
After retirement, Armes, 74, of Grundy, Virginia, was diagnosed with black lung disease, medically known as coal workers’ pneumoconiosis (CWP), caused by breathing in coal dust over long periods, which irreversibly damages the lungs.
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The English have been eating oysters for thousands of years, and advocates say they are an important indicator of the health of coastal waters
Beneath bunting in the middle of Mayfair, there was a feverish atmosphere as the finals of potentially the poshest sport in England began: oyster shucking, judged by actor Stanley Tucci.
“The secret is not being scared of stabbing yourself in the hand,” says Quincy CoulterYoung from Rocks Oysters, one of the fastest oyster shuckers in the country.
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While the country’s ambition is to be the ‘Saudi Arabia of green energy’, communities in the north-east are bearing the cost in diminished health and livelihoods
Beneath the power lines cutting across Antonio de Souza’s property in Serra do Mel, in north-east Brazil’s Rio Grande do Norte state, rows of cashew trees once stood – until the clean energy company ordered them to be cut down.
De Souza cannot plant crops in the affected area and the tractor cannot be driven through it in bad weather, as the driver risks an electric shock. Cattle, another source of local income, are forbidden from grazing near the cables.
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