




Its key temperature goal has been missed but experts say the agreement is still proving a vital moral compass for progress
It was a curious way of conducting negotiations. Ahead of the 2025 climate summit, in the Amazonian port of Belém last year, the Brazilian hosts had taken off the table the issue that most had assumed would be at its heart: concrete plans from each country laying out exactly what they would be doing to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.
Brazil was insisting, instead, that these plans – the bedrock of the Paris agreement – were the business of national governments and not up for negotiation. “In that case, it will be a very short Cop,” one seasoned global south negotiator told the Guardian shortly before, reflecting a widespread unease. “There is nothing to negotiate.”
Continue reading...
The UK is 14th most light-polluted country, but in south-west England the veil is lifted at the dark skies festival
“It’s just mind-blowing,” says the astronomer and teacher Jo Richardson. She is standing in Exmoor national park talking about Saturn, the first planet she ever saw through a telescope.
But it is not the cosmic colour of the planet that Richardson is drawn to, nor its mysteries – it is the vastness. “Saturn, on average, is 800m miles away,” she says, the equivalent to travelling the circumference of the Earth 32,000 times. “You can see it through a telescope here. That’s just nuts.”
Continue reading...
Charity’s AGM decides overwhelmingly to begin tendering process amid criticism of Barclays’ fossil fuel investments
The National Trust has voted overwhelmingly to seek a new banking partner in a significant victory for members who have long argued that its relationship with Barclays was at odds with its commitment to protecting the natural world.
The resolution, passed at the charity’s annual general meeting on Saturday with the backing of its board of trustees, instructs the organisation to begin a competitive tendering process for its banking arrangements.
Continue reading...
The seasonal transformation offers the chance to enjoy warm, golden colours before winter
Continue reading...
Cairngorms: The scale and depth of damage is shocking, but there are precious small signs of recovery
It’s over three months since the fire started that eventually engulfed 25 square kilometres of moorland and forest in the Cairngorms. I’ve now seen much of the area where the fire raged and have been shocked at the blackness of the land, how many of the moorland pines are dark as charcoal, their needles an unnaturally singed rust colour that goes on into the far distance, into the forest itself.
I joined a party going up one of the affected glens to plant over 3,000 trees: cell-grown goat and creeping willow, downy birch and alder – montane species, often miniature varieties, that previously have grown in this habitat but been devastated by overgrazing. The seeds had been collected from nearby remnant populations and grown in the Cairngorms Connect Tree Nursery, part of an ongoing programme of landscape restoration.
Continue reading...
YouGov survey finds support for tree planting and emissions taxes but opposition to air travel and fuel levies
Europeans believe human-made climate change is real, a survey has shown, with most feeling action must be taken soon – as long as they do not have to sacrifice too much to achieve it.
The YouGov poll of six European countries showed between 69% (Germany) and 80% (France) of respondents believed the climate was changing, with few (1%-4%) denying it and 14-20% believing it was changing, but not as a result of human activity.
Continue reading...
This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world
Continue reading...
Humans have always been awed by the power and beauty of lightning. How does the experience and understanding of it change in a warming world?
In a rock shelter in Kakadu national park in the north of Australia is an image of a being the Bininj people call Namarrkon. His flesh bleached away to reveal the bones beneath, he wears stone axes on his head, elbows and knees, and wields a great band of lightning that runs from his ankles up, over his head.
Namarrkon’s journey from the Arafura Sea to the Arnhem Land escarpment helped shape the landscape, according to the dreamtime stories of the Bininj. And in the great storms that arc and rumble across the landscape during the buildup and the wet season, it is Namarrkon who splits the clouds with his stone axes to create the thunder and lightning and release the life-giving rain.
Continue reading...
Juneau has little arable land, a short growing season and few farmers – and deep traditions of residents and the land feeding each other
Forty miles north-west of Alaska’s capital, the highway just ends.
At Glacier Highway’s most northern point, the pavement turns to gravel, the gravel widens into a turnaround and the tire tracks curve back the way they came. At the far end, the woods begin, a narrow hiking trail slipping toward the southern end of Berners Bay.
Continue reading...
The move to clean electricity will form the focus of the climate summit, which begins next week in coal-obsessed Turkey. The outlook doesn’t look good
• Don’t get Down to Earth delivered to your inbox? Sign up here
Holding a climate conference under the presidency of one coal-obsessed country might be regarded as a misfortune for the planet – sharing it between two starts to look provocative. But at this year’s Cop31 UN climate summit in Antalya, coal exporter Australia and coal consumer Turkey will be trying to shift the focus away from dirty fossil fuels and towards clean electricity, with a target on the table to meet 35% of final energy demand from electricity by 2035.
Will they succeed? The geopolitical outlook for Cop31 is worse than for almost any recent “conference of the parties” under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Conflicts in Ukraine, Iran and Gaza are destabilising global alliances, an unpredictable White House is sowing economic uncertainty and AI is threatening to unleash digitised chaos.
‘Bunch of baloney’: calls grow for Cop summit reforms as countries on track to fail nature targets
The Amazon’s canary in the coalmine: what a tropical fish can tell us about climate upheaval
Continue reading...
Može li jednostavna promjena u prehrani pomoći osobama koje pate od zatvora? Izgleda da konzumacija kivija može pomoći u liječenju funkcionalnog zatvora te sindroma iritabilnog crijeva s prevladavajućim zatvorom, pokazuje nova studija.
Četrdeset i peta je nova šezdeseta – barem kada je riječ o kolonoskopijama. Možda to nije događaj kojem se veselite, ali mogao bi vam spasiti život. Prema podacima Cancer Research Institute, jedan od pet slučajeva kolorektalnog karcinoma dijagnosticira se kod pacijenata mlađih od 55 godina, što znači da je bolest, koja se nekada smatrala bolešću starijih osoba, postala jedna od onih čija učestalost najbrže raste među mladima.
Nova studija pokazala je da pacijenti s Alzheimerovom bolešću s ranim početkom – kod kojih se simptomi javljaju prije 65. godine – imaju opsežnije naslage tau proteina, koji je ključno obilježje ovog stanja, u usporedbi s pacijentima kod kojih se simptomi javljaju nakon 65. godine. Štoviše, tau protein se kod mlađih pacijenata nakuplja više nego dvostruko brže nego kod starijih te se širi po cijelom mozgu.
Terapija kombinacijom triju lijekova može preoblikovati tumorsko mikrookruženje u bolesnika s uznapredovalim rakom želuca te pokazuje obećavajući sigurnosni profil, ukazuju rezultati nove studije. Ova studija pruža detaljan uvid u to kako navedeni lijekovi preoblikuju imunološke stanice u neposrednoj blizini tumora te otkrivaju obećavajuće ciljeve za buduće imunoterapijske pristupe.
Vizualne abnormalnosti nakon upotrebe psihodelika desetljećima se prepoznaju kao poremećaj perzistentne percepcije halucinogena (HPPD), ali ovo stanje se ne dijagnosticira često jer zahtijeva klinički značajnu nelagodu i oštećenje. Najčešća nuspojava nakon primjene psihodelika su svjetlije boje.
Žene s nasljednim stanjem kolesterola, obiteljskom hiperkolesterolemijom, mogu imati nešto veći rizik od razvoja preeklampsije, stanja u trudnoći koje može uzrokovati ozbiljne komplikacije, pokazuje nova studija.
Antihipertenzivni lijekovi se široko propisuju, ali kliničke značajke i genetska predispozicija koja je u osnovi oštećenja jetre koje povremeno uzrokuju ostaju slabo shvaćene.
Imunološki sustav posjeduje snažne stanice koje mogu prepoznati i uništiti rak, no ta sposobnost može postupno slabjeti kada se te stanice nalaze unutar tumora. No, znanstvenici s Medicinskog fakulteta Yong Loo Lin pri Nacionalnom sveučilištu u Singapuru (NUS Medicine) identificirali su protein koji bi mogao pomoći u održavanju aktivnosti tih imunoloških stanica koje se bore protiv raka, te potencijalno ponuditi novi način za jačanje terapija modificiranim T-stanicama u borbi protiv raka debelog crijeva.
Kliničko ispitivanje u trajanju od 16 tjedana otkriva potencijalno korisne promjene u inzulinskim odgovorima u regijama mozga povezanim s pamćenjem, nakon svakodnevne konzumacije neslanog, pečenog kikirikija, nudeći nove tragove o tome kako prehrana može utjecati na kognitivno zdravlje.
Nova studija provedena u SAD-u rasvjetljava ulogu majčinog mlijeka u poticanju razvoja crijeva i sprječavanju hiperbilirubinemije – stanja u kojem se bilirubin, otpadni produkt razgradnje crvenih krvnih stanica, nakuplja u krvi i uzrokuje žutu boju kože i očiju, poznatu kao žutica.
Deep in the mountains of Palawan, Conservation International scientists are capturing what few people ever see: the secret lives of the Philippines’ rarest species.
At Maido — the Lima restaurant recently crowned the best in the world — one of the star dishes is paiche, a giant prehistoric river fish.Its journey to the table begins on a small family farm deep in Peru’s Amazon.
“Jane Goodall forever changed how people think about, interact with and care for the natural world,” said Daniela Raik, interim CEO of Conservation International.
Conservation International’s Neil Vora was selected for TIME’s Next 100 list — alongside other rising leaders reshaping culture, science and society.
Climate change is happening. And it’s placing the world’s reefs in peril. What can be done?
After decades of negotiation, the high seas treaty is finally reality. The historic agreement will pave the way to protect international waters which face numerous threats.
The Amazon rainforest, known for lush green canopies and an abundance of freshwater, is drying out — and deforestation is largely to blame.
The ocean is engine of all life on Earth, but human-driven climate change is pushing it past its limits. Here are five ways the ocean keeps our climate in check — and what can be done to help.
In a grueling and delicate dance, a team led by Conservation International removes a massive undersea killer.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. These pictures might be worth even more. An initiative featuring the work of some of the world’s best nature photographers raises money for environmental conservation.