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Blazes near Madrid coming under control but efforts to contain huge fire near Bordeaux hampered by windy conditions while another heatwave forecast
Authorities in France battled to contain a huge wildfire near Bordeaux as the forecast of another heatwave threatened to deepen the crisis and the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, warned Spain and the Iberian peninsula were suffering the effects of the climate emergency.
Windy conditions on Saturday night hampered efforts to extinguish the blaze in the Gironde region of south-western France – which has consumed an area four times the size of Paris and caused nearly 220,000 people to be evacuated.
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As heatwaves make the capital increasingly dangerous, outreach workers warn that vulnerable people face barriers to finding water and cool spaces
“You’ve just got to bear it. It’s like being in a hot country. It drains you,” said Tom*, a man in his 60s who has been homeless for a number of years. “I haven’t seen weather like this for as long as I’ve been outside.
“I keep to my routines, but you need to find somewhere to sit down and rest. Either some cardboard outside or you find somewhere they’ll let you sit and sleep a bit inside,” he added.
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Exclusive: Blunder at Rosebank, UK’s biggest undeveloped oilfield, comes as government considers granting licence
Production at Britain’s biggest undeveloped oil and gasfield could be delayed for months after equipment from a rig was accidentally dropped in the North Sea, the Guardian can reveal.
Andy Burnham’s new government is under pressure from the fossil fuel industry to allow oil to be retrieved from the Rosebank site despite opposition from climate campaigners and some Labour MPs.
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Comins Coch, Ceredigion: It took more than 30 years, but now I am walking it for the first time – and no hi-vis clothing is necessary. It will benefit the community for generations to come
Where the lane heading north from the village joins the main road, a small, venerable stone barn used to stand. Like me, it had seen better days. I walked past it twice a day on my journey to and from work, hoping to catch a glimpse of the semi-resident barn owl that used it as an outpost. Sadly, the barn was demolished years ago and the owls are now less frequent visitors, but the site where it stood is changing once again.
A network of paths between villages has long been proposed to promote active travel, and sections have appeared over recent years. Now, these routes are starting to connect and form a resource for walkers and cyclists.
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Exclusive: Foreign secretary to take up World Bank seat and play active role in shaping changes to global lender
Britain’s foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, is to indicate he will put the climate crisis and overseas development at the heart of UK international relations by taking up the country’s seat on the board at the World Bank.
The position, which is usually delegated to a junior minister, means Miliband will play an active role in shaping the changes to the World Bank that developing countries have called for, and ensuring the climate remains a core focus for overseas aid.
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Allowing use of two neonicotinoids to combat crop-ruining disease will kill bees and reduce harvests, union says
Beekeepers and environmentalists in France have reacted furiously after parliament approved a bill reauthorising two banned pesticides scientists say can poison bees.
“There are no words to describe the frustration,” said Carolyn Bouguet, a beekeeper in Essonne, greater Paris. “Bee populations have already been badly compromised by climate change, new parasites and loss of habitat. And now this.”
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For some, scorching days and humid nights are just the norm. So how do they stay chilled and comfortable?
Luis Pacherrez Antón is president of Agroperu Cooperative, a democratic collective of 102 small-scale farmers in the Chira River valley, Peru. He is based in Piura, known as “the city of eternal heat” because it stays hot and dry all year round. “The sun rays start to shine very early – from 9am,” he says. “So as people who work in cultivation, under a burning sun, we stay comfortable by starting much earlier and consuming the healthy foods that we produce, like bananas, oranges, lemons, grapes, papayas and avocados.”
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More than 3,600 people sign petition for careful assessment of proposed AI hub, now a flashpoint for national debate on datacentre boom
For some residents it started with a letter in the mailbox. It was a “friendly introduction from the team behind the Victorian AI hub”.
“I am knocking on doors to explain what we have in mind and, most importantly, to listen,” the letter from Syncline Energy stated.
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Minns government promised no new coalmines but permits expanding existing sites, despite being behind on climate targets
At Branxton community hall in the New South Wales Hunter Valley last week, local resident Janet Murray was given five minutes to speak about plans for the state’s biggest coalmine extension.
Before her were dozens of people, also there to share their views about whether the 19-year extension proposed by Hunter Valley Operations (HVO) should be allowed to proceed.
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Fish being moved to oxygenated flowing water further downstream as water levels drop across country
Along the Odet River in Brittany, fisher Mathieu Le Bouter and a dozen volunteers are catching hundreds of trout and young salmon – not for sport but to save them.
They are only a few miles from the source of the river, which springs from the Black Mountains in Finistère and runs for about 40 miles (65km) into the Atlantic Ocean, but the water is barely up to their knees.
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