South Africa’s climate battle: mining district exposes gaps in emissions control: In South Africa, the new 2024 Climate Change Act requires local governments to plan responses to global warming. These local authorities should find ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions where possible, such as from their bus services, and reduce their use of electricity that …
The Moana effect: how small island developing states are bringing their struggle against climate change to the world: Walking through the delegation pavilion at the UN climate summit, Cop29, in Baku, Azerbaijan, the Moana blue Pacific pavilion grabbed my attention more than any other. This pavilion is named after the spirited young girl from the …
Cop29 bingo: a beginner’s guide to climate acronyms: WinWin artlab/Shutterstock This is the one time of year where the eyes of the world are all on climate change. When it makes the news every single night, and everyone hopes that, miraculously, almost 200 countries will somehow put aside insurmountable differences to come together and solve …
Cop29: world leaders must be held to account on climate with scientific evidence: The latest scientific assessment by an international team of climate scientists that I lead shows how human activity is warming the world more rapidly than ever before, and we are now perilously close to the Paris agreement’s 1.5°C guardrail. This evidence underscores …
Climate crisis: what Trump can (and can’t) do: Donald Trump will return to lead the world’s largest historical emitter of greenhouse gas. Neither Trump nor Kamala Harris made the climate crisis a prominent feature of their campaigns, during an election cycle in which America was pounded by weather disasters. Hurricane Helene, which struck in late …
Nigeria at COP29: Five items to put on the climate agenda: The world’s efforts to address climate change and its effects have been the subject of discussion for almost three decades at the annual Conference of Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This year’s COP, at Baku, Azerbaijan, is the …
African countries shouldn’t have to borrow money to fix climate damage they never caused – economist: As we approach the global annual climate change conference, COP29, the need for increased public finance from the global north to address climate adaptation in Africa has become more urgent than ever. However, framing the finance debate solely around …
Wildlife, climate and plastic: how three summits aim to repair a growing rift with nature: By the end of 2024, nearly 200 nations will have met at three conferences to address three problems: biodiversity loss, climate change and plastic pollution. Colombia will host talks next week to assess global progress in protecting 30% of all …
Climate emergencies threaten our collective security, but governments are flying blind into the storm: shutterstock You probably missed it, but a few months ago a report was published that inspected how the UK government prepared for major emergencies. What it found has profound implications for the whole country. The report was written by the UK’s …
Climate change: care for humans, other species and the natural environment is the key to a just transition: Communities across the world are facing two worsening crises: a climate crisis and a care crisis. The evidence and urgency on the climate crisis has been expertly illustrated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The …
Fix the climate or appease the fossil fuel industry – we can’t do both: Britain ended more than 140 years of coal power when it closed its last generator in September. Coal emits more heat-trapping gas to the atmosphere than any other fossil fuel, so its demise as a source of electricity is an unalloyed …
Our 24-hour climate comic explores what a sustainable future could look like: Daniel Locke It’s hard to imagine what a sustainable future might really look like. In early June, during one of the wettest starts to a summer any of us can remember, we created a climate comic over a 24-hour period to experiment with …
Seabirds: 40% of UK species in trouble – bird flu, climate change and overfishing to blame: Nesting northern gannets, guillemots and razorbills at the RSPB Bempton Cliffs reserve on the Yorkshire coast. Robert Simmons A visit to a seabird colony in summer is an assault on the senses. First there’s the noise, then the overwhelming …
The new climate stripes? How creativity can inspire environmental action: New air quality stripes show changes in air pollution for 176 cities since 1850. Kirsty Pringle/data from http://airqualitystripes.info/, CC BY-NC-ND Without context, vast numbers are meaningless. Data can be incredibly dry, abstract and difficult to visualise. But sometimes scientists find clever ways of presenting complex …
Can the Olympics survive the climate crisis?: The 2024 Olympic Games opened on the same week Earth recorded its hottest day ever. A different kind of record-breaking will be animating competitors in Paris, but the climate crisis is making it hard for organisers to keep the tournament on track. A deluge that dumped a month’s …
Inside the political struggle at the IPCC that will determine the next six years of climate science: rafapress / shutterstock The UN’s climate science advisory group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is currently meeting in Bulgaria to decide on a timeline for its next “cycle” of reports over the rest of this decade. …
Why courts favour cars, not the climate: For planning to block a motorway encircling London, five Just Stop Oil activists were recently sentenced to a minimum of four years in prison. Just Stop Oil wants to end the extraction and burning of coal, oil and gas in the UK by 2030. The group’s demands are …
Why Westminster’s new backbench MPs may unlock progress on climate change: Mistervlad / shutterstock As far as the UK government is concerned, its backbenchers are “the most important Members in the House [of Commons]”. This simple insight, from a classic 1976 article by the political scientist Anthony King, could not have been demonstrated more clearly …