Climate

Officials and campaigners from around world pay tribute to pontiff who put environment at heart of his papacy

• Latest updates: Cardinals head to Rome to prepare for funeral

He declared destroying the environment a sin, warned that humanity was turning the glorious creation of God into a “polluted wasteland full of debris, desolation and filth”, and located the cause of the climate crisis in people’s “selfish and boundless thirst for power”.

The messages Pope Francis delivered on the climate and environmental crises were forceful and direct. He called the leaders of fossil fuel companies into the Vatican to hold them to account; declared a global climate emergency, in 2019; and in his final months, held a conference on “the economics of the common good”.

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Making concerned people aware their views are far from alone could unlock the change so urgently needed

• ‘Spiral of silence’: climate action is very popular, so why don’t people realise it?
• The Guardian is joining forces with dozens of newsrooms around the world to launch the 89 Percent Project—and highlight the fact that the vast majority of the world’s population wants climate action. Read more

A huge 89% majority of the world’s people want stronger action to fight the climate crisis but feel they are trapped in a self-fulfilling “spiral of silence” because they mistakenly believe they are in a minority, research suggests.

Making people aware that their pro-climate view is, in fact, by far the majority could unlock a social tipping point and push leaders into the climate action so urgently needed, experts say.

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El cambio climático es un síntoma de un problema mayor: el impacto ambiental del ritmo de consumo actual. Hemos preguntado a los expertos sus consejos para ayudar individual y colectivamente.

Young people rode a wave of hope and power when hundreds of thousands protested with them in 2019. Then, momentum was lost

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On a stinking hot November day, seven years ago, Grace Vegesana and a handful of other young climate activists set up a small stage in a large square in Sydney’s CBD – and waited. Inspired by the first school striker for climate, Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, the high school students decided to organise their own rally.

Vegesana expected a hundred people to show up. Five thousand came. “It was like, oh my God, we’ve unleashed some kind of beast, people want more,” she recalls. In the months afterwards crowds doubled and then tripled.

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Nine states have set goals to conserve 30 percent of their land by 2030. Maryland got there first.

A cluster of evangelical groups in the state is pushing for environmental action. Leaders say they’re following the biblical mandate to care for creation.

Simple, affordable initiatives like rain gardens are helping to soak up water in New Orleans.

Every year for nearly two decades, the small city of Rock Port has been producing more electricity from wind energy than it needs.

The pope and the president remade the Catholic church and American politics in their outsider images, but their relationship was defined by their remarkable clashes.

The cancellations, set to apply to pending and active grants, also affect research into “forever chemicals” contaminating the food supply.

Francis framed climate change as an urgent spiritual issue and helped push the world to take action.

Burying our heads in the sand won’t stop the climate crisis or pandemics. We’re taking action to preserve government tools

United States science has propelled the country into its current position as a powerhouse of biomedical advancements, technological innovation and scientific research. The data US government agencies produce is a crown jewel – it helps us track how the climate is changing, visualize air pollution in our communities, identify challenges to our health and provide a panoply of other essential uses. Climate change, pandemics and novel risks are coming for all of us – whether we bury our heads in the sand or not – and government data is critical to our understanding of the risks these challenges bring and how to address them.

Much of this data remains out of sight to those who don’t use it, even though they benefit us all. Over the past few months, the Trump administration has brazenly attacked our scientific establishment through agency firings, censorship and funding cuts, and it has explicitly targeted data the American taxpayers have paid for. They’re stealing from us and putting our health and wellbeing in danger – so now we must advocate for these federal resources.

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A doomsday meal bucket drew attention to something end-timers have known forever: the bulk store is the perfect place for stockpiling

Last summer, Costco shoppers noticed something new on the big-box store’s shelves. For the low, low price of $62.99, preparedness-minded customers could snatch up what one food influencer called a “Costco apocalypse dinner kit”.

Think of the kit as a KFC-style bucket, but instead of fried chicken, it is stuffed with an emergency supply of 132 meals – including pouches of dehydrated macaroni and cheese, apple cinnamon cereal and chicken pot pie – promised to last up to 25 years in storage, or until the big one hits.

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As pontiff, Francis sought to build bridges with global corporate leaders, who sought audiences with him — but also to remind them about the need to look out for the poor.

Island country deals with drought and hurricane damage as it pushes for reparations from countries that benefited from slavery

When category 4 Hurricane Beryl hit the Caribbean last June, the three-island nation of Grenada bore the brunt of its wrath. At the time, the country’s prime minister, Dickon Mitchell, described the destruction as “almost Armageddon-like”. On the small island of Carriacou, it was estimated by officials that more than 90% of the buildings were damaged or destroyed. Agriculture and infrastructure for electricity and communication were almost completely wiped out.

Nearly a year on, there are some signs of recovery and rebuilding, but hollowed-out buildings, roofless houses and charred, dying mangroves tell the story of a community that is still coming to grips with the devastation.

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Organizers team up with pro-democracy groups for flurry of actions to demand right to free, healthy lives

Hundreds of marches, pickets and cleanup events are taking place across the US in the run-up to Earth Day on Tuesday, as environmental and climate groups step up resistance to the Trump administration’s authoritarianism and its “war on the planet”.

A fortnight after the “Hands Off” mobilization brought millions to the streets, national and grassroots organizers are teaming up with pro-democracy groups for “All Out on Earth Day” – a wave of actions to demand the right to live free, healthy lives.

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We asked the experts, and they shared advice on how to be the best planetary citizen possible.

The draft executive order would eliminate Africa operations and shut down bureaus working on democracy, human rights and refugee issues.

Safeguard mechanism revamp leads to overall emissions fall but 70% of coal and gas facilities covered by scheme increased direct pollution

• Get Guardian Australia environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as an email

Australia’s biggest industrial climate polluter – Chevron’s Gorgon gas export plant in Western Australia – received the equivalent of millions of dollars in carbon credits from the federal government last year, despite increasing its emissions.

The revelation in government data last week has sparked calls for changes to the safeguard mechanism, the government policy applied to the country’s 219 largest industrial climate polluting facilities.

Get Guardian Australia environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as an email

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The effects of the climate crisis and a lack of jobs are driving young people away from the Andean highlands but a long-shunned crop could stem the tide

Few young people remain in Bolivia’s highland plateau, the Altiplano. The rising frequency and severity of extreme weather events, such as drought and frost, have reduced their economic prospects and migration has accelerated as the environment becomes more unpredictable.

“The climate isn’t like it used to be,” says Nico Mamani Lima, a farmer and agronomist from Ayo Ayo.

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