Climate

It is undoubtedly clear that continuing to burn or export fossil fuels will increase climate change and the risk of extreme weather

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As New South Wales once again faces heavy rainfall and flooding, the Victorian towns of Euroa and Violet Town will enter stage 2 water restrictions next Wednesday. How is the climate crisis affecting these contrasting extremes?

The weather pattern bringing heavy rainfall to NSW is a common wet-weather scenario for the coast. A high-pressure system in the Tasman Sea has stalled, and the anticlockwise air flow around the high is pushing moist air from the ocean over land. At the same time, about three kilometres above the surface, a low-pressure system is lifting the moist ocean air up. As moist air rises, it forms clouds, storms, and finally rain.

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Mike Berners-Lee tells Hay festival audience to make spread of political deceit more socially embarrassing

People should confront their family members who read news from “nefarious” sources, suggests the environmentalist Mike Berners-Lee.

“Challenge your friends and family and colleagues who are getting their information from sources that have got nefarious roots or a track record of being careless – or worse – with the truth, because we need to make this sort of thing socially embarrassing to be involved in,” said Berners-Lee, the brother of the World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee.

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The agency plans to argue that carbon emissions from power plants do not contribute “significantly” to climate change. Scientists disagree.

Rainy weather emboldens the scavenging species – climate refugees driven from their wetland homes

Rain slicks the pavement at Sydney’s Prince Alfred Park. Commuters hurry under umbrellas, takeaway bags clutched tight.

But one group remains unbothered – heads tilted, shoulders hunched, beaks long. It’s lunchtime, and the ibis are here to eat.

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Among a flurry of executive actions, Mr. Trump directed the nation’s nuclear safety regulator to speed up approvals for new reactors.

A recipe for a vegan cake from a food blogger in Oregon helped a Times reporter to realize that plant-based eating could be delicious.

La Oficina Nacional de Administración Oceánica y Atmosférica prevé entre 13 y 19 ciclones con nombre durante la temporada de huracanes del Atlántico, que va del 1 de junio a noviembre.

Mosquito experts say cuts in aid will lead to collapse of crucial surveillance and control in endemic countries

Climate change could make the UK vulnerable to insect-transmitted tropical diseases that were previously only found in hot countries, scientists have warned, urging ministers to redouble efforts to contain their spread abroad.

Leading mosquito experts said the government’s cuts to international aid would lead to a collapse in crucial surveillance, control and treatment programmes in endemic countries, leading to more deaths.

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With little state support, villagers are left to battle wildfires armed with little more than shovels and bottles of water

• Fires drove record loss of world’s forests last year

Wildfires engulfed vast swathes of South America last year, devastating ecosystems, closing schools and grounding flights. With its worst fire season on record, Bolivia was especially hard hit. “We felt powerless and angry to be unable to protect what is ours,” says Isabel Surubí Pesoa.

Surubí Pesoa was forced to migrate to the nearest town after the spring that fed her village in Bolivia’s eastern lowlands dried up after the fires and the drought that preceded it. “It’s very painful,” she says.

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The measure, passed by the House, would roll back incentives for people to buy electric vehicles and for automakers to make them in the U.S.

The most impressive part of the Office’s misinformation ‘toolkit’ is its set of answers to climate deniers’ questions

The UK Met Office is quite polite about it. Deliberate lies and denial about climate breakdown are labelled “misinformation” – on the assumption that the person passing the “facts” on has themselves been misled. If you can prove the perpetrator is involved in the deliberate sharing or creation of incorrect scenarios, this is called “disinformation”, while someone who deliberately misleads by twisting the meaning of truthful information is spreading “malinformation”.

Whether you agree with these definitions or not, it is refreshing to see one of our world-class scientific institutions fighting back against the deluge of propaganda from the fossil fuel industry and their paid lobbyists, as well as the politicians who deny science. For far too long, scientists have remained silent in between producing erudite reports on the worsening climate and only when prodded after weather-related disasters do they venture the opinion that: “This is climate change in action.”

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Around the globe, conflict and the climate crisis have caused 83.4m people – a record number – to become refugees within their own countries. Three people from Bangladesh, Sudan and Colombia tell their stories

In 2024, the number of internally displaced people around the world reached 83.4m, the highest figure ever recorded. Men, women, children, whole families and generations have been forced to flee their homes within their country as a result of conflict, violence, or natural disasters.

“Internal displacement rarely makes the headlines, but for those living it, the suffering can last for years,” says Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, commenting on the latest figures from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).

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Forests around the world disappeared at a rate of 18 soccer fields every minute, a global survey found. Fires accounted for nearly half of the losses.

If passed, a bill from the House of Representatives would sharply curtail the tax credits that have spurred a rise in clean energy investments.

In 50 years, California’s authority to set environmental rules that are tougher than national standards had never been challenged by Congress. Until now.

Legislation would dismantle regulations in farming, mining and energy, increasing risk of widespread destruction

Environmental activists in Brazil have decried a dramatic rollback of environmental safeguards after the senate approved a bill that would dismantle licensing processes and increase the risk of widespread destruction.

The upper house passed the so-called “devastation bill” with 54 votes to 13 late on Wednesday, paving the way for projects ranging from mining and infrastructure to energy and farming to receive regulatory approval with little to no environmental oversight.

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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast a range of 13 to 19 total named storms during the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 through November.

We can contest the dark dreams of those in power.

Scientists warn of profound impacts as sea temperatures rise by up to 4C above average for springtime

The sea off the coast of the UK and Ireland is experiencing an unprecedented marine heatwave with temperatures increasing by as much as 4C above average for the spring in some areas.

Marine biologists say the intensity and unprecedented nature of the rise in water temperatures off the coasts of Devon, Cornwall and the west coast of Ireland are very concerning. As human-induced climate breakdown continues to raise global temperatures, the frequency of marine heatwaves is increasing.

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Bill will unleash millions more tonnes of planet-heating pollution and couldn’t come at a worse time, say experts

A Republican push to dismantle clean energy incentives threatens to reverberate across the US by costing more than 830,000 jobs, raising energy bills for US households and threatening to unleash millions more tonnes of the planet-heating pollution that is causing the climate crisis, experts have warned.

A major tax bill passed by the Republican-held House of Representatives on Thursday morning will, as currently written, demolish key components of climate legislation signed by Joe Biden that has spurred a record torrent of renewable energy and electric vehicle investment in the US.

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