The Guardian Climate Change

Leeds councillor, who made headlines by intervening in 2024 riots, says climate crisis and cost of living affect all races and classes

A Green councillor who intervened to stop rioters and received death threats for vocal support for Gaza is running to replace Zack Polanski as deputy leader of the party.

Mothin Ali, of Gipton and Harehills ward in Leeds – a former Labour stronghold – said he wanted to champion working-class communities, challenge the idea of the Greens as a “middle-class party” and ensure it represents “a diverse Britain increasingly threatened by the far right”.

In seas around the world pH levels are falling – and scientists are increasingly frustrated that the problem is not being taken seriously enough

Read more: ‘Ticking timebomb’: sea acidity has reached critical levels, threatening entire ecosystems – study

On a clear day at Plymouth marina you can see across the harbour out past Drake’s Island – named after the city’s most famous son, Francis Drake – to the Channel. It’s quite often possible to see an abundance of marine vessels, from navy ships and passenger ferries to small fishing boats and yachts. What you might not spot from this distance is a large yellow buoy bobbing up and down in the water about six miles off the coast.

This data buoy – L4 – is one of a number belonging to Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML), a research centre in Devon dedicated to marine science. On a pleasantly calm May morning, Prof James Fishwick, PML’s head of marine technology and autonomy, is on top of the buoy checking it for weather and other damage. “This particular buoy is one of the most sophisticated in the world,” he says as he climbs the ladder to the top. “It’s decked out with instruments and sensors able to measure everything from temperature, to salinity, dissolved oxygen, light and acidity levels.”

Ocean acidification has already crossed a crucial threshold for planetary health, scientists say in unexpected finding

• More on this story: How the ‘evil twin’ of the climate crisis is threatening our oceans

The world’s oceans are in worse health than realised, scientists have said today, as they warn that a key measurement shows we are “running out of time” to protect marine ecosystems.

Ocean acidification, often called the “evil twin” of the climate crisis, is caused when carbon dioxide is rapidly absorbed by the ocean, where it reacts with water molecules leading to a fall in the pH level of the seawater. It damages coral reefs and other ocean habitats and, in extreme cases, can dissolve the shells of marine creatures.

NGO says Afghan capital’s 7 million people face existential crisis that world needs urgently to address

Kabul could become the first modern city to completely run out of water, experts have warned.

Water levels within Kabul’s aquifers have dropped by up to 30 metres over the past decade owing to rapid urbanisation and climate breakdown, according to a report by the NGO Mercy Corps.

Environmental lawyer Cormac Cullinan lauded for his work to establish continent’s legal status to protect its interests

Cormac Cullinan has a dream. A dream, he says, that will “change how humanity sees, understands and relates to Antarctica”. The vast frozen continent – home to emperor and Adélie penguins, leopard and Ross seals, and feeding grounds for orcas, beaked whales and albatrosses – should be recognised as an autonomous legal entity “at least equivalent to a country”, says the environmental lawyer.

And this week that dream became one step closer to reality as judges awarded Cullinan the Shackleton medal for the protection of the polar regions.

Usually alive with colour and fish, Ningaloo reef and the Rowley Shoals now look as though they are ‘painted white’ as temperatures rise

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The Rowley Shoals are on many a diver’s bucket list. The three coral atolls, hundreds of kilometres off the Western Australian coastline, are teeming with pristine coral gardens that for a long time, unlike many of the world’s reefs, had escaped the ravages of global heating.

“I’ve seen a fair bit of death and destruction, but Rowley Shoals was always the place that was still standing,” says Dr James Gilmour, a research scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science.

From acknowledging big emotions to finding ways to make climate action fun, it’s important to start where your kids are

• Change by Degrees offers life hacks and sustainable living tips each Saturday to help reduce your household’s carbon footprint

• Got a question or tip for reducing household emissions? Email us at changebydegrees@theguardian.com

Although it’s unfair, it’s young people (and the generations to come) who will have to deal with fallout from the climate crisis. So how do you talk to young people about living sustainably and raise knowledgeable kids who care about the future of the planet?

Here are some tips for engaging the next generation on the environment meaningfully.

Exclusive: Friends of the Earth tells Keir Starmer any major green cuts by Rachel Reeves will be challenged

• UK politics live – latest updates

If the decisions the UK government makes in its upcoming spending review are not in line with the net zero climate target it risks being taken to court again, campaigners have said.

Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, will set out her spending review for the rest of this parliament on Wednesday. Amid continuing economic uncertainty and Labour’s promise to boost defence spending, many departments are facing deep cuts to dearly held commitments.

Plans for Sizewell C and other coastal sites continue even as existing defences become more vulnerable to storm surges

There seems to be an inability among politicians to take in what scientists are telling us about the consequences of the climate crisis. Perhaps the most glaring example relates to the Guardian’s latest report on sea level rise, which said that whatever we do now, the rise will have devastating consequences for coastal communities, causing millions of people to migrate to higher ground. Greenland and the west Antarctic ice caps are doomed to melt.

Even in countries that do take cutting carbon emissions seriously, such as the UK, governments do not seem to have accepted that the prediction about sea level rise means policies must adapt to damage that has already been done. The coastline of the North Sea is a classic example. Stretches of England’s east coast both in and south of Yorkshire are eroding, and large areas are close to or at sea level already. A storm surge coinciding with a high tide, like the one that killed hundreds in 1953, may be a rarity, but each year a similar event becomes more likely to overwhelm the existing sea defences. And yet the government is still talking about building nuclear power stations with a 150-year lifespan on this coast, notably Sizewell C, and small modular reactors on other sites. Future generations may wonder why scientists’ warnings were so easily ignored.

Tess McClure reports on a landslide in Switzerland that left one person missing and destroyed a village

The Swiss village of Blatten was wiped out in seconds. A glacier collapsed above the village on 28 May, triggering a landslide. The 300 residents had been evacuated a week earlier, but a 64-year-old man who is believed to have stayed is missing.

Tess McClure, the Guardian’s commissioning editor for the Age of Extinction, reported on the aftermath.

Region is experiencing an unusually warm spring, raising concerns of fierce wildfire season amid limited resources

Unusually warm springtime temperatures have contributed to rapid reductions in snowpacks across the western US that rival the fastest rates on record, increasing concerns around wildfire season.

The rapid snowmelt, in addition to reduced staffing and budget constraints initiated by the Trump administration, has set the stage for a particularly dangerous season across the west, according to an analysis of publicly available data by the Guardian and interviews with experts in the region.

World Meteorological Organization report says record heat in 2024 was driven by climate crisis and intersected with extreme weather events

Almost 40 million sq kilometres of ocean around south-east Asia and the Pacific – an area five times the size of Australia – was engulfed in a marine heatwave in 2024, a World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report has revealed.

WMO scientists said the record heat – on land and in the ocean – was mostly driven by the climate crisis and coincided with a string of extreme weather events, from deadly landslides in the Philippines to floods in Australia and rapid glacier loss in Indonesia.

Groundwater levels are plunging in a rich agricultural region dubbed the Green Triangle. It’s a slowly unfolding disaster

Graham Kilsby, a fourth-generation farmer, is surveying the Kilsby sinkhole, a popular freshwater diving site on his property south of Mount Gambier.

The gin-clear waters provide visibility of up to 65 metres. But, as he inspects the sinkhole when Guardian Australia visits, alarm bells ring. Water levels dropped 1.5 metres between January and March 2025.

Lake George at Beachport. The drainage system that cuts through the region ends here, with flood water released into the sea. Here the drainage system is bone dry

Senior Tory to give speech in which he will criticise ‘neo-luddites’ on right for failing to embrace green technology

James Cleverly has taken direct aim at Kemi Badenoch’s decision to ditch net zero targets by criticising what he called “neo-luddites” on the right who seem scared of using green technologies to protect the environment.

The senior Conservative MP, who lost to Badenoch in last year’s Tory leadership race, said it was a false choice to believe the UK had to choose between economic growth and protecting the environment. Badenoch has argued current net zero targets will harm the economy.

Surely the Albo government won’t stand for this unfairness to battlers!

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I was in anguish over the climate crisis, ecological devastation and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But this almost indestructible little creature gave me a lesson in resilience

Less than a millimetre in length, the squishy, transparent animal was completely unaware of my presence, my entire existence, while I watched it in awe. On my computer screen, where I gazed at the image generated by a cheap USB microscope, the water bear stumbled over grains of eroded rock and plant matter, an assemblage of soil, and I felt amused by its bumbling nature. Like someone trying to move through a field of beach balls, I thought.

I had found this water bear, or tardigrade, in a clump of moss I collected during a wet and windy walk with our dog, Bernie, in late 2021. After changing into dry clothes, I rinsed the moss with water and removed the excess using coffee filter paper. Transferring the residue soil and stray moss leaves – known as phyllids – to a small glass bowl, I found the water bear within minutes, but I don’t know how long I then spent watching the little animal manoeuvre through its microscopic kingdom. Time seemed to stand still, my eyes glued to the screen.

Exclusive: National Fire Chiefs Council warns of pressures, with callouts up 20% in a decade as firefighter numbers fall

Fire stations in England are “falling apart”, fire chiefs have warned, with funding plummeting by an estimated £1bn in the last decade as callouts have increased by a fifth.

Fire and rescue must not become the “forgotten emergency service”, the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) urged, warning of mounting pressures that “risk undermining public and firefighter safety”, as it responds to more 999 calls with fewer firefighters.

The judge wanted us to show remorse, but I can’t apologise for fighting the climate disaster

Last week, at Minshull Street crown court in Manchester, I was sentenced to two and half years in prison for conspiring to intentionally cause a public nuisance. The prosecution’s case was that I intended to “obstruct the public or a section of the public in the exercise or enjoyment of a right that may be exercised or enjoyed by the public at large” – in other words, that I was part of Just Stop Oil’s plan to obstruct planes at Manchester airport. I did intend that – and I have a defence for my actions.

The offence of public nuisance – which falls under the Criminal Law Act 1977 and the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 – was traditionally and frequently used to prosecute significant environmental offences. It punished big corporations causing real harm to the general public by poisoning water, polluting air, emitting dust and noise or dumping chemical waste. There is no irony lost in the fact that the same offence in statutory form is now being zealously deployed to prosecute environmental protesters.

Indigo Rumbelow is co-founder of Just Stop Oil. She is serving a sentence in HMP Styal

A new point in history has been reached, entomologists say, as climate-led species’ collapse moves up the food chain even in supposedly protected regions free of pesticides

Daniel Janzen only began watching the insects – truly watching them – when his ribcage was shattered. Nearly half a century ago, the young ecologist had been out documenting fruit crops in a dense stretch of Costa Rican forest when he fell in a ravine, landing on his back. The long lens of his camera punched up through three ribs, snapping the bones into his thorax.

Slowly, he dragged himself out, crawling nearly two miles back to the research hut. There were no immediate neighbours, no good roads, no simple solutions for getting to a hospital.

Climate minister says greenlighting North West Shelf project until 2070 is not the leadership Pacific countries expect as Australia seeks to host summit

Vanuatu’s climate minister has expressed disappointment over Australia’s decision to extend one of the world’s biggest liquefied natural gas projects and said it raises questions over its bid to co-host the Cop31 summit with Pacific nations.

The UN is expected to announce which country will host the major climate summit in the coming weeks, with Australia pushing for the event to be held in Adelaide as part of a “Pacific Cop”.