The Guardian Climate Change

Businesses like Suay Sew Shop are trying to salvage piles of damaged textiles – and warn of the dangers of climate impact and overconsumption

At Suay Sew Shop in Los Angeles’s arts district, mounds of clothes are piled high in a warehouse. The T-shirts, socks, jackets and denim are surplus donations from the LA wildfires that community groups across the city were unable to distribute because they had too much already, or because the items were dirty, damaged or poorly made.

Instead of letting the clothes go to a landfill, where they can cause a host of environmental problems, Suay has rescued 50,000lbs of textiles so they can be cleaned, sorted and upcycled by professional designers and sewers. Since LA currently has no permanent textile recycling or collection, it’s up to groups like Suay to save as many textiles as possible before they get dumped or exported.

Climate crisis and pollution reported as possible reasons for dramatic fall in numbers of cockles, clams and mussels

A “catastrophic” collapse in shellfish numbers is being reported by Spanish fishers in Galicia, with some stocks falling by as much as 90% in the space of a few years.

Galicia is Europe’s principal source of shellfish and, after China, the world’s biggest producer of mussels, which are farmed in the estuaries.

Chancellor reassures Labour colleagues that climate concerns go ‘hand in hand’ with economic ambitions

Rachel Reeves has told MPs the government needs to go “further and faster” to increase economic growth, as Downing Street sought to reassure people concerned about the environment that net zero and increasing output go “hand in hand”.

The chancellor has unnerved some Labour MPs and green campaigners with her increasingly punchy rhetoric about growth being a priority over preventing climate change, as she strives to improve the UK’s anaemic forecasts and drive up living standards.

An economic shift raises alarming questions about government vision, priorities and commitment to transformative policies

To hear Labour’s economic message, one might wonder if Downing Street has developed an unlikely admiration for Liz Truss. Given its focus on growth through cutting planning regulations, reducing welfare budgets and removing dissenting bureaucrats, some believe Labour is in danger of echoing not just the spirit but the substance of Ms Truss’s brief, ill-fated tenure. For a party that rose to power criticising the Tory right’s ideological misadventures, this shift in tone is striking.

Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves may see Labour’s sinking poll ratings as reason to align with their opponents, adopting policies – like curbing legal challenges to planning decisions – few rightwingers would contest. In a speech later this week, Ms Reeves plans to give the go-ahead for a third runway at Heathrow, a divisive choice even within Labour that has earned support from the Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch.

Energy secretary insists there is ‘no contradiction between net zero and economic growth’ in hearing at Commons committee

The hearing has stopped for a short break. Heather Hallett, the chair, tells Badenoch that her evidence will be finished by lunchtime.

Keith is now asking Badenoch about the fourth report produced by the Race Disparity Unit. It was produced in December 2021.

Relevant health departments and agencies should review and action existing requests for health data, and undertake an independent strategic review of the dissemination of healthcare data and the publication of statistics and analysis.​​

Government is not necessarily great at delivering these systems. They tend to be big boondoggles for the private sector, but there are private sector companies that can deliver this. There need to be caveats around that.

More than 100 people evacuated from their homes as Storm Herminia hits Britain after Éowyn

A major incident has been declared in Somerset after more than 100 people were evacuated from their homes because of flooding, while roads were blocked, trains delayed or cancelled and schools closed, as stormy weather once again battered parts of the UK.

Rest centres were set up for people forced to leave their homes in three Somerset towns – Chard, Ilminster and Somerton – with some residents reporting levels of flooding not seen for years. Highways teams dealt with almost 50 incidents.

Net increase of 80,000 deaths a year projected in hottest scenario, with milder winters failing to redress balance

Dangerous temperatures could kill 50% more people in Europe by the end of the century, a study has found, with the lives lost to stronger heat projected to outnumber those saved from milder cold.

The researchers estimated an extra 8,000 people would die each year as a result of “suboptimal temperatures” even under the most optimistic scenario for cutting planet-heating pollution. The hottest plausible scenario they considered showed a net increase of 80,000 temperature-related deaths a year.

Green-led authority consulting on changes it says could save £2m and encourage recycling – critics fear it will increase fly-tipping

Bristol city council could become the first local authority in England to collect black rubbish bins only once every four weeks.

The Green-led council says that switching from a two- to four-weekly collection would save it more than £2m a year and help reverse a dip in recycling rates.

In today’s newsletter: The Los Angeles wildfires highlighted the immense challenges faced by the insurance industry amid the escalating risks of the climate crisis. Are there any potential solutions for homeowners?

Good morning. If the Los Angeles wildfires are bracing evidence of the general threat posed by the climate crisis, they have also brought home a specific problem: how can you make the insurance system work when the risks are so high?

That is not a question limited to California, or to the United States: the insurance industry has rated the climate crisis as the biggest threat to its future four years in a row, a very concrete riposte to those politicians who continue to question the reality of global heating. It is impossible to know whether a specific weather event like storm Éowyn in the UK has been caused by climate change – but we know that they, and the damage they leave in their wake, are only going to get more frequent.

Israel-Gaza war | Donald Trump’s proposal that large numbers of Palestinians should leave Gaza to “just clean out” the whole strip has been rejected by US allies in the region. Trump’s intervention came as a deal was reached to allow Palestinians to return to northern Gaza and release a civilian hostage who Israel said should have been freed already.

Heathrow | Rachel Reeves has given her heaviest hint yet that she will back a third runway at Heathrow airport, arguing that she is willing to make difficult decisions while pursuing economic growth. Campaigners have warned that the move would be a severe setback for the UK’s climate commitments.

Southport attack | Prevent’s assessment of the danger posed by Axel Rudakubana followed policy at the time, an official review will find – but it will criticise the scheme for rejecting extra help to tackle his interest in violence. The review of the way three referrals were handled before Rudakubana committed an atrocity in Southport is due to be published this week.

AI | Ministers have shut down or dropped at least half a dozen artificial intelligence prototypes intended for the welfare system, the Guardian has learned, in a sign of the headwinds facing Keir Starmer’s effort to increase government efficiency.

Belarus | Alexander Lukashenko is set to win a seventh five-year term as Belarusian president with 87.6% of the vote in Sunday’s election, according to an exit poll. The US and the EU said in the run-up to the election that it could not be free or fair because independent media are banned and all leading opposition figures have been jailed or forced to flee abroad.

Three young scientists set traps to capture and film species of special concern in move that can help conserve the shrew

In a 7,000ft-high marshy spot in the cold, rugged eastern Sierra mountains, two groups of mammals scurried around at night. One was going about their normal nocturnal routine of hunting worms. The other was hoping for a glimpse of an elusive creature: the Mount Lyell shrew, the only known California mammal never photographed alive.

The three young student scientists faced a tight timeline. They baited 150 pitfall traps – small cups dug into the earth to catch wandering creatures – with cat food and mealworms and monitored them across a 600ft area, checking each trap every two hours for any signs of their goal. They slept no more than two hours at a time. Shrews have such a fast metabolism that they die in traps quickly, one of the reasons this species had never been photographed or studied live.

‘It was striking that the White House memo included toilets and shower heads as a presidential priority,’ said one expert

From crusading against showers he feels don’t sufficiently wash his hair to reversing protections for a small fish he calls “worthless”, Donald Trump’s personal fixations have helped shape his first environmental priorities as US president.

While withdrawing the US from the Paris climate accords and declaring an “energy emergency” were among Trump’s most noteworthy executive orders on his first day in office, both were further down a list of priorities put out by the White House than measures to improve “consumer choice in vehicles, shower heads, toilets, washing machines, lightbulbs and dishwashers”.

A gripping play in London’s West End tells how agreement of the first climate protocol in 1997 was a triumph, as scientists share new warnings about the scale of the crisis

As material for a West End show, the backroom machinations of an international climate conference sound unpromising.

Pedantry, boredom and delegates fighting over the wording of treaty clauses do not sound like the stuff of high drama. Nevertheless, Kyoto, a Royal Shakespeare Company production by Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson now playing at Soho Place in London, has been widely praised by critics and rapturously received at its opening this month.

Speech calling for unity against ‘populist right’ interrupted by two women opposed to Drax power plant subsidies

Wes Streeting was heckled by climate protesters during a speech calling on progressives to stand up to the “populist right”.

Two women shouted at the health secretary as he addressed the Fabian Society, urging the centre-left to take on the “miserablist, declinist vision” being offered by figures such as the Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage.

I was one of a group of Just Stop Oil activists given the longest-ever UK sentences for peaceful protest after blocking a motorway. Six months into my incarceration, this is what I have learned

Locked in a tiny metal box in a prison transport van rattling its way to HMP Bronzefield, in Middlesex, I felt at peace. I was on trial with four other Just Stop Oil protesters over the group’s non-violent direct action on the M25 motorway in 2022. The judge had told the jury to ignore evidence of the climate emergency, and we were not allowed to talk in depth about the climate breakdown when defending our actions. But we do not have the time to pretend the existential threat we face is not real. My sense of peace came from having an opportunity to speak out about the crisis during our trial.

Arizona capital, made drier and hotter by climate crisis, edges towards longest streak without recorded rain

The US city of Phoenix is close to breaking another extreme weather record, this time the longest stretch without rain as drought conditions worsen across Arizona.

As of Saturday, there had been no recorded rainfall in America’s fifth largest city for 154 consecutive days – the second longest dry spell on record as the climate crisis collides with natural weather patterns.

Trump’s inauguration, fires in California, the hostage release in Israel and Storm Éowyn: the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

• Warning: this gallery contains images that some readers may find distressing

In just 100 hours, the returned president has already revealed his goal and exposed the weakness of those who might challenge him

It’s hard to see in a blizzard. When so much is coming at you, one thing after another, it becomes impossible to discern anything but a blur. You become disoriented and lose your balance. If that was the aim of Donald Trump’s first 100 hours in office, it’s definitely working.

The bombardment of executive orders, decisions and declarations has been unrelenting, a shock-and-awe display of presidential action that has left its targets reeling. Consider what Trump has done this week alone.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

Gigantic wall of ice moves slowly from Antarctica on potential collision course with wildlife breeding ground

The world’s largest iceberg – a behemoth more than twice the size of London – is drifting toward a remote island where scientists say it could run aground and threaten penguins and seals.

The gigantic wall of ice is moving slowly from Antarctica on a potential collision course with South Georgia, a crucial wildlife breeding ground.

Ministers avoid internal party row by promising potential rebels they will have input into environmental legislation

Ministers have seen off a bill that would have made the UK’s climate and environment targets legally binding, after promising Labour backbenchers that they would have input into environmental legislation.

The deal avoids an internal row over the bill, which was introduced by the Liberal Democrat MP Roz Savage but had support from dozens of Labour MPs.

A London council is introducing electric buggies to cut emissions on its roads, but are they a practical solution?

“Is that thing road legal?” scoffs the driver of a white van as I complete a careful loop of Hammersmith roundabout, to the sound of loud guffaws from his front-seat passenger.

I assure him it is, though honestly, you can see his point. The Yo-Go – a bright yellow electric buggy with two seats, one gear and no side panels – does not look entirely at home on one of the capital’s most notoriously congested junctions, squeezed between buses, delivery vans and construction lorries many times its size.