The Guardian Climate Change

Means to stop catastrophic global heating exist, says UN chief, but political courage is needed to end world’s fossil fuel addiction

The huge cuts in carbon emissions now needed to end the climate crisis mean it is “crunch time for real”, according to the UN’s environment chief.

An unprecedented global mobilisation of renewable energy, forest protection and other measures is needed to steer the world off the current path towards a catastrophic temperature rise of 3.1C, a report from the UN environment programme (Unep) has found. Extreme heatwaves, storms, droughts and floods are already ravaging communities with less than 1.5C of global heating to date.

Pace of growth helps maintain renewable energy when weather conditions interfere with wind and solar

Faced with worsening climate-driven disasters and an electricity grid increasingly supplied by intermittent renewables, the US is rapidly installing huge batteries that are already starting to help prevent power blackouts.

From barely anything just a few years ago, the US is now adding utility-scale batteries at a dizzying pace, having installed more than 20 gigawatts of battery capacity to the electric grid, with 5GW of this occurring just in the first seven months of this year, according to the federal Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Even temporarily passing the Paris 2015 limit will mean severe storms, heatwaves and floods

In 2015, world leaders in Paris put great hope in keeping the rise in average global temperatures at or below 1.5C. But global temperatures continue rising relentlessly. The world is now on the brink of overshooting the 1.5C target, and then – what? The hope was to stop pumping out CO2 and also remove it from the atmosphere to avoid a cataclysm, but that would need 400 gigatonnes of CO2 to be removed by 2100, using new and as yet untested technology on a vast and economical scale.

A recent report shows that even temporarily overshooting 1.5C will still allow climate change to build up over the next several decades. And that means severe storms, intense heatwaves, deluges of rain and many other disastrous outcomes will carry on increasing.

No wonder some members of the Commonwealth heads of government meeting had that sinking feeling

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Robert Buckland, the former justice secretary, says ex-president ‘not fit for office’

The Labour party has put out a statement rejecting allegations that it broke US election law because activists and staff members have been volunteering to help the Democrats.

A Labour spokesperson said:

It is common practice for campaigners of all political persuasions from around the world to volunteer in US elections.

Where Labour activists take part, they do so at their own expense, in accordance with the laws and rules.

We said that because working people had already paid the burden under the last government, we wouldn’t increase the taxes, the main taxes that working people pay, so income tax - all rates - national insurance and VAT. So those taxes that working people pay, we’re not increasing those taxes in the budget.

We go into this budget with a number of challenges - the £22bn black hole just this year, in the public finances, the unfinanced company compensation schemes, for example on infected blood and Horizon, it’s really important that we honour but they weren’t in the forecasts from the previous government.

The fact that the previous government had baked in austerity to our public spending settlements in the years to come, and we committed to not return to austerity.

With no power, no water and soon-to-spoil food, Asheville residents fired up their grills and emptied their freezers for communal meals

Erin Kellem’s Asheville, North Carolina neighborhood is a short drive from the city center, but feels remote. The Haw Creek area’s culs-de-sac are fronted by spacious yards and surrounded by thick woods that give the illusion of isolation.

Hurricane Helene changed that, dropping an ocean of rain on the southern Appalachian mountains. Floods of biblical proportions killed dozens. Power outages left thousands without electricity for at least two weeks in most places. There was no gas or cellphone service for days following the storm, and most of the city is still without potable water. Roads disappeared under rushing water and mud. The help that was on its way had no way in, and those stranded in their homes had no way of checking on loved ones.

Residents of Las Vegas have endured a string of record-breaking heatwaves in summer with a very warm fall

By now, the canvassers at Make the Road Nevada know how to prepare themselves for the record-breaking heat.

Members of the progressive group – which focuses on mobilising Black and Latino voters – layer on white, UPF-protective shirts, and sweat-wicking performance wear. They fill their 50-quart coolers with ice-cold water. And they pack lots and lots of chips – barbecue Lays, and Cheetos and Doritos – for the road. The salt helps stave off dehydration.

US readers are responding to the reality of the climate crisis by adapting their homes, from insulation as a refuge from heat to removing yard debris in case of wildfires

Rose, 62, was living in a remote area of Washington, west of Seattle, when the scorching “heat dome” of 2021 hit the Pacific north-west. As the house Rose shared with her then 93-year-old mother grew hotter, and their two air conditioning units struggled to make any dent on the wall of heat, Rose’s heart rate climbed, and she watched as all the rubber bands in the house liquefied.

The heat dome – which broke local records to reach highs of 120F (49C) – buckled roads, melted electrical cables and caused about 600 excess deaths, and research showed it was “virtually impossible” without climate change. It’s just one example of a worsening picture for US extreme weather driven by human caused global heating: including more frequent hurricanes, wildfires and devastating floods.

Danish political scientist Bjorn Lomborg told the US cable host its biggest threat was not the climate crisis, but do his claims stack up?

• Great Barrier Reef’s worst bleaching leaves giant coral graveyard: ‘It looks as if it has been carpet bombed’
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Instead of an existential crisis for species worldwide, or threatening to submerge entire Pacific nations and coastal cities where hundreds of millions of people live, or a phenomenon driving unprecedented heatwaves and wildfires, the climate crisis was characterised somewhat differently on major US cable show Real Time with Bill Maher.

Climate change was “a problem”, Danish political scientist Bjorn Lomborg told comedian Maher, but would only shave a few percentage points off global GDP by the end of the century and in any case, he claimed, by then people would be much richer anyway.

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Oceanographer Stefan Rahmstorf explains why Amoc breakdown could be catastrophic for both humans and marine life

The dangers of a collapse of the main Atlantic Ocean circulation, known as Amoc, have been “greatly underestimated” and would have devastating and irreversible impacts, according to an open letter released at the weekend by 44 experts from 15 countries. One of the signatories, Stefan Rahmstorf, an oceanographer and climatologist who heads the Earth system analysis department at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, explains here why he has recently upgraded his risk assessment of an Amoc breakdown as a result of global heating – and what that means for Britain, Europe and the wider world.

Departing secretary general says small island developing states should be given greater access to climate finance

Patricia Scotland, the departing secretary general of the Commonwealth, has described the 56-member-bloc as a powerful force in the battle against climate breakdown, and urged the members to continue her legacy of supporting small and vulnerable countries.

Lady Scotland’s two-term tenure began in 2016, shortly after tropical storm Erica destroyed 95% of Dominica’s GDP. “I came in understanding that this was an immediate threat to human lives, jobs, homes, infrastructure, and our very existence, and urgent action was our only option,” she said.

Exclusive: Those with ‘interest in keeping world hooked on fossil fuels’ should not oversee climate talks, say report authors

Azerbaijan, the host of the Cop29 global climate summit, will see a large expansion of fossil gas production in the next decade, a new report has revealed. The authors said that the crucial negotiations should not be overseen by “those with a vested interest in keeping the world hooked on fossil fuels”.

Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil and gas company, Socar, and its partners are set to raise the country’s annual gas production from 37bn cubic metres (bcm) today to 49bcm by 2033. Socar also recently agreed to increase gas exports to the European Union by 17% by 2026.

Study finds craters come from forceful releases of methane gas from underground ponds as temperatures warm

In 2014 a mysterious crater suddenly appeared on the Yamal peninsula in north-west Siberia. The debris surrounding this 50-metre-deep hole suggested it had been produced by an explosive process. Since then, scientists and local people have discovered several more craters on the Yamal and nearby Gydan peninsulas and a multitude of explanations have been put forward, ranging from meteor impacts to natural gas explosions. Now a new study has revealed the cause.

Drill down through the seasonally frozen soil in this region and you reach a thick clay permafrost layer. Sandwiched between the soil and permafrost lie unusual metre-thick ponds of very salty water known as cryopegs, which are underlain by crystalised methane-water solids, kept stable by the high pressure and low temperature.

The state Labor government is steering Australia’s climate policy, letting emissions soar unbridled as it paves the way for massive fossil fuel projects

Western Australia sometimes feels more than three hours behind the rest of the country.

The tyranny of our distance has always meant it’s been hard to get the attention of the east coast.

Comprehensive review suggests that adding more parks, trees and greenery could improve public health

Green spaces in cities play a vital role in reducing illness and deaths caused by climate breakdown, according to the most comprehensive study of its kind.

The findings of the review suggest that adding more parks, trees and greenery to urban areas could help countries tackle heat-related harms and improve public health.

In the mountainous area near Asheville, affected growers must now replenish water-logged and often tainted land

Hurricane Helene took much from western North Carolina where I live, farm and raise my family. The stories are harrowing: houses obliterated by landslides, whole families washed away, corpses revealed as the waters receded.

Suddenly, there’s deep climate trauma here, in a place where we mistakenly thought hurricanes happened to Floridians and coastal communities, not us. Helene stole our sense of security: we now side-eye trees, which crushed homes, power lines, cars and people. And the rain, the farmer’s frequent wish, turned our rivers maniacal.

Energy secretary prepares new pledge for big UK carbon cuts in next decade amid potential cabinet division

Ed Miliband is facing his first key test on Labour’s ambitions for global climate leadership, with a crucial decision looming on how far and how fast to cut the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The energy secretary is preparing a new international pledge for the UK to cut carbon sharply in the next decade, but could face opposition within the cabinet.

Weathercasters are positioned to help viewers connect short-term extreme events – like hurricanes – with the climate crisis

Some have called Hurricanes Helene and Milton an October surprise. Yet such disasters are now dispiritingly predictable. In their wake, pundits have asked whether and how the storms – which happened to hit some key swing states – could impact a presidential election shaping up to be decided by razor-thin margins.

There’s practical concerns, like whether some affected voters will physically be able to cast their ballots. And then there’s a political question: Will the fact that the climate crisis, which is exacerbated these hurricanes, raise the importance of that issue? Or will that be counterbalanced by those who have become convinced the government engineered these disasters to suppress electoral power?

As nations meet in Colombia to confront species and ecosystem loss, the onus is on the global north to put science and collaboration at the heart of the issue

• Angela McLean is chief scientific adviser to the UK government

Biodiversity, the incredible variety of life on Earth, is the backbone of the ecosystems that allow life on this planet to flourish. From the rich soil that nurtures our food and stores our carbon, to the green spaces that improve our mental health, biodiversity is an unsung hero upon which our societies and economies thrive.

Despite the clear benefits of – and moral arguments for – protecting nature, human activities are accelerating biodiversity loss at unprecedented rates. We are destroying habitats, overexploiting natural resources and introducing invasive species, which put plant and animal species at risk of extinction. Human-induced climate change is intensifying biodiversity loss and altering ecosystems, reducing their ability to provide natural climate solutions. Right now, in South America, devastating drought and fires – exacerbated by climate change – are destroying millions of acres of forest habitats.

Global heating particularly increasing risk of death from smoke inhalation in Australia, South America, Europe and parts of Asia

Global heating is causing more of the planet to be burned from wildfires and probably killing an extra 12,000 people a year from breathing in smoke, according to new research.

Global heating was particularly increasing the risk of death from wildfire smoke in Australia, South America, Europe and the boreal forests of Asia, one modelling study found.