The Guardian Climate Change

Complaint against NW Natural, the state’s biggest provider, marks first time a utility faces climate deception charges

Oregon’s most populous county has sued the state’s biggest gas provider for allegedly sowing climate doubt, marking the first time a utility has faced charges of climate deception.

Last year, Multnomah county sued 17 fossil fuel companies and interest groups for allegedly deceiving the public about the climate crisis. The lawsuit came two years after a record-shattering heat dome killed 69 people across the county.

Record emissions, temperatures and population mean more scientists are looking into possibility of societal collapse, report says

Many of Earth’s “vital signs” have hit record extremes, indicating that “the future of humanity hangs in the balance”, a group of the world’s most senior climate experts have said.

More and more scientists are now looking into the possibility of societal collapse, says the report, which assessed 35 vital signs in 2023 and found that 25 were worse than ever recorded, including carbon dioxide levels and human population. This indicates a “critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis”, it says.

Demand for beef, soy, palm oil and nickel hindering efforts to halt demolition by 2030, global report finds

The destruction of global forests increased in 2023, and is higher than when 140 countries promised three years ago to halt deforestation by the end of the decade, an analysis shows.

The rising demolition of the forests puts ambitions to halt the climate crisis and stem the huge worldwide losses of wildlife even further from reach, the researchers warn.

• Sport England chair to deliver keynote speech
• Clubs encouraged to stop taking short-haul fights

Premier League clubs must step up and put themselves on the right side of history when it comes to climate change, Sport England’s chair, Chris Boardman, will warn on Tuesday.

In a keynote speech to the Sport Positive Summit, seen by the Guardian, Boardman will question why 10 Premier League clubs flew to the US for pre-season friendlies and Tottenham and Newcastle played a match in Melbourne three days after the final day of season.

Local people and businesses left ‘in lurch’ after council says it cannot afford to support or develop Alpe du Grand Serre

A large French Alpine ski resort has announced it is to close, citing a lack of funds to become a year-round destination, as low- and medium-altitude mountain areas around Europe struggle with a truncated season due to global heating and declining snowfalls.

Local councillors voted not to reopen Alpe du Grand Serre in the Isère this winter, saying they could no longer pay for the mountain lifts or pay to complete a programme to diversify as an all-year tourist destination.

World Meteorological Organization says water is ‘canary in the coalmine of climate change’ and calls for urgent action

Rivers dried up at the highest rate in three decades in 2023, putting global water supply at risk, data has shown.

Over the past five years, there have been lower-than-average river levels across the globe and reservoirs have also been low, according to the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) State of Global Water Resources report.

The federal government, state governments and larger non-profits have had a slower – and, say some residents, insufficient – response

The first thing members of the Pansy Collective, based in Asheville, North Carolina, did following the start of Hurricane Helene was reach out to each other, ensuring that everyone was OK, and helping people who needed to evacuate. As soon as they were able to get down from the Blue Ridge Mountains, where Asheville is nestled, they drove more than 200 miles to Durham to gather supplies and bring them back to Asheville.

The Pansy Collective is just one of several mutual-aid disaster-relief organizations that have mobilized across Florida and the Carolinas since Hurricane Helene made landfall on 26 September.

Latest system forms in Gulf of Mexico on Saturday, with forecasters expecting upgrade to hurricane in a few days

Florida is expected to get walloped by another hurricane next week, just 10 days after it was hit by Hurricane Helene, which caused widespread storm surge and wind damage before it moved inland to cause devastating flooding.

The latest system, Tropical Storm Milton, formed in the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday. Forecasters expect the storm to quickly strengthen into a hurricane and rush toward Florida in the next few days.

Firefighters carry heavy packs along rugged slopes to calm fast-moving fires, and sweltering weather is compounding already dangerous work

• Life as a roofer in Florida’s sweltering heat: ‘It feels like 120F’
• Life as California warehouse worker: ‘Products matter more than people’
  

After 20 years fighting flames for the US Forest Service, the fire captain Abel Martinez has pretty much seen it all.

His lungs are scarred from the smouldering car tires and scorched homes that fed billowing flames alongside highways, through parched canyons, or over treetops in the Angeles national forest, the mountainous wilderness where he works in southern California. Whether it’s a dry year or a wet one, the decades on the job have taught him that every fire season is likely to be a busy one.

Rescuers search for missing after huge volumes of rain fall in area around Jablanica and Konjic, causing sudden flooding

Rescue teams are searching for survivors after flash floods and landslides hit parts of Bosnia, killing at least 16 people and injuring dozens more.

Construction machines worked to remove piles of rocks and debris covering the central town of Jablanica after the rainstorm early on Friday.

The Middle East crisis, the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Femen activists in Kyiv and Paris fashion week: the last seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

Firms such as Smallhold have lessons to be learned on what business can – and can’t – do in transforming agriculture

When Andrew Carter and Adam DeMartino started their business Smallhold in 2017, they set out with a simple vision they thought could have a big impact: feed people mushrooms.

“Mushrooms are one of the most sustainable calories on the planet, in every aspect,” Carter said, whether you’re looking at water, waste, plastic use or greenhouse gas emissions. “We just wanted to get more people eating them.”

Exclusive: Broadcaster joins board of Climate Emergency Fund and says there needs to be new ways of pushing for change

Climate activists need to stop blocking roads and start holding fossil fuel executives personally to account, Chris Packham has said, after being appointed to the board of one of the biggest activist funds in the world.

The naturalist and broadcaster is the first non-US-based director of the Climate Emergency Fund, which has given almost $15m (£11.4m) to activists taking part in non-violent civil disobedience around the world since 2019.

Behind the violence of extreme weather is that of the fossil fuel industry, and Americans are suffering for it

The weather we used to have shaped the behavior of the water we used to have – how much and when it rained, how dry it got, when and how slowly the snow in the heights melted, what fell as rain and fell as snow. Climate chaos is changing all that, breaking the patterns, delivering water in torrents unprecedented in recorded history or withholding it to create epic droughts, while heat-and-drought-parched soil, grasslands and forests create ideal conditions for mega-wildfires.

Water in the right time and quantity is a blessing; in the wrong ones it’s a scourge and a destroying force, as we’ve seen recently with floods around the world. In the vice-presidential debate, Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor, noted that his state’s farmers “know climate change is real. They’ve seen 500-year droughts, 500-year floods, back to back.” Farmers around the world are dealing with flood, drought and unseasonable weather that impacts their ability to produce food and protect soil.

Analysis of satellite data finds plant cover has increased more than tenfold over the last few decades

Plant cover across the Antarctic peninsula has soared more than tenfold over the last few decades, as the climate crisis heats up the icy continent.

Analysis of satellite data found there was less than one sq kilometre of vegetation in 1986 but there was almost 12km2 of green cover by 2021. The spread of the plants, mostly mosses, has accelerated since 2016, the researchers found.

Exclusive: Study suggests people more willing to reduce own carbon footprint if they see leaders doing the same

Political leaders “walking the talk” on climate action by flying less or eating less meat could be a “crucial missing link” in fighting global heating, according to a study.

Researchers found that people are significantly more willing to reduce their own carbon footprint if they see leaders doing the same. The finding, by psychologists in the UK, was not a given, as green action by high-profile people can sometimes be dismissed as virtue-signalling.

Revitalising the country’s industrial heartlands and creating decent, well-paid jobs is at the heart of our mission

• Rachel Reeves is the chancellor of the exchequer

Three months ago, the British people voted for change. For a Britain that works for working people again, with an economy that is growing, an NHS that is fixed and more money in people’s pockets.

I am determined to deliver that change. But I know it can only happen if we bring investment back to Britain. Investment that can reignite Britain’s industrial heartlands to create good jobs in the industries of the future – like wind power and solar. And this includes carbon capture and storage. That’s why today we have announced up to £21.7bn of funding over 25 years to launch this major new industry for our country in a new era for clean-energy investment and jobs.

Rachel Reeves is chancellor of the exchequer