The Guardian Climate Change

Exclusive: Stuart Bonds could hand the Nationals the seat of Hunter thanks to a preference deal and ‘last minute’ change to how-to-vote cards

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A One Nation candidate who could hand the Nationals the seat of Hunter, thanks to a handshake preference deal, has called public health officials “little Hitlers” and promoted a conspiracy theory alleging the government has used the climate crisis to control every aspect of people’s lives.

Stuart Bonds told a livestreamed forum with rightwing activists last week that the federal government should not do anything to address climate change. He also claimed “a crime” was committed against Australians during the Covid pandemic, alleging they were used “as an experiment to sell pharmaceutical projects”.

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The former PM has form when it comes to pushing corporate interests and meeting populists halfway

When Tony Blair came out this week to say current net zero policies were “doomed to fail”, there was something familiar in his arguments: phasing out fossil fuels wouldn’t work because people perceived it as expensive, arduous and not their problem. Stop banging on about renewables; won’t someone think of the things we don’t know how to do, like carbon capture and such wizardry as is still locked in tech bros’ imaginations? Basically, net zero had lost the room, according to the former prime minister. And if anyone knows where the room is, and how to get it back, it must be him.

The Tony Blair Institute (TBI) issued a statement on Wednesday saying that, in fact, it believes the government’s net zero policy is “the right one”. But this is a familiar trajectory for the former prime minister. He said something similar about “woke”, which sadly lost the room in 2022. “Plant Labour’s feet clearly near the centre of gravity of the British people,” Blair advised Starmer. “[They] want fair treatment for all and an end to prejudice, but distrust and dislike the ‘cancel culture’, ‘woke’ mentality.” What exactly does “woke” mean, if not an end to prejudice? Just how effective is cancel culture if Blair himself could work as a lobbyist for a Saudi oil firm in 2016, advise the government of Kazakhstan after it brutally suppressed public protests in 2011, and yet still walk among us as the voice of the progressive left? Memo to my fellow cancellers: we are bad at this.

Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist

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PM also clashes with Kemi Badenoch over grooming gangs at Wednesday’s PMQ session

PMQs is starting soon.

Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.

Former Labour PM accused of ‘handing talking points’ to Tories and Reform after saying net zero strategy faltering

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Climate experts and politicians have criticised Tony Blair for claiming that any strategy that relied on rapidly phasing out fossil fuels was “doomed to fail”.

The former prime minister’s comments, published in a report from the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), prompted an internal row in Labour, with some accusing him of playing into the hands of a narrative used by rightwing parties to delay climate action.

Temperatures south Asians dread each year arrive early as experts talk of ever shorter transition to summer-like heat

The summer conditions south Asian countries dread each year have arrived alarmingly early, and it’s only April. Much of India and Pakistan is already sweltering in heatwave conditions, in what scientists say is fast becoming the “new normal”.

Temperatures in the region typically climb through May, peaking in June before the monsoon brings relief. But this year, the heat has come early. “As far as Asia and the Indian subcontinent are concerned, there was a quick transition from a short window of spring conditions to summer-like heat,” said GP Sharma, the meteorology president of Skymet, India’s leading private forecaster.

Plans to protect UK from extreme weather are inadequate, Climate Change Committee says in scathing assessment

Labour is putting people, the economy and the environment in increasing peril by failing to act on the effects of the climate crisis, the UK’s climate watchdog has said.

Flooding, droughts and heatwaves are all increasing in severity due to climate breakdown, but current plans to protect people, land and infrastructure against extreme weather have been judged inadequate in a scathing assessment of the UK’s preparedness.

Forecasters say temperature could soar to 30C later this week, the earliest date the high would have been reached

The UK experienced its hottest day of the year so far on Tuesday and temperatures could reach 30C at the earliest point on record later this week, forecasters said.

The highest temperature recorded on Tuesday was 24.9C in Ross-on-Wye in Herefordshire, according to the Met Office.

The previous hottest day this year was 24.5C recorded in St James’s Park, London, on Monday.

The Met Office, which warned last month that the climate crisis is pushing temperature extremes to new levels, said temperatures could hit 27C or 28C on Wednesday in southern England and the Midlands.

In a further sign of the changing climate, Wales could also set a new record for its highest April temperature – currently 26.2C.

Meteorologist Craig Snell said the most likely places to see the warmest weather on Wednesday were “in a line from London over towards the West Country and into the Midlands”.

Snell told the PA news agency: “The central southern parts of the UK are probably going to be where the highest temperatures will be tomorrow.”

He said Thursday would be “the peak of the heat”, adding: “We are likely to see 28C or 29C, and again it’s going to be a corridor from the west of London over towards Bristol which will probably be the most likely places to see the highest temperatures.”

The meteorologist said the high temperatures on Thursday would result in one of the “warmest starts to May on record”.

Met Office chief meteorologist Paul Gundersen said April temperatures in the mid-20s were “not particularly unusual” but added: “It is more unusual to see temperatures reach the high 20s, and if we see 30C this week, it will be the earliest point in the year in which we have achieved that threshold.”

Temperatures are forecast to drop across much of the UK on Friday as the high pressure starts to pull away.

The highest recorded April temperature was in 1949, when Camden Square, London, recorded 29.4C.

The London fire brigade (LFB) has urged caution around open-water swimming after last month saw a 32% increase in water-related incidents compared with the same period last year.

Craig Carter, the LFB’s assistant commissioner for prevention and protection, said: “Even when the sun is shining, water temperatures can be dangerously cold. Cold water shock can affect anyone, no matter how fit or experienced they are.

“It can lead to water inhalation and, in the worst cases, drowning. Be particularly careful near the water’s edge – it’s easy to slip and fall unexpectedly. And think twice before jumping into open water.”

Research this month found that the number of UK homes overheating in summer quadrupled to 80% over the past decade.

The study also found that the use of air conditioning soared sevenfold to 21% of homes between 2011 and 2022. The researchers warned that continuation of this trend could put strain on the national electricity grid, increase carbon emissions and fuel social disadvantage among families unable to afford air conditioning.

The research was prompted by extreme heatwaves in 2022, when temperatures in the UK rose above 40C for the first time. The past two years have been the hottest on record globally, driven by the burning of fossil fuels.

More than 10,000 people have died as a result of summer heatwaves from 2020 to 2024, data from the UK Health Security Agency shows.

The huge rise in overheated homes and air conditioner use was “a shocking result”, said Dr Mehri Khosravi at the University of East London, who led the study. She added: “Over the heatwaves experienced in 2022 we had nearly 4,500 dead, but this excess mortality is hidden.”

Tariffs and environmental cuts will make meeting challenging, says summit president André Corrêa do Lago

Crucial United Nations climate talks this year will be a “slightly uphill battle” due to economic turmoil and Donald Trump’s removal of the US from the effort to tackle global heating, the chair of the upcoming summit has admitted.

Governments from around the world will gather in Belem, Brazil, in November for the Cop30 meeting, where they will be expected to announce new plans to deal with the climate crisis and slash greenhouse gas emissions. Very few countries have done so yet, however, and the world remains well off track to remain within agreed temperature limits designed to avert the worst consequences of climate breakdown.

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Severin Carrell is the Guardian’s Scotland editor.

Keir Starmer is not expected to campaign in the Hamilton byelection, a critical contest for Scottish Labour which takes place in early June, Anas Sarwar has confirmed.

I wouldn’t expect Keir to be campaigning in the byelection. That’s not to say he won’t, but I’m not expecting Kier to campaign in the byelection.

I’ll be on the stump campaigning for a Labour win. I’m the candidate for first minister next year. I’m the one that wants to remove the SNP from government.

Next year, we’ve got to demonstrate to people that for all Nigel Farage might want to come here with his easy answers and create a bit of a circus, the reality is a vote for Reform only helps the SNP. If you want to get rid of the SNP, only Scottish Labour can beat them.

The assessment, mandated by Congress, is used by federal and local governments to prep for climate disasters

Donald Trump’s administration has dismissed all contributors to the US government’s flagship study on how to prepare for climate change impacts, prompting strong criticism from experts over a “senseless” move.

The climate assessment is used by federal and local governments to understand how to prepare for climate crisis impacts including from extreme heat, hurricanes, flooding and drought.

Exclusive: As they wait on latest weather forecasts, concertgoers delay buying tickets. But this has caused some major events to cancel

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Music festivals are a threatened species that could die out if they fail to adapt to the climate crisis.

While soaring insurance and production costs, disruptions to supply chains, mass cancellations and shifts in consumer buying habits have all contributed to a flailing live music scene, extreme and unpredictable weather is an underlying contributor to these factors, an RMIT University report has found.

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Former PM claims net zero policies losing public support and says there should be greater focus on carbon capture

Tony Blair has called for the government to change course on climate, suggesting a strategy that limits fossil fuels in the short term or encourages people to limit consumption is “doomed to fail”.

In comments that have prompted a backlash within Labour, the former prime minister suggested the UK government should focus less on renewables and more on technological solutions such as carbon capture.

Climate experts say warming atmosphere from climate change could fuel severe freezing rain and ice storms like the one that hit the upper midwest last month

Winter has been slow to release its icy grip from the upper midwest this year, and in northern Michigan, its effects will be keenly felt for months, perhaps years.

A devastating ice storm that hit late last month has left an estimated 3m acres of trees snapped in half or damaged from the weight of up to an inch-and-a-half of ice across the northern part of lower Michigan.

Scientists on Union glacier in Antarctica fear the region is reaching a dangerous tipping point

• Words and photographs by James Whitlow Delano

Every time Dr Ricardo Jaña crosses the turbulent seas that separate Chile from Antarctica, it feels like his first time. The glaciologist at the Chilean Antarctic Institute (Inach) has sailed each year for 12 years through the Drake Passage, where the prevailing westerly winds, unimpeded by any land mass, raise the waters in chaotic waves that lash his boat.

“I feel powerless and resigned to the forces of nature,” says Jaña, who is the research chief at the Union Glacier Joint Scientific Polar Station.

Jaña skis around the glacier making global navigation satellite system measurements

World now in era of repressive regimes’ impunity, climate inaction and unchecked corporate power, says report

The first 100 days of Donald Trump’s presidency have “supercharged” a global rollback of human rights, pushing the world towards an authoritarian era defined by impunity and unchecked corporate power, Amnesty International warns today.

In its annual report on the state of human rights in 150 countries, the organisation said the immediate ramifications of Trump’s second term had been the undermining of decades of progress and the emboldening of authoritarian leaders.

Advocates say workers risk their health and fear speaking out about conditions amid Trump’s immigration crackdown

On a sunny day in February three workers swept up the piles of ash left behind on an Altadena driveway from when the Eaton fire raged through the Los Angeles neighborhood the month before.

The flames of the blaze had consumed nearly every home on the street, leaving only brick chimneys and charred vehicles. Red signs at the entrances of properties warned in English: “Unsafe, do not enter or occupy … entry may result in death or injury.” Hazards such as lead paint, asbestos and batteries were strewn amongst the ashes, but few workers cleaning the neighborhood that day wore masks or other personal protective equipment (PPE).

These days they call him Ian the renewable energy is expensive potato

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In today’s newsletter: Notorious for its disruptive protests, the group’s radical tactics may be best known as a turning point in climate resistance

Good morning.

This weekend Just Stop Oil put down their soup cans, hung up their hi-vis and disbanded, saying that now the UK government had stopped extracting oil and gas from the North Sea, they had achieved what they set out to do back in 2022.

Ukraine | US President Donald Trump has said he thinks Volodymyr Zelenskyy is ready to give up Crimea, despite his Ukrainian counterpart’s previous assertions on the Black Sea peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.

Canada | The suspect in a car-ramming attack that killed 11 people and injured dozens at a Filipino heritage festival in the Canadian city of Vancouver has been charged with eight counts of second degree murder, prosecutors have said.

UK economy | UK banks’ earnings reports will be studied this week for signs of turmoil linked to Donald Trump’s tariff drama, with uncertainty over global growth likely to weigh on lenders with heavy exposure to China, including HSBC.

​Politics | The Liberal Democrats have publicly challenged Nigel Farage to give details of his party’s donations after calculating that Reform UK spent more than £2m on personalised letters to postal voters before the local elections.

Health | Consuming large amounts of ultra-processed food (UPF) increases the risk of an early death, according to a international study that has reignited calls for a crackdown on UPF.

My fear growing up was gun violence. But a bigger threat to my body may have come from an invisible villain

Everyone experiences a moment that shapes who they are – a moment when childhood innocence is lost, and the burdens and traumas of the world become clearer.

For me, that moment occurred in elementary school when my friend discovered a gun in Englewood, New Jersey’s Denning Park. For days, I worried about what might be lurking behind the trees and in the shadows. This anxiety lingered through high school; I even wrote in my local newspaper that “I couldn’t remember anything more frightening for a young girl in elementary school”.

Conservationists fear fallout from president’s proclamation on fishing in federally protected area of Pacific Ocean

Environmental conservation groups are expressing major concerns over Donald Trump’s recent proclamation to reverse fishing regulations across the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine national monument, a federally protected area in the central Pacific Ocean spanning nearly 500,000 sq miles.

As one of the most pristine tropical marine environments in the world, the monument is now at risk following Trump’s decision last week to unleash American commercial fishing in the area with far-reaching environmental consequences.