The Guardian Climate Change

Global immunisation programmes are under risk as the US slashes its aid programme and the UK considers cutting funding

It is easy to become so used to scientific and social advances that we take them for granted. But sometimes we should pause to celebrate – to feel genuine awe – at the wonders that we have seen. Amid all the wars, the disasters and the crimes of the last half century, we have witnessed nothing short of a miracle.

Vaccination, in addition to clean water, sanitation and improved nutrition, has been one of the greatest contributors to global health. It is responsible for much of the astounding fall in child mortality, which plummeted by 59% between 1990 and 2022. It has saved more than 150 million lives, mostly of infants, since the Expanded Programme on Immunisation was launched by the World Health Organization in 1974. Initially designed to protect children against diseases including smallpox, tuberculosis, polio and measles, the scheme has since been extended to cover more pathogens. Then, in 2000, came the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi), a public-private organisation that provides financial and technical support for vaccination in poorer countries and negotiates with manufacturers to lower costs.

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Exclusive: Firms outnumber green groups at environmental talks, with related events sponsored by fossil fuel companies

Aviation industry delegates outnumbered those from green groups by 10 to one at the previous conference of the UN’s committee on aviation environmental protection (CAEP), an analysis has found.

Other recent meetings held by CAEP’s parent body, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), were sponsored by large fossil fuel companies and airlines, including Saudi Aramco and Etihad. Critics accuse the ICAO of having been captured by the industry, resulting in slow efforts to tackle the climate crisis by reducing the carbon emissions from aircraft.

It’s not just eggs, but coffee, orange juice and bacon, making life especially hard for diners, bakeries and brunch spots

Most menu items at the popular Philadelphia breakfast chain Green Eggs Cafe are – true to its name – made with eggs.

Its co-owner Stephen Slaughter said that about 90% of its dishes depend on eggs, ticking off a short list: “Our French toast, our pancake batters, our hollandaise sauce, obviously eggs and omelets.” So when his vendors started charging $8 for a dozen eggs, all six Green Egg Cafe locations felt the pinch.

Experts are split between concerns about future threats and present dangers. Both camps issued dire warnings

I was a technophile in my early teenage days, sometimes wishing that I had been born in 2090, rather than 1990, so that I could see all the incredible technology of the future. Lately, though, I’ve become far more sceptical about whether the technology that we interact with most is really serving us – or whether we are serving it.

So when I got an invitation to attend a conference on developing safe and ethical AI in the lead-up to the Paris AI summit, I was fully prepared to hear Maria Ressa, the Filipino journalist and 2021 Nobel peace prize laureate, talk about how big tech has, with impunity, allowed its networks to be flooded with disinformation, hate and manipulation in ways that have had very real, negative, impact on elections.

Alexander Hurst is a Guardian Europe columnist

Forecast for rising global electricity use likely to stoke fears of rising costs and stalled efforts to fight climate crisis

The world’s electricity use will grow every year by more than the amount consumed annually by Japan because of a surge in electric transport, air conditioning and datacentres, according to the world’s energy watchdog.

The International Energy Agency has raised its predictions for the world’s rising demand for electricity, pegging the growth at almost 4% a year until 2027, up from its previous forecast of 3.4% year.

Research shows move to electric vehicles may not be enough to enable pollution from cars to be eradicated

Microscopic particles emitted from brake pads can be more toxic than those emitted in diesel vehicle exhaust, a study has found.

This research shows that even with a move to electric vehicles, pollution from cars may not be able to be eradicated.

Thirty-five years after she opened it, climate change centre can claim that for every £1 invested, the UK economy benefits by £33

When Margaret Thatcher opened the Hadley Centre for Climate Change in 1990 journalists suggested she was attempting to appear to be doing something about global heating rather than implementing any policies.

Fast-forward 35 years and the Hadley Centre’s science is world-leading and makes the claim that for every £1 invested, the UK economy benefits by £33. This calculation is based on the predictions scientists are able to make, and advice they can then give about incoming weather and its impacts.

Scientists say more-frequent hotter temperatures in west African region are part of reason for reduced harvests and price rises

The climate crisis drove weeks of high temperatures in the west African region responsible for about 70% of global cacao production, hitting harvests and probably causing further record chocolate prices, researchers have said.

Farmers in the region have struggled with heat, disease and unusual rainfall in recent years, which have contributed to falling production.

Bogs and swamps are a colossal carbon store but their continued destruction would blow climate change targets

The world’s peatlands are “dangerously underprotected” despite the colossal amount of climate-heating carbon dioxide already being emitted due to their destruction, a study has warned.

Peatlands occupy just 3% of all land, but contain more carbon than all of the world’s forests. However, farmers and miners are draining the peatlands, releasing so much CO2 that if they were a country, they would be the fourth biggest polluter in the world after China, the US and India.

The marshes in Colombia’s capital are sacred to Indigenous peoples, provide vital wildlife habitats and could help the city adapt to climate change. But after centuries of development they are close to collapse

• Photographs by Antonio Cascio

Early last year, Bogotá faced a prolonged drought, leading to historically low water levels in reservoirs and forcing Colombia’s authorities to impose water rationing. Then, in November, heavy rains triggered widespread flooding, submerging streets, stranding vehicles and disrupting traffic.

People living in neighbourhoods built over wetlands, such as Suba Rincón, suffered a double impact from these extreme events, that served to underscore the city’s vulnerability to deforestation, El Niño and the climate crisis. In these districts people have been left counting the cost of repeated floods.

Website of ‘Doge’ includes information published by thinktank CEI, which claims to fight ‘climate alarmism’

Flanked by Donald Trump in the Oval Office this week, Elon Musk claimed his much-vaunted, but ill-defined, “department of government efficiency” (Doge) was providing “maximum transparency” on its blitz through the federal government.

Its official website was empty, however – until Wednesday, when it added elements including data from a controversial rightwing thinktank recently sued by a climate scientist.

Kathleen Sgamma to oversee Bureau of Land Management, agency that manages quarter-billion acres of public land

Donald Trump has nominated a longtime oil and gas industry representative to oversee an agency that manages a quarter-billion acres of public land concentrated in western states.

Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Colorado-based oil industry trade group Western Energy Alliance, was named Bureau of Land Management director, a position with wide influence over lands used for energy production, grazing, recreation and other purposes. An MIT graduate, Sgamma has been a leading voice for the fossil fuel industry, calling for fewer drilling restrictions on public lands that produce about 10% of US oil and gas.

As AfD says Germany is in grip of ‘eco-dictatorship’, Green party tones down mention of climate action

The crowd had crammed into a concert hall in central Berlin to hear crunch-time election pitches from Robert Habeck and Annalena Baerbock, the high-profile Green ministers in charge of Germany’s economy and diplomacy. But to the surprise of some supporters, it took half an hour for anyone in the environment-rooted party to mention the climate.

Germany’s Greens are fighting to hold on to power after four years in a coalition government where they have been pilloried by other parties, and during which their core issue of climate action has slipped down the political agenda. Though the party is still far from being considered a Volkspartei – a main party whose voters span demographic groups and issues – the Greens have sought to boost their mainstream appeal with talk of beefing up security and bringing down rents and bills.

Greenpeace protest draws attention to worsening typhoons and demands accountability from major polluters

For two days and two nights, Ronalyn Carbonel and her four children clung to the roof of their home as a huge storm raged around them. With the wind battering her village of Rizal, about 10 miles east of Manila in the Philippines, and water swirling through the rooms below them, they had no choice but to wait, hoping that someone would come to rescue them and hundreds of their neighbours.

“We did not have shelter, we did not have food … we just had to wait for the government for two days,” Carbonel said. “It is not easy, no electricity, no light, we just wait for the sun to rise. The children were scared, we had never experienced anything like this.”

Record highs delay start of classes in Rio Grande do Sul, where floods fueled by climate crisis left 180 dead last May

During historic floods last May that left more than 180 dead in Brazil’s southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul, the water rose to the ceiling of the Olindo Flores school in the city of São Leopoldo, destroying furniture, books and parts of its infrastructure.

When classes resumed more than a month later, its 500 students had to be relocated to another school for months.

RHS is asking people to look for under-threat varieties such as the Sussex Bonfire and Mrs William Copeland

Britons have been asked to hunt for rare pink, white and “bonfire yellow” daffodils in order to save threatened varieties from extinction.

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), which is running the daffodil count, is hoping to build a map of the spring blooms. It is asking people to log where daffodils are flowering in their area along with basic information such as colour, type and height.

The fundraising platform saw more than a million donors in all 50 states and 160 countries donate to relief and recovery

Just over a month since devastating wildfires broke out across southern California, the fundraising platform GoFundMe has raised more money for victims of the fires than for all other natural disasters worldwide last year.

To date, more than a million donors in all 50 states and 160 countries have donated more than $250m to support fire relief and recovery efforts, about $20m more than GoFundMe collected after all other disasters last year, including Hurricanes Helene and Milton. That includes donations to individual families and businesses, as well as non-profits providing relief on the ground, including Direct Relief, World Central Kitchen and Salvation Army, according to a spokesperson for the company.

Renters are not only facing an escalation in rent prices but also pressure to evict apartments from landlords

Wendy López, a single mother of three from Guatemala, received an eviction order the day before wildfires destroyed Pacific Palisades, where she worked as a caregiver for people with disabilities.

The crisis only escalated the eviction process, Lopez said. The landlord for her rent-stabilized Mid City apartment has sent her threatening letters nearly every day. On 1 February, he raised her monthly rent from $1,320 to $1,430, exceeding the 4% legal rent increase limit. Moving is not an option, she said, because rent for similar housing elsewhere has doubled since the fires.

Research reveals surf breaks are on the frontline of threats that could undermine access to and enjoyment of our famous beaches

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Steph Curley glides atop the water on a 9ft, locally shaped long board. A sea turtle bobs among a couple of dozen surfers off a rocky headland in Noosa – dolphins frolic further out.

Curley angles her single fin towards the boulder-strewn point and paddles on to a two-foot wave. The wave breaks steeply at first, but as Curley swings her big blue board towards the pandanus palms and tea trees that line the shore and give the bay its name, the wave peels gently, offering up a long, luxurious ride.

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Social media storm of misinformation about Bovaer has drawn in Reform UK, the dairy industry and even Bill Gates

Scientists say a recent methane-related conspiracy theory was “a wake-up call” for the industry, reminding them they need to communicate better and more directly with the public.

Over the last few months, Bovaer, a cattle feed additive that is proven to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gas, has been at the centre of a swirl of misinformation, drawing in Reform UK, the dairy industry and even the billionaire Bill Gates.