Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!
You are here
Feed aggregator
UK has ‘huge opportunity’ to lead on green investment, Starmer says
PM says Britain can ‘win the race’ as Trump’s election casts doubt on global efforts to tackle climate change
Britain has a “huge opportunity” to get ahead of other countries in the race for green investment after the election of Donald Trump as US president, Keir Starmer has said, as he arrives in Azerbaijan for the Cop29 summit.
Trump’s election victory last week has cast doubt on global efforts to tackle climate change, which the president-elect has called a “hoax”. But as the most senior world leader attending the summit in Baku, Starmer said the global political turmoil could benefit the UK economy.
Continue reading...Trump Chooses Lee Zeldin to Run E.P.A. as He Plans to Gut Climate Rules
Trump picks ally Lee Zeldin as environment chief and vows to roll back rules
President-elect says ex-New York congressman will ‘ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions’ as EPA administrator
Donald Trump has picked Lee Zeldin, a former New York congressman, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), vowing the appointment will “ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions” by the regulator.
Trump, who oversaw the rollback of more than 100 environmental rules when he last was US president, said that Zeldin was a “true fighter for America First policies” and that “he will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet”.
Continue reading...Keir Starmer to unveil ambitious new UK climate goal at Cop29
Exclusive: Target is 81% emissions cut compared with 1990, but activists say it must be backed by plan of action
Keir Starmer will announce a stringent new climate goal for the UK on Tuesday, the Guardian can reveal, with a target in line with the advice given to the government by its scientists and independent advisers.
The UK will pledge to cut emissions by 81% compared with 1990 levels by 2035, a target in line with the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee.
Continue reading...Critics say approval of ‘climate credits’ rules on day one of Cop29 was rushed
Agreement on rules paving way for rich countries to pay for cheap climate action abroad breaks years-long deadlock
Diplomats have greenlit key rules that govern the trade of “carbon credits”, breaking a years-long deadlock and paving the way for rich countries to pay for cheap climate action abroad while delaying expensive emission cuts at home.
The agreement, reached late on the first day of Cop29 in Azerbaijan, was hailed by the hosts as an early win at climate talks that have been snubbed by prominent world leaders and clouded by the threat of a US retreat from climate diplomacy after Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election.
Continue reading...Carbon credit trade rules approved, breaking lengthy deadlock – Cop 29 day one, as it happened
This live blog is closed
UN climate chief Simon Stiell gave a moving speech at the Cop29 opening plenary on Monday, writes Dharna Noor, fossil fuels and climate reporter for Guardian US, who is reporting from Baku.
“In tough times, up against difficult tasks, I don’t go in for hopes and dreams,” he said. “What inspires me is human ingenuity and determination. Our ability to get knocked down and to get up again over and over again, until we accomplish our goals.”
Continue reading...US climate envoy says fight against climate crisis does not end under Trump
Even if president-elect rolls back climate progress, John Podesta reaffirms commitment to a clean planet at Cop29
The US climate envoy John Podesta said the fight “for a cleaner, safer” planet will not stop under a re-elected Donald Trump even if some progress is reversed, speaking at the Cop29 UN climate talks on Monday as they opened in Baku, Azerbaijan.
“Although under Donald Trump’s leadership the US federal government placed climate-related actions on the back burner, efforts to prevent climate change remain a commitment in the US and will confidently continue,” said Podesta, who is leading the Biden administration’s delegation at the annual talks.
Continue reading...Trump 2.0 could make even the most optimistic climate observers cynical - but it's not the whole story | Adam Morton
Much is unclear about how Donald Trump’s return to power will affect efforts to tackle global heating, but there are a few things we can say
You’ve likely already heard the worst-case takes: that a second Trump presidency is a disaster for the climate, and will almost certainly lead to emissions being higher than they otherwise would have been. There’s obvious truth in that. But it’s also true that Trump 2.0 will almost certainly not play out in line with immediate post-election predictions.
We have been here before. As the writer and analyst Ketan Joshi points out, in 2016 it was projected that Trump’s policies would lead to a steep rise in US emissions – a fork in the road at odds with the decline forecast if Hillary Clinton had won.
Continue reading...Work to regulate one of Australia’s biggest sources of carbon dioxide stalls, FoI documents reveal
Exclusive: Environmental group says it is ‘concerned’ to hear progress on cleaning up air pollution from diesel-burning may have hit a wall
- Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
Work to regulate one of Australia’s biggest sources of carbon dioxide and other pollutants “has stalled”, despite the project beginning six years ago and comparable nations limiting emissions years earlier, New South Wales government documents have revealed.
State and federal environment ministers agreed in 2018 to examine pollution from non-road diesel engines as part of the national clean air agreement. These machines totalled more than 640,000 – ranging from mining trucks, outboard motors and forklifts to electricity generators – and were forecast to reach 945,000 by 2043.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email
Continue reading...This is climate breakdown: a new series exploring the real impacts on people
How do you capture the effects of the climate crisis on people right now? We have collected testimonies from around the world
In March 2024, the Guardian’s environment desk began collaborating on a project that we hope will give voice to the growing number of people around the world living through the daily impact of climate breakdown. Our journalists have worked alongside researchers and humanitarian workers at the Climate Disaster Project (CDP) in Canada and the International Red Cross to compile a series of testimonies from survivors of recent extreme weather events.
CDP is an international teaching newsroom coordinated out of the University of Victoria in Canada that collaborates with disaster survivors. The teams are trained in trauma-informed interview skills, and spent hours speaking with people, listening to their stories and then relaying them in a way that takes us all through the experience. In publishing these testimonies and sharing them with you, we were able to help fulfil the project’s aim of creating “a people’s history of climate change” that would honour the dignity of the survivors.
Continue reading...Trump Transition Stalls Over Ethics Code, and a New Russian Offensive
Developing world needs private finance for green transition, says Cop president
UN’s top climate official warns ‘no country is immune’ from climate disaster as conference begins in Azerbaijan
Businesses in the private sector must stump up cash for the developing world to invest in a low-carbon economy or face the consequences of climate breakdown, the president of the UN climate summit has said.
Mukhtar Babayev, the environment minister of Azerbaijan, the host of this year’s climate conference, wrote in Monday’s Guardian: “The onus cannot fall entirely on government purses. Unleashing private finance for developing countries’ transition has long been an ambition of climate talks.
Continue reading...At Cop29, we must treat the climate crisis with the same urgency as Covid – history shows it can be done | Mukhtar Babayev
This emergency will cost trillions of dollars, and is beyond the reach of developing nations. Private investors have to step up
- Mukhtar Babayev is president of the Cop29 UN climate change conference
To avert climate catastrophe, the world needs more climate finance. At Cop29, the UN climate summit in Baku that begins today, agreeing a new climate finance goal is the top priority of Azerbaijan’s Cop presidency.
Developing countries require assistance to tackle their emissions and build resilience against growing climate threats. The $100bn annual target, set in 2009, was intended to be fulfilled by 2020. It is now outdated and falls far short of what is needed for countries at the sharp end of the climate crisis.
Mukhtar Babayev is president of the Cop29 UN climate change conference
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
Continue reading...COP29 Talks Open in Baku in the Shadow of Trump’s Election
A ‘Cop of peace’? How can authoritarian, human rights-trashing Azerbaijan possibly host that? | Greta Thunberg
The ‘theme’ chosen for Cop29 must be some kind of dark joke. This summit, like those before it, is a mere act of greenwashing
During rapidly escalating climate and humanitarian crises, another authoritarian petrostate with no respect for human rights is hosting Cop29 – the UN’s latest annual climate summit that starts today and is being held after the re-election of a climate-denier US president.
Cop meetings have proven to be greenwashing conferences that legitimise countries’ failures to ensure a livable world and future and have also allowed authoritarian regimes like Azerbaijan and the two previous hosts – the United Arab Emirates and Egypt – to continue violating human rights.
Greta Thunberg is a Swedish activist and international climate crisis campaigner
Continue reading...Monday briefing: What to expect as Cop29 starts in the shadow of Trump’s victory
In today’s newsletter: As delegates gather for the world’s biggest climate conference, many are asking what the re-election of the man who thinks global heating is ‘a hoax’ will mean for the planet
• Sign up here for our daily newsletter, First Edition
Good morning.
It is now “virtually certain” that 2024 will be the warmest year in recorded history. And just like 2023, the past 12 months have been characterised by extreme weather events – from cyclones in Australia to wildfires in Brazil to last month’s lethal floods in Spain – made more intense and more frequent by the climate crisis.
US election | Donald Trump has been declared the winner in Arizona, completing the Republicans’ clean sweep of the so-called swing states and rubbing salt in Democrats’ wounds as it was announced that the president-elect is scheduled to meet with Joe Biden at the White House on Wednesday to discuss the presidential handover. Trump reportedly spoke on the phone with Vladimir Putin on Thursday and discussed the war in Ukraine, telling the Russian ruler not to escalate the conflict and reminding him of “Washington’s sizeable military presence in Europe”.
House of Lords | The Liberal Democrats will try to hijack the government’s bill to ban Lords from inheriting their seats in parliament this week in an attempt to force a vote on an entirely elected upper chamber. MPs are expected to vote overwhelmingly in favour of the Labour legislation but the Lib Dems want to go drastically further.
Immigration and asylum| A Home Office artificial intelligence tool that proposes enforcement action against adult and child migrants could make it too easy for officials to rubberstamp automated life-changing decisions, campaigners have said.
Health | The government is likely to offer a financial lifeline to the hospice sector amid fears end-of-life care providers are at risk of closure due to the double blow of the employers’ national insurance rise and higher wage bills, the Guardian understands.
Nursing | Increasing numbers of UK-trained nurses are set to leave the profession in England within a decade of registering, in a trend that could jeopardise the government’s overhaul of healthcare, according to a union.
Continue reading...Why Is COP29 Being Held in Baku, Azerbaijan?
‘Take a deep breath on being Trump-esque’: senior Coalition figures reject backbench push to rethink net zero
Nationals senator Matt Canavan and MP Keith Pitt both spoke out about the party’s climate policy in the wake of Donald Trump’s win
- Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
Nationals leader David Littleproud, shadow transport minister Bridget McKenzie and Senate Liberal leader Simon Birmingham have all rejected a backbench push to use Donald Trump’s election in the US to abandon support for net zero by 2050.
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has said he is completely committed to the target, attempting to fight the next election on the Coalition’s vague taxpayer-funded nuclear plan that will likely extend the use of coal and gas rather than the 2050 target.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email
Continue reading...Extreme weather cost $2tn globally over past decade, report finds
US suffered greatest economic losses, report commissioned by International Chamber of Commerce finds, followed by China and India
Violent weather cost the world $2tn over the past decade, a report has found, as diplomats descend on the Cop29 climate summit for a tense fight over finance.
The analysis of 4,000 climate-related extreme weather events, from flash floods that wash away homes in an instant to slow-burning droughts that ruin farms over years, found economic damages hit $451bn across the past two years alone.
Continue reading...The Guardian view on the rise of eco-poetry: writing cannot ignore global heating | Editorial
Verse’s connection to nature can inspire awareness and hope amid the climate crisis, offering clarity beyond data
Poetry has a big debt to nature, its muse and source of metaphor for centuries. As the UN climate conference begins, it is time to pay it back. Poetry must give nature a voice to express its dire predicament. “I will rise,” declares the furious river in the Scottish makar Kathleen Jamie’s poem What the Clyde Said, After Cop26 – just as the River Xanthus in Homer’s Iliad rose in revenge against Achilles for filling it with so many bodies.
Ms Jamie’s poem appears in a new anthology, Earth Prayers, edited by the former poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy. “We are in the age of anthropogenic climate breakdown, possibly the Age of Grief,” Ms Duffy writes in the foreword. The 100 poems, ranging from classics such as Matthew Arnold’s 1867 Dover Beach to #ExtinctionRebellion by Pascale Petit, remind us not just of the beauty of the natural world, but its fragility.
Continue reading...