Climate

Countries promised to move away from coal, oil and natural gas at last year’s climate summit. New research shows they’re burning more than ever before.

Global Carbon Budget report finds emissions from fossil fuels will rise to another record high this year

Giorgia Meloni, Prime Minister of Italy, is now speaking at the leaders’ event, reports my colleague Damian Carrington, having “arrived late and a little out of breath.”

Meloni points out that the world population will be 8.5bn by 2030 and global GDP much higher, all bringing more demand for energy. As well as renewables, she says “gas, biofuels, hydrogen and carbon capture and storage” all have a role, though scientists are clear all fossil fuels must be phased out.

She also cites nuclear fusion as a potential “gamechanger”, though the joke that fusion is always 40 years away is not showing much sign of getting old. Large scale power from nuclear fusion is very unlikely to arrive in time to stop the global heating aleady wrecking communities around the world.

Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has missed her slot at the leaders summit part of Cop29. Meloni and the UK’s Keir Starmer are the only G7 leaders to attend.

Meanwhile, the Crown Prince of Kuwait, Sabah Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah, pledges to cut his nation’s carbon emissions by 80% by 2040, which sounds very impressive but is very unlikely to include the state’s substantial oil and gas production.

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A building once celebrated for its innovation is deemed obsolete. Those trying to save it ask what its demolition means for British architecture.

Despite nations’ pledges at Cop28 a year ago, the burning of coal, oil and gas continued to rise in 2024

There is “no sign” of the transition away from burning fossil fuels that was pledged by the world’s nations a year ago, with 2024 on track to set another new record for global carbon emissions.

The new data, released at the UN’s Cop29 climate conference in Azerbaijan, indicates that the planet-heating emissions from coal, oil and gas will rise by 0.8% in 2024. In stark contrast, emissions have to fall by 43% by 2030 for the world to have any chance of keeping to the 1.5C temperature target and limiting “increasingly dramatic” climate impacts on people around the globe.

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During the US time out, Australia and its allies must remain steady and seek to deepen cooperation among themselves

The idea of open international exchange that framed the Australian reforms of the late 20th century and its subsequent economic success are being challenged in the 21st century. The challenge is intensified by the restoration of Donald Trump as president of the United States. He is committed to higher protection, tax cuts that will set record highs for budget deficits, a trade war with Australia’s largest trading partner with a risk of worse, and separation of the United States from the rules-based international trading system. He is also committed to withdrawal from international cooperation and domestic action to reduce climate-changing emissions of greenhouse gases. Global financial crisis is not out of the question.

These developments will damage Australian interests. Global long-term interest rates set a base against which Australian rates settle, and will be higher than they would otherwise have been. International inflation will be higher, increasing Australia’s own inflation challenge. Australia is the developed country that has most to lose from a failure to stop global heating. Australia has more to gain economically than any other country from success in the world achieving net zero carbon emissions, as an exporter of zero-carbon goods to countries which lack rich renewable energy and biomass resources of their own.

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Meteorologists track disturbance in Caribbean Sea predicted to become storm named Sara

Florida is at risk of being hit by yet another major tropical storm only weeks after Hurricanes Helene and Milton devastated towns across the state.

Meteorologists are currently tracking a new disturbance predicted to evolve into a storm in the Caribbean Sea. The storm, to be named Sara, will form in the western Caribbean later this week and may make a turn towards south Florida as a powerful hurricane next week if wind patterns change, according to the Hurricane Tracker App.

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António Guterres says global heating is super-charging disasters, and Cop hears warning of ‘inflation on steroids’

This year has been “a masterclass in human destruction”, the UN secretary general has said as he reflected on extreme weather and record temperatures around the world fuelled by climate breakdown.

António Guterres painted a stark portrait of the consequences of climate breakdown that had arisen in recent months. “Families running for their lives before the next hurricane strikes; workers and pilgrims collapsing in insufferable heat; floods tearing through communities and tearing down infrastructure; children going to bed hungry as droughts ravage crops,” he said. “All these disasters, and more, are being supercharged by human-made climate change.”

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At the U.N. climate conference in Azerbaijan, world leaders are gathered in a petrostate to discuss the uncertain future of global climate policy.

The prime minister announced more ambitious climate targets, charting a very different course from the United States, which is expected to roll back its energy transition plans.

The prime minister announced more ambitious climate targets, charting a very different course from the United States, which is expected to roll back its energy transition plans.

Sir Keir Starmer’s pledge on emissions is an encouraging step at a frightening moment

Predictions that this will be the first calendar year in which the 1.5C warming limit enshrined in the Paris agreement is surpassed provide a stark backdrop to the UN’s 29th climate conference. This year – 2024 – has already seen the hottest-ever day and month, and is expected by experts to be the hottest year too. Addressing delegates on Tuesday, the UN chief, António Guterres, referred to a “masterclass in climate destruction”. The escalating pattern of destructive weather events, most recently in Valencia, is a warning of what lies ahead.

When the 1.5C figure was included in the 2015 deal, it was known to be a stretch. The treaty says countries must hold the average temperature “well below 2C above pre-industrial levels” and aim for 1.5C. Busting this target in 2024 will not mean it has been definitively missed; the measurement of global temperatures relies on averages recorded over 20 or more years. But the crossing of this threshold is a menacing moment. Around the world, people as well as governments and climate specialists should take notice – and act.

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Leadbeater introduces the next speaker, Nat Dye, who has terminal cancer. She says she thinks his views are the most important for people to hear at this press conference.

He says he has known “positive” experiences of death. His fiance and his mother both had relatively peaceful deaths. He says palliative care can work for some people.

Imagine I am dying and palliative care hasn’t improved. Well, I have no choice whatsoever: I die in pain or I die in pain.

I see this as a chance just to act with kindness and a choice for people at their darkest hour.

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King Felipe VI reportedly plans to revisit Valencia amid alerts for heavy rain, high waves and strong winds

People in flood-hit Spain stacked sandbags and braced for new storms on Tuesday as the political repercussions from last month’s deadly climate disaster rumbled on.

Amid fresh weather warnings, local media reported that King Felipe VI would soon return to the site of the flash floods, after he was pelted with mud and eggs on his first visit last week owing to local fury at the poor preparation and response of the authorities.

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Darren Woods was one of only a few Western oil executives attending a global climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Greenpeace and Uplift say Rosebank and Jackdaw licences were granted unlawfully by former Tory government

Climate campaigners have urged a Scottish court to cancel the licence to drill the UK’s largest untapped oilfield, arguing it will cause “sizeable” and unjustified damage to the planet.

Greenpeace and Uplift accuse the former Conservative government of having unlawfully given the Norwegian oil giant Equinor a licence to exploit the Rosebank oilfield, which sits 80 miles (130km) north-west of Shetland and holds nearly 500m barrels of oil and gas.

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The Biden administration is imposing a fee on large energy companies that spew excess methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Republicans may be able to repeal it.

Keir Starmer has confirmed that the UK has committed to an 81% cut to emissions by 2035. The prime minister also said the British government was due to launch the CIF Capital Markets Mechanism, a climate finance scheme, on the London Stock Exchange to help developing countries

• UK has ‘huge opportunity’ to lead on green investment, Starmer says

• Cop29 – live updates

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In the halls of Cop29, activists from Oil Change International gathered around a computer to watch a Dutch court’s ruling on a major ruling.

In this morning’s verdict, the Dutch appeals court struck down a 2021 ruling ordering oil and gas giant Shell to cut emissions by 45% by 2030 from 2019 levels. The activists were devastated.

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Low-income countries need at least $1 trillion a year to manage climate change. Donald Trump’s victory just made that more difficult, but options exist.