The Guardian Climate Change

Research shows companies ‘aligned’ with strategies to meet climate goals have risen from 3% in 2019 to 23% in 2025

European companies are increasingly lobbying for strong climate action, research has found, in a “profound shift” that analysts say challenges the narrative that businesses see green rules as a threat to profits.

The share of companies whose corporate lobbying is “aligned” with pathways to meet global climate goals rose from 3% in 2019 to 23% in 2025, according to an analysis of 200 of the largest European companies by InfluenceMap, while the share of companies who were deemed “misaligned” fell from 34% to 14%.

The French study of 15,000 people shows men emit 26% more pollution due to eating red meat and driving more

Cars and meat are major factors driving a gender gap in greenhouse gas emissions, new research suggests.

Men emit 26% more planet-heating pollution than women from transport and food, according to a preprint study of 15,000 people in France. The gap shrinks to 18% after controlling for socioeconomic factors such as income and education.

Climate change and energy minister accuses Sussan Ley’s Coalition of ‘keeping the climate wars going’ with decision to review net zero stance

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Chris Bowen has ridiculed the Liberal party for putting net zero by 2050 up for review after its election defeat, comparing it to putting the “sky being blue” up for debate.

The climate change and energy minister also warned that breaking Australia’s bipartisan commitment to the “bare minimum” emissions target risked creating a sovereign risk for renewables investors.

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In a letter, Milieudefensie says it wants to stop firm developing new oil and gas projects ‘to curb crisis’

Climate campaigners in the Netherlands have promised to take Shell to court for a second time to force the energy company to stop developing new oil and gas projects.

In a letter to Shell, the Dutch climate non-profit Milieudefensie vowed to take legal action because the company has 700 oil and gas projects in development that will continue to drive up carbon emissions despite efforts to slow global heating.

Exclusive: Andrew Bowie calls climate scientists biased and says country should not be ‘hamstrung by arbitrary targets’

The Conservative party’s energy spokesperson has attacked leading climate scientists as biased and claimed Kemi Badenoch could take the UK out of the Paris climate agreement.

Andrew Bowie, the acting shadow secretary for energy, told the Guardian that the target of reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 – passed into law by Theresa May – was “arbitrary” and “not based on science”.

Karenia mikimotoi algae can suffocate fish, cause haemorrhaging and act as a neurotoxin, one expert says

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More than 200 marine species, including deepwater sharks, leafy sea dragons and octopuses, have been killed by a toxic algal bloom that has been affecting South Australia’s coastline since March.

Nearly half (47%) of the dead species were ray-finned fish and a quarter (26%) were sharks and rays, according to OzFish analysis of 1,400 citizen scientist reports.

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Long-term reform is not going to be easy, but we have wasted 15 years and everyone has lost, especially the natural world

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Long overdue reform of national environment laws is unfinished business for the 48th parliament and the re-elected Albanese government.

Senator Murray Watt, a Queenslander, is well respected within the government and has a reputation for taking hard decisions and bringing together diverse stakeholders. Both of these attributes will be at a premium if the minister is to succeed where others have not.

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Exclusive: Campaigners call for energy profits levy to be made permanent to enable ‘just transition’ from fossil fuels

Making permanent the UK’s windfall tax on oil and gas producers would generate enough cash to enable North Sea workers to move to green jobs, research has found.

Cutting current subsidies to fossil fuel producers would free up yet more funds to spend on the shift to a low-carbon economy, according to the report.

Fourth most important food crop in peril as Latin America and Caribbean suffer from slow-onset climate disaster

The climate crisis is threatening the future of the world’s most popular fruit, as almost two-thirds of banana-growing areas in Latin America and the Caribbean may no longer be suitable for growing the fruit by 2080, new research has found.

Rising temperatures, extreme weather and climate-related pests are pummeling banana-growing countries such as Guatemala, Costa Rica and Colombia, reducing yields and devastating rural communities across the region, according to Christian Aid’s new report, Going Bananas: How Climate Change Threatens the World’s Favourite Fruit.

The Danish drama is piercing in its ordinariness. In the real world, the climate crisis worsens and authoritarians take charge as we calmly look away

The climate crisis has taken a new and frightening turn, and in the expectation of disastrous flooding, the entire landmass of Denmark is about to be evacuated. Effectively, the country will be shutting itself down and sending its 6 million people abroad, where they will have to cope as best they can. Huge numbers of northern Europeans are therefore being turned into refugees: a few might have the wealth and connections to ease their passage from one life to another, but most are about to face the kind of precarious, nightmarish future they always thought of as other people’s burden.

Don’t panic: this is not a news story – or not yet, anyway. It’s the premise of an addictive new drama series titled Families Like Ours, acquired by the BBC and available on iPlayer. I have seen two episodes so far, and been struck by the very incisive way it satirises European attitudes to the politics of asylum. But what has also hit me is its portrayal of something just as modern: how it shows disaster unfolding in the midst of everyday life. At first, watching it brings on a sense of impatience. Why are most of the characters so calm? Where are the apocalyptic floods, wildfires and mass social breakdown? At times, it verges on boring. But then you realise the very clever conceit that defines every moment: it is really a story about how we all live, and what might happen tomorrow, or the day after.

The writer and journalist Dorian Lynskey’s brilliant book Everything Must Go is about the various ways that human beings have imagined the end of the world. “Compared to nuclear war,” he writes, “the climate emergency deprives popular storytellers of their usual toolkit. Global warming may move too fast for the planet but it is too slow for catastrophe fiction.” Even when the worst finally happens, most of us may respond with the kind of quiet mental contortions that are probably better suited to literature than the screen. Making that point, Lynskey quotes a character in Margaret Atwood’s novel The Year of the Flood: “Nobody admitted to knowing. If other people began to discuss it, you tuned them out, because what they were saying was both so obvious and so unthinkable.”

John Harris is a Guardian columnist

Under pressure from Reform and from the former PM, Keir Starmer is facing a series of tests of his resolve on green policy

Populist politicians are striking a chord with the public in their attack on “the green agenda” because they are right – climate policies are elitist. So says the man standing to be the next leader of the Green party in England and Wales.

“We should all be angry about net zero,” argues Zack Polanski, currently the Greens’ deputy leader. “The poorest people in our society are being expected to step up to tackle the climate crisis. But it’s the government’s fault, not the people’s fault.”

As an oceanographer, I study how the ocean shapes our world. For Australia and other nations, the lesson is urgent

Antarctica is often viewed as the last truly remote place on Earth – frozen, wild and untouched. But is it really as untouched as it seems?

This vast frozen continent is encircled by the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, the only current in the world that connects all the oceans, showing how closely linked our planet really is.

Sap-sucking insects top list of queries to gardening charity after causing significant harm to plants

Aphids are plaguing gardeners this spring due to the warm weather, with higher numbers of the rose-killing bugs expected to thrive in the UK as a result of climate breakdown.

The sap-sucking insects have topped the ranking of gardener queries to the Royal Horticultural Society, with many of its 600,000 members having complained of dozens of aphids on their acers, roses and honeysuckle plants.

Far right accused of misinformation over turbines at Reinhardswald, which has left local people divided

Deep in the woods that inspired the Brothers Grimm, past the tower from which Rapunzel threw down her hair and the castle in which Sleeping Beauty slumbered, lies a construction site that the far right has declared a crime against national soil and identity.

In this quiet corner of Germany’s “fairytale forest”, workers are clearing land and building access roads to erect 18 wind turbines.

Scientists fear early emerging insects may fall out of sync with pathogens, predators or availability of food

Midsummer butterflies are on the wing in early May after a sunny spring prompted one of the most advanced seasons for Britain’s Lepidoptera on record.

The Lulworth skipper – usually found in June and July – is flying at Lulworth Cove in Dorset, the chequered skipper emerged in April rather than mid-May in Scotland and the first swallowtail, which is most common in mid-June, was spotted in Norfolk on 1 May.

Despite attempts to build resilience by improving infrastructure and first response, extreme weather events and US aid cuts have left many feeling vulnerable

When the monsoon rains came last September, they swept away most of the village of Panauti, in the foothills of the Nepali Himalayas. The Roshi River overflowed after the unprecedented rainfall, triggering landslides and destroying most of the roads and bridges.

Peering through the thick blanket of relentless rain “felt like waiting for morning to arrive so we could see the world again”, says Bishnu Humagain. “We lost everything – our home, our agriculture, and all of our belongings.”

Experts found 60% of the EU’s agricultural soils had been degraded, with about 40% similarly damaged in the UK

More than 60% of the EU’s agricultural soils are degraded due to intensive agriculture, with similar damage to about 40% of British soils, a report has found.

Experts from the Save Soil initiative said nourishing and restoring agricultural soils could reduce the impact of the climate crisis and provide protection against the worsening extremes of weather, as well as the food shortages and price rises likely to accompany them.

Researchers say AI could give every developing country a vital early warning system of extreme events

Weather forecasting has gradually been getting more and more sophisticated. It has also got far more important as the climate gets more unpredictable and extreme events threaten to cause massive economic damage and loss of life. So an early warning system is vital.

Ever larger computer systems making millions of calculations over many hours are now part of the daily forecasting in most developed countries. Sadly large parts of the world, many very vulnerable to dangerous climate events, do not have the money, personnel or computing power to develop the 10-day forecasting system they need.

US agency will no longer update major weather database in latest showing of Trump’s influence on climate resources

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) will no longer track the cost of climate crisis-fueled weather disasters, including floods, heatwaves, wildfires and more. It is the latest example of changes to the agency and the Trump administration limiting federal government resources on climate change.

Noaa falls under the US Department of Commerce and is tasked with daily weather forecasts, severe storm warnings and climate monitoring. It is also parent to the National Weather Service.

Lack of rain and floods both threaten crops. Ministers should heed the experts’ warnings

It is so ingrained in British culture to celebrate sunshine that unless you are a farmer or gardener, it is unusual to complain about the lack of rain. But alarms are being sounded by environmentalists and farmers after a very dry spring followed a winter during which parts of the country, including Northern Ireland, had only 70% of average rainfall.

Some crops are already failing, and worse will follow unless more rain arrives soon. Conditions at the moment are said to resemble 2022 – the last time that farms suffered significant losses due to drought. In certain regions, fields have had to be irrigated months earlier than usual. The National Drought Group, which coordinates management of scarce water resources, met on Wednesday. Long-range forecasts are predicting more warm, sunny weather, but the UK’s weather is changeable. Two years ago the driest June on record was followed by an exceptionally wet July.