The Guardian Climate Change

Hotter seas supercharge storms and destroy critical ecosystems such as kelp forests and coral reefs

The climate crisis has tripled the length of ocean heatwaves, a study has found, supercharging deadly storms and destroying critical ecosystems such as kelp forests and coral reefs.

Half of the marine heatwaves since 2000 would not have happened without global heating, which is caused by burning fossil fuels. The heatwaves have not only become more frequent but also more intense: 1C warmer on average, but much hotter in some places, the scientists said.

The governing ideology of the far right has become a monstrous, supremacist survivalism. Our task is to build a movement strong enough to stop them

The movement for corporate city states cannot believe its good luck. For years, it has been pushing the extreme notion that wealthy, tax-averse people should up and start their own high-tech fiefdoms, whether new countries on artificial islands in international waters (“seasteading”) or pro-business “freedom cities” such as Próspera, a glorified gated community combined with a wild west med spa on a Honduran island.

Yet despite backing from the heavy-hitter venture capitalists Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen, their extreme libertarian dreams kept bogging down: it turns out most self-respecting rich people don’t actually want to live on floating oil rigs, even if it means lower taxes, and while Próspera might be nice for a holiday and some body “upgrades”, its extra-national status is currently being challenged in court.

Almost as amazing as the knowledge we have gained in the past four decades is the fact that some people continue to deny the damage we are doing to our world

Earlier this year I received an email from a reader asking background questions about an article I had written more than four decades ago. Given the time gap, my recollection was hazy. To be honest, it was almost non-existent. So I was intrigued – and then astonished when I read the feature.

I had written about the British glaciologist John Mercer, author of a 1978 Nature paper in which he warned that continuing increases in fossil fuel consumption would cause amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide to soar. Global temperatures could rise by 2C by the mid-21st century, causing major ice loss at the poles and threatening a 5-metre rise in sea levels, he warned.

Even the hardy eucalypts are finding their limits as we experience more frequent bushfires, heatwaves and droughts

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Last week I went to Adelaide to see a man about a tree. The man was Dr Dean Nicolle and the tree was actually 10,000 eucalypt trees and mallees, of over 800 species, which Dean has been planting on a block of land south of Adelaide since 1993.

Dean’s passion for eucalypts is incredible. It makes me realise that so much conservation happens purely because someone is just absolutely captivated by something. And thank goodness Dean is, because his love for the eucalypt made the Currency Creek Arboretum, which is designed to bring together all of Australia’s eucalypt species in one place for research.

Guardian Australia is highlighting the plight of our endangered native species during an election campaign that is ignoring broken environment laws and rapidly declining ecosystems

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Nearly 2m hectares of forests suitable for endangered koalas have been destroyed since the iconic species was declared a threatened species in 2011, according to analysis for Guardian Australia.

The scale of habitat destruction in Queensland and New South Wales – states in which the koala is formally recognised as being at risk of extinction – has continued despite political promises it would be protected.

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Clean energy investors likely to pull back from US, but other countries may seize opportunity to speed transition

Donald Trump’s upending of the global economy has raised fears that climate action could emerge as a casualty of the trade war.

In the week that has followed “liberation day”, economic experts have warned that the swathe of tariffs could trigger a global economic recession, with far-reaching consequences for investors – including those behind the green energy projects needed to meet climate goals.

After hottest 12-month period on record, a high-pressure system brings above-average temperatures across WA, Victoria, SA and NSW

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South-east Australia is in for a hot weekend, with temperatures up to 12C above average forecast in parts of Victoria and Melbourne expected to experience its warmest April days in four years.

The Bureau of Meteorology has forecast Melbourne will reach a maximum of 30C on Saturday and Sunday, while Sydney is forecast to reach a high of 26C on both days of the weekend.

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Eat-Lancet report recommended shift to more plant-based, climate-friendly diet but was extensively attacked online

A leaked document shows that vested interests may have been behind a “mud-slinging” PR campaign to discredit a landmark environment study, according to an investigation.

The Eat-Lancet Commission study, published in 2019, set out to answer the question: how can we feed the world’s growing population without causing catastrophic climate breakdown?

There has been little talk about how Australia’s economy will get to net zero. That’s a terrible reflection on the state of our politics

The Coalition has been forced to reassert its commitment to the Paris climate agreement after its energy spokesperson, Ted O’Brien, appeared to waver on the pledge on Thursday.

O’Brien faced off against the climate change and energy minister, Chris Bowen, at a debate in Canberra, weeks out from a federal election in which energy policy is emerging as a hot-button issue.

Labor, the Coalition, nobody in this country will be able to achieve the emission target set by Chris Bowen and Anthony Albanese. The difference between Peter Dutton and Anthony Albanese is that Peter Dutton has been honest and upfront about that.

… go against the spirit, if not the letter, of the Paris Agreement, and – in some circumstances – could constitute a breach of those obligations.

Tony Wood is the energy and climate change program director at the Grattan Institute. This article was originally published in the Conversation

White House claims university’s work exposed students to ‘climate anxiety’ and ‘exaggerated climate threats’

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Almost $4m in federal funding has been stripped from an Ivy League university’s prestigious climate research department because the Trump administration has determined it exposed students and other young people to “climate anxiety”.

The government research grants to Princeton University have been cut off because the White House considers its work on topics including sea level rise, coastal flooding and global warming to be promoting “exaggerated and implausible climate threats”, according to the New York Times.

Dutch group Follow This says it will not file any resolutions against oil and gas companies this AGM season

A green shareholder activist group has decided to “pause” its work pushing oil companies to reduce their emissions amid a growing investor backlash against climate action.

Follow This has confirmed that it will not file any climate resolutions against oil and gas companies during the forthcoming AGM season for the first time since 2016.

Climate denialism should not blind investors and governments to the very real opportunities to be found in financing solutions

Among the many shocks currently facing the international development community is the new direction of the US administration on climate, and the implications worldwide for mitigation and adaptation efforts.

This is not uncharted territory. While a withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement is undoubtedly a setback, it no longer carries the same level of disruption as it did. The global community has become more resilient and will continue to advance climate action.

Scientists say a complex mix of factors are making seasonal allergies worse for longer in many parts of the world – but why is it happening and is it here to stay?

The first time it happened, László Makra thought he had flu. The symptoms appeared from nowhere at the end of summer in 1989: his eyes started streaming, his throat was tight and he could not stop sneezing. Makra was 37 and otherwise fit and healthy, a mid-career climate scientist in Szeged, Hungary. Winter eventually came and he thought little of it. Then, it happened the next year. And the next.

“I had never had these symptoms before. It was high summer: it was impossible to have the flu three consecutive years in a row,” he says.

For decades, US meteorologists were forbidden from uttering the word ‘tornado.’ Now, US officials have banned the term ‘climate change’

For more than 60 years, US meteorologists were not allowed to use the word “tornado” in their forecasts. No tornado warnings were issued in this period at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th – even when danger was imminent.

Sergeant John Park Finley, of the US Army Signal Corps’ Weather Bureau, was one of the first to work on tornado prediction. By 1884, Finley had trained almost a thousand “spotters” to identify the conditions associated with tornado formation and send reports by the new telegraph system. The resulting trial predictions were not always accurate, but the warnings saved lives by giving people time to get into storm cellars.

The IEA forecast indicates a sharp rise in the requirements of AI, but said threat to the climate was ‘overstated’

The global rush to AI technology will require almost as much energy by the end of this decade as Japan uses today, but only about half of the demand is likely to be met from renewable sources.

Processing data, mainly for AI, will consume more electricity in the US alone by 2030 than manufacturing steel, cement, chemicals and all other energy-intensive goods combined, according to a report from the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Advocacy group contends the firm is using 35 methane gas burning turbines, but has permission for only 15

KeShaun Pearson took a seat in front of the Shelby county board of commissioners in Memphis, Tennessee, on Wednesday morning. In the gallery behind him, a small group of people held up signs that said “Our air = our lives” and “Our water, Our future.” With a manner-of-fact demeanor, Pearson addressed the commissioners.

“I’m here because today we’ve learned that xAI is using 35 methane gas burning turbines,” said Pearson, who is the director of the advocacy group Memphis Community Against Pollution. “They have submitted a permit to our Shelby county health department for 15, yet they are using double that amount with no permit.”

Nasa cuts contract that convened USGCRP, which released assessments impacting environmental decision-making

The White House is ending funding for the body that produces the federal government’s pre-eminent climate report, which summarizes the impacts of rising global temperatures on the United States.

Every four years, the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) is required by Congress to release a new national climate assessment to ensure leaders understand the drivers of – and threats posed by – global warming. It is the most comprehensive, far-reaching and up-to-date analysis of the climate crisis, playing a key role in local and national decision making about agriculture, energy production, and land and water use.

President orders justice department to stop enforcement of critical policies holding fossil fuel companies accountable

Donald Trump is taking aim and city- and state-led fossil fuel accountability efforts, which have been hailed as a last source of hope for the climate amid the president’s ferociously anti-environment agenda.

In a Tuesday executive order, Trump instructed the Department of Justice to “stop the enforcement” of state climate laws, which his administration has suggested are unconstitutional or otherwise unenforceable.

Guardian Australia is highlighting the plight of our endangered native species during an election campaign that is ignoring broken environment laws and rapidly declining ecosystems

• Explore the series – Last chance: the extinction crisis being ignored this election
• Get Guardian Australia environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as an email
• Election 2025 live updates: Australia federal election campaign

Australia’s most skilled aerial mammal, the yellow-bellied glider, is on an “inexorable slide” to extinction as global heating creates more extreme bushfires that are robbing the species of the food and tree hollows it relies on to survive.

Thanks to large parachutes of skin stretching from their wrists to their ankles, yellow-bellied gliders can travel up to 140 metres in a single jump, the furthest of any Australian mammal, including the larger and better known endangered greater glider.

Amazon, Google and Microsoft are building datacentres in water-scarce parts of five continents

Amazon, Microsoft and Google are operating datacentres that use vast amounts of water in some of the world’s driest areas and are building many more, an investigation by SourceMaterial and the Guardian has found.

With Donald Trump pledging to support them, the three technology giants are planning hundreds of datacentres in the US and across the globe, with a potentially huge impact on populations already living with water scarcity.