The Guardian Climate Change

Environment Agency figures show an average of 40 warnings and alerts a day were issued during period

A record number of flood alerts and warnings were issued in Great Britain in the first four months of 2024, averaging 40 a day, according to analysis of Environment Agency figures.

Round Our Way, a not-for-profit organisation supporting people in the UK affected by the climate crisis, obtained data from the agency under the Freedom of Information Act on the number of warnings and alerts issued across the country since records began in 2006.

The rest of the world has already fallen in love with the ‘magic’ technology, but Australians are only just starting to catch on

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As any Australian who has lived overseas knows, Australia’s houses are uniquely cold. Where residents of other nations enjoy the benefit of stable internal temperatures, Australians are mostly left to endure colder, leakier homes with no central heating that have more in common with open-air tents.

Sweden may have made double glazing on windows mandatory since 1960, and triple glazing may be common in many countries, but Australians have stuck with single. This has much to do with how Australian regulations have lagged – the country only got around to introducing energy efficiency standards into the building code in 2003. Even then, some states like South Australia have, at times, exempted developers from having to comply with national energy efficiency regulations on some projects – a decision that will cost residents more in the long run.

I think we’ve heard this one before

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Solar projects such as Botley West in Oxfordshire are latest net zero schemes bogged down by local disputes

A few hundred metres from her house, Rosemary Lewis stands at a clearing on a footpath overlooking a tract of rolling hills in the Oxfordshire countryside that could become home to UK’s largest solar farm. With plans to install 2.5m solar panels along an 11-mile (18km) stretch north of Oxford, the Botley West solar farm would be vast.

The proposal is one of 30 large-scale solar projects vying for approval, which could give the UK a much-needed shot in the arm to achieve its climate goals of generating 100% clean electricity by 2035 and reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

A new, cleaner ship points way as US ports in the region are spending millions on upgrades in pursuit of net zero

It’s just after 9.30pm on a Thursday night in late May when a conveyor belt begins dumping 21,000 tons of road salt into the cavernous hull of the MV Mark M Barker at a dock in Cleveland.

As the first US-flagged freighter to be built on the Great Lakes in nearly 40 years, the 639ft (195-meter)-long ship – launched in 2022 – is the only vessel of its kind in the region powered by cleaner, “tier four” marine engines that meet the federal Environmental Protection Agency rules governing hydrocarbons and particle matter emissions.

The Guardian contacted 11 major organizations that run fossil-fuel ads after Wednesday’s speech by António Guterres

Major news and tech media that have run fossil-fuel ads were largely staying quiet after the UN’s secretary general called for governments and companies to place bans on advertisements for coal, oil and gas.

“Stop taking fossil-fuel advertising,” António Guterres implored in a major speech on Wednesday after railing against energy companies for “distorting the truth, deceiving the public, and sowing doubt” about the climate crisis.

Heat stress and increase in insect-borne diseases particularly acute in smaller states, warns secretary general Lady Scotland

Climate change is now the biggest concern facing health ministers in Commonwealth countries, the organisation’s secretary general has warned.

Patricia Scotland said it was a “reality today” rather than a problem of the future, with impacts such as heat stress and increases in insect-borne diseases particularly acute in smaller states.

Up to 90% ‘lost in the blink of an eye’, say scientists studying Cyclone Ilsa’s effect on birds on Western Australian island

Increased tropical cyclones due to global heating could lead to dramatic declines in seabird populations, according to a new study.

Scientists found that after Cyclone Ilsa – a category-5 tropical cyclone – hit Bedout Island in Western Australia in April 2023, several seabird populations experienced a collapse of 80-90% due to the storm at the internationally important breeding site.

Child killed and mother critically injured in Michigan when twister uprooted a tree and sent it crashing into their home

A two-year-old boy was killed and his mother critically injured after a fast-developing tornado struck and caused a tree to fall on their home in the suburban Detroit city of Livonia on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, tornadoes also struck in Maryland on the east coast and a brutal heatwave affected the south-west and California as extreme weather continued to mark the start of summer in the US.

Millions of Americans are sweltering as experts warn early heat could herald next record-smashing summer

With the official start of summer still weeks away, a potentially record-setting heatwave is cooking the south-western US, causing dangerous conditions far earlier than normal.

Excessive-heat warnings have been issued from the southern tip of Texas across Arizona and Nevada, and up through the center of California to the northern part of the state, as more than 36 million people across the country brace for days of potentially life-threatening temperatures. Affected areas of California could see conditions of 30F higher than normal for this time of year, as south-west cities, including Phoenix and Las Vegas, prepare to hit peaks above 110F.

‘The industry is rapidly strangling our planet,’ says Andrew Wilkie, who joins Allegra Spender, Sophie Scamps, Zali Steggall and Monique Ryan in call for ban

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At least nine independent MPs and the Greens have backed the UN secretary general’s call for the Australian government to ban fossil fuel advertising and for media companies to stop accepting money to promote coal, oil and gas companies.

Many described fossil fuel advertising as greenwashing that damaged the climate, the environment and people’s health, and compared its use to steps taken by “big tobacco” before cigarette advertising was banned in 1992.

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Historical records may prove link between climate fluctuation in Pacific and atmospheric electric field over 5,000 miles away

Does El Niño influence thunderstorm activity? The most recent El Niño – a climate fluctuation that generates warmer waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean every few years – has finally come to an end, but it is estimated to have been the fourth most powerful on record, exacerbating the climate crisis and bringing about record-breaking global temperatures, plus extreme weather including heatwaves, drought, excessive rain and flooding.

We know that El Niño events have a huge effect on oceanic and atmospheric circulation patterns, but do they also alter the electrical charge in the atmosphere? To find out, scientists at the University of Reading, Berkshire, are turning to measurements of atmospheric electricity gathered every hour at a weather station in Lerwick, on Shetland, Scotland, between 1925 and 1984. The data already suggests that the strength of the atmospheric electric field in Lerwick is altered by El Niño, even though they are more than 5,000 miles (8,000km) apart, through changes in thunderstorms.

Fossil fuel firms are biggest beneficiaries of investor-state dispute settlement courts which have awarded $114bn of public money

More than $100bn of public money has been awarded to private investors in investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) courts, according to the most comprehensive analysis yet.

The controversial arbitration system which allows corporations to sue governments for compensation over decisions they argue affect their profits is largely carried out behind closed doors, with some judgments kept secret. But, according to a global ISDS tracker which launches today, $114bn has so far been paid out of the public purse to investors – about as much as rich nations provided in climate aid in 2022.

A $15bn compensation suit by TC Energy against the US government for cancelling the Keystone XL pipeline which would have carried 830,000 barrels of highly polluting tar sands oil to the US coast every day. The permit was withdrawn by Joe Biden on his first day in office after a long campaign by Indigenous Americans, farmers and climate activists. The pipeline had been championed by ex-president Donald Trump and became a touchstone culture war issue.

Ruby River Capital’s claim for “no less than $20bn” after the Quebec government cancelled a natural gas liquefaction plant on the St Lawrence River. An environmental impact assessment had found that the plant would increase greenhouse gas emissions, hurt Indigenous Canadian communities and destroy biodiversity. RRC’s claim was the largest ever under the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta).

The most lucrative ISDS claim currently being heard is Zeph Investment’s $200bn case against Australia over a huge planned mine in Western Australia which, Zeph Investment claims, the Australian government had “effectively destroyed”, in breach of the Asean free trade agreement.

Avima Iron Ore is seeking $27bn from the Republic of the Congo, after it revoked iron ore mining licenses for three Australian-owned firms, handing them instead to a small Chinese investment group. The sum is almost twice as much as the country’s GDP last year.

The contributor to Sky News accuses climate change ‘zealots’ of not having read the research. But his own reading is less than comprehensive

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You know you’re in for a bit of grandiose lecturing on climate change when conservative commentators start making comparisons to religion and throwing around quotes from the 20th-century science philosopher Karl Popper.

Now I’ve got nothing against Popper, but you need to be on pretty solid ground to declare, as the Sky News contributor Chris Uhlmann did last weekend, that the idea global warming is causing more extreme weather is “an article of faith” rather than something we can just test and observe.

Technique known as cold-water immersion adopted by Phoenix hospitals after county saw 645 heat-related deaths last year

The season’s first heatwave is already baking the south-west with triple-digit temperatures as firefighters in Phoenix – America’s hottest big city – employ new tactics in hopes of saving more lives in a county that saw 645 heat-related deaths last year.

Starting this season, the Phoenix fire department is immersing heatstroke victims in ice on the way to area hospitals. The medical technique, known as cold-water immersion, is familiar to marathon runners and military service members and has also recently been adopted by Phoenix hospitals as a go-to protocol, according to fire captain John Prato.

The secretary general of the UN said fossil fuel companies should be banned from advertising in every country, akin to the restrictions on big tobacco. António Guterres delivered fresh scientific warnings of global heating in a major speech in New York. He called on news and tech media to stop enabling 'planetary destruction' by taking fossil fuel firms' advertising money, while warning that the world faces 'climate crunch time' in its faltering attempts to stem the crisis

• ‘Godfathers of climate chaos’: UN chief urges global fossil-fuel advertising ban

António Guterres warns of ‘climate crunch time’ and announces dire new scientific warnings of global heating

Fossil-fuel companies are the “godfathers of climate chaos” and should be banned in every country from advertising akin to restrictions on big tobacco, the secretary general of the United Nations has said while delivering dire new scientific warnings of global heating.

In a major speech in New York on Wednesday, António Guterres called on news and tech media to stop enabling “planetary destruction” by taking fossil-fuel advertising money while warning the world faces “climate crunch time” in its faltering attempts to stem the crisis.

The electorate has resurrected a viable opposition in parliament against a chastened BJP. But neither side is ready to face the immensity of the climate crisis

The Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), led by India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, has won more seats than the opposition alliance, and yet its victory tastes of defeat. Why?

In the days leading to the election, the BJP’s main slogan had been Abki baar, 400 Paar, a call to voters to send more than 400 of its candidates to the 543-member parliament. This slogan, voiced by Modi at his campaign rallies, set a high bar for the party. Most exit polls had predicted a massive victory for the BJP – and now the results, with that party having won only 240 seats, suggest that the electorate has sent a chastening message to the ruling party and trimmed its hubris.

Groundbreaking new research also reports that 11% of surveyed have faced physical violence in their reporting

Almost four out of every 10 journalists covering the climate crisis and environment issues have been threatened as a result of their work, with 11% subjected to physical violence, according to groundbreaking new research.

A global survey of more than 740 reporters and editors from 102 countries found that 39% of those threatened “sometimes” or “frequently” were targeted by people engaged in illegal activities such as logging and mining. Some 30%, meanwhile, were threatened with legal action – reflecting a growing trend towards corporations and governments deploying the judicial system to muzzle free speech.

This article was amended on 5 June 2024 to clarify that 39% of those threatened “sometimes” or “frequently” were targeted by people engaged in illegal activities. A previous version incorrectly said 49%.

Forests across Europe, the US and Canada have been hard hit by drought, fires and bark beetles. Now scientists fear the northern hemisphere’s greatest carbon sink is nearing a tipping point

The giant sequoia is so enormous that it was once believed to be indestructible. High in California’s southern Sierra Nevada mountains, the oldest trees – known as monarchs – have stood for more than 2,000 years.

Today, however, in Sequoia national park, huge trunks lie sprawled on the forest floor, like blue whale carcasses stranded on a beach. Many of these trees were felled by a combination of drought and fire. But among the factors responsible for the rising toll is a tiny new suspect: the bark beetle.