The Guardian Climate Change

Retailer admits it struggled in June heatwave and also had to order more ice-cream to keep pace with demand

Marks & Spencer is investing in refrigeration equipment that can cope with weather as hot as 45C as the climate crisis is expected to drive regularly higher temperatures in the UK.

“There is no doubt we were struggling in the nine days of [recent] extreme heat,” Stuart Machin, the chief executive of the food, fashion, beauty and homewares retailer, told shareholders at the group’s annual meeting in London on Tuesday.

The scientific consensus is that burning fossil fuels drives the climate crisis, yet the world’s biggest oil companies are planning to increase production

As the world swelters in ever more dangerous heat, why are oil companies being allowed to turn up the gas instead of paying for the consequences of their greed?

That ought to be the question on everyone’s minds amid baking heat domes over much of the northern hemisphere, temperature records being smashed day after day, children dying in locked cars, hospitals filling with heatstroke victims and emergency services tackling wildfires.

Exclusive: Record temperatures fuelled by climate crisis left 86% of homes ‘too hot’ and many people feeling unwell

With parts of England once again in the grip of a heatwave, an opinion poll shows the one at the end of June led to “mass sleep deprivation”, with two in three people struggling to sleep during the sweltering nights.

Almost half of people said they had lost at least three hours of sleep each night. The results are consistent with scientific research showing that global heating is damaging sleep across the world.

Exclusive University of Sydney study finds heat-related hospital admissions to increase by at least 6% by the end of the century

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Extreme high temperatures in warmer months double the risk of young people being admitted to hospital for a mental health condition, according to research.

The analysis, which looked at 720,000 New South Wales hospital admissions of young people aged up to 24, suggested the climate crisis would aggravate the already declining mental health of young people.

Exclusive: Campaigners argue news channel’s attacks on climate action ‘work in financial interests’ of Sir Paul Marshall

The hedge fund run by the co-owner of GB News almost tripled its investments in fossil fuel companies in the first quarter of 2026 to $2.8bn (£2.1bn), the Guardian can reveal.

Critics have accused Sir Paul Marshall of “cashing in on climate chaos” and have claimed the news channel, which frequently attacks climate science and action, was “working in its owner’s financial interests”.

Tour de France spectator ban as country along with Spain, Portugal and Greece faces ‘powder keg’ after heatwave

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Wildfires raging across southern Europe have forced thousands to flee their homes and prompted officials to ban spectators from a stage of the Tour de France, amid warnings of “powder keg” conditions after a record-breaking early summer heatwave.

Hundreds of firefighters are tackling blazes that have burned through almost 20,000 hectares (49,500 acres) in Portugal, Spain, France and Greece. Strong winds are forecast to fan the flames and temperatures are expected to rise again this week.

Climate crisis and warming waters have attracted long-toothed pufferfish to new parts of the Mediterranean

From his deckchair, his arms thrown above his head, his feet sliding back and forth in the sand, Pavlos Beleyiannis watches his grandchildren bathe in his favourite bay. It’s an idyllic scene, infused with a serenity that the newly retired truck driver attributes squarely to a sense of security.

For the first time, a floating barrier has been installed across the bay. Ducking, splashing and larking about, the children have not ventured beyond it. “Thank god it’s there to protect them,” he says with evident relief. “There weren’t such dangers in these seas when I was a child.”

More than 20 states reported temperatures above 100F as heat dome sits over eastern US during holiday weekend

At least about two dozen people have died amid the perilous climate crisis-driven heatwave that has scorched swaths of the US with record temperatures.

As a huge heat dome sits over the county’s eastern half, extreme heat gripped millions of people in the days leading up to the US’s semiquincentennial on Saturday – and beyond it. More than 20 states experienced have reported stifling temperatures more than 100F (38C), marring celebrations. And more than 140 million people remained under active heat alerts across the US on Sunday.

Humans have long sought to geoengineer the Earth’s environment. Tim Flannery outlines a few of the wildest ideas from the 20th century

An increasing number of scientists think we have let the climate crisis fester for so long that our only hope to stave off ever-intensifying catastrophes is to use technological interventions. Cloud brightening, injecting sulphur into the atmosphere and the use of tiny mirrors in space – all of which might reduce the amount of sunlight reaching Earth’s surface – are among the concepts being promoted by entrepreneurs and governments alike. Geoengineering, they argue, is now inevitable.

Ever since the God of the Old Testament granted our species dominion over the Earth, ideas of remaking the world to better suit us have been a dominant thread in human thinking. We have for centuries toyed with grand ambitions to alter and re-form the climate and environment, many of which – in retrospect – seem doomed or absurd.

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As Britain reached its hottest June temperature on record, readers recall the summer when temperatures hit 36C

The recent heatwave in the UK broke the previous June record of 35.6C, recorded during the 1976 heatwave.

In Lingwood, Norfolk, a provisional temperature of 37.7C was recorded on Friday 26 June, breaking the previous record reached on 28 June 1976 and on 29 June 1957.

Cooling down has become political amid record highs, as experts say row is distracting from work of protecting lives

As the afternoon heat rose to a dizzying 41.7C (107F) in eastern Brandenburg on Sunday, taking German temperatures to unprecedented highs, Mario, 65, took precautions but did not panic. Two years ago, a fierce heatwave had prompted him to buy a powerful device that few Germans own: an air conditioning unit.

“The summers are slowly getting warmer,” says the retired handyman in Neuzelle on the German-Polish border, whose bungalow is now among the 6% of German homes with fixed air-conditioning. “And as you get older, the heat gets harder to endure.”