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António Guterres issues warning at Davos, days after Donald Trump pulled US out of Paris climate agreement

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The world’s addiction to fossil fuels is a “Frankenstein’s monster sparing nothing and no one”, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, told leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday.

“Our fossil fuel addiction is a Frankenstein’s monster, sparing nothing and no one. All around us, we see clear signs that the monster has become master,” Guterres said in a speech days after 2024 was revealed to have been the hottest year on record and Donald Trump began his second term as US president by pulling the country out of the Paris climate agreement and pledging to “drill, baby, drill” for more oil and gas. The fossil fuel industry gave $75m (£60m) to Trump’s campaign.

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It’s time to require these companies to compensate communities, homeowners, businesses and even insurers for the losses.

Legal experts said the president was testing the boundaries of executive power with aggressive orders designed to stop the country from transitioning to renewable energy.

Gusts could peak at 70mph (113km/h) along the coast and 100mph (160km/h) in the mountains and foothills

Winds picked up on Tuesday in southern California and at least a couple of new wildfires broke out as firefighters remained on alert in extreme fire weather, two weeks after major blazes started, two of them still burning, in the Los Angeles area.

The fresh high winds – that are coming amid still bone-dry conditions – mark the end of a break in dangerous high fire-risk conditions that have allowed the beleaguered city’s firefighters to largely contain the disastrous blazes that have burnt thousands of homes. The fires have killed at least 27 people and destroyed more than 14,000 structures since they broke out during fierce winds on 7 January.

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In a sweeping order, President Trump halted federal approvals for new wind farms, in a move that could affect projects on land and in the ocean.

Officials and business executives at the annual gathering in Switzerland said the fight against global climate change would continue with or without the United States.

Automakers and even some Republicans may fight to preserve funds, and environmental activists will likely sue, but some experts said that some changes may not survive legal challenges.

President Trump’s wave of executive orders yesterday sent an undeniable signal to the world about the United States’ role in fighting climate change.

El presidente de EE. UU. hizo movimientos políticos después de tomar posesión: se retiró de acuerdos internacionales, prometió aranceles e indultó a casi todos los alborotadores del 6 de enero.

More than 40% of individual corals monitored around One Tree Island reef bleached by heat stress and damaged by flesh-eating disease

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More than 40% of individual corals monitored around a Great Barrier Reef island were killed last year in the most widespread coral bleaching outbreak to hit the reef system, a study has found.

Scientists tracked 462 colonies of corals at One Tree Island in the southern part of the Great Barrier Reef after heat stress began to turn the corals white in early 2024. Researchers said they encountered “catastrophic” scenes at the reef.

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President Trump made major policy moves immediately after taking office, withdrawing from major international agreements, promising steep tariffs and pardoning nearly all of the Jan. 6 rioters.

In “Dark Laboratory,” Tao Leigh Goffe traces the origins of global environmental collapse to the explorer’s conquest of the Caribbean.

Critical CO2 stores held in permafrost are being released as the landscape changes with global heating, report shows

A third of the Arctic’s tundra, forests and wetlands have become a source of carbon emissions, a new study has found, as global heating ends thousands of years of carbon storage in parts of the frozen north.

For millennia, Arctic land ecosystems have acted as a deep-freeze for the planet’s carbon, holding vast amounts of potential emissions in the permafrost. But ecosystems in the region are increasingly becoming a contributor to global heating as they release more CO2 into the atmosphere with rising temperatures, a new study published in Nature Climate Change concluded.

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Artisanal shellfish farmers face ruinous losses but money meant to help is going to the powerful fishing industry, say critics

Early on a warm September morning in southern Italy, Giovanni Nicandro sets out from the port of Taranto in his small boat. Summoning his courage, the mussel farmer inspects his year’s work – only to find them all dead, a sight that almost brings him to tears.

“We have many problems,” he says. “The problems start as soon as we open our eyes in the morning.” The loss is total – not only for Nicandro but also for Taranto’s 400 other mussel farmers, after a combination of pollution and rising sea temperatures devastated their harvest.

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President pledges immigration crackdown, rolls back climate rules and pardons 1,500 January 6 rioters

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Donald Trump launched his second term as US president with a barrage of executive orders reaching into broad swathes of American life, from pardoning hundreds of supporters who attacked Congress on January 6, including rightwing extremists convicted of seditious conspiracy, to rolling back LGBTQ+ rights and environmental rules while declaring an immigration emergency on the southern border.

Trump and his allies had long promised a “shock and awe” approach. They did not hold back.

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President tells crowd that US ‘will not sabotage our own industries while China pollutes with impunity’

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Donald Trump took aim at federal support for the sale of electric vehicles (EVs) on Monday, amid a flurry of promised executive orders on his first day back in the White House.

“The United States will not sabotage our own industries while China pollutes with impunity,” Trump said during a ceremony at Capitol One Arena, where he signed a raft of executive orders before a roaring crowd.

Trump embraces role of demagogue, claims to be ‘peacemaker’ – follow live inauguration updates

Factchecking Trump’s speech

Elon Musk appears to make back-to-back fascist salutes

Activists ask: is there any point in mass protest?

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The United States would be one of only four countries outside the Paris Agreement, which is designed to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

The president said he’d declare an energy “emergency,” promote drilling and end support for electric cars. His pivot to oil and gas follows the hottest year in recorded history.

In 2021, Biden had rejoined 2015 treaty that seeks to curb climate crisis effects after Trump first pulled out in 2017

• Donald Trump inauguration – live updates

Donald Trump’s new administration confirmed on Monday on his first day in office that he will repeat his first-term move and pull the world’s second biggest emitter of planet-heating pollution out of the 2015 Paris agreement, the global treaty seeking to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis.

The confirmation was in a White House document entitled President Trump’s America First Priorities, in a package of measures under the headline “Make America affordable and energy dominant again”.

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The billionaire’s return to power signals a new era of upheaval in US politics, marked by authoritarian ambitions, glaring conflicts and polarisation

On the surface, Donald Trump’s inauguration looked like the usual transfer of power, with political rivals exchanging polite applause. This was a facade. Mr Trump’s address feigned conciliation but was, in reality, a rightwing call to arms against his enemies, rejecting the unity the ceremony represents. Mr Trump presented a grim picture of a country on its knees that only he can revitalise. He declared not one but two national emergencies, pledging to return “millions of criminal aliens” and “drill, baby, drill” for the “liquid gold under our feet”. His alarming call to “take back” the Panama Canal from China hints at ambitions to reshape the global order, potentially through force.

A flurry of Trumpian executive orders will accelerate the climate emergency, defy the US constitution over birthright citizenship and reduce the scope of legal protections. Forget the stirring rhetoric of Kennedy; Trump’s message was blunt: enemies at home and abroad, beware. Where Roosevelt once inspired hope, Mr Trump offered fear.

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