Environment

Ruling on Mount Pleasant coalmine shows ‘we cannot continue to dig up coal … and pretend the consequences have nothing to do with us’, group says

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A Hunter Valley community group has won Australia’s first high court case to consider climate change, in a ruling advocates say sets a binding national precedent for fossil fuel projects in New South Wales.

In a landmark judgment, the nation’s highest court ruled that the approval of MACH Energy’s Mount Pleasant coalmine expansion in Muswellbrook was invalid.

Government report finds the country could be hit with more frequent and intense heatwaves, as well as damaging storms and cyclones

New Zealand could be hit with more frequent and intense heatwaves and catastrophic glacier melts in the near future, as greenhouse gas levels hit record highs, a new report about the nation’s climate has revealed.

Released on Wednesday, the Our Atmosphere and Climate 2026 report shows New Zealand is experiencing mounting climate pressures, which will have wide-reaching implications for the environment, native species and communities.

Service to be tested in Spain and Portugal this year, with a UK rollout if successful, as pre-loved markets boom

Ikea is to test an online version of its buy-back service where the retailer offers vouchers for unwanted secondhand furniture.

The service will be tested in Spain and Portugal before the end of December and will be launched in the UK if it proves successful. Ikea already offers buy-back in stores, including in the UK. The online version will extend it to a much wider audience, with Ikea predicting pre-owned goods are likely to grab 16% of the UK homewares market by next year

John Murdock had been working for the agency for 18 years and his resignation comes during an exodus of longtime federal workers and scientists

An 18-year veteran of the US Department of the Interior has resigned in protest from the sprawling federal agency, denouncing “a deeply troubling assault on the rule of the law” that took place at the department under Donald Trump.

John Murdock, an attorney and self-described conservative Christian, began working for the agency’s legal office in 2002. In his resignation letter, first sent to his supervisor earlier this year and obtained exclusively by the Guardian and Public Domain, Murdock cites “glaring legal flaws” he witnessed within the agency during the course of the Trump administration, as well as concerns over offshore oil and gas drilling, the aggressive push to expand fossil fuels and the flouting of environmental regulation.

Prime minister tells delegates in Tuvalu and Fiji that ‘super El Niño’ brewing in the Pacific shows climate change is ‘here right now’

Anthony Albanese has warned Australia faces a hazardous summer, likely including floods, cyclones and extreme heat, due to the immediate threat of climate breakdown and a rising “super El Niño”.

Speaking alongside national leaders at a climate summit in Fiji, the prime minister said the expected nasty summer and the demonstrated impact on Pacific island countries – including low-lying Tuvalu – showed the world could not afford to let the goal of limiting global heating to 1.5C “just slip from our grasp”.

For-profit water corporations, federal cuts and climate crisis are ‘supercharging water rate hikes’, study co-author says

US households are paying 62% more for drinking water than they did a decade ago – outpacing inflation, grocery prices and household incomes, according to a new study.

Food & Water Watch, a Washington DC-based non-profit, analyzed 2025 billing data from the 500 largest community water systems in the US, which together serve about 155 million people, or 45% of the country’s population. The analysis compared current rates with data from a similar Food & Water Watch survey conducted in 2015. The study does not include wastewater or storm water charges, which are often billed separately from drinking water service.

The new field of "smoke ecology" examines how wildfire smoke perturbs wild places and animals — and what might be done to prevent its worst mayhem.

(Image credit: Ari Daniel)

How the court will lean is unclear amid Suncor Energy and ExxonMobil’s attempt to stop lawsuits at state level

The US supreme court began its new nine-month term hearing arguments on Monday in a major case in which big oil companies attempted to strike a fatal blow against lawsuits that seek to hold them accountable for the climate crisis.

After the almost two-hour hearing, while it was not yet clear which way the justices were leaning, experts said the court may find it challenging to write a majority decision siding with industry.

A researcher at a climate change think tank says the Conservative policy would be a ‘disaster for first time buyers’

Yesterday, as a gimmick, the Tories were handing out “Bottler Burnham” bottles of water (“0% strength”) to make a point about Burnham supposedly cancelling plans for an early election under pressure from the Tories. It is a version of a stunt they pulled in 2008 when they gave journalists bottles of a “Bottler Brown” beer. (Gordon Brown did pull plans for an early election at the last minute; this time the jibe is unfair, because there were no Burnham plans for an early election.)

The new bottles feature the image of Burnham produced by the Manchester artist Stan Chow.

The SNP’s effective ban on new nuclear energy in Scotland flies in the face of common-sense.

No part of Great Britain should be missing out on plans for new nuclear renewal.

Party in England and Wales ditches commitment to phase out nuclear in major shift in its energy policy

Green party members have voted to end the party’s opposition to nuclear power, dropping a commitment to phase out the technology in a major shift in its energy policy.

The motion, adopted at conference, removes a “blanket opposition to nuclear fission” and instead commits the Green party of England and Wales to assessing nuclear projects alongside other low-carbon technologies.

An international symbol for the city, the sign is also hallmark of the region’s environmental richness

Atop Mount Lee, in the heart of Los Angeles, the wind is quiet. Two red-tailed hawks sail above, barely flapping as they coast the thermal air like surfers on a wave. Standing beside the giant letters of the Hollywood sign, the city seems peaceful. On a clear day, blocks and blocks of homes unfold beneath and the skies reveal sights all the way to Catalina Island – nearly 50 miles out, across the Pacific.

That’s the beauty seen from the Hollywood sign.

Italian police say Maltese citizen under investigation for smuggling after animals found packed in car

A Maltese man is facing animal cruelty charges after allegedly attempting to transport 300 tortoises and 77 parrots from Sicily to Malta.

The animals were found packed into a car near the boarding area for a Malta-bound catamaran during an inspection at the Sicilian port of Pozzallo, the local unit of Italy’s financial police squad said on Monday.

Anthony Albanese joins about 4,000 people in Fiji for preparatory meeting for year-ending Cop31 UN climate summit

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The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has declared it is “important that Pacific voices are heard” after landing in Fiji on Monday to attend his first UN climate summit since becoming prime minister more than four years ago.

Albanese joined about 4,000 people in Nadi for a preparatory meeting for the year-ending Cop31 UN climate summit in Turkey while facing criticism from his political opponents at home. Pre-Cop meetings are usually small and bureaucratic affairs, but this meeting has a double purpose: it is being held in the Pacific after Australia and regional leaders argued it would help bring global attention to the plight of countries most at risk from the climate crisis.

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As trawlers compete with Greenland sharks for halibut and cod, conservationists and fishers clash over what to do about misunderstood species

‘When I accidentally catch a shark, I bring it to my dogs,” Henrik Jensen, a 27-year-old from Greenland’s west coast, says casually. “I don’t let it back down because [the sharks] bully me and cut my lines.”

Jensen has fished for halibut in Ilulissat, Greenland’s third largest town, for a decade. He works an hour north of the town’s main iceberg-laden fishery, which sustains the livelihood of nearly 400 fishers. There, the halibut are bigger and more plentiful, but so are the Greenland sharks.

A statewide initiative pairs climate-focused coursework with community service – and is spreading to other states

As a student at a high school not far from Denver’s main airport, Anthony Muñoz wondered whether the jet fuel from airplanes flying above his campus was harming living things.

An avid gardener, Muñoz partnered with a local university to create a garden on the campus of his charter school, Vista Academy, filling it with native plants that could detect ground-level ozone pollution. He also worked with climate scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a federal office in nearby Boulder, who directed Muñoz on what data to collect, what the condition of leaves reveals about air quality and why milkweed matters for monarch butterfly migration.

The 20 best residential gardens have been revealed in the first-ever Landscape Australia awards shortlist. Jury chair Emily Wong said each project was a response to urgent issues such as the climate crisis, fire and flood resilience, and the loss of biodiversity. They saw gardens as ‘part of a larger living commons that supports different ecologies and also … the future of Australian cities’. Wong also noted that private gardens take up a large quantity of space in Australian cities. ‘So really, these gardens are about seeing the design as a contribution to shared infrastructure’

A third runway would fly in the face of reason. If we are to prioritise human life over short-term ‘growth’, we need to use planes less, not more

If a third runway is built at Heathrow, what will be the impact on the wealth of the nation? It will cost us somewhere between £23.4bn and £62.5bn. These are not my figures; they weren’t calculated by environmental groups, but by the Department for Transport.

For decades, government ministers have told us that airport expansion is essential for “growth”. As chancellor, Rachel Reeves claimed that a third runway at Heathrow would add 0.43% to GDP, figures we later discovered came from a report commissioned by the airport. The transport department’s own analysis concluded that the real addition to GDP would be between 0.03% and 0.05%: eight to 14 times less. Against this, it weighed the social and environmental costs of the project, to reveal a massive net loss. It found that a third runway would cause major harm to the health and wellbeing of up to 3 million local people.

A caiman wearing a wig, two brown bears laughing and a leopard doing a handstand feature in the selection of finalists from this year’s Nikon Comedy Wildlife awards. Winners will be announced on 8 December

Imagine the UK with a 20-year investment plan, with green homes and fast transport. We already have the tools to make it happen

You’ve just left school. What’s your future?

I know a physics graduate making flat whites; a 30-year-old living in his childhood bedroom who feels like a failure; a lad in Blyth who turned down a job 15 miles away because there’s no bus, and for young people his age car insurance is almost £2,000 a year. Britain’s young people are our greatest resource, and we are failing them because capital markets won’t allocate investment where it is needed. Saying “hope” in a conference speech sounds warm. But people need a plan.

Jamie Driscoll is a Green party councillor on Newcastle city council and former North of Tyne mayor

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