Guardian Environment News

Chancellor is in favour of North Sea project, but energy secretary has said she is leaning towards rejecting it

A cabinet split has emerged over whether to approve drilling at the Rosebank oilfield, with the chancellor, John Healey, in favour of the controversial North Sea project.

The energy secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh, is ultimately in charge of the decision, and the Guardian reported last week that she was leaning towards rejecting it after granting permission for the smaller Jackdaw gasfield.

More inclement weather forecast in rain-soaked Four Corners region after evacuations and rescues last week

Another round of heavy showers and thunderstorms were expected to hit the south-west US on Sunday after the region endured days of rain that forced evacuations, water rescues and multi-million-dollar damage.

The National Weather Service issued a flood watch for much of the Four Corners – the meeting point of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah – even as local officials forecast further receding of swollen rivers that surged since rains picked up on Wednesday.

The transformation of Europe’s busiest shopping street should be a case study in making cities greener, less congested and more inviting places to live

Sadiq Khan has been trying to pedestrianise Oxford Street since he first became the mayor of London in 2016. On Monday, after numerous setbacks, his plan will finally come to fruition. The busiest stretch of the nation’s famous shopping street will be closed to traffic in a scheme designed to improve the area and make it more attractive to pedestrians. It should be an emblematic case study in making cities greener, less congested, more inviting places to live and visit.

The Greater London Authority hopes it will rejuvenate a high street fallen on hard times. Since the pandemic, the number of vacant shops on Oxford Street has more than quadrupled. It estimates that the scheme will generate £82m of value a year in the area by increasing footfall and encouraging visitors to linger. This impact remains to be seen, but research from other cities suggests that shops experience higher sales once an area is pedestrianised. Given the prime minister’s focus on rejuvenating British high streets, whose dilapidation is correlated with support for Reform UK, he should be watching with interest.

Every autumn, Corvo Island in the Azores turns off its public lighting for a few key days to help fledgling Cory’s shearwaters as they attempt to fly to the ocean guided by the stars

Once a year, Corvo, the smallest and most northerly island of Portugal’s Azores archipelago, goes dark. Since 2019, the island’s 450 or so inhabitants have chosen to switch off the lights every autumn for five nights to tackle the disastrous effects of artificial light on Cory’s shearwaters, a seabird endemic to the Atlantic Ocean.

It began in 1991 when the community noticed huge numbers of deaths among young shearwaters.

A newborn Cory’s shearwater chick

Fresh deluge of wet weather comes after Storm Austen brought strong winds to many regions on Friday

Amber weather warnings have come into force as the worst of Storm Boelo could be set to hit parts of the UK.

Storm Boelo’s winds will peak from Saturday evening, leaving areas in the warning zone, including Scotland, parts of Northern Ireland and the far north of England, braced for gusts of 60-70mph and even 80mph in exposed coastal spots, the Met Office said.

An ‘audit’ of the Bureau of Meteorology main dataset for measuring climate change claims it contains ‘widespread errors’. It doesn’t stack up

• Want to get this in your inbox when it publishes? Sign up for the Clear Air Australia newsletter here

Australia’s climate has warmed by more than 1.5C since 1910, according to the Bureau of Meteorology’s main long-term temperature data.

If you were so motivated, you might think if you could discredit this data, then you would undermine the whole climate change story and even – perhaps – the rationale for cutting Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletter

Second named storm will hit northern parts of UK as thousands remain without power after Friday’s Storm Austen

The UK is bracing for a second storm this weekend, as strong winds and heavy rain are expected to disrupt travel and cause further power cuts in the north.

Storm Boelo, the second named storm of the season, is expected to bring heavy, frequent showers and winds potentially exceeding 80mph to northern parts of the UK.

Critics decry Trump administration rule that lets hunters lure bears with human foods on federal lands in Alaska

A new Trump administration rule allows hunters to bait bears on federal lands in Alaska with bacon, doughnuts, meat scraps or other human foods typically used to help kill the trophy animals at close range.

Opponents say the practice will cause bears to be more aggressive around humans, and allege that the rule change is a political gift to largely rightwing trophy hunters. The rule replaces a 2024 Biden administration rule that banned the practice, and environmental groups criticized the move as “indefensible and inexcusable”.

BBC series deliberately uses ‘more organic’ shots to assure viewers animals are not AI-generated, producers say

The David Attenborough-narrated series Blue Planet III deliberately includes cloudier, less polished footage to counter AI fakery and assure viewers it is “authentic”, its producers have said.

Nearly a decade after Blue Planet II shone a light on plastic pollution, and 25 years since the first Blue Planet aired, the hit BBC series is returning with more animal behaviour and cutting-edge technology, including the world’s first underwater CCTV camera – dubbed “stonefish” cam.

Tim and Geli Harris have spent more than a decade fighting to protect Catfield Fen, a rare wetland in the Norfolk Broads

Polluters and regulators who fail to stop pollution must quake in their boots when they receive a letter from the lawyers for Tim and Geli Harris. The couple, who farm 460 acres in the Norfolk Broads, have now scored a hat-trick of landmark legal victories to save an internationally important wetland after they won again in the high court this month.

Lady Justice Lieven found that Natural England failed in its statutory duty to protect Catfield Fen from pollution after nitrates and phosphates washed from arable fields into one of the finest examples of calcareous fen in western Europe, home to 2,500 species including rarities such as the fen orchid, crested buckler fern, breeding bittern and swallowtail butterflies.

Exclusive: Angela Eagle tells utility bosses next price review ‘must focus on value for money for customers’

Ministers will make an unprecedented intervention in water bills and how companies prioritise investment, directing bosses to bring down costs and stop leaks and sewage overflows.

Angela Eagle, the environment secretary, has told suppliers in England and Wales she plans to intervene in the next price review – conducted by the water regulator, Ofwat.

Suit alleges EPA has for decades failed under the Clean Water Act to address surface-water atrazine pollution

A new lawsuit asks a federal judge to order the Trump administration to address widespread pollution from the hormone-disrupting pesticide atrazine – which has regularly been found at levels that threaten wildlife and human health.

The cancer-linked chemical is now contaminating nearly 25%, or about 860,000 miles, of all continental US rivers, according to a recent review of federal records. The waterways cover more than 20% of surface drinking water intakes across the country, and more than 675,000 private and commercial wells.

At the midpoint of the last century the region had 1,450 glaciers and a new study reveals the extent of losses

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

People succumbed to heat at highest rates in Malta, Italy and Hungary, with health issues, loneliness and poverty exacerbating toll

Heat killed a record 50,000 people in European cities this summer, new research suggests, with scientists blaming climate breakdown for two in every three of the deaths.

Morgues and funeral homes filled with bodies from June to August as the heat added by planet-baking pollution cut short an extra 32,000 lives in urban areas, the researchers found. Hot days pushed vulnerable bodies into overdrive and warm nights prevented them from recovering.

The high court found NSW is responsible for emissions from burning exported coal. What message does it send when the government can step in and bypass the law?

• Sign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter here

As someone who lost their home in the black summer bushfires, I was buoyed by the high court finding in favour of a small community group in the Hunter Valley earlier this month.

Led by two retired science teachers, Wendy Wales and Tony Lonergan, the Denman Aberdeen Muswellbrook Scone Healthy Environment Group took on a massive coal corporation and won. As a fellow schoolteacher, I felt a particular sense of pride seeing these ordinary Australians act on their care for their community and future generations.

Violent storms overnight knocked over utility poles and trees and carried thunder and heavy winds through state

Yet more severe weather struck Thursday in the US south-west as the Four Corners region surveyed blown-away roofs, trees knocked on to homes and power lines downed from overnight tornadoes that injured one person.

The injuries weren’t life-threatening but rare for an area better known for scalding heat. But this fall has been unusually soggy in the south-west with El Niño conditions that have sent one tropical system after another in from the Pacific, causing the Grand Canyon and surrounding deserts to rage with floods.

PM pledges commitment to address climate crisis, saying in Guardian article that his ‘determination is unwavering’

• Andy Burnham: We will make the net-zero transition work for Britain

Andy Burnham has said he will not “abandon the responsibility” of fighting the climate crisis after the government approved the Jackdaw gasfield, pledging to block new North Sea licences and keep Britain on track for net zero by 2050.

The comments are the prime minister’s most forthright yet on net zero, after many MPs have privately cast doubt on the authenticity of his commitment to tackling the climate crisis.

PM will also announce funding for specialised protective gear and the deployment of military aircraft

The UK government is to create an AI Cobra unit to spot wildfires after this year’s record-breaking summer saw devastating blazes across the country.

The country experienced its hottest-ever summer this year, with prolonged dry periods and extreme heat fuelling wildfires that triggered an emergency alert to mobile phones in England and Wales. Figures released on 8 October showed a clear upward trend in the number of fires recorded each year.

Be Ready campaign aims to prepare UK for impact of climate crisis, technological dependency and threats by hostile state

Every Briton is being urged to stock up to nine litres of bottled water and three days’ worth of food in new government guidance designed to ensure that households can survive a weather, cyber or other serious emergency.

The Be Ready campaign is aimed at persuading people to stock up with supplies to last 72 hours, amid growing official concern about the impact of the climate crisis, technological dependency and hostile state threats.