International: All stories

STUDY SUCCESS: No doubts, carbon pricing works
15 Jul 2020
Putting a price on carbon should reduce emissions, because it makes dirty production processes more expensive than clean ones, right?

UK premier faces court over covid-19 recovery
14 Jul 2020
Lawyers who stopped the expansion of Heathrow Airport because it would be bad for the climate are now turning their sights on Boris Johnson's covid-19 economic recovery plans.

Melting glacier yields newspapers from 1966 plane crash
14 Jul 2020
COPIES of Indian newspapers onboard an Air India jet that crashed into Mont Blanc in the 1960s have been revealed by melting ice on the mountain’s Bossons glacier.

The plan to unite Biden and Bernie is finally here
13 Jul 2020
Once upon a time, many moons ago — ie back in April — Democratic presidential primary candidate Bernie Sanders agreed to exit the race and join forces with his mortal frenemy Joe Biden to help the former vice-president take the White House.

GAS CURSE: Mozambique’s multi-billion dollar gamble
13 Jul 2020
A decade after prospectors struck gas off Cabo Delgado, northern Mozambique, a consortium led by Total is signing contracts worth $16 billion to exploit it.

Which species will win and lose in a warmer climate?
13 Jul 2020
As the global climate shifts, it’s important to know which species have adaptations to survive. Our research published today in PNAS found it largely depends on where they evolved.

Nature doesn't trust us any more
13 Jul 2020
Frozen ground in the Arctic is thawing, harming indigenous people’s hunting livelihoods and destabilising buildings and roads across the rapidly warming region.

First State to divest thermal coal assets
10 Jul 2020
One of Australia's biggest industry superannuation funds plans to sell down its investments in thermal coal miners in a bid to protect its members from the financial impact of climate change.

CO2 in atmosphere nearing levels of 15m years ago
10 Jul 2020
The amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere is approaching a level not seen in 15m years and perhaps never previously experienced by a hominoid, according to the authors of a study.

Warming waters could see fewer common fish
10 Jul 2020
As many as 60 per cent of the world's fish species could struggle to breed and reproduce if climate change causes the Earth to warm by 5deg over the next 80 years, according to a new study.

Fossil fuel companies take at least $3b in covis aid
9 Jul 2020
More than 5600 companies in the fossil fuel industry have taken a minimum of $3b in coronavirus aid from the US federal government, according to a new analysis.

Climate activists see ‘new era’ after pipeline victories
9 Jul 2020
Climate activists sense a turning point in their war against the Trump administration's effort to cement a fossil-fueled future for the United States, with three major defeats for high-profile oil and gas pipeline projects.

Rare night clouds may be warning sign of climate crisis
9 Jul 2020
Something magical appeared at night over London and other parts of Britain last month: ripples of electric blue clouds shimmered in the twilight sky after sunset.

Sun has a secret plan to become a lithium factory
8 Jul 2020
Lithium is used in everything from medication to mobile phone batteries, but where does it come from?

Marseille turns green with election of first woman mayor
8 Jul 2020
Marseille has become the latest French municipality to elect a green mayor in a wave that has swept the country since local elections at the end of last month.

Tesla top on back of tech boost and China sales
7 Jul 2020
Electric motor manufacturer Tesla became the world's most valuable carmaker last week, overtaking Toyota, despite never having made an annual profit.

‘Million-mile’ batteries are coming
7 Jul 2020
Electric vehicles have a clear environmental advantage over their gas-guzzling counterparts, but when it comes to longevity, the two are in a dead heat.

Nuclear plans flounder through muddy dispute
7 Jul 2020
Vast quantities of mud, which campaigners say might contain radioactive particles, are the latest problem to confront the UK’s nuclear plans for two new reactors under construction in the West of England.

Aussies score on covid but limp on climate change
7 Jul 2020
Australia has been ranked third behind South Korea and Latvia in a global report on the effectiveness of its response to the covid-19 pandemic -- but 37th in in the fight against climate change.

What an ocean hidden under Antarctica reveals about our future climate
6 Jul 2020
Jules Verne sent his fictional submarine, the Nautilus, to the South Pole through a hidden ocean beneath a thick ice cap. Written 40 years before any explorer had reached the pole, his story was nevertheless only half fiction.

Proud California dairy farmer takes it on the chin
6 Jul 2020
Californian dairyman Scott Magneson just keeps on farming, despite the economic fallout from a pandemic and the extreme weather — floods, drought, wildfires — linked to climate change.

Air pollution likely to make coronavirus worse
3 Jul 2020
Air pollution is probably increasing the number and severity of covid-19 cases and could be important to managing the pandemic, experts say.

Australia claims climate success
2 Jul 2020
Despite three decades of relative inaction on climate change and stalling from successive Australian Governments, the Morrison Government has claimed success in meeting Australia’s targets under the Kyoto Protocol, which came to an end on Wednesday.

UK heading for the heat
2 Jul 2020
The likelihood of the UK experiencing deadly 40deg temperatures for the first time is “rapidly accelerating” due to the climate crisis, scientists have found.

Spain to close half its coal-fired power stations
1 Jul 2020
Spain is on track to become a coal-free country in record time. All of its remaining coal-fired thermal power plants started shutting down yesterday, a year-and-a-half after the closure of the coal mines.

How Pacific nations can survive climate change
1 Jul 2020
They contribute only 0.03 per cent of global carbon emissions, but small island developing states, particularly in the Pacific, are at extreme risk to the threats of climate change.

Beavers new threat as Arctic lakes thaw
1 Jul 2020
Beavers are creating lakes that accelerate the thawing of frozen soils and potentially increase greenhouse gas emissions, a study finds.

How Europe can be carbon-neutral by 2040
30 Jun 2020
The European Union can reach climate neutrality as early as 2040, according to a group of environmental NGOs which have mapped out a scenario to move the bloc towards a 100 per cent renewable energy system by then.

Ireland latest country to set net-zero target
30 Jun 2020
Ireland’s new coalition government has set itself a goal to deliver steep greenhouse gas emissions cuts every year to reach neutrality by 2050.

World's biggest renewables companies abysmal on human rights
30 Jun 2020
Renewable energy companies are falling short on efforts to safeguard the rights of workers and communities in their operations and throughout mineral supply chains, placing the sector’s legitimacy and the global clean energy switch at risk, a new analysis says.

KENYA CALL: My land is now owned by lions
29 Jun 2020
PARSOLOI KUPAI'S home, situated on the edge of Ol Kinyei conservancy near the Maasai Mara game reserve, is no different from any other Maasai homestead – oval-shaped huts with an almost flat roof and walls plastered with a mixture of water, mud and cow dung.

Trump plan would open huge area of Alaska to drilling
29 Jun 2020
Some of most ecologically sensitive lands in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, a few hundred miles west of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, might soon be open for business to the oil industry.

Extremists exploit rural nostalgia and farmers’ anger
29 Jun 2020
The poster advertising an evening of debate and organic canapés looked familiar to environmentally conscious Germans - a rugged pair of hands, cupping fertile brown soil, underneath the slogan “Farms instead of agricultural factories”, written in a font mimicking that of a popular biodynamic food brand.

THAT'S RICH: Affluence is killing the planet
26 Jun 2020
iN SOCIETIES where money can buy almost everything, being rich is generally perceived as something good. But there's a catch: affluence trashes our planetary life support systems.

Border villagers prepare to dethrone the duke
26 Jun 2020
The 2300 villagers of Langholm, a Scottish settlement a few miles north of the English border, hope to buy one of the UK’s most famous grouse moors, owned by one of the Britain's most-powerful hereditary landowners, the Duke of Buccleuch.

Is sea-steading a vanity project for the rich?
25 Jun 2020
Beloved by Silicon Valley tycoons and tyranny-fearing libertarians, are cities atop the waves Earth’s next frontier?

Green recovery was the great hope of 2009
25 Jun 2020
When the Obama administration entered the White House in January 2009, the first hope was to put people back to work and also accelerate transition to a clean-energy economy.

Why Americans can't afford to turn on the taps
25 Jun 2020
Millions of ordinary Americans are facing rising and unaffordable bills for running water, and risk being disconnected or losing their homes if they cannot pay, a landmark Guardian investigation has found.

Glacier gets the tarp treatment
25 Jun 2020
Workers lay out huge geotextile sheets on the Presena glacier in northern Italy A vast tarpaulin unravels, gathering speed as it bounces down the glacier over glinting snow. Summer is here and the alpine ice is being protected from global warming.

Nature’s accounts show what the world does for us
25 Jun 2020
People go on getting richer, and the planet pays a mounting price. There’s a better way to balance nature’s accounts.

Zero-carbon homes must lead the green recovery
24 Jun 2020
Living in a house that doesn’t fully meet your needs might have been tolerable when you spent more of your time elsewhere, but a third of the world has been stuck indoors at one time during the pandemic.

Come on England, time to seize the day
24 Jun 2020
England must “seize the day” and create a national nature service to restore wildlife and habitats, says a coalition of the country’s biggest green groups.

Five communities go in search of green justice
24 Jun 2020
From New York to Los Angeles, Minneapolis to the Gulf Coast, people of colour suffer disproportionately from climate change, pollution and callous government.

EU puts onus on ‘renewable hydrogen’
23 Jun 2020
An updated version of the European Commission’s draft hydrogen strategy confirms the EU’s “priority focus” on clean hydrogen produced from renewable electricity, but also recognises the role played by “fossil-based hydrogen” in the transition.

Grass keeps cities cool when heat goes on
23 Jun 2020
Keeping suburban parks green year-round can lower city temperatures by up to 12 deg during summer heatwaves, researchers say.

Why sport is bad news for the climate
23 Jun 2020
The carbon footprint of sport is causing is worldwide damage. And global heating is itself penalising players and fans alike.

Why world has six months to divert climate crisis
22 Jun 2020
The world has only six months in which to change the course of the climate crisis and prevent a post-lockdown rebound in greenhouse gas emissions that would overwhelm efforts to stave off climate catastrophe, one of the world’s foremost energy experts has warned.

China’s Erin Brockovich goes global to stop China
22 Jun 2020
Environment lawyer Zhang Jingjing has worked in 20 countries since 2015 to help clean up or shut down Chinese-owned mines, power plants or industrial projects.

Map of uncharted ocean beds takes shape
22 Jun 2020
The ocean floor is less well known than the surface of Mars and charting it could help show how oceans impact the earth's climate.

Climate 'progressives’ fail on Paris carbon target
22 Jun 2020
Nations which pride themselves on their zeal in tackling climate change by cutting carbon dioxide emissions as they have promised, the so-called “climate progressives”, are a long way from living up to their promises, scientists say.