International: All stories
Nations (minus the US) pledge nearly $10b
30 Oct 2019
The US did not take part in an international climate fund meeting at which wealthy countries pledged nearly $10 billion to assist poorer nations in combatting climate change.
SUVs second-biggest cause of emissions rise, says study
29 Oct 2019
Growing demand for SUVs was the second largest contributor to the increase in global CO2 emissions from 2010 to 2018, an analysis has found.
FARTY PARTY: Munich beer bash is a gas for emissions
29 Oct 2019
Scientists say the annual Munich Oktoberfest celebration of beer, bands and bratwurst produces methane emissions as high as some major cities.
Macron turns on climate protesters
25 Oct 2019
Why are climate protesters being tear-gassed under the watch of France’s president, a self-defined climate champion?
JUNGLE BUNGLE: Brazil pushes Amazon to 2021 tipping point
25 Oct 2019
The destructive policies of Brazil president Jair Bolsonaro could push the Amazon rainforest to an irreversible tipping point within two years.
US green economy boasts 10 times more jobs
25 Oct 2019
The green economy has grown so much in the US that it employs around 10 times as many people as the fossil fuel industry.
Exxon turned its back on us, say scientists
25 Oct 2019
Telling their story before a Congressional committee for the first time, two former ExxonMobil scientists have detailed how the oil giant turned its back on the research they did for the company 40 years ago on the looming threat of climate change.
Packed court watches as Exxon goes on trial
24 Oct 2019
ExxonMobil has gone on trial in a packed courtroom in New York, where the oil giant stands accused of defrauding investors by misleading them about the risks it faces from future climate regulations.
Cities seek help to set up waste-energy plants
24 Oct 2019
Garbage from homes, schools and businesses around the globe amounted to 2.2 billion tonnes) in 2016, disproportionately discarded by people in North America, Europe and Central Asia.
HORROR STORY: It's scary the pollution Halloween produces
24 Oct 2019
Halloween next week will produce a frightening amount of plastic pollution in the form of food and costume packaging, masks and accessories, and costumes made from polyester, nylon, and acrylic.
Canadian election gives carbon tax a chance
23 Oct 2019
Environment leaders say the federal election result should be a signal from Canadians that climate change should no longer be fodder for partisan bickering.
Melting glaciers reveal five islands in Arctic
23 Oct 2019
The Russian navy says it has discovered five new islands revealed by melting glaciers in the remote Arctic.
Cook Islands sacked me, says opponent of seabed mining
22 Oct 2019
The public champion of the world’s largest marine reserve – the Cook Islands’ Marae Moana – has said she lost her job managing it because she supported a moratorium on seabed mining in the Pacific.
Exxon and oil sands go on trial in New York
22 Oct 2019
The New York attorney-general says Exxon used two sets of books and misled investors by downplaying the potential costs of carbon emissions.
Engineers turn backs on new fossil fuel projects
22 Oct 2019
Engineering firms in Australia are under increased pressure from their own employees to abandon controversial fossil fuel projects, as the sector turns its attention to the climate crisis.
Warming forces world of ice into retreat
22 Oct 2019
New evidence from the air, space, atmospheric chemistry and old records is testament to global warming impacts on the speed of change in the frozen world.
It's a tragic, desperate mess, says Attenborough
21 Oct 2019
Humanity has made a “tragic, desperate mess” of the planet, Sir David Attenborough has said.
Cocaine traffickers fuel climate change
21 Oct 2019
An ever-expanding US market for cocaine is leading to drug traffickers destroying swathes of tropical forest to create new transport routes.
Europe’s largest floating solar plant up and running
21 Oct 2019
The Rhône valley in southern France is best known for its wines and food. Now, it can also add solar power to its list of attractions.
Direct action the only way, says protester Porritt
18 Oct 2019
Direct action by protesters is the only thing that will push politicians into treating climate change as the crisis it is, says the chair of Air New Zealand’s sustainability board, Sir Jonathon Porritt.
Temperatures driving alarming levels of hunger
18 Oct 2019
The climate crisis is driving alarming levels of hunger in the world, undermining food security in the world’s most vulnerable regions, according to this year’s global hunger index.
Trump plans to open 'America's Amazon' to loggers
18 Oct 2019
Donald Trump’s administration is proposing to lift longstanding restrictions on logging in part of southeast Alaska known as “America’s Amazon”.
EU bank puts off climate policy decision
18 Oct 2019
The European Investment Bank has decided to delay until next month a decision on updating its energy lending policy.
Sorry about that, says Ecuador, and reinstates Big Oil subsidies
18 Oct 2019
Calm has returned to the streets of Quito after Ecuador’s government agreed to reinstate fuel subsidies following 11 days of nationwide, violent protests.
Italy eyes cheaper food without packaging
18 Oct 2019
Italian shoppers could soon enjoy a discount on products sold loose as part of a range of measures expected to be approved by the government.
BARE FACTS: Australia's hidden climate crisis
17 Oct 2019
Farming communities in Australia are bitterly divided over an epidemic of land clearing they say is sabotaging efforts to address climate change.
XR eyes legal action over London ban
17 Oct 2019
Extinction Rebellion is eyeing a legal challenge after police placed a London-wide ban on the group’s ongoing climate protest.
Queensland wants to jail XR protesters
16 Oct 2019
Queensland has proposed two-year jail sentences for Extinction Rebellion protesters caught with a locking device used to fix people in public places.
Copenhagen sprints to crown of first carbon-neutral capital
16 Oct 2019
Green growth and ‘hedonistic sustainability’ have helped to keep the public on board as Copenhagen seeks to be the first carbon-neutral city by 2025.
We'll see more ebola outbreaks, say scientists
16 Oct 2019
Outbreaks of ebola – the deadly virus that causes severe bleeding and liver and kidney failure – are likely to increase as the climate warms, scientists say.
Why don't all buildings have green roofs?
15 Oct 2019
Rooftops covered with grass, vegetable gardens and lush foliage are now a common sight in many cities around the world.
SURVIVAL CITY: What happens if cities act but nations don't?
15 Oct 2019
It is cities, not national governments, that are most aggressively fighting the climate crisis – and in 30 years they could look radically different.
It’s only October, so what’s with all these bushfires?
15 Oct 2019
Summer might be more than six weeks away, but out-of-control bushfires have already torn across parts of eastern Australia in recent days, destroying homes and threatening lives.
Big Three oversee $300b in fossil fuel investments
14 Oct 2019
The world’s three largest money managers have built a combined $300bn fossil fuel investment portfolio using money from people’s private savings and pension contributions, the Guardian reveals.
World needs a massive carbon tax, says IMF
14 Oct 2019
A global agreement to make fossil fuel burning more expensive is urgent and the most efficient way of fighting climate change, the International Monetary Fund says.
The 20 firms behind a third of all carbon emissions
11 Oct 2019
The Guardian has revealed the 20 fossil fuel companies whose relentless exploitation of the world’s oil, gas and coal reserves can be directly linked to more than one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions in the modern era.
Fight for our largest forest (it's not the Amazon)
11 Oct 2019
Cheremkhovsky forest covers a 7900 sq km sweep of terrain, but it is merely a dot in the sprawling 12 million sq km Russian boreal forest, or taiga, the world’s largest forested region.
It seems there's a little bit of the climate denier in all of us
11 Oct 2019
It's easy to spot outright rejection of the facts on climate change. But it's far harder to see our own biases and excuses that lead us to delay or deny the need for real action.
Coal is still king in Southeast Asia
10 Oct 2019
Not only will coal continue to be the dominant fuel source in power generation in Southeast Asia, its use will grow and peak in 2027 before slowing, according to a new study.
TOMATO SOURCE: Hothouses will grow up to 20 tonnes a day
10 Oct 2019
Giant greenhouses will be used to grow up to 20 tonnes of tomatoes a day using the heat from water treatment facilities in the UK.
Pope v president as Amazon burns
8 Oct 2019
Two of the most powerful forces in Brazil, the president and the pope, are pulling in opposite directions on an issue critical to climate change.
How Extinction Rebellion put the whole world on red alert
8 Oct 2019
Members of Extinction Rebellion have been described in the UK media as ecomaniacs, ecoradicals, dangerous, and a bloody mess.
Universities sign landmark deal to buy renewable
8 Oct 2019
Twenty of the UK’s leading universities have struck a £50m deal to buy renewable energy directly from British windfarms for the first time.
Human ancestors lived in a low-carbon world
8 Oct 2019
For the entire 2.5 million years of the Ice Age epoch called the Pleistocene, it was a low-carbon world.
Can cities save the planet?
7 Oct 2019
By 2050 about two-thirds of the human population — that is six out of the world’s nine billion people — will be living in cities.
Jail climate protesters, says Australian minister
7 Oct 2019
Protesters who disrupt traffic should have their welfare payments cut and be subject to mandatory jail sentences, Australia's home affairs minister Peter Dutton has declared.
Ocean boom picks up plastic for first time
4 Oct 2019
A huge floating device designed to clean up an island of rubbish in the Pacific Ocean that is three times the size of France has successfully picked up plastic from the high seas for the first time.
Scotland takes aim at green red tape
4 Oct 2019
Developments that tackle climate change could avoid having to get planning permission, under proposals being considered by the Scottish government.
Antarctica shows 65,000 ‘meltwater lakes’
4 Oct 2019
Blue lakes have been forming in record numbers around the edges of the Antarctic ice sheet as warmer temperatures cause snow and ice to melt and collect in depressions on the surface.
TURNING OF THE SCREW: Royal Shakespeare Company cuts BP
4 Oct 2019
The Royal Shakespeare Company is to end its sponsorship deal with BP amid growing opposition to fossil fuel sponsorship of cultural institutions.
Australian governments subsidising fossil fuel use by more than $30,000 a minute, analysis finds
Fri 13 Mar 2026
Australian federal and state government subsidies that encourage fossil fuel use and help drive the climate crisis will reach $16.3bn this year after leaping by nearly 10%, according to a new analysis.
US National Academies of Sciences says no to demands it remove climate info
Today 11:30am
State attorneys general won't get climate chapter removed from a legal manual.
What does China’s 15th ‘five-year plan’ mean for climate change?
10 Mar 2026
China’s leadership has published a draft of its 15th five-year plan setting the strategic direction for the nation out to 2030, including support for clean energy and energy security.
Germany misses climate targets as emissions barely fall in 2025
Tue 17 Mar 2026
Greenhouse gas emissions in Germany have again missed targets set by the Climate Protection Act and barely fell at all in 2025.
UK emissions fall 2.4% in 2025 as coal hits 400-year low
9 Mar 2026
The UK’s greenhouse gas emissions fell by 2.4% in 2025 to their lowest level in more than 150 years, according to new analysis.
Mark Carney just picked his lane on climate change
17 Feb 2026
COMMENT: Mark Carney's time as prime minister has been defined in part by his decision to roll back Trudeau-era climate policies.
'The situation is dire': War on Iran squeezes India's cooking-gas supplies
Mon 16 Mar 2026
The shockwaves of a war being fought nearly 3,000km away are now reaching India's kitchens.
Vanuatu moves forward with UN climate resolution despite Trump opposition
9 Mar 2026
The Trump administration’s attempt to sink a UN resolution demanding countries act on the climate crisis has caused cuts to the proposal but hasn’t entirely killed it, according to the tiny Pacific island country spearheading the effort.
Limiting warming to 2C is ‘crucial’ to protect pristine Antarctic Peninsula
24 Feb 2026
Keeping global warming to less than 2C above pre-industrial temperatures is “crucial” for limiting damage to the Antarctic Peninsula’s unique ecosystems, according to a new study.
'Blackwater' lakes and rivers in the Congo Basin are now emitting ancient carbon into the atmosphere
Mon 16 Mar 2026
Carbon that has been buried in the Congo Basin's peatlands for millennia is seeping into lakes and rivers. Why this is happening remains unclear, but researchers warn that tropical peatlands could be nearing a tipping point.
Companies – including Blackrock – retired 2 million carbon credits after Verra suspended project
Thu 12 Mar 2026
Verra suspended the Pacajai REDD project in Brazil in September 2023, pending an investigation into the project’s validity. That didn’t stop Mastercard, BlackRock, Philip Morris International from retiring carbon credits from the project to offset their greenhouse gas emissions.
Iran war should trigger faster exit from fossil fuel dependence, UN climate chief says
Today 11:30am
The disruption to energy markets caused by the Iran war is a lesson on the risks of relying on fossil fuels which should drive governments to wean their economies off oil and gas faster, the U.N. climate secretary told Reuters on Monday.
