International: All stories
UK proposes new law to create Green Brexit
16 May 2018
The UK Government is seeking to reassure the public that environmental laws will not be watered down after the country’s planned departure from the European Union.
Lloyds Bank pumps £2b into green projects
16 May 2018
Lloyds Bank is making an extra £2 billion available to help UK businesses implement sustainability initiatives.
How will drought-hit farmers feed Australia?
15 May 2018
Australia has just experienced the eighth-driest April on record with rainfall across grain, sheep and cattle heartlands well below normal. So how do farmers plan to keep the country fed?
Green homes earn more mortgage money
15 May 2018
Borrowers in the UK will be able to take out a bigger mortgage when buying greener properties for the first time, under a pioneering scheme to encourage energy efficiency.
California turns farms into carbon-sucking factories
15 May 2018
In a grand experiment, California switched on a fleet of high-tech greenhouse gas removal machines last month.
Personal grooming products might be polluting urban air
15 May 2018
New evidence suggests that compounds in deodorants, lotions, hair gels and perfumes are major sources of air pollution in urban areas.
California orders solar panels on all new homes
14 May 2018
California will require solar panels on new homes and low-rise apartment buildings starting in 2020.
No money in Aussie budget to fight climate change
14 May 2018
Australia's response to intensifying extreme weather events remains at the bottom of the national agenda, after the Federal Budget failed to deliver funding for measures to tackle climate change.
London plans to be one of greenest cities
14 May 2018
Ambitious plans have been released which seek to transform London into one of the world’s greenest cities.
Costa Rica reckons it can be the first country free of carbon
14 May 2018
Costa Rica’s newly elected president is vowing to make his country the world's first truly carbon-zero territory.
More talks set as Bonn ends in stalemate
11 May 2018
Climate negotiators gathered in Bonn to negotiate the rules that will govern the Paris Agreement have gone back home with little to show after almost two weeks of negotiation.
HAND-OUTS: More variable climate means a less just world
11 May 2018
A more variable climate spells another injustice in a warming world, with the poorest people likely yet again to feel the heat most intensely.
California faces long road to reach e-car target
11 May 2018
California continues to lead the US in electric car sales but it faces a long, hard road before it can achieve its goal of getting five million emissions-free vehicles on the road in 12 years.
Energy service finds best deal for customers
11 May 2018
An Australian consumer group Choice has launched a $99 service to compare prices from electricity retailers, monitor them for 12 months and automatically switch subscribers to the best deal.
HIGH STEAKS: What is the true cost of a world eating meat?
10 May 2018
Concerns are growing over the huge impact on the environment, human health and animal welfare grow, so what future is there for the meat industry.
Lack of models holding back e-car market
10 May 2018
The rise of electric cars in Europe is being hampered by a lack of models for consumers to choose from rather than a lack of public recharging points, say energy companies and carmakers.
Pediatricians worry about climate change
10 May 2018
Children are estimated to bear 88 per cent of the burden of disease related to climate change, according to pediatricians.
Kava gets Bonn delegates talking 'like people'
9 May 2018
Observers say Fiji’s kava-fuelled story time at the Bonn climate talks on Sunday helped to break down barriers between government representatives and campaigners.
Tourism responsible for 8% of greenhouse gas emissions
9 May 2018
Tourism accounted for 8 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions from 2009 to 2013, new research finds, making the sector a bigger polluter than the construction industry.
China is the alternative universe of car industry
9 May 2018
A state-controlled economy is forcing the world's largest car market to embrace electric car solutions, and fast. Here's what China can tell us about the automotive future.
Why you can’t have free trade and save the planet
9 May 2018
Donald Trump is simultaneously chided for refusing to cut greenhouse gas emissions, and for promoting a trade policy that reduces the causes of such emissions.
Ocean dead zones can be bought back to life
9 May 2018
The world has more than 400 dead zones in oceans and lakes where water contains so little oxygen that aquatic life can’t survive.
Atmospheric CO2 hits highest level in 800,000 years
8 May 2018
The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached its highest level in at least 800,000 years, according to scientists.
Allianz to stop insuring coal industry
8 May 2018
Insurance giant Allianz will no longer support the coal industry in a move designed to support the transition to a low-carbon economy.
'WE'RE DOOMED': Social scientist speaks out on the reality of climate change
8 May 2018
UK social scientist Mayer Hillman, 86, says accepting the impending end of most life on Earth might be the very thing needed to help us prolong it.
UK faces huge bill to get rid of North Sea oil
8 May 2018
The UK’s North Sea clean-up costs – the price to be paid for decommissioning its oil and gas industry – will probably more than double, a British group says.
NZ gets pat on the back in Bonn
7 May 2018
New Zealand’s promise to be carbon-neutral by 2050 has earned it a rare positive mention in dispatches from Climate Action Tracker.
Droughts could be worst in 800 years
7 May 2018
Droughts, floods, heatwaves, and fires have battered Australia for millennia. Are recent extreme events really worse than those in the past?
Winter winds melting Antarctica ice shelf
7 May 2018
Parts of Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf are melting in the depths of winter, when temperatures typically stay well below freezing, research finds.
Rio Tinto climate resolution marks big shift
7 May 2018
What does the advocacy group the Australian Centre for Corporate Responsibility have in common with the Local Government Super fund, the Church of England Pensions Board, and the Seventh Swedish National Pension Fund?
Coal pollution is poisoning China's rice
7 May 2018
Mercury pollution is a problem usually associated with fish consumption. But some people in China, the world’s largest mercury emitter, are exposed to more methylmercury from rice than they are from fish.
Auckland vows to free city centre of emissions
4 May 2018
Auckland is signing up to go fossil fuel-free, pledging to make the city centre emissions-free by 2030 and to clean up the bus fleet.
The true cost of making cities from the sea
4 May 2018
Asia is growing. Literally. From Malaysia to Dubai, luxury developments are rising on artificial islands and coastlines.
E-waste innovator is going to prison
4 May 2018
A Southern California man who built a sizable business out of recycling electronic waste is headed to federal prison for 15 months.
Canada eyes carbon price to cut emissions
4 May 2018
Canada says that setting a nationwide carbon price could help to cut emissions by 90 million tonnes while maintaining a strong economy.
When mountains fall into the sea
4 May 2018
As glaciers melt, unstable slopes are being exposed and are on the precipice of collapse.
Climate 'culture war' will doom Australia
3 May 2018
Australia will not achieve its emissions reductions targets until it ends the “culture war” on climate policy, Labor frontbencher Mark Butler has said.
TALANOA TALK: The 11 key themes in Bonn
3 May 2018
The Talanoa Dialogue could be a springboard to stronger action on climate change, or just another talking shop.
There’s money in sun and wind, says activist
2 May 2018
ENVIRONMENTAL campaigner Bill McKibben - who visits New Zealand next week - says the financial sector has picked up on the future of energy much quicker than politicians have.
Boaty McBoatface to spy on melting Antarctic glacier
2 May 2018
The precarious state of a vast, remote Antarctic glacier will provide an inaugural mission for the British vessel once dubbed Boaty McBoatface and its remotely operated submarine of the same name.
China's solar power boom can be seen from space
2 May 2018
China is the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, but it's also leading the world in clean energy investment and deployment.
All Paris pact counties now have climate policies
2 May 2018
All 197 countries which signed the Paris Agreement now have at least one law in place to limit global temperatures.
Belt and Road will cost the environment
1 May 2018
China is aggressively trying to leverage on a trillion-dollar transportation and energy infrastructure construction programme that poses potential environmental impacts.
What price trees in our megacities?
1 May 2018
The ecological footprint of population growth is vast and there’s far more that can be done to improve life for urban residents around the world.
Supermud bricks could rescue housing and carbon emissions
1 May 2018
The housing problems of western nations like New Zealand pale in comparison to the scale of the crisis facing much of the world.
DIVIDED COUNTRY: Border gets the creeps
1 May 2018
The stark climatic border in the US separating the sultry east from the dry west is rapidly shifting - a change that could have a significant future impact.
The hills are alive with the signs of plastic
1 May 2018
A major study has found microplastics in soil across Switzerland and scientists warn urgent research is needed into impacts on food safety.
Arctic currents change as did the ancient Pacific
1 May 2018
Changes in Arctic currents today appear to reflect similar changes thousands of years ago – in the North Pacific. Scientists think they may be linked.
Bonn meeting to sort out Paris pact
30 Apr 2018
A meeting to hammer out the “operating manual” for the Paris Agreement starts in Bonn today.
Making our cities cooler is a no-brainer
30 Apr 2018
Numerous cities are trying to do something what's known as the urban heat island effect. But there is a very long way to go. So what is holding us back, and what needs to happen?
“There was so much death.” A toxic algal bloom is ravaging Australia’s southern coast – warming waters are to blame
Today 10:45am
Three ingredients are required for an algal bloom to get going – temperature, the right conditions and food. South Australia had all the preconditions necessary, thanks to climate change.
We used to stash gold in Fort Knox. What if we did the same with carbon?
Today 10:45am
If we could convince the masses that waste carbon dioxide is sacred and worth hoarding — like gold — one of our most existential problems might solve itself.
China's carbon market to introduce absolute emissions caps from 2027
Wed 27 Aug 2025
China will tighten its carbon trading market by introducing absolute emissions caps in some industries for the first time starting by 2027.
Apple Watch not a 'CO2-neutral product,' German court finds
Thu 28 Aug 2025
Apple can no longer advertise its Apple Watch as a "CO2-neutral product" in Germany, following a court ruling on Tuesday that upheld a complaint from environmentalists, finding that the U.S. tech company had misled consumers.
What happens to net zero if the trees don’t survive?
20 Aug 2025
When climate change undermines the climate plan.
Challenges persist in bid to mine the deep sea, even after boost from Trump
29 Jul 2025
After years of delay, the deep-sea mining plans of Canadian firm The Metals Company (TMC) now appear to be progressing as it pursues a controversial new path to securing a license to mine in international waters under U.S. jurisdiction.
Singapore seals carbon credit deal with Thailand, its first South-east Asian partner
Thu 28 Aug 2025
The agreement, the eighth for Singapore, helps both nations meet climate targets under the Paris Agreement, directing finance to Thai projects.
Rise in dengue fever outbreaks across the Pacific driven by the climate crisis, experts say
13 Aug 2025
Samoa, Fiji and Tonga among the worst affected amid warning the disease and others will become ‘more common and more serious’ as the planet warms.
Iconic Antarctic species at risk amid 'regime shift', with 'rapid and self-perpetuating changes'
22 Aug 2025
Scientists say there is emerging evidence of abrupt and potentially unstoppable changes in the Antarctic environment.
Is Africa about to see the solar energy boom it needs?
Thu 28 Aug 2025
African countries imported a record number of solar panels in the past year, which could be the beginning of a green energy boom on the continent.
Lessons from the Incas: How llamas, terraces and trees could help the Andes survive climate change
Thu 28 Aug 2025
New research suggests solutions may lie in environmental knowledge that the Incas and their predecessors developed centuries ago.
Brazil issues last-ditch plea for countries to submit climate plans ahead of COP30
20 Aug 2025
Only 28 countries have submitted carbon-cutting proposals to the UN, with some of the biggest emitters yet to produce plans.
