The highest priority must be to ensure land-clearing is properly regulated to save our native forests
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Australia’s parliament will soon consider proposed reforms to federal environmental laws – known as the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Unfortunately, signals from the government suggest this may be another reform process that fails to deliver the progress we need – despite everyone agreeing that Australia’s biodiversity is in catastrophic decline.
When introduced, the EPBC Act was a historic reform by a conservative government. For the first time since federation, the Australian parliament exercised its full suite of constitutional powers to regulate environmentally harmful actions on all tenures.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
10/27/2025 - 20:00
10/27/2025 - 19:53
UN secretary general António Guterres speaks to the Guardian and Sumaúma about the 'failure' of the Cop process to limit global heating to 1.5C, that overshooting is now 'inevitable', and why defending the rights of indigenous communities should be a top priority for global leaders
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10/27/2025 - 19:01
Peers say ‘woeful’ record on prosecutions has led to a ‘low-risk, high-reward’ criminal culture
Organised crime groups in the UK are making millions every year from illegally dumping and burning rubbish, peers have told ministers, after an inquiry found a lack of enforcement made it a “low-risk, high-reward” criminal enterprise.
“Criminality is endemic in the waste sector,” a Lords committee told the government on Tuesday, after it found at least 38m tonnes of waste was illegally managed every year, “leading to serious environmental, economic and social consequences”.
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10/27/2025 - 19:01
Exclusive: ‘Devastating consequences’ now inevitable but emissions cuts still vital, says António Guterres in sole interview before Cop30
I am the first Indigenous journalist to exclusively interview António Guterres. How many others will listen?
Humanity has failed to limit global heating to 1.5C and must change course immediately, the secretary general of the UN has warned.
In his only interview before next month’s Cop30 climate summit, António Guterres acknowledged it is now “inevitable” that humanity will overshoot the target in the Paris climate agreement, with “devastating consequences” for the world.
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10/27/2025 - 13:09
One energy industry source says they expected an annual budget as high as £2bn to meet UK’s green energy targets
The energy secretary, Ed Miliband, has set aside £1.1bn a year for offshore wind power developers investing in new projects in a funding round seen by some in the industry as too small to meet the UK’s green electricity targets.
The government’s energy department said today it had budgeted £900m to pay developers of fixed wind turbines at sea and £180m for floating platforms.
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10/27/2025 - 09:52
Climate crisis drives near-total collapse of staghorn and elkhorn corals that formed backbone to state’s reefs
Two of the most important coral species that made up Florida’s reef are now functionally extinct after a withering ocean heatwave caused catastrophic losses, scientists have found.
The near-total collapse of the corals that once formed the backbone of reefs in Florida and the Caribbean means they can no longer play their previously crucial role in building and sustaining reef ecosystems that host a variety of marine life.
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10/27/2025 - 09:00
Do I really need to replace my telephone every two years? Could my next laptop be recycled rather than brand new?
I have an urgent desire to shed myself of goods and chattels.
The acquisitions of a fortunate life have accumulated like an overflowing email inbox and simply must be dealt with while I am alive, and not left to my children to wrangle when they’ll (hopefully, long down the track) be grieving.
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10/27/2025 - 07:32
Extinction rates are not spiraling upward as many believe, according to a large-scale study analyzing 500 years of data. Researchers found that species losses peaked about a century ago and have decreased since, with different drivers shaping past and present threats. Whereas invasive species once caused most island extinctions, habitat destruction now looms largest on continents.
10/27/2025 - 05:00
Study of Met Office data one of first to show how nocturnal insects affected by factors such as light pollution
Scientists have used Met Office radar data to track the trillions of insects flying above the UK for the first time, revealing a concerning decline in nocturnal species.
The team repurposed data from the UK’s network of 15 weather surveillance radars, which scan the sky hundreds of times a day.
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10/27/2025 - 03:29
New ‘national interest’ provision revealed as extracts of legislation circulated to stakeholders before bill introduced to parliament later this week
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The environment minister would be able to approve projects at odds with nature laws if it was deemed in the “national interest” under the Albanese government’s planned overhaul of the environmental protection regime.
The proposed new provision was revealed in extracts of the legislation that were circulated to stakeholders on Monday, before its introduction to federal parliament later this week.
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