Guerrilla leader turned president says, faced with having to reduce their carbon consumption, upper classes fear ‘the barbarians are coming’
Middle-class fears of losing a high standard of living because of green policies is driving the rise of the far right across the world, the president of Colombia has warned.
In a wide-ranging interview with the Guardian at the Cop28 UN climate summit, Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s first leftwing president, said the world had to find carbon-free ways of being prosperous, and that his country’s rich biodiversity would be the basis of its wealth after phasing out fossil fuels.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
12/09/2023 - 04:00
12/09/2023 - 04:00
Exclusive: freedom of information request reveals ministers rejected plan to make pledge legally binding
The UK government has no plans to meet its target for everyone to live within a 15-minute walk of a green space, the Guardian can reveal.
Ministers have also scrapped an idea to make the target for access to nature legally binding, a freedom of information request submitted by the Right to Roam campaign shows.
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12/09/2023 - 02:06
As the conference goes into the last few days, today’s theme will be nature and forests
Steve Barclay, the UK secretary of state for the environment, defended the absence of his colleague Claire Coutinho, the UK’s energy security and net zero secretary, from the Cop28 global climate summit.
Coutinho is the most senior UK politician on the climate crisis, in charge of the government’s legally binding commitment to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and second only to prime minister Rishi Sunak. But she has attended Cop28 only briefly, in the opening stages, and as the negotiations reach their crunch hours she is not planning to return to Dubai.
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12/08/2023 - 23:00
Food and agriculture firms have sent three times as many delegates to the climate summit as last year
Lobbyists from industrial agriculture companies and trade groups have turned out in record numbers at Cop28, with three times as many delegates representing the meat and dairy industry as last year.
Representatives are present from some of the world’s largest agribusiness companies – such as the meat supplier JBS, the fertiliser giant Nutrien, the food giant Nestlé and the pesticide company Bayer – as well as powerful industry lobby groups.
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12/08/2023 - 13:31
A challenge among three housemates to identify species around their inner-Brisbane home has resulted in an academic research paper, showcasing the rich biodiversity in urban landscapes.
12/08/2023 - 13:31
Record breaking marine heatwaves will cause devastating mass coral bleaching worldwide in the next few years, according to a coral reef scientist.
12/08/2023 - 12:55
Blast in Sidcup not being treated as terrorism but counter-terror officers are leading investigation
The London mayor’s office has condemned a “grotesquely irresponsible” attack in which a camera enforcing the city’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) was damaged with what appeared to be a homemade bomb, saying lives were put at risk.
There was no immediate reaction on the incident from Downing Street or the Home Office, with No 10 saying it could not comment amid a police inquiry, but that it condemned “criminality more generally”.
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12/08/2023 - 11:21
‘It’s a form of social justice,’ says Anne Hidalgo of move to target richest drivers to tackle climate breakdown
Paris intends to triple parking charges for large sports utility vehicles (SUVs) in order to push them out of the city and limit emissions and air pollution, the mayor has said.
“It is a form of social justice,” Anne Hidalgo announced on Friday of the plan to deliberately target the richest drivers to tackle the climate breakdown and air pollution. “This is about very expensive cars, driven by people who today have not yet made the changes to their behaviour that have to be made [for the climate].”
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12/08/2023 - 10:49
Gatorland in Orlando consulting public for name after birth of ‘absolutely extraordinary’ leucistic gator
An incredibly rare form of white alligator has been born at a Florida alligator-themed park, which is now consulting the public for a name.
“Oh boy, we have some exciting news here at Gatorland,” said Mark McHugh, president and chief executive of Gatorland in a statement on Instagram that showed a video of the pale leucistic gator freshly emerged from its shell.
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12/08/2023 - 10:07
Australia’s climate minister flags difficulties around any final wording but hails ‘important symbol’ as talks intensify in Dubai
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Chris Bowen has indicated Australia may be willing to back a global commitment at the Cop28 climate summit to phase out fossil fuels.
The Australian climate change minister has also flagged that position may be unlikely to be adopted at the meeting in the United Arab Emirates unless it was attached to the word “unabated” – a controversial and undefined term usually taken to mean fossil fuels can continue if they are cutting their pollution through the use of carbon capture and storage (CCS).
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