Climate calling

Leaders are gathering in Brazil for the UN COP30 Climate Summit as the United Nations declares the world will not meet the 1.5 degree warming limit set in 2015. With 2025 set to be one of the warmest years on record, the most vulnerable small island nations are pleading for stronger action.

This year's global climate summit - COP30 - is being hailed as the most significant in ten years, with experts describing it the "make or break decade" for action on global warming. But doubts are being raised about whether enough can be achieved.

Australians in three states are to be offered three hours of free electricity in the middle of the day, under a scheme to share abundant solar energy harvested in non-peak hours. The plan has been welcomed by environmental groups, but some in the Opposition are unimpressed.

The author of the review that triggered the government's environment reforms has fully endorsed Labor's nature legislation. Professor Graeme Samuel has told SBS the bill implements the 'totality' of the recommendations he made in his report, five years after it was delivered. The Greens and Coalition have objected to the bill, with Greens leader Larissa Waters describing it as 1400 pages gift-wrap...

Australia's most significant environmental law reform in decades has been tabled in Parliament, but it faces immediate political deadlock with opponents in the Senate ready to delay the vote. As Minister Murray Watt pushes for a swift resolution, he must navigate an environment where both the Coalition and the Greens are demanding major concessions on accountability, climate, and industry protecti...

A large white coral reef containing important species and fossil traces has been discovered at a depth of more than 500 metres in the Gulf of Naples, in a rare discovery for the Mediterranean. But a new report suggests reefs like this might already be in danger, with global warming crossing dangerous thresholds sooner than expected and the world's coral reefs now in an almost irreversible die-off....

South Australia's algal bloom continues to spread, leading to significant environmental, ecological and mental health harm. Those impacts have been heard at a Senate inquiry examining support arrangements for those affected, but also long-term prevention strategies.

Youth advocates from around the world have gathered at the UN headquarters in New York to participate in the high-level plenary meeting of the General Assembly. Their meeting marked the thirtieth anniversary of the World Programme of Action for Youth.

New research has found Australia's heat-stressed forests are rapidly thinning, and could even be producing carbon emissions. It comes as the government prepares to release its 2035 emissions targets and a climate risk report later this month. But local researchers, politicians and Traditional Owner land groups remain divided on how to protect the forest.

Climate advocates say the federal government's 2035 emissions reduction target falls "dangerously short", while the Coalition has said its plan is "grounded in fantasy land". Government ministers are now working to justify the target to the public and the community, as the Coalition is under pressure to outline their climate policy.

Liberal senator Jonathan Duniam has warned the Coalition will face a "mass exodus" from its frontbench if it adopts a net zero policy without caveats, handing Opposition leader Sussan Ley a fresh test over the party's stance on climate action. The warning comes a day after Liberal MP Andrew Hastie threatened to quit the party if it pursued a policy of net zero emissions by 2050.

As the Coalition remains divided over net zero emission targets, former security leaders are warning the government that climate change poses an immediate national security threat. In the Senate, the Greens are pushing for the release of the National Climate Risk Assessment Report while Nationals Senator Matt Canavan is pushing ahead with a bill to repeal net zero.

After a summer in which much of western and southern Europe were impacted by catastrophic fires and searing heat, Spain now forming a plan to prepare for future disasters. Scientists say action is needed to reduce emissions and increase resilience, in the face of inevitable worsening conditions.

Environment Minister Murray Watt has announced an accelerated timeframe to improve Australia's 'broken' biodiversity and conservation laws. It comes after broad consensus emerged on the urgent need for reform at the government's economic roundtable. Labor is promising stronger environmental protections and faster project approvals - but it's not the first time.

Last summer's marine heat wave was the largest and most intense on record in Western Australia, says a new report from the Australian Institute of Marine Science. The sustained heat has caused unprecedented bleaching across Western Australia's reefs, with experts saying it could take months to uncover the full extent of the damage.

The government is under pressure from the United Nations and the crossbench to set an ambitious climate target. It comes as some coalition backbenchers are pushing for net zero to be scrapped all together.

The UN's top climate diplomat is in Australia, and is urging Australia to aim high when it reveals its carbon emissions reduction target later this year. But it's an issue heavily coated in politics.... and not the only climate change related issue Australia is dealing with right now..

The International Court of Justice has delivered a historic ruling on international climate obligations, opening the door for possible reparations. After a lengthy campaign led by law students in Pacific Island nations, the world's top court has declared individual states have a legal duty to tackle climate change.

Hungary's oldest library is fighting a beetle infestation. The creatures have been found in a section of the 1,000 year-old Pannonhalma Archabbey library, housing around a quarter of the abbey's 400,000 volumes. It's prompted workers to pull tens of thousands of centuries-old books from the shelves of the mediaeval abbey in an effort to save them.

280 Tuvalu citizens will be granted permanent residency each year as part of a landmark pact with Australia. But for some, the offer is bitter-sweet, as their island-home disappears.

The Federal Court has dismissed a landmark case which argued the federal government breached its duty of care to protect the Torres Strait Islands from climate change. The case, brought by Traditional Owners Uncle Pabai Pabai and Uncle Paul Kabai in 2021, argued the government held a duty of care to the Indigenous peoples and alleged that its failure to adequately reduce emissions has contributed...

Environmental researchers are calling for greater attention and potential regulation of artificial sweeteners, as they are building up in the environment and waterways around the world. A new study out of the University of Technology, Sydney [[UTS]] has found widely-used sugar substitutes are not decomposing and are turning into 'forever chemicals' that are comparable to P-FAS in the potential har...

Toxic algae is taking over the waters off South Australia, with devastating consequences for marine life. It's also impacting the state's fisheries, and prompting fears of serious long-term effects.

A landmark study from Imperial College London has attributed 1,500 deaths during last week’s European heatwave directly to human-induced climate change. It's the first rapid attribution study to go beyond linking climate change to weather events, and instead ties it directly to human deaths.

More than one-third of the people in the tiny Pacific nation of Tuvalu, which scientists predict will be submerged by rising seas, have applied for a landmark climate visa to migrate to Australia. The visa is the result of a treaty between the two countries that seeks to support the island nation through climate change.