Environment

We’ve been writing about or mentioning Momenta a lot this week. I think this is the 4th time, and I don’t believe we’ve ever covered it before. Today we got news that Momenta has received approval from the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) to do Level 4 autonomous driving testing ... [continued] The post Momenta To Test Robotaxis Across Germany, Uber Invests More appeared first on CleanTechnica .

1h ago

Residents struggle to take in the devastation five days after El Morro was evacuated as fires burned across the countryside west of the Spanish capital The handwritten sign taped to the front gate of a house in the mountains an hour west of Madrid offered as succinct a summary of recent events as you will find. “EMPTY,” it said. “No people or animals here.” Continue reading...

2h ago

Most decarbonization scenarios stop at 2050 because policy targets do. Steel mills, aircraft fleets, ports, electricity grids and industrial supply chains do not. A pathway can reach net zero in a target-year spreadsheet while leaving behind an energy system that is expensive, physically implausible or dependent on technologies that never ... [continued] The post The 2100 Projections Came First. Then Clients Asked For 2050 Roadmaps. appeared first on CleanTechnica .

2h ago

I know, this seems impossible — at least it would have seemed like it a few years ago, or if you didn’t know about what has become of the Chinese auto market. But this is 2026 in China, and today we’re talking about the hot new MG 07. The fastback ... [continued] The post $18,590 Car With 845-Kilometer Range & Lidar — MG 07 appeared first on CleanTechnica .

3h ago

What once felt exceptional now arrives with grim regularity​ all over the continent, and it will only get worse • Don’t get This Is Europe delivered to your inbox? Sign up here Spain has changed immeasurably since I arrived here 10 years ago to begin work as the Guardian’s Madrid correspondent. Over that time, the push for Catalan independence has exploded, sputtered and faded out; the Covid pandemic has hit with unimaginable ferocity , before seeming to linger for a face-masked eternity; and Podemos and Ciudadanos – the two upstart parties that once seemed likely to alter the Spanish political landscape irrevocably – have risen and fallen. Continue reading...

5h ago

INVERMERE, Canada — Mark Thomas, Secwépemc salmon chief for the Upper Columbia, welcomes groups of students to a narrow stretch of the Columbia River, between the Rocky and Purcell mountains in western Canada. It’s late May, and snow still graces the distant peaks. For the past five months, students from schools nearby towns have raised […]

3h ago

JAKARTA — Indonesia has recorded more fire hotspot activity by late July 2026 than at the same point in any previous year, including during the devastating fire seasons of 2019 and 2023, according to new data. Data from FireWatch, a new satellite monitoring platform developed by the forest monitoring platform Nusantara Atlas, offers the clearest […]

4h ago

The global goal to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030 “will not be achieved” unless action by countries “accelerates… The post World falling short on 22 of 23 nature targets for 2030, says draft UN report appeared first on Carbon Brief .

4h ago

Rising temperatures are redistributing the risk of childhood malaria in sub-Saharan Africa, resulting in areas of “new risk” in the… The post Climate change is driving a ‘shift’ in childhood malaria risk across Africa appeared first on Carbon Brief .

4h ago

Environment Agency names seven regions affected by unusually hot and dry weather and shortage of water Half of England is officially in drought, with July set to be the driest on record after winter floods, the Environment Agency has said. The “flash drought” developed quickly because of unusually low rainfall and high temperatures. Continue reading...

7h ago

A delicacy for centuries and a key part of Native tradition, the lake whitefish has seen its population crash. Researchers know why … but stopping it is another matter From the basement of the Sandusky library, page 29 of the book Sandusky of To-Day proclaims the town to be the “largest fresh water fish market in the world”. Two pages later, an image of the lake whitefish, referred to as “Sandusky’s pride”, takes up the entire page. But the book was published in 1888. Continue reading...

7h ago

Findings can inform conversations about global climate reparations and financing for mitigations, researchers say Caribbean nations suffered $53.2bn (£40bn) of damage from climate-fuelled disasters between 2000 and 2024, research into the cost of the climate crisis to developing small islands has found. The figure is more than 90% of the total $57bn in economic damage caused by floods, storms and drought across 39 developing island nations in the Caribbean, the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, according to a study by development thinktank ODI Global . Continue reading...

8h ago

A federal judge in Brazil has given the country’s government 24 months to recognize the traditional territory of the Kajkwakratxi-Tapayuna Indigenous people in the northwestern state of Mato Grosso. The court accepted evidence from federal prosecutors that detailed decades of government inaction following massacres, forced displacement and other human rights violations against the Kajkwakratxi-Tapayuna people. […]

6h ago

Ryder Williams, 16, saved a boy from drowning in Santa Cruz, California – the first rescue of his career A rookie, teenage California lifeguard who saved a young boy from drowning amid massive waves – while a bystander recorded dramatic video – has spent his whole life preparing for such a moment, according to his father. Ryder Williams, 16, said he refused to let go of the child because he knew the boy would almost certainly die if he did, the lifeguard’s father, Shane, recounted on Tuesday, three days after the pulse-pounding rescue. Continue reading...

9h ago

China has released its “15th five-year plan for the development of renewable energy”, outlining key targets and policies for the… The post Q&A: What does China’s 15th ‘five-year plan’ for renewables mean for climate change? appeared first on Carbon Brief .

7h ago

Five years ago, I wrote an open letter asking climate scientists to speak out against fossil fuels. Now governments are in retreat, it is surely time to act France and Spain race to contain huge wildfires before fresh heatwave begins Such is the astonishing scale of the wildfires burning at the gates of Bordeaux and Madrid , that if they had happened 20 – even 10 – years back, they may well have shocked the world into taking action on the climate crisis. But like the proverbial frog in a pot of slowly heating water, we have become inured; not only to the ever more devastating impacts of climate breakdown, but increasingly to the actions needed to bring global heating to heel. Even as more than 35,000 wildfires rage across the surface of our world, and as we continue to rewind our planet’s climate so it resembles hotter episodes from its distant past , governments and trading blocs are very deliberately turning away from climate action. Bill McGuire is professor emeritus of geophysical and climate hazards at University College London and author of The Fate of the World: a History and Future of the Climate Crisis Continue reading...

10h ago

Biologists say cargo ships stranded in Gulf may carry highly potent invasive species around the world as trade resumes The closure of the strait of Hormuz has created conditions for an extreme global biodiversity threat, with scientists warning that thousands of stranded ships could spread invasive marine species across the world’s oceans once they begin sailing again. More than 1,500 commercial vessels have been stuck in the Gulf since the strategic waterway closed on 28 February after the outbreak of the US-Israel war on Iran . An international team of marine biologists said that with the stranded ships remaining motionless, their hulls were becoming encrusted with marine life – from microbes and algae to barnacles and other invertebrates – that could hitchhike to ports around the world when trade resumed. Continue reading...

14h ago

No other bird speaks to us quite so directly, its serenade conjuring memories of old family tales I wake early on these bright summer mornings. And now that the birds in my garden have mostly fallen silent, only one is still serenading me at this hour: the aptly named song thrush. Its measured, deliberate repetitions – which this particular bird has provided without a break since the turn of the year – are unmistakable. Whenever I hear a song thrush, I’m taken back in time. First, to my childhood, when the first sign of spring was when thrushes started singing from the roofs of our suburban housing estate as I walked home from school in the dim light of a February afternoon. Continue reading...

14h ago

BIAK, Indonesia — The munition here had outlasted one of the Pacific’s fiercest World War II battles. Eight decades later, investigators in Indonesia said it exploded by the timber-framed houses in the coastal village of Fandoi on Indonesia’s Biak Island. The blast killed at least seven people and injured around 20, many seriously, police told […]

10h ago

Helpston, Cambridgeshire: I picture Henry as a young lad, hiding in flowerbeds, chasing butterflies, learning to love nature If there’s one thing better than a gatekeeper butterfly , it’s wild marjoram playing host to a flurry of gatekeepers. Almost impossible to count for all the rising, fluttering and resettling, their warm orange and brown wings with white double-dots in a black eye-spot are only a wing-flick away from mottled invisibility: now you see me, now you don’t. I’m their lone admirer, sat on a mossy stone in the garden at John Clare cottage , but I don’t feel alone. Honeysuckle has me in a heady hug, undulating fronds of hart’s-tongue fern wave from beneath a rock, the whiteness of a teneral damselfly in the grass intrigues and delights me. I know this garden has a long history of providing companionship, not least to the poet after whom the cottage is named, who knew “the woodbine at the garden gate” as “affection’s friend” and asked of the butterfly : “Wouldst thou in my garden come, / To join the bee’s delightful hum”. Continue reading...

15h ago

Baraka Moruri has been passionate about the environment since he was 6. Now 13, the Kenyan climate champion says he has planted more than 7,600 trees with the help of family, friends and private organizations. “My goal is unlimited. I want to plant over 1 million trees before I turn 18,” he says. On March […]

10h ago

As extreme heat claims the lives of workers in India’s poorest areas, many fear the true mortality rate is being dangerously undercounted The morning air was already hot and cloying when Palli Mahalaxmi rose at about 5am. It was May, and in the summer heatwave that had engulfed this corner of southern India, even night-time did not give the villagers respite. A single ceiling fan hung above Mahalaxmi, her husband and her son as they slept in a small windowless room made of thick concrete. Mahalaxmi set about preparing breakfast, and the family ate together from steel plates, just as they did every morning. Sweat dripped from their foreheads as the sun rose higher. Continue reading...

15h ago

New federal data shows that AI demand helped push U.S. power sector emissions up last year.

10h ago

Lawmakers in Europe have proposed rolling back the bloc's cap-and-trade program, long considered the gold standard for reducing companies' carbon emissions.

11h ago

Scorching temperatures are testing the limits of programs meant to help students catch up academically.

11h ago

Brutal price wars among manufacturers have caused solar panel prices to plummet, making renewable energy cheaper than ever.

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July 29 is International Tiger Day. Few species have benefitted from global conservation attention and funding like the tiger. Its numbers have seen a hopeful increase in recent years, yet the big cat continues to face localized pressures. Recent Mongabay coverage highlights three starkly different realities for tigers (Panthera tigris) across Asia. India’s corridors under […]

12h ago

Trump administration unveils bans that target imports of new Chinese robots and power inverters, seeking ‌to protect US from national security threats. What are the implications for Australia? The post Trump bans robots and inverters from China – and it could be a big win for Australia appeared first on Renew Economy.

14h ago

Researchers have tracked down 28 individuals of a palm tree species last recorded in Madagascar nearly 100 years ago. Nearly every tree of the species, Ravenea latisecta, was found within four protected areas in the Andasibe-Mantadia region of Madagascar, according to a recent study. “Andasibe–Mantadia is one of Madagascar’s best-explored botanical regions, and Ravenea latisecta […]

14h ago