Company is fighting Dutch court ruling that says it must emit 45% less CO2 by 2030 than in 2019
Shell has argued that it “lobbies for, not against, the energy transition” on the final day of its appeal against an important climate ruling.
The fossil fuel company is fighting the decision of a Dutch court in 2021 that forces it to pump 45% less planet-heating CO2 into the atmosphere by 2030 than it did in 2019. In court on Friday, Shell argued the ruling is ineffective, onerous and does not fit into the existing legal system.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
04/12/2024 - 15:42
04/12/2024 - 06:00
Chamonixia caespitosa found during rewilding project in west Highlands while removing non-native Sitka spruce
Naturalists have found a very rare type of truffle living in a Scottish forestry plantation which is being cut down so a natural Atlantic rainforest can grow in its place.
The discovery of the globally rare fungus near Creagan in the west Highlands has thrown up a paradox: the work to remove the non-native Sitka spruce, to allow rewilding by native trees, means the truffle will be lost.
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04/12/2024 - 06:00
El Niño weather phenomenon has contributed to warm, dry conditions in US, leading to more fires much earlier in the year
The US midwest typically spends the start of spring emerging from snow. But this year, after a warm winter left landscapes parched, the region instead was primed to burn. Hundreds of blazes ignited in recent months in states more accustomed to dealing with just dozens for this time of year, as extreme fire behavior defied seasonal norms.
Experts say the unusually early and active fire season was a symptom of El Niño, a climate pattern characterized by warmer surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean that was predicted to supercharge global heating and extreme weather. But the climate crisis turned up the dial, and helped create conditions in the midwest where winter temperature records were not only broken – they were smashed.
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04/12/2024 - 05:37
Bogotá brings in water rationing with El Niño weather phenomenon meaning city could run out in under two months
Couples in Bogotá are being asked to shower together as water supplies are rationed in the Colombian capital.
Major neighbourhoods were cut off from the water grid on Thursday to preserve dangerously low water levels at reservoirs that have been starved of rain by the weather phenomenon known as El Niño.
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04/12/2024 - 03:24
My first rideout back in 2011 was liberating – and this Sunday, the monthly demonstration celebrates a big milestone
Thirteen years ago, riding through central London on my way to meet a friend one evening, I found myself surrounded by hundreds of cyclists, some blaring horns, one popping wheelies, and even someone covered in lights, thundering out drum’n’bass from a mobile sound system.
In spite of being overdressed in a shirt and my best trousers, I was taken by the spontaneous solidarity of this diverse group, who I later found was mostly made up of strangers.
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04/12/2024 - 01:00
Millions of years ago, animals adapted to become warm-blooded amid huge climactic changes. Now scientists hope these clues from the past could help us understand what lies ahead
In Chicago’s Field Museum, behind a series of access-controlled doors, are about 1,500 dinosaur fossil specimens. The palaeobiologist Jasmina Wiemann walks straight past the bleached leg bones – some as big as her – neither does she glance at the fully intact spinal cord, stained red by iron oxides filling the spaces where there was once organic material. She only has eyes for the deep chocolate-brown fossils: these are the ones containing preserved organic matter – bones that offer unprecedented insights into creatures that went extinct millions of years ago.
Wiemann is part of the burgeoning field of conservation palaeobiology, where researchers are looking to the deep past to predict future extinction vulnerability. At a time when humans could be about to witness a sixth mass extinction, studying fossil records is particularly useful for understanding how the natural world responded to problems before we arrived: how life on Earth reacted to environmental change over time, how species adapted to planet-scale temperature changes, or what to expect when ocean geochemical cycles change.
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04/12/2024 - 00:00
London mayor expected to criticise Susan Hall in speech launching solar panels on school roofs
Sadiq Khan will accuse his Conservative rival in the race to be London’s next mayor of being “Trumpian” over the climate crisis, as he announces plans for solar panels on schools.
Khan is expected to acknowledge resistance to his expansion of the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) in a speech on Friday but insist that he still intends to “go further”.
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04/12/2024 - 00:00
Blue tits, starlings, wood pigeons and blackbirds next most sighted in RSPB survey involving 600,000 participants
A friendly if slightly tuneless chirp is the most ubiquitous birdsong in British gardens with the house sparrow topping the Big Garden Birdwatch charts for the 21st consecutive year, according to the annual RSPB survey.
Blue tits, starlings, wood pigeons and blackbirds were the next most-sighted birds by more than 600,000 participants in the world’s largest wildlife garden survey.
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04/11/2024 - 12:03
Parasites thought only to infect tropical coral reefs have been discovered in a large variety of creatures in cold marine ecosystems along the Northeast Pacific, according to new research.
04/11/2024 - 12:01
So far, biodiversity and agricultural productivity could not be reconciled because the socio-ecological system of agriculture is highly complex, and the interactions between humans and the environment are difficult to capture using conventional methods. A research team now shows a promising way to achieve both goals at the same time. They focus on further developing artificial intelligence in combination with collective human judgement: hybrid intelligence.
