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£2.2bn-worth of oil processed in China, India and Turkey – to whom Russia supplies crude – was imported in 2023, data showsThe UK has been accused of “helping Russia pay for its war on Ukraine” by continuing to import record amounts of refined oil from countries processing Kremlin fossil fuels.Government data analysed by the environmental news site Desmog shows that imports of refined oil...

Claire O’Neill, a former climate minister, says PM’s move was to ‘try and create political division and dividing lines’The UK government’s decision to weaken some of its climate commitments was a “retrograde step” that will set back vital cross-party action to cut carbon emissions, Claire O’Neill, a former Conservative climate minister has said.O’Neill, who was known as Claire Perry when she served as a...

Europeans are dying from hot weather 30% more than they did two decades ago, report findsScorching weather has baked Europe in more days of “extreme heat stress” than its scientists have ever seen.Heat-trapping pollutants that clog the atmosphere helped push temperatures in Europe last year to the highest or second-highest levels ever recorded, according to the EU’s Earth-watching service Copernicus and the World Meteorological...

Exclusive: India seeking to use approach of UK election as bargaining chip and any exemption would be controversialIndia is demanding an exemption from the UK’s planned carbon tax as part of negotiations aiming to finalise a free trade deal before the UK election.India’s negotiating team have spent this week in London in a surprise set of talks to try to overcome the remaining hurdles...

Annual watchlist raises concern for native chicken, duck, geese and turkey populations as well as rare pig breedsAll of the UK’s native breeds of chicken, duck, geese and turkey are under threat because of bird flu, a report from the Rare Breeds Survival Trust (RBST) has found.The disease, which has swept the globe after it originated in poultry farms in Asia, has caused devastating...

The tree all but vanished in the 1970s. Now, thanks to two amateur nature lovers, it may soon grace our landscapes againConstable painted them. Shakespeare wrote of them. And Francis Drake sailed the world in a ship made from them. English elms were a mainstay of England’s landscape and culture – until they all but disappeared to Dutch elm disease in the 1970s.Since that...

Gusts of more than 70mph recorded on Irish Sea coast, as temperatures rose above 30C in mainland EuropeStorm Kathleen brought strong winds to Ireland and the UK at the weekend, causing travel and power disruption. The storm, named by Met Éireann, developed in the Atlantic on Thursday, deepening explosively as it pushed northwards to the west of Ireland.Peak wind gusts of 40-60mph (65-95km/h) were...

Schemes to replace EU subsidies will not plug gap left by loss of EU subsidies for most farmersFarmers are calling for the government to grant them a universal basic income, saying the post-Brexit agriculture subsidy scheme has left many poorer.Delays to the sustainable farming schemes put in place after the UK left the European Union, to replace the common agricultural policy (CAP), have meant...

Charity publishes survey findings as it calls for youngsters to be no more than a 15-minute walk from green spacesMore than three-quarters of children want to spend more time in nature, the National Trust has found, as the conservation charity pushes ministers to ensure youngsters are no more than a 15-minute walk from green spaces.Nearly two-thirds – 63% – of parents are able to...

Eccentric Victorian owner of Waterton Park, near Wakefield, made pioneering decisions to protect wildlifeA Yorkshire parkland regarded as the world’s first nature reserve – which was created by an eccentric pioneering 19th-century environmentalist – has been given a Grade II listing.Historic England said Waterton Park, near Wakefield, was the earliest known example of a landscape designed specifically to attract and protect native wildlife. Continue...

National Hedgehog Monitoring Programme aims to understand why population has declinedArtificial intelligence will be used for the first time to track hedgehog populations as part of a pioneering project aimed at understanding how many of them are left in the UK and why they have suffered a decline.Images of the prickly mammals snuffling around urban parks, private gardens, woodlands and farmland will be captured...

Ministers disappointed by decision of one of worst sewage dumpers not to join England-wide initiativeThames Water has risked a fresh backlash over its commitment to tackling sewage dumping after it declined to commit funds to a £180m industry-wide initiative to fast-track efforts to reduce pollution in England’s waterways. The government said on Monday that the sum would be spent by six companies over the...

Proponents of ‘bathing waters’ designation say it would force action on sewage but others worry about impact of more visitorsThe waters of the River Cam are an unsettling lurid green on a dull day. The river that flows through Cambridge and has been enjoyed by swimmers including Lord Byron, Charles Darwin, Virginia Woolf and Roger Deakin is increasingly polluted from sewage discharges and phosphates...

Campaigners say Ineos project in Antwerp will turbocharge plastic production on a scale not seen before in EuropeThe UK government is providing a €700m (£600m) guarantee for the billionaire Jim Ratcliffe to build the biggest petrochemical plant in Europe in 30 years that will turbocharge plastic production.The huge petrochemical plant has been described as a “carbon bomb” by campaigners. Being constructed in the Belgian...

Royal Society of Edinburgh says money should be spent on longer-living native forests with greater biodiversity benefitsA report has called on ministers to scrap the huge subsidies and tax breaks given to conifer forests because they do too little to combat the climate crisis.The report from the Royal Society of Edinburgh said the tens of millions of pounds in subsidies given to the timber...

Green businesses and jobs are booming – in stark contrast to the national economy – but political U-turns risk future growthThe UK’s net zero economy grew by 9% in 2023, a report has revealed, in stark contrast to the 0.1% growth seen in the economy overall. Nevertheless, the report pointed out that strong future growth from green businesses was being put at risk by...

London minister Greg Hands embroiled in congestion and pollution debate with constituents over scheme in election battlegroundWhen the Tory minister Greg Hands criticised a trial scheme in his constituency to block the use of residential roads as rat runs, he might have expected to win some votes and boost his party’s pro-car agenda.Instead, he finds himself embroiled in a charged and divisive debate in...

Housebuilders and campaigners warn of cold, damp homes and UK missing legally binding targetsLabour’s slashing of proposed spending on home insulation will leave millions of people on low incomes in cold, damp homes and could prevent the UK meeting its legally binding carbon targets, campaigners and housebuilders have warned.The Federation of Master Builders criticised the drastic scaling back of Labour’s low-carbon policies, announced by...

‘Huge disconnect’ between employers’ public ambitions on diversity and their actions, say workersWorkers at environmental charities have said bold words on inclusion are not being matched with action, as research shows the sector still lags far behind others in racial diversity.Only about one in 20 workers in the environmental charity sector identified as an ethnic minority last year, according to a survey of organisations,...

At least 80 pairs recorded in 2023 after species began breeding again in 1979, having disappeared from UK in 16th centuryBritain’s tallest bird, the spectacular, wetland-loving crane bred in higher numbers last summer than at any point since they disappeared from the UK in the 16th century.At least 80 pairs of cranes were recorded in 2023, up from the previous high of 72 two...

Tens of millions have been spent on human-made defences over the years, but the impact of the climate crisis means flooding is inevitableWhen Jo Bloom saw the monitoring station on the River Severn above Shrewsbury register water levels of 6.5 metres as Storm Henk struck in early January, she began preparing for the worst. Bloom, who runs the Bewdley Flood Group, a local initiative...

Fast-growing monocultures are less able to withstand extreme weather events than varied woodlands, researchers findAs 90mph winds whip across the UK and Europe this week, new research shows forests containing diverse tree species are more likely to stay standing than monocultures when hit by extreme weather.Forests with two or three tree species are on average 35% more resilient to storms than forests with only...

Conservation groups target ‘impossible dream' of eradicating invasive predators after success of East Anglia trialAmerican mink – the mustelids escaped from fur farms who have decimated populations of water voles and other native birds, fish and amphibians – have been eradicated from a swath of East Anglia.Until now, mink have never been successfully removed from any large area of Britain but the success of...

Despite leading lavish lifestyles, some monarchs are influencing people to make greener choicesWhen Prince Frederik takes the throne on Sunday, the Danish crown will pass from his mother, Queen Margrethe II, a monarch who has cast doubt on the fact that human pollution is heating the planet, to one who feels bound by duty to call for stronger action on climate breakdown.“I think it’s...