The European Commission has watered down its plans to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles by 2035. Current rules state that new vehicles sold from that date should be “zero emission”, but carmakers, particularly in Germany, have lobbied heavily for concessions. Under the European Commission’s new plan, 90% of new cars sold…
More housing developments will be exempt from rules requiring builders in England to improve wildlife habitats, the government said on Tuesday. Ministers have been reviewing rules known as Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG), under which builders must compensate for the loss of nature on housing developments. Increasing the size of exempted developments has sparked anger from…
Fewer companies operating in Europe will be made to carry out due diligence on the societal harms they cause, in what green groups have called a “betrayal” of communities affected by corporate abuse. The gutting of the EU’s sustainability reporting and due diligence rules, which was greenlit by MEPs on Tuesday, slashes the number of…
The idea sounds dramatic, almost clickbait-level dramatic. Is Mars controlling Earth’s climate? It feels wrong on instinct. Climate change is something we argue about in terms of cars, coal, forests, and oceans, not dusty planets hanging millions of kilometres away. And yet, Earth is not floating alone in space. It is part of a system…
Elio Della Ferrera, Arch. PaleoStelvio Initial research was carried out before snow covered the area Thousands of dinosaur footprints dating back 210 million years have been found in a national park in northern Italy. The footprints – some of which are up to 40cm (15in) in diameter – are aligned in parallel rows, and many…
Earth might be under pressure, but the Queen guitarist Sir Brian May is hopeful a new award from the science, music and arts festival he co-founded will encourage people to take action. The Starmus Jane Goodall Earth medal will be given in honour of the British primatologist who died this year and will recognise those…
When Hurricane Melissa struck Jamaica on 28 October with 185mph winds, destroying homes, hospitals and infrastructure, killing 32 people and affecting 1.5 million, Toni-Jan Ifill immediately realised it would leave many with long-term traumatic memories. A month and a half after the storm, which also affected eastern Cuba, the clinical psychologist says recollections of the…
Odisha is India’s most vulnerable state to climate change. In the state’s rising heat, people with spinal cord injuries face a quiet struggle rarely noticed by the public eye. They are unable to regulate body temperature or sweat normally, as the brain is unable to send these signals to their limbs. As a result,…
A new study found chromium and lead in all fishing cat scat samples across four sites in the Sundarbans mangrove ecosystem in West Bengal. Rising pesticide use, fertilisers and plastic pollution in the Sundarbans are increasing heavy metal and microplastic loads in wetlands. Scientists warn that contamination in fishing cats signals risks to human…
The global solar inverter market is set to contract for two consecutive years, declining by 2 per cent to 577 gigawatts AC (GWac) in 2025 and by a further 9 per cent to 523 GWac in 2026, according to consultancy group Wood Mackenzie’s latest market outlook for 2025. The downturn follows record shipments in 2024…