Total fire ban for Sydney, with 37C temperatures and risk of bushfires from ‘dry lightning’: Thunderstorms coupled with hot and dry conditions mean ‘fire danger is going to be right up today’, Rural Fire Service says Follow our Australia politics live blog for latest updates Get our new...

‘Some aren’t going to make it’: how pressure on farmers threatens UK food security: Food producers are adding their voices to the chorus of warnings about the vulnerability of British supply chains “There are so many decent, capable, productive, efficient arable farmers out there, asking ...

‘We need less point scoring’: What party conference season taught us about UK climate action: Tories plan to scrap low-carbon housebuilding, Greens back new nuclear reactors, and Labour put oil-drilling decisions on hold New homes could be built without solar panels, heat pumps and high-g...

Nuclear war and malicious use of AI threaten end of humanity by 2100, says Lancet assessment: Newly established commission identifies 17 catastrophic threats to human health but says ‘realistic route to act’ on each exists Humans could become extinct by the year 2100 due to malicious use ...

Dozens injured and buildings damaged as tornadoes hit Sicily: Marsala on island’s west coast badly affected after powerful storm approached from Mediterranean Two tornadoes have struck the coastal town of Marsala in western Sicily, injuring dozens of people, damaging buildings including a...

Climate crisis is coming to crush many of world’s best surf breaks, study warns: Changing tide levels, shifting sands and hardened shorelines put waves at risk, affecting more than just surfers The climate crisis is coming for some of the world’s greatest surf breaks, submerging some as s...

Cop31 host urges wealthy countries to spend ‘much more’ on climate than defence: ‘The climate issue is the security issue,’ says Turkish minister at Pacific pre-Cop summit in Fiji Wealthy countries should spend far more on dealing with the climate crisis than the 5% of GDP promised by Nat...

AI and the climate crisis pose existential risks. The law offers a way to reduce them | Robert Reich: Liability lawsuits have held tobacco, oil and pharma companies to account in the past. AI investors won’t ignore this threat The most basic function of government is to protect people fro...

How California is bracing for a winter of floods, fires and extreme storms all at once: The strongest El Niño recorded is expected to bring a cascade of hazards to a state still facing wildfire and heat risks, while budget cuts have weakened disaster response agencies • Don’t get Down to ...

Tories overstate net zero cost by nearly £500bn in apparent spreadsheet error: Exclusive: Badenoch’s flagship conference policy document cites £957bn estimate, twice the total in climate advisers’ data Kemi Badenoch’s flagship party conference policy document overestimated the cost of net...

Can hope save the planet? An endangered parrot that is beating the odds can help us find out | Helen Pilcher: A new global biodiversity report strikes an encouraging note. But we cannot rest on our laurels – and resilience is key The new Living Planet Report is out. Published every two ye...

July 2026 was worst on record for wildfires in England, data shows: Devastating blaze near Sizewell B nuclear power station in Suffolk among a record 624 wildfires in July this year This July was the worst on record for wildfires in England, provisional data shows, with England experienci...

Britons kept in dark about scale of climate crisis, say viewers of ‘first-of-its-kind’ emergency briefing: Nine out of 10 people felt motivated to act after watching film outlining threats to food security, economy and public health The British government must be honest about the scale of...

‘Catastrophic wildfire loop’ created after colonisation left parts of Australia more at risk from bushfires, study finds: Researchers found the shift from open woodland to dense forest after 1788 led to more intense fires, consistent with loss of cultural burning practices Sign up for cl...

World’s largest penguin colony suffers ‘enormous population crash’: Chinstrap penguins on Zavodovski Island in Antarctica down by two-thirds since 2011, probably due to climate crisis The world’s largest penguin colony has declined by two-thirds since 2011, most likely because of the clim...

Landslides, flash floods and raging seas: is California ready for the ravages of El Niño?: A mix of natural disasters could all befall the state at once as it finds itself in the crosshairs of the climate phenomenon On a cloudless autumn afternoon, sunlight sparkled on the water that had ...

‘A real-life moment from The Castle’: the retired Australian couple who took on a coal giant and won: Wendy Wales and Tony Lonergan’s four-year fight over MACH Energy’s Mount Pleasant coalmine went all the way to the high court Sign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s fre...

‘We’ll borrow a stargazing kit next’: first public nature library in US helps visitors explore great outdoors: As well as books, the new facility offers hundreds of kits to connect people with the natural world, including hammocks and nightvision binoculars. We asked five of the first vis...

A ‘Godzilla-level’ El Niño is causing extreme weather conditions around the world – put your questions to our environment writers: The Guardian’s Jonathan Watts and Gabrielle Canon will be online from 4pm BST (11am EDT) today to answer your El Niño questions. Sign in or sign up to join t...

Scientists who put faith in technology less likely to take climate action: ‘Techno-optimism’ may lead to reliance on unproven solutions at expense of societal changes needed Scientists who believe technology will largely solve the problems caused by the climate crisis are less likely to e...