Andrew Griffith makes speech today as Reform UK accuses party of copying policies they ‘announced weeks and months ago’
Tories to pledge to scrap Environment Agency and Natural England
Last night Israel’s foreign affairs ministry said that Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, has been banned from the country following his party conference voting for a motion saying “Zionism is racism”.
The motion was “a clear antisemitic text according to the IHRA definition, as it denies the Jewish people’s right to self-determination”, the ministry said. It went on:
Therefore, as a first step, foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar has decided this evening to declare Green party leader Zack Polanski barred from entering Israel.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
10/05/2026 - 02:34
10/05/2026 - 01:20
Alpine areas also experience record-breaking heat with snow depth recorded at zero in Kosciuszko national park
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Australia had its second hottest September on record last month as global heating and a strengthening El Niño combined to break a string of heat records around the country.
Bureau of Meteorology data showed the minimum night-time temperatures across the continent were also the hottest for any September, on a record that goes back to 1910. Averaged temperatures ranked in the top five warmest Septembers for every state, and the sixth hottest for the Northern Territory.
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10/05/2026 - 00:02
Juvenile humpback was spotted near Bundjalung national park in what experts say is a rare but not unprecedented event
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While the case of a whale found 11km upstream in a New South Wales river this weekend was unusual, it was not unprecedented, experts say.
The juvenile humpback, which swam into the Clarence River on the state’s mid-north coast and later died, was towed out to sea on Sunday, according to NSW authorities.
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10/04/2026 - 23:00
As trawlers compete with Greenland sharks for halibut and cod, conservationists and fishers clash over what to do about misunderstood species
‘When I accidentally catch a shark, I bring it to my dogs,” Henrik Jensen, a 27-year-old from Greenland’s west coast, says casually. “I don’t let it back down because [the sharks] bully me and cut my lines.”
Jensen has fished for halibut in Ilulissat, Greenland’s third largest town, for a decade. He works an hour north of the town’s main iceberg-laden fishery, which sustains the livelihood of nearly 400 fishers. There, the halibut are bigger and more plentiful, but so are the Greenland sharks.
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10/04/2026 - 16:00
Shadow chancellor will also promise to scrap affordable homes regulations as part of strategy to refocus on growth
The Conservatives will announce a bonfire of regulations including abolishing affordable homes and community funding rules as well as scrapping Natural England and the Environment Agency.
The shadow chancellor, Andrew Griffith, will say the party intends to “streamline regulations” that protect nature and oblige developers to include affordable homes and community services such as GP surgeries, to speed up infrastructure and housebuilding.
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10/04/2026 - 09:00
Global campaign group 350.org urges Cop31 hosts to announce a coal phase-out date and national roadmaps to get off fossil fuels
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The hosts of the next major United Nations climate conference, Turkey and Australia, are facing criticism for being partners in a coal supply chain while remaining near silent on the need for a global deal to rapidly get off fossil fuels.
With the Cop31 summit in the Turkish Mediterranean city of Antalya just a month away, the two countries running the fortnight-long talks have been accused by activists of a “vacuum of action” on plans for a transition away from coal, gas and oil – a key goal of many nations at the talks.
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10/04/2026 - 07:30
A statewide initiative pairs climate-focused coursework with community service – and is spreading to other states
As a student at a high school not far from Denver’s main airport, Anthony Muñoz wondered whether the jet fuel from airplanes flying above his campus was harming living things.
An avid gardener, Muñoz partnered with a local university to create a garden on the campus of his charter school, Vista Academy, filling it with native plants that could detect ground-level ozone pollution. He also worked with climate scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a federal office in nearby Boulder, who directed Muñoz on what data to collect, what the condition of leaves reveals about air quality and why milkweed matters for monarch butterfly migration.
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10/04/2026 - 06:50
A 30-year forestry experiment in Australia found that heavily thinned mountain ash forests grew unusually large trees while recovering enough carbon to match or exceed untouched areas. The results suggest carefully managed thinning could support timber production, wildlife habitat, and carbon storage at the same time.
10/04/2026 - 02:00
FOI request shows wildfire risk scheme scrapped, as survey highlights many fire services lack proper protective gear
The government quietly scrapped plans to prepare the countryside in England for wildfires, it has been revealed. This was despite new data showing fire crews do not have the proper protective gear to tackle them.
This summer has been a potent reminder of the scale of the threat posed by the climate crisis, with the UK experiencing record-breaking wildfires after punishingly hot and dry weather turned large parts of the countryside into a tinderbox.
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10/03/2026 - 14:00
The 20 best residential gardens have been revealed in the first-ever Landscape Australia awards shortlist. Jury chair Emily Wong said each project was a response to urgent issues such as the climate crisis, fire and flood resilience, and the loss of biodiversity. They saw gardens as ‘part of a larger living commons that supports different ecologies and also … the future of Australian cities’. Wong also noted that private gardens take up a large quantity of space in Australian cities. ‘So really, these gardens are about seeing the design as a contribution to shared infrastructure’
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