Rachel Reeves’s drive to speed up development is beginning to treat wildlife and the environment as expendable. Voters want homes built, but not at any cost
It began with gastropods. Last Tuesday, the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, told a conference of tech executives that she’d intervened to help a developer build about 20,000 homes in north Sussex that had been held up, she said, by “some snails … a protected species or something”. She added that they “are microscopic … you cannot even see” them.
No one could miss the direction the chancellor was headed in. The snail in question, the lesser whirlpool ramshorn, is one of Britain’s rarest freshwater creatures, found in only a handful of locations and highly sensitive to sewage pollution. But Ms Reeves portrayed it as a bureaucratic nuisance. She then bragged that she’d fixed it – after a friendly developer gave her a call. It’s a bad look for a Labour politician, let alone the chancellor, to boast that green rules can be bent for chums.
Continue reading...
Breaking Waves: Ocean News
10/12/2025 - 11:30
10/12/2025 - 09:00
Grattan Institute report argues fall in costs will provide federal government room for more action on climate
Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates
Sign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter here
Australian household energy bills will halve by 2050 as solar panels, batteries and electric cars and appliances become the norm, reducing pressure on the federal government over living costs and creating room for more climate action, a thinktank study suggests.
Modelling by the Grattan Institute finds that cutting greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation in line with the goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050 will cut average household energy costs from about $5,800 today to about $3,000.
Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletter
Continue reading...
10/12/2025 - 09:00
Exclusive: National Highways Agency stripped of oversight with project handed to DfT amid Labour government drive for growth
Ministers have stripped the government’s road-building agency of responsibility for a £10bn tunnel under the River Thames amid a drive by Keir Starmer’s cabinet to take tight control over important infrastructure projects for fear of cost overruns and delays.
Oversight of the Lower Thames Crossing – the UK’s largest planned infrastructure project – has been taken away from National Highways and handed to the Department for Transport (DfT).
Continue reading...
10/12/2025 - 09:00
Alcohol, suicide and injuries driving rises among teenagers and young adults despite overall rates falling, authors say
The world faces “an emerging crisis” of higher death rates among teenagers and young adults, according to a major study on the causes of death and disability worldwide.
The reasons vary from drug and alcohol use, and suicide in North America, to infectious diseases and injuries in sub-Saharan Africa, the researchers said, but warned that their data should serve as “a wake-up call”.
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
Continue reading...
10/11/2025 - 14:00
In this year's Australian bird of the year poll, Guardian Australia's very own Matilda Boseley has made no secret about her favourite. Dressed as an Australian pelican, Matilda navigates the pigeons of Melbourne to find people to tell her what their favourite native birds are – and give us their best birdcall attempts
2025 Australian bird of the year voting is open! Here's how to vote
Australian bird of the year 2025: vote now for your favourite
Continue reading...
10/11/2025 - 03:45
Number of endangered butterfly species also surging amid habitat destruction and global heating, finds study
The number of wild bee species in Europe at risk of extinction has more than doubled over the past decade, while the number of endangered butterfly species has almost doubled.
The jeopardy facing crucial pollinators was revealed by scientific studies for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list of threatened species, which found that at least 172 bee species out of 1,928 were at risk of extinction in Europe.
Continue reading...
10/11/2025 - 00:59
The tally of Australian mammals extinct since 1788 is now 39 species – far more than for any other country
It’s official: the only Australian shrew is no more.
The latest edition of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List, the world’s most comprehensive global inventory on extinction risk, has declared the Christmas Island shrew is extinct.
This little animal is extremely common all over the island, and at night its shrill shriek, like the cry of a bat, can be heard on all sides.
Continue reading...
10/10/2025 - 10:33
Esmeralda 7 in Nevada would have produced enough energy to power 2m homes
The Trump administration has killed a huge proposed solar power project in Nevada that would have been one of the largest in the world, indicating that the White House plans to attack not only wind power but all renewable energy.
On Thursday, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) changed the status of the Esmeralda 7 project to say its environmental review has been “cancelled”, the climate publication Heatmap first reported.
Continue reading...
10/10/2025 - 09:01
Video shows some of the juveniles exploring outside their den at Mallee Cliffs national park in south-western NSW
Sign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter here
Baby numbats have been spotted at two wildlife sanctuaries in south-western New South Wales, sparking hope for one of Australia’s rarest marsupials.
Video captured by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) shows some of the juveniles exploring outside their den at Mallee Cliffs national park.
Continue reading...
10/10/2025 - 09:00
Exclusive: ‘Old Faithful’ was captured after Queensland authorities deemed him ‘a problem crocodile’, but Rinyirru Aboriginal Corporation says the government is mistaken
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
Traditional owners have called on the Queensland environment minister to return an iconic saltwater crocodile to the wild, arguing his capture was a “wrongful arrest” – but that his case could prove “a landmark” in redefining consultation with First Nations people and the management of crocodiles.
Rinyirru (Lakefield) Aboriginal Corporation chair, Alwyn Lyall, wrote to the environment minister, Andrew Powell, on Friday saying the removal of a crocodile longer than 4 metres, known as “Old Faithful”, from Rinyirru – or Lakefield national park – last month was based on a “flawed and outdated” test of his behaviour and highlighted “a bigger problem in how crocodiles are managed”.
Continue reading...
