Rio Tinto said in December it may cease operations at the Tomago aluminium smelter at the end of its current electricity supply contract
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Anthony Albanese and the New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, are preparing to mount a major bailout of Australia’s largest aluminium smelter, in a deal worth as much as $2.5bn.
Resources giant Rio Tinto said in December it was contemplating ceasing operations at the Tomago aluminium smelter in NSW at the end of its current electricity supply contract.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
08/11/2026 - 23:29
08/11/2026 - 23:00
First responders, residents and environmental groups say military dropping flares to destroy forests and crops
Firefighters and residents of south Lebanon have accused the Israeli military of lighting wildfires in the region, as forested areas burned down in blazes sparked by Israeli bombing.
Environmental groups said the fires in recent weeks were part of a longstanding Israeli practice of targeting Lebanon’s natural environment.
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08/11/2026 - 23:00
Verdant thinktank says cost could top £25bn a year by 2030 and calls for maximum temperature for working and urban redesign to cool down cities
Repeated debilitating heatwaves this summer are likely to have cost the UK economy more than £4bn in lost economic output by the end of July, new analysis shows.
Green thinktank Verdant had suggested June’s unseasonally hot weather had an economic cost of £2.36bn. Updating its assessment to include last month’s high temperatures, it finds a £4.4bn hit to output.
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08/11/2026 - 18:01
Discounts confirmed near more than 40 locations across Great Britain amid biggest upgrade to electricity grid since 1960s
Households living near new power pylons will have £250 a year taken off their energy bills as the UK government prepares to push ahead with more than 40 grid upgrade projects across the country.
The government has promised hundreds of thousands of homes living within 500 metres of new grid infrastructure a saving of up to £2,500 on their energy bills over 10 years in return for “hosting vital infrastructure” which will help the UK transition away from fossil fuels.
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08/11/2026 - 18:01
New research sheds light on the genetic basis of the venomous arachnid’s ‘weird mating behaviour’
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If you think you’ve had a bad one-night stand, spare a thought for the male redback spider, whose sole reproductive partner eats him after sex.
Male redbacks appear to invite this cannibalism through a “self-sacrificial somersault”, with new research shedding light on the genetic basis of the behaviour.
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08/11/2026 - 13:04
The response to this summer’s record heat and drought should be led by ministers – not left to the emergency services
The wildfire that began on protected heathland in the New Forest in Hampshire on Sunday was reported to be under control on Tuesday. But with temperatures forecast to reach 36C or higher in parts of England on Thursday, the risk of further outbreaks remains high. Firefighters responded to 185 wildfires in the first 10 days of August. In coastal Suffolk, conservationists and locals are counting the cost of the blaze that devastated Dunwich Heath. Its vegetation and rare bird populations are expected to take decades to recover.
Although the immediate cause of many wildfires is litter, the risks are elevated by heat and drought, and repeated warnings from climate scientists do not necessarily lessen the shock and distress caused. As people and governments across Europe assess this summer’s damage, experts including the UN climate chief, Simon Stiell, hope that the fires will focus minds on the urgent necessity of cutting emissions – as well as investing in emergency planning. Europe is currently heating up faster than any other continent, due in part to proximity to the melting Arctic.
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08/11/2026 - 11:00
Critics argue US high court justice should recuse himself from upcoming fossil fuel firms’ climate accountability case
The supreme court justice Samuel Alito gained up to $2.9m from his fossil fuel interests between 2005 and 2024, a new review of financial disclosures shows.
The analysis from the non-profit advocacy group and judicial watchdog Court Accountability, shared exclusively with the Guardian, found that even at the lowest range of estimates, Alito gained almost $400,000 from his oil and gas interests since being tapped for the high court by George W Bush in 2005.
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08/11/2026 - 10:49
Key tourist route closed and residents rallying round as battle against wildfire expected to go on for several days
The battle to contain a large wildfire spreading across the New Forest will go on for several days, experts have said, as wind changes and a desiccated landscape fuel the flames.
Smoke billowed above the deserted A31 road, the main tourist route into the New Forest national park where tens of thousands of families are on holiday, late on Tuesday while a helicopter flew above the blaze. Firefighters at the scene said they were trying to contain several hotspots across the more than 100 hectares (247 acres) of dried heathland as winds swirled over the area.
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08/11/2026 - 06:00
It doesn’t have to be this way. We know what needs to be done
Disturbing news about our water resources is now constant and unrelenting. In just the past few weeks, media have reported that Puerto Rico is suffering a deep water crisis as severe drought has cut water supplies to thousands. The Rhine and Po rivers in Europe are at record low levels. The seven states sharing the Colorado River in the US are fighting over unprecedented shortages, while its major reservoirs have shrunk to their lowest levels since they were built.
Hungary’s only nuclear power plant is on the verge of shutting down because there isn’t enough water in the Danube River to cool it. Toxic chemicals have been found in all English water bodies.
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08/11/2026 - 06:00
There are social tipping points when the seemingly impossible suddenly becomes inevitable. Good journalism plays an essential role in helping drive these shifts and shows us how real change can happen
Climate campaign 2026: help us reach 20,000 acts of support
There are many reasons to despair: our green and pleasant land is parched and brown, reservoirs are depleted, and wildfires are racking the UK, Europe and the US. But there are many more reasons not to despair: despair is self-fulfilling; despair is disempowering; despair is what the bastards want you to feel. But above all, despair is irrational. Let me explain why.
However sophisticated our forecasting tools may be, we simply have no means of knowing what comes next. Like the climate, like every ecosystem, society is a complex system. Its properties and adaptive responses cannot be predicted by studying its components in isolation, regardless of the brilliance of social scientists and futurologists. Things happen - unexpected things - sometimes at astonishing speed. In other words, society has tipping points. It can quickly flip from one equilibrium state to another.
Climate campaign 2026: help us reach 20,000 acts of support
On Tuesday 20 October, join Damian Carrington, and our panel of experts—including Professor Andy Haines, Katie White MP, Asad Rehman, Shruti Suresh, Gareth Thomas and Amy Fairman for a hopeful and solutions-focused evening. Book tickets here or at guardian.live
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