As the climate crisis forces people to abandon their land in Rajasthan, a new industry has sprung up in the desert state, with thousands of gaily decorated vans setting off to sell ice-cream across the country

The parched villages of Gangapur in the desert state of Rajasthan have a new season in their calendar. Between November and February , car workshops along the town’s dusty mile-long market open before sunrise, cylindrical stainless-steel food containers are put on display, and traders stock up on chocolate and strawberry syrups.

Come March, the villagers start preparing to migrate. In the workshops, thousands of vehicles are converted into vans for selling a variety of ice-cream, from plain condensed milk flavoured with cardamom to chocolate, vanilla and pistachio, while local farmers turned dessert makers have their old mini-trucks serviced in readiness for the drive to distant towns and cities, where they will sell the sweet treat for the next nine months.

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Attorney and non-profit founder Julia Olson calls appeals court ruling on lawsuit filed by 21 young people ‘tragic and unjust’

A federal appeals court on Wednesday evening granted the Biden administration’s request to strike down a landmark federal youth climate case, outraging climate advocates.

“This is a tragic and unjust ruling,” said Julia Olson, attorney and founder of Our Children’s Trust, the non-profit law firm that brought the suit.

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Shifting atmospheric circulation patterns have placed US state in frontline of climate crisis

Changing weather patterns might not have been foremost in Bob Dylan’s mind when he wrote The Times They Are A-Changin’, but his lyrics seem apt now. Rising greenhouse gases are altering the world’s weather patterns and new research demonstrates how increased emissions have shifted atmospheric circulation patterns, resulting in more frequent extreme weather events around the world.

California in North America has ended up being at the frontline of the climate crisis in recent years, lurching between extreme drought and excessive rain. To understand what might have triggered these extremes, researchers modelled the interplay between the three major drivers of the weather in this region and the impact that greenhouse warming has had on these drivers.

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Amsterdam is home to 45,000 sq metres of ‘blue-green’ roofs, which absorb rainwater and allow it to be used by building residents to water plants and flush toilets

You might visit Amsterdam for its canals, and who could blame you, really. But the truly interesting waterways aren’t under your feet – they’re above your head.

Beautiful green roofs have popped up all over the world: specially selected plants growing on structures designed to manage the extra weight of biomass. Amsterdam has taken that one step further with blue -green roofs, specially designed to capture rainwater. One project, the resilience network of smart, innovative, climate-adaptive rooftops (Resilio), has covered more than 9,000 sq metres (100,000 sq ft) of Amsterdam’s roofs, including 8,000 sq metres on social housing complexes. Citywide, the blue-green roof coverage is even bigger, estimated at more than 45,000 sq metres.

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Use of enclosed combustors leaves regulators heavily reliant on oil and gas companies’ own flaring data

Oil and gas equipment intended to cut methane emissions is preventing scientists from accurately detecting greenhouse gases and pollutants, a satellite image investigation has revealed.

Energy companies operating in countries such as the US, UK, Germany and Norway appear to have installed technology that could stop researchers from identifying methane, carbon dioxide emissions and pollutants at industrial facilities involved in the disposal of unprofitable natural gas, known in the industry as flaring.

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Report published Tuesday shows sector’s shift from climate denial to strategy of ‘deception, disinformation and doublespeak’

The fossil fuel industry spent decades sowing doubt about the dangers of burning oil and gas, experts and Democratic lawmakers testified on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.

The Senate budget committee held a hearing to review a report published on Tuesday with the House oversight and accountability committee that they said demonstrates the sector’s shift from explicit climate denial to a more sophisticated strategy of “deception, disinformation and doublespeak”.

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Agreement gives leeway to countries heavily reliant on coal and allows power plants fitted with carbon-capture technology

Ministers from the G7 countries agreed on Tuesday to end the use of unabated coal power plants by 2035 – but left the door open for those heavily reliant on coal to breach the deadline.

After two days of talks in Turin, Italy, they published a pledge to “phase out existing unabated coal power generation in our energy systems during the first half of 2030s” to curb the rise in global greenhouse gas emissions.

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Scientists stunned by scale of destruction after summer of storm surges, cyclones and floods

Beneath the turquoise waters off Heron Island lies a huge, brain-shaped Porites coral that, in health, would be a rude shade of purplish-brown. Today that coral outcrop, or bommie, shines snow white.

Prof Terry Hughes, a coral bleaching expert at James Cook University, estimates this living boulder is at least 300 years old.

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Politicians fear perceived costs of green transition are driving poor and rural voters to parties such as AfD

Raising his voice above the pounding drums and honking tractors, Lutz Jankus, a city councillor from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), distanced himself from the furious protest unfurling before him.

“They’re rightwing extremists,” he said about Free Saxony, a loose political movement that includes neo-Nazis and skinheads, as his colleagues began to pack up their tent on the side of the square in the centre of Görlitz.

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