Proposed global treaty to curb production represents challenge to producers of fossil fuels, from which most plastics are made

The number of fossil fuel and petrochemical industry lobbyists at UN talks to agree the first global treaty to cut plastic pollution has increased by more than a third, according to an analysis.

Most plastic is made from fossil fuels, via a chemical process known as cracking, and 196 lobbyists from both industries are at the UN talks in Ottawa, Canada, where countries are attempting to come to an agreement to curb plastic production as part of a treaty to cut global plastic waste, according to analysis by the Center for International Environmental Law (Ciel).

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Scheme for plastic bottles and cans put back to 2027 while environment minister says glass recycling ‘unduly’ complex

A UK deposit return scheme for recycling drinks bottles has been delayed to 2027, meaning it will not be in place until almost a decade after it was proposed.

Campaigners say the delay is a “huge disappointment”, adding they are doubly dismayed that the plan will not include glass bottles.

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Green Finance Institute report said further pollution could cut 12% off GDP by 2030s

The destruction of nature over the rest of the decade could trigger a bigger economic slump in Britain than those caused by the 2008 global financial crisis and the Covid pandemic, experts have warned.

Sounding the alarm over the rising financial cost from pollution, damage to water systems, soil erosion, and threats from disease, the report by the Green Finance Institute warned that further breakdown in the UK’s natural environment could lead to a 12% loss of gross domestic product (GDP) by the 2030s.

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L'orbite terrestre est jonchée de débris datant des débuts de la conquête spatiale. Pour qu'elle puisse toujours être accessible, des efforts sont entrepris pour désorbiter les satellites en fin de vie. Mais il y a aussi à traiter tous les objets dont la conception n'a pas prévu l'après.

Sector may breach the government’s Jet Zero strategy which pledged not to surpass 2019 CO ₂ figures

Emissions from UK flights are rapidly returning to pre-pandemic levels, with CO ₂ pollution from aviation on track to reach a record high this year.

The increase means the sector may breach a key plank of the government’s Jet Zero strategy , which pledged to not surpass 2019 figures on the way to reaching net zero emissions from aviation by 2050.

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Supreme court ruling left more than 90% of state’s surface waters with no pollution protections, since they don’t run continuously

New Mexico’s rivers, which include the Rio Grande, Gila, San Juan and Pecos, are America’s most threatened waterways, according to a new report. This is largely due to a 2023 US supreme court decision that left more than 90% of the state’s surface waters without federal protections from industrial pollution, according to state officials.

“Virtually all the rivers in New Mexico are losing clean water protections,” said Matt Rice, the south-west regional director of American Rivers, the conservation group that publishes the annual list . “It has the most to lose, and the threat is particularly acute there.”

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When Joy and Jo Banner founded the Descendants Project in 2020, they didn’t expect to be defending their hometown first

When twin sisters Joy and Jo Banner founded their non-profit, the Descendants Project, in 2020, their goal was to protect the Black-founded “freetowns” in Louisiana’s river parishes. Like the Banners’ hometown of Wallace, many of the Black communities that abut the lower Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans were founded after emancipation by people who’d once been enslaved.

Today, decades of disinvestment have left freetowns vulnerable to predatory development, land theft and industrialization. The Banners hoped to reverse those trends. Yet within weeks of creating their organization, their purpose shifted dramatically. Instead of supporting other Black communities, the twins found themselves fighting for their own hometown’s survival. Wallace, population 1,240, was facing an existential threat in the form of the proposed construction of a gargantuan grain-export terminal, the latest in an onslaught of industrial growth along the lower Mississippi River. The terminal would “drain us of all of our resources and all of our quality of life”, Joy said. “The overall goal is to run all of us out.”

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Jakarta hopes the industry is the ticket to becoming a developed nation. But there are fears the toll on the environment – and people’s lives – will be too high

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Standing chest-deep in the Molucca Sea, just outside the billowing smokestacks of the world’s largest nickel industry, Upin adjusts his mask and dives. Members of his people, the Bajau, have been known to stay underwater for more than 10 minutes but Upin resurfaces shortly. He hauls a rugged disc of metal over the side of his dugout canoe.

“Since the factories arrived, there has barely been any fish to catch,” he says and grimaces towards the opaque water.

Above: Upin steers his boat with wife Jenni and son Riski past nickel factories in Morowali. Since the factories opened, their drinking water has been polluted and fish is no longer abundant. – All images by Per Liljas
Below: Open cut nickel mining leads to erosion and sediment sludge in local waterways.

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Thames Water owes hundreds of millions of pounds in debt, and the UK government is concerned about its potential collapse. Helena Horton reports

Thames Water, the UK’s biggest water company, which services 16 million people across the south of England, is facing criticism over its management.

Kemble, the parent company of Thames Water, told its creditors last week that it had defaulted on its debt. Amid fears that the company will collapse, the government is considering options for next steps.

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