History tells us that polite incrementalism and political kowtowing will prevail at Cop30 – even as catastrophe unfolds around us

As world leaders gather in Brazil this year for Cop30 – the first Amazonian Cop – it’s worth doing a quick reality check on how we are collectively tracking to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

Despite 30 years of UN climate summits, about half of the carbon dioxide accumulated in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution has been emitted since 1990. Incidentally, 1990 was the year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – the global authority on climate change science – released its First Assessment Report confirming the threat of human-caused global warming. As scientists all over the world prepare the IPCC’s Seventh Assessment Report, we do so knowing that our work is still being overshadowed by politics. Despite all the well-intentioned half-measures, the truth is that the world is still disastrously off track to limit dangerous climate change.

Dr Joëlle Gergis is an award-winning climate scientist and writer from the University of Melbourne. She served as a lead author on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on the Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report

Report says proven technology could benefit thousands in poor quality housing and help UK meet carbon reduction targets

Flooded disused coalmines could be a significant source of energy and provide cheap heat to thousands of homes, a new report argues.

Mine water geothermal heat (MWGH) systems use the water in flooded coalmines, which is warmed by natural processes, to supply low-carbon heat. Heat exchangers and pumps recover the heat, which is distributed via district heating networks to homes and buildings, providing low-cost, long-term, stable energy.

Lawyers challenge €4bn Project One development, saying emissions and health impacts vastly underestimated

The deaths from pollution caused by Europe’s biggest plastic plant, which is being built in Antwerp, will outstrip the number of permanent jobs it will create, lawyers will argue in a court challenge issued on Thursday.

In documents submitted to the court, research suggests the air pollution from Ineos’s €4bn petrochemical plant would cause 410 deaths once operational, compared with the 300 permanent jobs the company says will be created.

After it was found most offsets did not represent real carbon reductions, the money dried up. But successful schemes such as Kasigau in Kenya now face a stark future

Solomon Morris Makau checks the fallen tree for snakes before he wraps a tape measure around the trunk. The early morning sun is overwhelming in the dryland forests of the Kasigau corridor, which separates the east and west Tsavo national parks in southern Kenya. Two guards keep watch for elephants and lions. There is little sign of green among the sprawling acacias, which stand silently in their punishing wait for the end of the dry season. Despite the threat from puff adders, Makau and his team have a job to do: measure the trees and shrubs in this 50 sq metre area to calculate their growth and change in carbon stock.

“This one is lying dead,” says Makau, of one of the trees pushed over by elephants – but tens of thousands around it are still alive, stretching out in the distance as far as the eye can see.

Solomon Morris Makau, right, leads a team of environmental technicians in gathering bio data from natural vegetation

Report calls for scaling-up of renewable energy and electrification of key sectors to limit peak of global heating

There is still a chance for the world to avoid the worst ravages of climate breakdown and return to the goal of 1.5C if governments take concerted action on greenhouse gas emissions, a new assessment argues.

The Climate Analytics report says governments’ goals are inadequate and need to be rapidly revised, and calls for the rapid scaling-up of the use of renewable energy and electrification of key sectors including transport, heating and industry.

Report to be discussed at Cop30 says global agreements should target carbon intensive activities and ‘ultra high net worth individuals’

New taxes on the super-rich, fossil fuels, financial transactions and highly polluting and carbon-intensive activities should be explored as key ways of raising the finance needed to help poor countries, governments have been told in an influential report.

The proposal is one of the top recommendations of a new blueprint for global climate finance, the Baku to Belém roadmap, drawn up by the governments of Brazil and Azerbaijan, the current and the previous president of the UN climate Cop process.

Blocking the sun may reduce global heating – but ‘rogue actor’ could cause drought or more hurricanes, report finds

Solar geoengineering could increase the ferocity of North Atlantic hurricanes, cause the Amazon rainforest to die back and cause drought in parts of Africa if deployed above only some parts of the planet by rogue actors, a report has warned.

However, if technology to block the sun was used globally and in a coordinated way for a long period – decades or even centuries – there is strong evidence that it would lower the global temperature, the review from the UK’s Royal Society concluded.

Despite progress in cutting carbon pollution, climate groups say country’s toughest hurdles are yet to come