Reported closure of program for home appliances comes amid president’s hatred of water-conserving showers
US customers could face higher energy bills, experts have warned, amid reports that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plans to end the Energy Star program whose blue labels have certified energy efficiency on home appliances for more than 30 years.
“If you wanted to raise families’ energy bills, getting rid of the Energy Star label would be a pretty good way,” said Steven Nadel, executive director of the non-profit research organization the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
05/07/2025 - 10:19
05/07/2025 - 10:00
Characterised by darkness and cold temperatures, the extreme environment of Antarctica’s deep sea is largely unexplored. Now, after a special marine science voyage, a team aboard Australia’s national icebreaker, RSV Nuyina, has collected some remarkable species from the waters around the Denman Glacier
Read more about RSV Nuyina’s crucial mission to Antarctica
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05/07/2025 - 10:00
Australian Ethical, which holds $56m worth of QBE shares, calls on insurer to overhaul its policies which allow it to underwrite oil and gas projects without restriction ahead of AGM
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An ethical super fund is pushing for QBE to overhaul its coverage policies amid criticism the insurer can underwrite fossil fuel projects without restriction while blaming the climate crisis for steep premium rises.
The critique comes ahead of QBE’s annual general meeting in Sydney on Friday, and against a backdrop of rapidly rising premiums that has priced some households out of insurance coverage altogether.
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05/07/2025 - 08:46
A Russian drone attack has inflicted tens of millions of pounds of damage to the site of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant, according to experts. The photographer Julia Kochetova has gained access to the area
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05/07/2025 - 08:00
Political uncertainty under Trump has dampened the market, even as red states see a boom in renewable energy
Renewable energy in the US has surged to unprecedented levels, with the combined power generated by solar, wind and geothermal more than tripling over the past decade, according to a new report by a network of state environmental groups.
The growth has slashed harmful greenhouse gas emissions, made the nation’s energy system more resilient and prevented thousands of premature deaths from power plant pollution, according to the report by Environment America.
The amount of solar energy produced in 2024 – enough to power 28m homes – was nearly eight times higher than a decade earlier. Solar power production increased 27% from 2023 to 2024.
Wind produced even more energy – enough to power 42m homes in 2024. The amount of power from wind has more than doubled over the past decade.
Wind, solar and geothermal energy accounted for 19% of all retail sales of electricity last year, according to the federal data used to produce the report.
The amount of utility-scale battery storage in the US grew 63% from 2023 to 2024 – and a more than 80-fold increase over the past decade.
Nearly 3.3m electric vehicles were on US roads at the end of 2023 – a 25-fold increase from 2014. The number of electric vehicle charging ports, meanwhile, grew to more than 218,000 at the end of 2024 – six times more than there were in 2015 and a 24% increase from just the year before.
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05/07/2025 - 08:00
Jaguars, giant armadillos and ocelots among species threatened by shrinking habitat in one of the richest areas of biodiversity in the world
In the Gran Chaco forest, vast green expanses – home to jaguars, giant armadillos and howler monkeys – have turned to fields of dust. The forest once brimmed with life, says Bashe Nuhem, a member of the Indigenous Qom community, but then came a road, and soon after that logging companies. “It was an invasion. Loggers came without any consultation and families moved away. Those that stayed were left with only a cemetery of trees,” she says.
The Gran Chaco is South America’s second-largest forest after the Amazon; its 100m hectares (247m acres) stretch across Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil and Bolivia. It is also one of the richest areas of biodiversity in the world – host to more than 3,400 species of plants, 500 birds, 150 mammals, 120 reptiles and 100 amphibians.
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05/07/2025 - 08:00
Party intends to block projects despite net zero industries contributing nearly £1bn to local economy, analysis shows
UK politics live – latest updates
Reform UK’s plans to obstruct green energy projects in Lincolnshire put at risk almost £1bn in local investment and more than 12,000 jobs, analysis suggests.
No 10 said it would fight any attempt by the party to dismantle or block renewable investment in the area, after its deputy leader, Richard Tice, said Reform-controlled councils and its mayors would be able to block what he called “net stupid zero” infrastructure, including solar farms, pylons and battery storage systems.
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05/07/2025 - 05:42
Trials will test ways to block sunlight and slow climate crisis that threatens to trigger catastrophic tipping points
Real-world geoengineering experiments spanning the globe from the Arctic to the Great Barrier Reef are being funded by the UK government. They will test sun-reflecting particles in the stratosphere, brightening reflective clouds using sprays of seawater and pumping water on to sea ice to thicken it.
Getting this “critical missing scientific data” is vital with the Earth nearing several catastrophic climate tipping points, said the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria), the government agency backing the plan. If demonstrated to be safe, geoengineering could temporarily cool the planet and give more time to tackle the root cause of the climate crisis: the burning of fossil fuels.
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05/07/2025 - 05:00
On average, five fatal whale strikes occur in the country’s waters each year, the highest in the world – and just a fraction of the total number killed, say researchers
Photographs by Francis Pérez
The memory of a blue whale gliding past his small boat haunts Patricio Ortiz. A deep wound disfigured the cetacean’s giant body – a big chunk had been ripped from its dorsal fin. Cargo ships are the only adversary capable of inflicting such harm on a blue whale, he says.
“Nothing can be done when they’re up against those floating monsters.”
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05/07/2025 - 04:53
Feeding the world sustainably is an incredibly complex challenge, yet some people are trying to sell us a bucolic fairytale
The fire that has just destroyed 500 hectares (1,230 acres) of Dartmoor should have been impossible. It should not be a fire-prone landscape. But sheep, cattle and ponies have made it so. They selectively browse out tree seedlings, preventing the return of temperate rainforest, which is extremely difficult to burn. In dry weather, the moor grass, bracken and heather covering the deforested landscape are tinder.
The plume of carbon dioxide and smoke released this week is one of the many impacts of livestock grazing. But several recent films, alongside celebrities, politicians, billionaires and far-right podcasts, seek to persuade us that cattle and sheep are good for the atmosphere and the living planet. This story, wrapped in romantic cottagecore, is now the most active and seductive frontier of climate-science denial. It is heavily promoted by the meat industry, which is as ruthless and machiavellian as the fossil fuel industry. It sows confusion among people desperately seeking to do the right thing in an age of misinformation.
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
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