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Volvo’s move to electric demonstrates the role ethical business can play in shaping our society for the better• Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
“I think a lot about electric cars,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk famously said at a party at the very end of the 80s. “Do you think a lot about electric cars?” The problem with thinking a lot about electric cars is that certain things become impossible to unthink: powering a car with fossil fuels, meeting 21st-century challenges with 19th-century answers, become more than irresponsible. It becomes ridiculous.
You’ll never know when the tipping point is – it’s possibly as little as five minutes – but think enough about electric cars, especially if you’re a car manufacturer, and wham … you’re Volvo. They were rolling along perfectly happily until they thought too hard: about their business model and benefit to society; about climate change and their future customers; and so they made the decision that all their cars would be fully electric, or at least hybrid, by 2019. Not one car solely powered by internal combustion engine will come off a Volvo production line by 2020.
Related: UK to fund research into letting electric cars return power to grid
Related: Elon Musk's big battery brings reality crashing into a post-truth world | Tim Hollo
Not one car solely powered by internal combustion engine will come off a Volvo production line by 2020
Continue reading...A taunting peal of thunder rings out overhead as Diego García de la Peña studies one of his ponds and wonders whether its water will see his cattle through until October.
The 65-year-old farmer – a former bullfighter who quotes Federico García Lorca and whose ancestors were among the legions of steely Extremadurans who bent the New World to their will – is a worried man.
Continue reading...The UK prime minister holds a press conference to mark the end of the G20 summit in Hamburg and expresses her ‘dismay’ at the Trump administration’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement. May also says she’s looking forward to welcoming Trump to London and hails progress made in beginning trade discussions with other world leaders
G20 summit: ‘G19’ leave Trump alone in joint statement on climate change – latestContinue reading...All other world leaders sign declaration that deal is irreversible after US withdrawal sparks standoff in Hamburg
Donald Trump was left isolated at the end of a fractious G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, after every other world leader signed up to a declaration that the Paris climate agreement was irreversible following an unprecedented standoff.
After the publication of a final communique that saw the emergence of a G19 grouping for the first time, Theresa May said she was “dismayed at the US decision to pull out” of the accord and had personally urged the president to reconsider.
Related: Upper hand: Trump and Putin's body language shows who's the boss | John Crace
Continue reading...German chancellor Angela Merkel speaks to the press at the end of the G20 summit in Hamburg on Saturday and addresses the clear split between the positions of the US and the remaining 19 nations over climate change in the summit’s joint statement notes
G20 leaders’ statement on climate change highlights rift with USContinue reading...Joint statement points to US decision to withdraw from Paris agreement while other G20 countries see accord as ‘irreversible’
World leaders have made clear the US’s isolated stance on climate change, with 19 of the G20 countries affirming their commitment to the “irreversible” Paris climate agreement.
After lengthy negotiations that stretched well into Saturday, the final joint statement from the meeting in Hamburg notes Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris deal while stating that the world’s other major economies all still support the international effort to slow dangerous global warming.
Related: G20 summit: 'G19' leave Trump alone in joint statement on climate change - latest
Related: Tell Donald Trump: the Paris climate deal is very good for America | Joseph Stiglitz
Continue reading...Government needs to get on the front foot to ensure plans for Marine Protected Areas are not watered down by other parties
Shortly before World Ocean Day, and a special UN meeting to address threats facing oceans, the US president, Donald Trump, announced that the country was walking away from the Paris agreement. Here in Australia, there was a welcome bipartisan commitment to stay the course, with Malcolm Turnbull defending Australia’s participation in this critically important environmental pact.
But Australia’s environmental diplomacy needs to be more than just defensive. Taking a cue from French president Emmanuel Macron’s pledge to “make the planet great again” by determined leadership on climate action, Australia should likewise move on to the front foot. And one place where it can make a big contribution is in its own backyard – Antarctica and the Southern Ocean.
Related: Giant Antarctic iceberg 'hanging by a thread', say scientists
Related: Life as a whale: a humpback's view of the Antarctic – in pictures
Continue reading...Donald Trump wants to remove wording from a draft communique that would commit the US to agreed reductions of fossil fuel emissions, it is claimed
Donald Trump is being accused of trying to water down the wording of a G20 draft communique about climate change, with US and EU officials expected to clash over the issue in talks expected to stretch through the night.
One section of the draft, seen by the Guardian, took note of the US decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement on climate change, but added: “The United States affirms its strong commitment to a global approach that lowers emissions while supporting economic growth and improving energy security needs.”
Related: G20 summit: Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin officially meet for the first time - live
Continue reading...Naomi Klein tells Owen Jones that Donald Trump’s administration is using a ‘new formula’ for pushing through its agenda. Rather than the disaster capitalism she outlined in her book The Shock Doctrine, Klein says the Republican party is using Donald Trump’s ‘mental instability, out-of-control ego and general man-babyness’ to distract from their policies, which are ‘savaging’ environmental standards and already-inadequate financial regulationsAn extended version of this interview is available on Owen Jones’s YouTube channel
Continue reading...The quietly released details confirm previous analysis done for the Guardian, which revealed a bigger rise in emissions than projected
Australia’s official greenhouse gas data, showing a continued increase in emissions, was quietly published on a government website on Friday, after internal government correspondence showed it had been held back from release for more than a month.
The figures broadly confirm independent analysis done exclusively for Guardian Australia by consultants at NDEVR Environmental, published last month. Those projections proved about 98% accurate, with emissions rising by even more than was projected.
Related: Australia's carbon emissions rise in off-season for first time in a decade
Emissions data released today here https://t.co/lBYSOHd2Xi NB: electricity sector emissions decreased by 1.3% in Dec Qtr
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