Mountain path repairs 'first big work' since 1980s
Just nowShareSaveAdd as preferred on Google Fix the Fells Rangers are digging up the existing stone at Helvellyn's Swirls Path and will lay wider sections Repairs along one of England's highest mountains are under way with chiefs describing it as the "first significant work" there since the 1980s. Swirls Path, at Helvellyn, in the Lake District, is used . The Fix the Fells conservation group, which is carrying out the work, warns the area either side of the path is being eroded with vegetation damaged. In the first stage of a three-year project, rangers are pulling out the old path and replacing sections with wider stone pitching. Alongside materials recovered from the site that are to be reused, more than 100 tonnes of stone were delivered . Fix the Fells A helicopter was used to transport more than 100 tonnes of stone Ranger Pete Entwistle is one of nine carrrying out the work. He said the team would be aiming to strike a "happy balance between what is needed to protect the fellside environment and meeting the needs of path users". Set up 25 years ago, Fix the Fells is a partnership between the National Trust, Lake District National Park, Natural England, Friends of the Lake District and the Lake District Foundation. Its rangers and volunteers work to repair damage and create sustainable paths across the Lake District with the aim of balancing conservation and public access. Follow BBC Cumbria on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram. More on this topicFell volunteers clock up record hours Related internet linksLake District National Park Helvellyn Conservation
Trump Funds Two New Coal Plants and Extends Another Dozen, Citing ‘Energy Dominance’
Thursday’s flurry of coal news from energy officials included $425 million to extend the life of 12 coal plants in several states, such as $50 million from the U. Department of Energy (DOE) for the Wheeling Power Company’s plans to “modernize” the Mitchell Plant in Moundsville, West Virginia. “This was not necessarily a surprise. But also the rhetoric is frustrating, because coal is not dead in West Virginia,” said an exasperated Quenton King, government affairs specialist for the advocacy group Appalachian Voices, upon hearing the news. “We’re not building giant new solar panels in West Virginia, we’re just maintaining the coal systems.” The latest coal projects are located in a different part of West Virginia to where legacy health issues have long been linked to coal, King noted. Still, he said the significant reinvestment in coal is all part of the same statewide trend in which energy alternatives are not receiving funding, more-expensive-to-build coal plants are, and people’s health and strapped pockets are bound to suffer. ICN Weekly Saturdays Our #1 delivers the week’s climate and energy news – our original stories and top headlines from around the web. Get ICN Weekly Inside Clean Energy Thursdays Dan Gearino’s habit-forming weekly take on how to understand the energy transformation reshaping our world. Get Inside Clean Energy Today’s Climate Tuesdays A once-a-week digest of the most pressing climate-, written . Get Today’s Climate Don’t miss a beat. Get a daily email of our original, groundbreaking stories written -winning reporters. Get ICN Sunday Morning Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and ICN reporters as they discuss one of the week’s top stories. Get ICN Sunday Morning Justice & Health A digest of stories on the inequalities that worsen the impacts of climate change on vulnerable communities. Outside of West Virginia, Thursday’s announcement of $425 million from the DOE included funding to extend the life of coal plants in Arkansas, Arizona, Kentucky, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Wisconsin. Another $350 million would be invested in new coal power plants in Anchorage, Alaska, and Mount Storm, West Virginia, federal officials said, and for upgrading a coal-fired plant in Guayama, Puerto Rico, and restarting a facility that closed in 2024 in Cumberland, Maryland. The announcements came against the backdrop of Environmental Protection Agency rollbacks of regulations meant to protect people from toxic coal ash, and as the federal government continues to divest from renewable energy options such as solar and offshore wind.
Feds Will Soon Impose New Framework on Colorado River if States Can’t Agree How to Manage It
BOULDER, Colo.—The federal government will impose a 10-year operating framework for managing water use in the Colorado River Basin , said Scott Cameron, acting commissioner for the Bureau of Reclamation, at a water conference Thursday. The announcement comes in the midst of the worst water year ever recorded on the Colorado River and after years of tense and largely fruitless negotiations between water managers in the states that rely on the declining waterway. The states have missed November and February deadlines to reach an agreement, and the current guidelines outlining drought mitigation efforts for the Colorado River Basin expire at the end of September, so new guidelines must be in place by Oct. 1. State and tribal leaders, however, said the federal government’s proposal, which would be reevaluated every two years, will only lead to more uncertainty as it will require constant negotiations between the states over how to share the river, and could go against what some see as the guiding laws regulating the river. ICN Weekly Saturdays Our #1 delivers the week’s climate and energy news – our original stories and top headlines from around the web. Get ICN Weekly Inside Clean Energy Thursdays Dan Gearino’s habit-forming weekly take on how to understand the energy transformation reshaping our world. Get Inside Clean Energy Today’s Climate Tuesdays A once-a-week digest of the most pressing climate-, written . Get Today’s Climate Don’t miss a beat. Get a daily email of our original, groundbreaking stories written -winning reporters. Get ICN Sunday Morning Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and ICN reporters as they discuss one of the week’s top stories. Get ICN Sunday Morning Justice & Health A digest of stories on the inequalities that worsen the impacts of climate change on vulnerable communities. In mid-summer, Cameron said, the Bureau of Reclamation will release the final Environmental Impact Statement, which will detail the federal government’s preferred plan for managing the river after 2026. The bureau will issue a final decision on the framework a short time later. “The preferred alternative provides a 10-year framework,” he said. Consultation with the 30 tribes in the basin, and with Mexico, where the river ends, are also ongoing. Meanwhile, flows on the Colorado River, which supplies water to 40 million people across the states and Mexico, and irrigation for over 5 million acres of cropland, have declined by about a third over the past century, with demand outpacing supply, leading the region’s reservoirs to drop to historic lows. Recent studies have found another dry winter could leave lakes Mead and Powell, the two largest reservoirs on the river and in the nation, nearly dry.
Offshore oil and gas expansion threatens key marine ecosystems, report warns
Share: X (Twitter) Facebook LinkedIn WhatsApp Email Print Ocean and coastal creatures are being put at risk , noise, dredging and shipping associated with new offshore oil and gas infrastructure, says a new report by a group of environmental NGOs. The report by 12 environmental groups analysed planned new offshore oil and gas blocks covering 430,000 square kilometres - an area the size of Sweden - in 11 countries. Blocks in countries such as Kenya, Indonesia and Australia overlap with some of the planet's hotspots for marine biodiversity, home to mangroves, coral reefs, sea turtles, sharks and whales. Oil and gas expansion is advancing in spite of the legal protections already in place, the report says, with a third of the area being licensed overlapping with marine and coastal protected areas. "It is alarming to research findings and the sheer scale of fossil fuel expansion trajectories threatening the health and future of our shared ocean," said Tyson Miller, executive director of Earth Insight, one of the environmental NGOs involved in the report. Log in here → This article is for subscribers Our reporters on the negotiating rooms in Bonn. This is the coverage that other outlets often skip — get unlimited access from £40/quarter. keep reading → Or £130/year — best value. ×Log in to your account Forgot your password? Ocean and coastal creatures are being put at risk , noise, dredging and shipping associated with new offshore oil and gas infrastructure, says a new report by a group of environmental NGOs. The report by 12 environmental groups analysed planned new offshore oil and gas blocks covering 430,000 square kilometres - an area the size of Sweden - in 11 countries. Blocks in countries such as Kenya, Indonesia and Australia overlap with some of the planet's hotspots for marine biodiversity, home to mangroves, coral reefs, sea turtles, sharks and whales. Oil and gas expansion is advancing in spite of the legal protections already in place, the report says, with a third of the area being licensed overlapping with marine and coastal protected areas. "It is alarming to research findings and the sheer scale of fossil fuel expansion trajectories threatening the health and future of our shared ocean," said Tyson Miller, executive director of Earth Insight, one of the environmental NGOs involved in the report. At the first conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta, around 60 countries floated the idea of creating "fossil fuel-free zones", which would seek to place limits on coal, oil and gas in areas where development would lead to severe social and environmental harm.
The scramble to stockpile critical minerals could drive up energy transition costs
Share: X (Twitter) Facebook LinkedIn WhatsApp Email Print As competition for minerals needed to produce clean energy technologies intensifies, a growing number of countries have resorted to an age-old mechanism to cope with the threat of scarcity: stockpiling. The world’s biggest economies are racing to shore up reserves of cobalt, lithium, graphite and rare earths, which are needed to produce batteries, electric vehicles, wind turbines and electric systems to wean the global economy off fossil fuels. The same minerals are also increasingly sought after to manufacture military hardware and chips for AI, adding further pressure on supplies. But the cutthroat scramble to build up reserves threatens to drive up the costs of the energy transition , research published today has found. “If you undermine the financial viability of [clean energy] projects through higher raw material costs, you’re going to delay their roll-out,” co-author Hugh Miller, the critical minerals lead at the Centre for Economic Transition Expertise at the London School of Economics and Political Science, told Climate Home News. Stockpiling “is happening, whether we like it or not", said Miller. “But if we're going to do it, we need to have it in a coordinated manner that means we don’t have massive market volatility and adverse implications from every country trying to go at it alone,” he added. Log in here → Continue reading with free access Climate Home News is on the ground in Bonn — one of the few outlets covering the negotiations that will shape COP31 in November. Join free and keep reading → It takes less than a minute. ×Log in to your account Forgot your password? As competition for minerals needed to produce clean energy technologies intensifies, a growing number of countries have resorted to an age-old mechanism to cope with the threat of scarcity: stockpiling. The world’s biggest economies are racing to shore up reserves of cobalt, lithium, graphite and rare earths, which are needed to produce batteries, electric vehicles, wind turbines and electric systems to wean the global economy off fossil fuels. The same minerals are also increasingly sought after to manufacture military hardware and chips for AI, adding further pressure on supplies. But the cutthroat scramble to build up reserves threatens to drive up the costs of the energy transition , research published today has found. “If you undermine the financial viability of [clean energy] projects through higher raw material costs, you’re going to delay their roll-out,” co-author Hugh Miller, the critical minerals lead at the Centre for Economic Transition Expertise at the London School of Economics and Political Science, told Climate Home News.
Scientists warn Trump plan to axe US ocean monitoring system will leave world ‘flying blind’
FLMB-10-recovery, ocean research vessel Photograph: Dee Emrich/WHOI View image in fullscreen FLMB-10-recovery, ocean research vessel Photograph: Dee Emrich/WHOI Scientists warn Trump plan to axe US ocean monitoring system will leave world ‘flying blind’ Experts say dismantling the ocean observation system will ‘severely degrade’ the accuracy of weather predictions The Trump administration’s plan to dismantle an ocean observation system vital to understanding the climate crisis and marine ecosystems would “severely degrade” the accuracy of weather predictions and El Niño forecasts, with economic consequences for the US, European and American scientists have warned. Decommissioning the US system, which plays a major part in a global ocean observation network, would lead to a massive increase in error in the annual estimates of ocean heating rates, according to research published last month. As a result, the forecasts and early warning systems for storms, tropical cyclones and El Niño would degrade, “sometimes dangerously so”, according to Sabrina Speich, an expert in global ocean monitoring at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Paris and chair of the ocean expert panel of the Global Climate Observing System. The Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), run , is a vast network of seafloor systems, underwater gliders and moored surface platforms that feeds data to researchers, policymakers, educators and mariners worldwide. The initiative, which covers both US coastlines and extends into the North Atlantic and Southern Ocean, has been used to study marine heatwaves, harmful algal blooms, subduction zone earthquakes, ocean acidification and fisheries variability. Dismantling it would remove a major component of the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), a network of robotic floats, moored buoys and research vessels experts describe as the “eyes and ears” of the ocean. The warning systems based on the data, “save lives”, experts say. Prescient research published in Nature Climate Change last month showed how data losses in GOOS, a UN-coordinated framework for ocean data for weather and climate collected , could degrade the ocean heat estimates that underpin weather prediction, El Niño forecasting and fisheries management. Losing US observations would be worse than randomly losing 80% of all ocean data worldwide, it found. US-funded platforms span every ocean basin, plugging critical gaps that no other nation currently fills. Speich, a co-author of the research, said: “Ocean heat content is the most robust indicator of climate change we have – not just of what is happening in the ocean, but of the entire climate system”.
Average person eats six times more chicken than in 1961, UN report finds
The supply of chicken rose from below 3kg a person in 1961 to 17kg in 2022. Photograph: Edwin Remsberg/Alamy View image in fullscreen The supply of chicken rose from below 3kg a person in 1961 to 17kg in 2022. Photograph: Edwin Remsberg/Alamy Average person eats six times more chicken than in 1961, UN report finds UN report says global meat supply has risen fourfold in last 60 years and is expected to keep rising Analysis: Ingredients in place for shift to plant-based diets but meat still dominates The average person eats about six times as much chicken and twice as much pork as their grandparents’ generation did, data from a UN report suggests, with global meat supply having risen fourfold in the last 60 years and expected to keep rising. The supply of poultry rose from below 3kg a person in 1961 to 17kg in 2022, according to data from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Pork supply doubled to 15kg a person over the same period, while beef, the most polluting food, stayed steady at 9kg. Agriculture is the second most polluting sector of the global economy. Its planet-heating emissions are forecast to rise by 7.6% over the next decade, according to the FAO’s review of the science on the drivers of meat supply and demand, with livestock responsible for an estimated 80% of the increase. The report found the average global meat supply rose from 25kg per person in 1961 to 47kg per person in 2022. It found that about 14% of meat and milk was lost during production or wasted after reaching supermarket shelves and restaurants. View image in fullscreen The report found about 14% of meat and milk was lost during production or wasted after hitting supermarket shelves and restaurants. The FAO report, which was reviewed , cites research showing that wealthy nations are “driving excessive consumption” of animal products but does not go on to recommend they eat less meat. Graphic to show meat consumption“This report documents the problem clearly but stops well short of that conclusion,” said Cleo Verkuijl, a senior scientist at the Stockholm Environment Institute, who was not involved in the report. Previous FAO reports have been criticised “bewildering” omission of meat reduction from a climate roadmap, alleged “egregious errors” that downplayed the climate benefits of reducing meat in a report on livestock emissions, and a lack of engagement with scientific criticisms that one researcher described as “like hitting a brick wall”. The latest report was commissioned as a comprehensive assessment of the contribution of livestock to food security, sustainable food systems, nutrition and healthy diets.
‘Unpredictable and extreme’: Asia braces for El Niño
People drink sweetened water distributed . An El Niño could weaken a monsoon season that India sorely needs. Photograph: Narinder Nanu/AFP/ View image in fullscreen People drink sweetened water distributed . An El Niño could weaken a monsoon season that India sorely needs. Photograph: Narinder Nanu/AFP/ ‘Unpredictable and extreme’: Asia braces for El Niño Weather models project a potentially strong El Niño this year, which could spell disaster for heatwave-hit India, drench China and hurt agriculture across south-east Asia The UN has warned that the world must prepare for the imminent return of El Niño and the raised global temperatures and weather extremes it brings. The powerful natural weather pattern has an 80% chance of forming before September and a 90% chance before November, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Tuesday. Experts say what is particularly concerning is that El Niño is unfolding against the backdrop of human-driven climate change, meaning there is the potential for its impacts to be supercharged. Asia is predicted to be one of the regions most exposed, with intensifying heat and drought predicted to put major stresses on agriculture, power grids and water supplies. Here’s how conditions look in key areas across the continent: World almost certain to endure record hot year by 2030, UN warns ‘A deadly combination for India’ The core concern is that El Nino might intensify heat conditions and weaken the oncoming monsoon, the months of heavy rain that come every year around June, which is already predicted to deliver “below average” rainfall. Experts are warning that would be disastrous for India and the wider subcontinent, which has already been grappling with deadly heatwaves, and an energy crisis due to the crisis in the Middle East. If El Niño causes the rains to arrive later, the heatwave that has engulfed the country in recent weeks will continue longer, crippling livelihoods and leading to potentially thousands of deaths. A shortage of rains would prove particularly devastating for farmers, who rely on the rains for their next crop planting season. The heatwave in May has already caused damage to wheat and mustard crops and it is feared El Niño could worsen drought conditions and and have a worrying effect on food security in the country. View image in fullscreen People sleep during the hottest part of the day at a wholesale fruit market on the outskirts of Hyderabad, India.
Trump uses wartime powers to dole out $700m to ‘clean, beautiful’ coal
Workers transport and organize mounds of coal on a hilltop near an Arch Coal facility in Beckley, West Virginia, in 2025. Photograph: Adrees Latif/Reuters View image in fullscreen Workers transport and organize mounds of coal on a hilltop near an Arch Coal facility in Beckley, West Virginia, in 2025. Trump and his oil-and-coal oligarchy should face sanctions for their war on the environment | Alexander Hurst Trump is using the Defense Production Act, a cold war-era statute used to accelerate American industrial output in times of national need, to provide grants to more than a dozen existing coal plants across the US, including facilities capable of exporting coal. “As a result of the $700m investment that I’m announcing today, we will protect 14 coal plants and 42 coalmines, a tremendous number, and build two new coal plants and one massive new export terminal,” Trump said. The funds will be used to bring a new coal export terminal online in Oakland, California, and to restart an existing facility in Maryland. They will also keep online plants across 10 states: West Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Indiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, Arizona, Oklahoma, North Dakota and Wisconsin. Each of those 10 states voted for Trump, the president boasted on Thursday. “We won them all,” he said. The two new coal plants will be in Alaska and West Virginia. Trump has long been a champion of reviving the US’s ailing coal industry. Thursday’s White House event featured supportive governors and lawmakers from coal-rich states such as Wyoming and West Virginia. In the past year, the Trump administration has doled out hundreds of millions of dollars to the coal industry, signed orders forcing ratepayers to pay extra for ageing plants to stay open, and dismantled environmental rules that limit toxins from coal leaching into Americans’ shared air and water. The administration’s attempts to provide a cuddly rebranding to coal have even extended to creating a new mascot with giant eyes, called Coalie, and gushing social media posts that include an image of a lump of coal wearing sunglasses as if it were on the TV show Love Island. “You’re not allowed to say ‘coal’ within the Trump administration unless it’s preceded ‘clean, beautiful’,” Trump said on Thursday. “Complicates our life, but it’s good.” Regardless of such terminology, coal is not clean. It is the most carbon-dense fossil fuel and therefore a leading cause of the climate crisis when burned.
Next El Niño could be strongest in decades
A new phase of the natural El Niño weather pattern could begin in a matter of weeks, the UN has warned, boosting temperatures on a planet already under strain from climate change.