Campaigners condemn decision as studies reveal harm to health and climate caused by heating appliances
UK politics live – latest updates
Wood-burning stoves will be allowed to heat new-build homes in England despite growing evidence showing their significant contribution to air pollution and carbon emissions.
The government is writing its Future Homes Standards, a set of rules for developers aimed at decarbonising England’s housing stock. Heating the UK’s 28m homes accounts for about 18% of greenhouse gas emissions.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
04/24/2025 - 06:11
04/24/2025 - 04:00
Discovery could provide valuable clues as to how the climate crisis might affect Antarctica, says study
Giant, flat-topped icebergs the size of the city of Cambridge drifted off the coast of Britain during the last ice age, according to a study that has uncovered evidence of their existence for the first time.
A series of distinctive, comb-like grooves found preserved in sediment near Aberdeen in Scotland were left behind by the underside of huge “tabular” icebergs that dragged across the North Sea floor between 18,000 and 20,000 years ago, the researchers said.
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04/24/2025 - 03:00
Americans have often moved between states for opportunities. Now they’re being forced to uproot themselves to escape hostile forces under Trump
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04/24/2025 - 01:00
The horrifying planning bill, which rips up environmental protections, was drafted with CEOs in mind. We know because Keir Starmer told us
Those of us who try to defend wildlife are horribly familiar with bad laws. But we’ve never seen anything like this. The government’s planning and infrastructure bill is the worst assault on England’s ecosystems in living memory. It erases decades of environmental protections, including legislation we inherited from the EU, which even the Tories promised to uphold.
The rules defending wildlife and habitats from unscrupulous developers are weak enough already, which is partly why, as Labour reminded us in its manifesto, Britain is “one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world”. But this bill will make it much, much worse.
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
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EVs to cost more under a Coalition government, after Dutton’s apparent backflip on popular tax break
04/24/2025 - 00:26
Polestar says Dutton’s move shows ‘a complete lack of understanding of the significant cost-of-living, climate and health benefits of EVs’
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Electric vehicles would cost more under a Coalition government, after Peter Dutton confirmed he would scrap a popular tax break for EV drivers in an apparent backflip that has caused confusion and anger among clean car advocates.
The initiative, which was introduced by the Albanese government in 2022, has meant if a person buys an EV priced under $91,387 through a novated lease program via their employer (when a lease is paid off through pre-taxed salary deductions) they do not have to pay fringe benefits tax (FBT) – even if the car is only for personal use.
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04/23/2025 - 23:00
Two Belgian 19-year-olds have pleaded guilty to wildlife piracy – part of a growing trend of trafficking ‘less conspicuous’ creatures for sale as exotic pets
Poaching busts are familiar territory for the officers of Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), an armed force tasked with protecting the country’s iconic creatures. But what awaited guards when they descended in early April on a guesthouse in the west of the country was both larger and smaller in scale than the smuggling operations they typically encounter. There were more than 5,000 smuggled animals, caged in their own enclosures. Each one, however, was about the size of a little fingernail: 18-25mm.
The cargo, which two Belgian teenagers had apparently intended to ship to exotic pet markets in Europe and Asia, was ants. Their enclosures were a mixture of test tubes and syringes containing cotton wool – environments that authorities say would keep the insects alive for weeks.
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04/23/2025 - 18:06
Government is ‘setting up conversations’ as companies arrive in London for clean energy summit
The UK is to woo global green investors, including those scared away from the US by the actions of Donald Trump, by offering cash and infrastructure improvements to encourage companies to set up manufacturing plants and supply chains.
The government will bring forward £300m for offshore windfarms, an area in which the UK retains a lead, and has invited banks and major international companies to a 60-country summit in London this week.
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04/23/2025 - 13:00
Fossil teeth show species of protemnodon that roamed Australia between 5m and 40,000 years ago lived and died near Queensland caves
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Despite their immense size, species of prehistoric giant kangaroos from a site in Queensland were probably homebodies with a surprisingly small range compared with other kangaroos, according to new Australian research.
Protemnodon, which lived on the Australian continent between 5m and 40,000 years ago, was significantly larger than its modern relatives. Some species weighed up to 170kg, making them more than twice as heavy as the largest red kangaroo.
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04/23/2025 - 12:17
Chancellor says UK is ‘not going to rush a deal’ and rejects new US demands on agricultural products
Markets rise as Trump backtracks on China tariffs and firing Fed chair
Reeves looks at ending zero tax regime for low-value imports
Rachel Reeves has dashed hopes of an early breakthrough in trade talks with the Trump administration, stressing that the UK is “not going to rush” into a deal.
Speaking before her first face-to-face meeting with the US Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, in which she was expected to lobby him to reduce tariffs, the chancellor said negotiations would take time.
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04/23/2025 - 10:58
Researchers left at US climate agency say drastic cuts could leave air ‘not breathable’ and water ‘not drinkable’
The Trump administration has shunted one of the US federal government’s top scientific agencies onto a “non-science trajectory”, workers warn, that threatens to derail decades of research and leave the US with “air that’s not breathable and water that’s not drinkable”.
Workers and scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) are warning of the drastic impacts of cuts at the agency on science, research, and efforts to protect natural resources.
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