The country’s network of footpaths is growing – with hopes they will develop local economies and better preserve the environment
Follow the yellow footprints along Brazil’s newest long-distance trail, and they will take you through lush green forests and sandy shrubland, past sweeping vistas and bizarre rock formations, into grottos and rural communities.
Spanning 186km (115 miles) of paths once used by 19th-century merchants, the Caminhos da Ibiapaba is the first waymarked long-distance footpath in Brazil’s north-east region, adding to a growing network of hiking trails in the country.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
03/05/2026 - 09:01
03/05/2026 - 06:00
Fossil fuel price surge after US-Israeli attacks on Iran prompts calls to end dependence on ‘volatile’ energy source
Middle East crisis live – latest updates
The UK government must double down on its clean energy drive to protect bill payers from increasingly volatile fossil fuel markets in the wake of the US-Israel war on Iran, climate groups, academics and energy experts have warned.
Research published on Thursday shows that the last fossil fuel energy crisis, caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, cost the EU and the UK $1.8tn between 2022 and 2025, driving up bills and fuelling a devastating cost of living crisis.
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03/05/2026 - 06:00
Pacific island says the US weakened its proposal to advance a key climate ruling but vows to hold major polluters accountable
The Trump administration’s attempt to sink a UN resolution demanding countries act on the climate crisis has caused cuts to the proposal but hasn’t entirely killed it, according to the tiny Pacific island country spearheading the effort.
The US has demanded that Vanuatu, an archipelago in the south Pacific, drop its UN draft resolution that calls on the world to implement a landmark international court of justice (ICJ) ruling from last year that countries could face paying reparations if they fail to stem the climate crisis.
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03/05/2026 - 03:02
Regulator says failures that hit nearly 300,000 customers made worse by utility’s failure to maintain efficient supply system
Business live – latest updates
South East Water has been fined £22.5m by Ofwat for repeated supply failures in Kent and Sussex between 2020 and 2023 that affected more than 280,000 people.
While the root cause of the water shortages was extreme weather, the water regulator for England and Wales found that they were “in part attributable to and/or exacerbated by failures by South East Water itself to develop and maintain an efficient water supply system”.
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03/05/2026 - 01:00
At least eight councils receive legal threats alleging flyers criticising wood burners are in breach of advertising codes
Lobbyists for the UK wood-burning stove industry have threatened councils with legal action over public information campaigns warning of the harms of air pollution.
At least eight councils have received legal threats, according to research by the British Medical Journal (BMJ). The Stove Industry Association (SIA), which represents the UK’s expanding industry around the burning of wood in domestic settings, wrote to the councils, all London boroughs, in late 2023 complaining that flyers stating wood burners were “careless, not cosy” were in breach of UK advertising codes.
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03/05/2026 - 00:47
A sweeping new study of more than 2,000 insect species reveals a troubling reality: many insects may be far less capable of coping with rising temperatures than scientists once hoped. Researchers found that while some species living at higher altitudes can temporarily boost their heat tolerance, many insects in tropical lowlands—where biodiversity is highest—lack this flexibility. Because insects play essential roles as pollinators, decomposers, and predators, their vulnerability could ripple through entire ecosystems.
03/05/2026 - 00:00
The arrival of loggerheads in New South Wales shows these ‘sentinels of climate change’ are being forced into unknown territory
When Bulwal Bilima (BB for short) first arrived at Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia, she, or possibly he, was lethargic, badly constipated and dehydrated. Named “strong turtle” in the Aboriginal Dhurga language of the Yuin people on whose land it was found, the tiny 110g loggerhead hatchling, no bigger than a bar of soap, had a fight on its hands.
The baby turtle was found stranded in New South Wales’s Booderee national park last April, much further south than the usual hatching grounds. After days of feeding on squid, sardines and marine vitamins, BB, whose sex cannot be determined until it is fully mature, revived.
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03/05/2026 - 00:00
If we want things to be ‘Made in Europe’ again, we need to be realistic about how grimy and grey our centres of commerce once were
“Bitterfeld, Bitterfeld, where dirt falls from the sky,” went a popular saying. Located in the intensely industrialised Chemical Triangle of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), in the 1980s Bitterfeld became known as the dirtiest town in Europe. Its chemical industry and lignite mines dumped toxic waste in waterways, and the air carried a concentrate of sulphur dioxide some 40 times today’s levels.
Europe would soon be rattled out of its postwar reliance on heavy industry, in favour of cheap imports from abroad. In the last days of the GDR, environmental activism brought the coup de grâce. The 1988 release of the undercover film Bitter Things from Bitterfeld shed light on the appalling living conditions in the Chemical Triangle, and the city’s chemical plants were soon decommissioned.
Hans Larsson is an architect at OMA/AMO
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03/04/2026 - 13:33
The UK should optimise North Sea oil and gas production while it transfers to renewables and nuclear developments
The chancellor’s failure to reform or remove the energy profits levy (EPL) – AKA the North Sea windfall tax – in her spring forecast was a case of “political expediency and more to do with putting one byelection result before the economic needs of the country”. Who said that? Some Tory or Reform politician being opportunist as war in Iran puts the UK’s energy import dependency in the spotlight?
Actually, no, it was the general secretary of the GMB union, Gary Smith, on Wednesday, demonstrating once again that views on the North Sea oil and gas do not fit neatly into a left-right divide. He has been making the principled case for an orderly transition in energy for ages, warning that decarbonising via deindustrialising costs jobs and will end up pushing voters rightwards.
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03/04/2026 - 11:56
Climate deniers expected more resistance to the fossil fuel blitz. But Democrats, billionaires and activists have gone silent
This story is published in partnership with DeSmog, the climate investigations site
As Donald Trump assaults the legal foundation of America’s ability to regulate global warming emissions, climate deniers have been privately celebrating what they claim is the “silent” acquiescence of billionaires, Democrats, climate activists and even reporters to the president’s aggressive pro-fossil-fuel agenda.
“In my 26 years of being focused on climate, I’ve never seen anything like this. Trump is gutting everything they ever stood for,” Marc Morano, a longtime climate denier, said in January at the World Prosperity Forum, a five-day event in Zurich, Switzerland, billed as a rightwing alternative to the World Economic Forum in Davos.
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