Labor backbencher is calling for drastic intervention to secure supplies for the east coast
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The Labor backbencher Ed Husic is demanding an intervention to combat Japanese gas companies re-selling Australian exports to other markets, breaking ranks from the government and risking diplomatic blowback from Tokyo.
The former industry minister said the government must send a “powerful signal” to overseas multinationals, in particular in Japan, to stop “playing us off as mugs” by profiting off the resale of Australian gas while households and industry on the east coast face high prices and potential supply shortages.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
10/09/2025 - 03:06
10/09/2025 - 03:00
If we really want to grasp what animals are ‘saying’, we need to understand their communication on their terms, not ours
Another day, another cute story about how dogs can grasp elements of human language and use them to communicate with us.
First, there was Mr Waffles, the Yorkshire terrier that“talks” to his owners by pressing electronic buttons that have been pre-programmed with words and phrases. In one of his videos, viewed more than half a million times, the pint-sized pooch stares defiantly at the camera and responds to an empty packet of treats by pressing the “I don’t give a damn” button. Followed by the “bitch” button. Bad dog, Mr Waffles.
Helen Pilcher is a science writer and the author of Bring Back the King: The New Science of De-Extinction. To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
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10/09/2025 - 01:49
Competition watchdog agrees requests from Anglian, Northumbrian, Southern, Wessex and South East to raise household bills
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Water bills for millions of households in England will increase by even more than expected after the competition regulator gave the green light for five water suppliers to raise charges to customers – but rejected most of the companies’ demands.
An independent group of experts appointed by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) decided provisionally to let the companies collectively charge customers an extra £556m over the next five years, it said on Thursday. That was only 21% of the £2.7bn that the firms had requested.
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10/08/2025 - 23:00
Plant inventories dating back to 1884 and nearly thrown away enable unique time-lapse study of biodiversity in Swiss meadows
For two years, a team of Swiss researchers crossed the country by train, car and foot, carrying with them a red frame measuring 30 by 30 centimetres. At 277 sites they placed the frame in the grass and counted all of the plant species within it.
The scientists were retracing a path set more than 100 years earlier, when two botanists had done the same thing in exactly the same meadows, long before such plant inventories became common.
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10/08/2025 - 12:51
With global heating on a dangerous trajectory, it would be unforgivable for the prime minister to miss the summit in Belém
In a month, this year’s UN climate summit, Cop30, begins in Belém, Brazil – preceded by a key leaders’ meeting. It is a crucial moment. The UN’s scientists have yet to publish calculations based on the latest round of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) – as countries’ emissions pledges are known. But Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has called leaders together because it is already clear that the current emissions pledges are nowhere near enough. The Paris 1.5C threshold was crossed last year. Without stronger action, that temporary breach will become irreversible – with devastating consequences for people and planet.
Lula’s diplomatic outreach to Donald Trump, who calls the climate crisis a “con job”, suggests he is trying to bring key players into the fold ahead of Belém. Having heavyweights in the room can make all the difference. Ten years ago in Paris, world leaders’ presence proved crucial to securing an ambitious deal. That’s why it is important that Sir Keir Starmer attends. He may not be the most powerful world leader, but his presence is a moral and diplomatic imperative. If King Charles is able to, he ought to go too. Soft power can help to rebuild the spirit of cooperation to keep the hopes in the Paris agreement alive.
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10/08/2025 - 11:00
Armed criminal groups tear down precious rainforest to capitalise on record gold prices, report finds
An illegal gold rush has cleared 140,000 hectares of rainforest in the Peruvian Amazon and is accelerating as foreign, armed groups move into the region to profit from record gold prices, according to a report.
About 540 square miles of land have been cleared for mining in the South American country since 1984, and the environmental destruction is spreading rapidly across the country, Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP) and its Peruvian partner organisation, Conservación Amazónica, found.
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10/08/2025 - 10:52
Report by joint intelligence committee delayed, with concerns expressed that it may not be published
The UK’s national security is under severe threat from the climate crisis and the looming collapse of vital natural ecosystems, with food shortages and economic disaster potentially just years away, a powerful report by the UK’s intelligence chiefs is due to warn.
However, the report, which was supposed to launch on Thursday at a landmark event in London, has been delayed, and concerns have been expressed to the Guardian that it may have been blocked by number 10.
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10/08/2025 - 10:00
New research finds 90% of marine fish sold by major US retailers are wild-caught, including threatened or endangered species
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The global trade in marine aquarium fish relies heavily on fish sourced directly from wild populations, with many consumers unaware of the practice due to murky supply chains.
New research has revealed the scale of the issue, finding most marine aquarium fish sold online in the US were wild-caught, mainly from the western Pacific and Indian oceans.
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10/08/2025 - 07:33
Firm will instead invest A$2m a year in ‘climate impact fund’ supporting renewables and switching to EVs
One of the travel industry’s most environmentally focused tour operators, Intrepid, is scrapping carbon offsets and abandoning its emissions targets as unreachable.
The Australian-headquartered global travel company said it would instead invest A$2m (£980,000) a year in an audited “climate impact fund” supporting immediate practical measures such as switching to electric vehicles and investing in renewable energy.
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10/08/2025 - 07:00
Industrially made foods involve several ingredients and processes to put together, making it difficult to examine their true cost
If you look at a package of M&Ms, one of the most popular candies in the US, you’ll see some familiar ingredients: sugar, skimmed milk powder, cocoa butter. But you’ll see many more that aren’t so recognizable: gum arabic, dextrin, carnauba wax, soya lecithin and E100.
There are 34 ingredients in M&Ms, and, according to Mars, the company that produces the candy, at least 30 countries – from Ivory Coast to New Zealand – are involved in supplying them. Each has its own supply chain that transforms the raw materials into ingredients – cocoa into cocoa liquor, cane into sugar, petroleum into blue food dye.
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