Environmental groups say bosses should ‘hang their heads in shame’ as firm bows to pressure from shareholders to cut costs Unilever is to scale back its environmental and social aims, provoking critics to say its board should “hang their heads in shame”. The consumer goods company behind brands ranging from Dove beauty products to Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream was seen as perhaps the foremost proponent of corporate ethics – particularly under the tenure of its Dutch former boss Paul Polman ..read more

Idea Angela Rawlings had a decade ago for Snæfellsjökull has snowballed into a full-blown campaign with a team of 50 people Standing in the shadow of Iceland’s Snæfellsjökull, – a 700,000-year-old glacier perched on a volcano and visible to half the country’s population on any given day – in 2010, Angela Rawlings was struck by an unconventional thought. “It suddenly just came to me. What if the glacier was president?” said Rawlings. It was a seemingly unorthodox way to push forward a movement that was already swiftly advancing; Ecuador had enshrined legal rights for nature while Māori in New Z ..read more

Environmentalists celebrate new rules but Alaska politicians call it an ‘illegal’ attack on state’s livelihood and predict lawsuits The Biden administration said on Friday it will restrict new oil and gas leasing on 13m acres (5.3m hectares) of a federal petroleum reserve in Alaska to help protect wildlife such as caribou and polar bears as the Arctic continues to warm. The decision – part of an ongoing, years-long fight over whether and how to develop the vast oil resources in the state – finalizes protections first proposed last year as the Biden administration prepared to approve the contro ..read more

Estimated 2,548 barrels of carbon dioxide leaked from Exxon pipeline in Louisiana on 3 April, triggering alarm among residents A major leak of CO2 from an ExxonMobil pipeline in Louisiana exposes dangerous safety gaps that should halt the planned multibillion-dollar carbon capture industry, environmental advocates say. An estimated 2,548 barrels of carbon dioxide (CO2) leaked from the Exxon pipeline in Sulphur in Calcasieu Parish on 3 April, triggering an emergency response and alarm among residents who live in close proximity to scores of polluting pipelines, petrochemical and fossil fuel fac ..read more

Marcus Decker dared to protest on climate and was punished. Now he could be deported. Is that a humane democracy? When the traditional ruling class was obliged to concede to demands for democracy, it gave away as little as possible. We could vote, but it ensured that crucial elements of the old system remained in place: the House of Lords, the first-past-the-post electoral system, prerogative powers and Henry VIII clauses, and above all a legal system massively and blatantly biased towards owners of property. In combination, these elements ensured that the system remained predisposed to elite ..read more

Internal investigation under way but party has not announced that police have been called in During questions in the Commons on next week’s business, Penny Mordaunt, leader of the house, said that MPs would debate the latest Lords amendments to the Rwanda bill on Monday and that, if necessary, time would also be set aside on Tuesday for MPs to vote again on Lords amendments to the bill. But, at the No 10 lobby briefing, the PM’s spokesperson told journalists that the government wants to conclude the “ping pong” process (when the bill shuttles between the Commons and the Lords until both sides ..read more

Exclusive: By the middle of the century, pollution from plastic industry could ‘undermine world’s effort’ to control climate crisis By the middle of the century, global emissions from plastic production could triple to account for one-fifth of the Earth’s remaining carbon budget, an analysis has found. The stunning new estimates from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, published on Wednesday, provide yet more evidence that the plastic industry is “undermining the world’s efforts to address climate change”, said Heather McTeer Toney, executive director of the Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Beyond ..read more

In ‘acute global embarrassment’, Scottish government expected to follow UK and Wales by adopting five-year carbon budgets The Scottish government is to abandon its “world-leading” goal to cut carbon emissions by 75% by 2030, after repeatedly missing its legally binding targets. Màiri McAllan, the Scottish net zero secretary, is expected to announce that Scotland will instead follow the UK and Welsh government’s lead by adopting five-yearly “carbon budgets”, in a significant policy climbdown ..read more

Deaths from record temperatures in Mali reportedly led to full morgues turning away bodies this month The deadly protracted heatwave that filled hospitals and mortuaries in the Sahel region of Africa earlier this month would have been impossible without human-caused climate disruption, a new analysis has revealed. Mali registered the hottest day in its history on 3 April as temperatures hit 48.5C in the south-western city of Kayes. Intense heat continued across a wide area of the country for more than five days and nights, giving vulnerable people no time for recovery ..read more

Passengers crowded around airline desks at Dubai international airport on Wednesday after major delays and cancellations caused by heavy rains. The United Arab Emirates was hit by what the government described as the highest rainfall in the past 75 years. The rains began on Monday night, and by Tuesday evening the desert city of Dubai had received the average amount of rain it normally gets in a year. Although the heavy rains had eased by late Tuesday, disruption was continuing on Wednesday, with Emirates airline suspending check-in for passengers departing from Dubai until midnight What the ..read more