Emissions

Research suggests 41,800 premature US deaths in 2024 were attributable to road pollutionRoughly five Americans die every hour due to exposure to toxic road vehicle pollution, a new study has found.It’s the latest warning showing fossil-fueled transit is a major driver of mortality. Continue reading...

• Professor Neta Crawford of the University of St Andrews argues that the US-led military actions against Iran were unnecessary and have caused widespread global harm. • Crawford highlights a critical but often overlooked consequence of the conflict: the significant military emissions produced during warfare, which contribute to global climate degradation. • The discussion, conducted with Srijana Mitra Das at Times Evoke, questions whether the conflict in West Asia is truly over or if its effects are continuing to spread.

• Major EU economies, including Germany and Italy, are currently on track to miss their legally-binding 2030 greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets. • A report by the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA) cites critical failures in Italy's transportation decarbonization and production efficiency as primary obstacles. • In contrast, Spain is positioned to exceed its 32% emissions reduction goal, supported by a renewable energy mix that reached 75% of its electricity supply in 2025.

Head of BHP’s WA iron ore operations unable to give firm timeline for replacing diesel trucks as leaked documents reveal decarbonisation delayRead more from the BHP files investigation hereGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastA senior BHP executive has admitted the Australian multinational’s push to reduce emissions has been delayed as the Western Australian premier, Roger Cook, said big miners had an “important moral obligation” to decarbonise.An exclusive investigation based on documents leaked to the Guardian and ABC revealed this week that the world’s biggest miner has hit the brakes on decarbonisation, something experts fear could put Australia’s national emissions reductions targets at risk. Continue reading...

Trump’s mass deportation campaign is accelerating the climate crisis. Plus, US students on why they booed their pro-AI graduation speakersGood morning.Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign has spurred at least an 80% increase in immigration flights year over year, accelerating the climate crisis by emitting massive amounts of carbon dioxide, according to data analysis shared exclusively with the Guardian.How much carbon is ICE emitting through deportation flights? US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) air operations pumped out an estimated 335,876 tonnes (37,0240 US tons) of carbon emissions in 2025, up 88% from the year before. The first four months of 2026 show the federal agency is on track to contribute even more to global heating this year from such flights, the Guardian can reveal.Why is Trump facing criticism from his own party over Iran? Loyalists are concerned over reports that billions of dollars in frozen assets could be made available to Tehran, with senior Republican saying the reported details of the peace deal appear too close to the nuclear deal negotiated in 2015 by the Obama administration, which Trump scrapped. Continue reading...

Trump campaign accelerating climate crisis as officials move migrants to detention jails and deport them from USUS immigration enforcement flights are producing hundreds of thousands of metric tonnes of climate-damaging carbon emissions as officials shuttle unprecedented numbers of people to detention centers far from home and deport them to countries across the world.Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign has spurred at least an 80% increase in such flights year over year, accelerating the climate crisis by emitting massive amounts of carbon dioxide, according to data analysis shared exclusively with the Guardian. Continue reading...

Mining giant’s backsliding on climate commitments due to ‘weakness’ of policy, Kate Chaney saysAdam Morton: Big Mining gets a $4bn tax break to use fossil fuel. It’s a strange way to tackle emissionsRead more from the BHP files investigation hereGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastAustralia’s climate change minister, Chris Bowen, says he has made it “crystal clear” that he expects industrial polluters including BHP to reduce their onsite emissions after leaked documents revealed that the world’s biggest miner has backtracked on climate action.An exclusive investigation based on documents leaked to by the Guardian and the ABC show BHP has scrapped a project to significantly reduce global emissions, delayed vast renewables projects in the Pilbara and war-gamed options to push the electrification of its polluting diesel truck and train fleets into the next two decades. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Jimblebar processing facility would have produced higher quality iron ore sought by steelmakers around the world – themselves under pressure to curb pollutionRead more from the BHP files investigation hereGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastBHP quietly dumped plans for an iron ore processing facility that would have cut emissions drastically, despite internally rating it as having “excellent social value” and being “well-aligned” to its shareholder-endorsed climate plan and decarbonisation targets.In 2025 the mining giant was well advanced in its plans to build a beneficiation plant near its Jimblebar open-cut mine in the Pilbara, which would greatly improve the purity and quality of its iron ore. Continue reading...

Definition of green facilities made in 2022, before release of ChatGPT, says Action to Protect Rural ScotlandA Scottish government policy designed to encourage datacentres to build in Scotland could lead to a massive volume of carbon emissions being ignored, according to an analysis by a Scottish charity.“Green datacentres” are at the heart of Scotland’s ambitions to develop economically. Enshrined in national policy, they are part of a larger, UK-wide effort to attract big AI investment to Scotland. Continue reading...

Emissions understated by factor of five in Essex plans for tech giant, while Greystoke’s Lincolnshire plans show similar errorDevelopers working for Google have significantly misstated how much carbon two proposed AI datacentres will contribute to the UK’s total emissions in planning documents reviewed by the Guardian.The tech company wants to build two huge datacentres – one 52-hectare (130 acre) project in Thurrock and another at an airfield in North Weald, both in Essex. To do so, developers are required to submit planning documents calculating how much carbon these projects will emit as a proportion of the UK’s total carbon footprint. Continue reading...

Promises to cut emissions and use more fuel-efficient planes fail to stop rise, with Ryanair’s carbon footprint 50% up on 2019Emissions from flying in Europe have now passed pre-pandemic levels, with Ryanair’s carbon footprint 50% higher than in 2019, research has shown.Total aviation emissions continue to increase despite industry pledges to decarbonise and the introduction of more fuel-efficient planes, driven by the massive expansion of low-cost carriers. Continue reading...

International Energy Agency findings show government must commit to rapid cuts in emissions of greenhouse gas, climate experts sayEmissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane from Australian coalmines are more than double official government estimates reported to the UN, according to a new International Energy Agency report.Climate and energy analysts said the report had again highlighted an “enormous gap” in the country’s reported methane emissions from coalmines and should serve as a wake-up call. Continue reading...

Revised figures increase fears about how the energy-intensive sites could worsen the climate emergency The UK government vastly underestimated the climate impact of artificial intelligence, it has emerged, after officials raised their estimate of carbon emissions from the technology by a factor of more than 100.According to new data quietly published this week, energy use by AI datacentres in the UK could cause the emission of up to 123m tonnes of carbon dioxide (MtCO₂) – about as much as generated by 2.7 million people – over the next 10 years. Continue reading...

• A comprehensive analysis from the National Center for Atmospheric Research shows US carbon dioxide emissions fell 8.2% year-over-year in Q1 2026, driven primarily by renewable energy sources now supplying 34% of national electricity generation. • Solar and wind capacity additions reached record levels with 42 gigawatts of new renewable infrastructure installed in 2025, according to data released by the Department of Energy and independent research institutions. • Climate scientists attribute the acceleration partly to state-level climate policies and federal incentives from the 2024 Clean Energy Investment Act, though transportation and industrial sectors still require significant emission reductions.

The Albanese government overhauled policy and promised significant pollution cuts – but carbon offsets are still being used as an excuseSign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter hereIs this how a national scheme to cut climate pollution is supposed to work?Australian government data released this week shows emissions from Australian coalmines increased last financial year. About 80% of the coalmines pumped more into the atmosphere than their government-imposed limit.Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletter Continue reading...

Legally questionable confidentiality clause adopted almost word for word from demands of Microsoft and trade groupsMicrosoft and other US tech companies successfully lobbied the EU to hide the environmental toll of their datacentres, an investigation has found, with demands to block a database of green metrics from public view written almost word for word into EU rules.The secrecy provision, which the European Commission added to its proposal almost verbatim after industry lobbying in 2024, hinders scrutiny of the pollution that individual datacentres emit. It leaves researchers with just national-level summaries of their energy footprints. Continue reading...

• New research reveals the Crab Pulsar's puzzling radio emission patterns result from a 'tug-of-war' between its magnetic field and gravity acting as lenses on plasma in the magnetosphere. • Gravity focuses emissions while magnetospheric plasma defocuses them, explaining the pulsar's unique behavior observed in this well-studied supernova remnant. • This physics discovery advances understanding of neutron star dynamics, with implications for interpreting signals from thousands of known pulsars across the galaxy.

Greenhouse gases dropped just 0.1% last year as environment minister criticises lack of improvementGreenhouse gas emissions in Germany have again missed targets set by the Climate Protection Act and barely fell at all in 2025.Emissions decreased by just 0.1% last year compared to the previous year, according to data from the German Environment Agency. Continue reading...