An Environmental & Ecology thread — Page 2

UK banks put £75bn into firms building climate-wrecking ‘carbon bombs’, study finds

Exclusive: Britain is key financial hub for destructive fossil fuel mega-projects, according to research

www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/may/01/uk-banks-put-75bn-into-firms-building-climate-wrecking-carbon-bombs-study-finds
 

 
a snippet…

'Banks in the City of London have poured more than $100bn (£75bn) into companies developing “carbon bombs” – huge oil, gas and coal projects that would drive the climate past internationally agreed temperature limits with catastrophic global consequences – according to a study.

Nine London-based banks, including HSBC, NatWest, Barclays and Lloyds are involved in financing companies responsible for at least 117 carbon bomb projects in 28 countries between 2016 – the year after the landmark Paris agreement was signed – and 2023, according to the study.

If the projects go ahead, the study says they will have the potential to produce 420bn tonnes of carbon emissions, equivalent to more than 10 years of current global carbon dioxide emissions.

“Despite the UK’s seemingly ambitious climate plans, it is astonishing how much money has flowed from UK banks to companies worldwide developing the biggest climate-wrecking and damaging projects since 2016,” said Fatima Eisam-Eldeen, a lead analyst at the Leave It in the Ground Initiative, the climate thinktank that produced the study. “Real climate ambition and leadership would mean proper financial regulation not only within the country but also beyond the country’s borders by stopping all financial flows to companies exacerbating the climate crisis we all suffer.”

The report follows a Guardian investigation that revealed how big fossil fuel companies were quietly planning scores of vast projects that threaten to shatter the effort towards the international goal of limiting global heating to 1.5C above preindustrial levels.’

Revealed: Forecasts of greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels soar in Trump’s first 100 days

Tariff chaos hampers Trump’s pledge to ‘drill, baby, drill’, but analysis still shows surge in planet-heating emissions

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/02/trump-drill-baby-drill-tariffs
 

 
a snippet…

'Donald Trump’s ambitions for the US to “drill, baby, drill” for more fossil fuels have ironically been hampered by the economic chaos unleashed by his own tariffs, but the US is still on track to increase oil and gas extraction, causing a surge in planet-heating emissions, a new analysis shows.

The US was already the world’s leading oil and gas power, producing more of the fossil fuels than any country in history during Joe Biden’s administration. But Trump has sought to escalate this further, declaring an “energy emergency” to open up more land and ocean for drilling and launching an unprecedented assault on environmental regulations in his first 100 days back in the White House.

This new political climate means that the expected amount of greenhouse gas emissions from active and planned projects in US oil and gas fields has jumped under Trump, after previously dropping under Biden, forecasts shared with the Guardian show.

Despite awarding more drilling leases than Trump in his first 100 days, Biden also pursued policies to combat the climate crisis that saw oil and gas companies revise down their production estimates. That situation has now reversed, threatening a pulse of new pollution that will further add to the fever of a planet already suffering from heatwaves, floods, droughts and other disasters accelerated by global heating.’
 

‘Extreme weather is the UK’s new normal, says Met Office’

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c74w1gyd7mko
 

 
'The UK is breaking heat and rainfall records increasingly frequently as its climate continues to warm, the Met Office has warned.

The country’s changing weather patterns mean the UK now experiences a “notably different” climate to what it was just a few decades ago, its State of the UK Climate report says.

We now have many more very hot days and many fewer extremely cold nights, according to this latest assessment.

It shows just how much global warming caused by the vast emissions of greenhouse gases our civilisation creates is reshaping the country’s climate.

Climate change is bringing more severe weather events like storms and flooding - and inevitably the country’s changing climate is having an impact on the natural world, with some species suffering.

The report focuses on 2024, when the UK experienced its second warmest February, warmest May, warmest spring, fifth warmest December, and fifth warmest winter since records began in 1884.

The Met Office highlights that some of these records have already been surpassed in 2025 - more evidence of this trend towards more extreme weather.

This summer many parts of the country are in the throes of their third heatwave with very warm weather reaching into Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland as well as southern England.

The first hosepipe ban of the year was imposed in Yorkshire last week following England’s warmest June on record, which came after the country’s driest and sunniest spring for 132 years.

Yorkshire and the north west of England were declared in official drought by the Environment Agency in June. At least one region is expected to be added to the list when the UK’s National Drought Group meets on Tuesday.

Mike Kendon, a Met Office climate scientist and lead author of the State of the UK Climate report, said: "Every year that goes by is another upward step on the warming trajectory our climate is on.

“Observations show that our climate in the UK is now notably different to what it was just a few decades ago.”’

more categories and info in the linked article here: www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c74w1gyd7mko

‘Wetter as well as hotter weather’
‘Flood risk growing’
‘Nature is changing with the climate’