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In Wales, we’re one more flood away from another disaster like Aberfan | Aaron Thierry
It is only a matter of time before a mountainside is brought down. We need climate adaptation help – and we need it now

* Aaron Thierry is an Earth-system scientist and environmental campaigner

It’s “raining old ladies and sticks” is the Welsh equivalent of cats and dogs, and boy did those old ladies mean business when Storm Bert poured out nearly a month’s worth of rain on the Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) over Saturday night. By Sunday, the deluge was surging into the River Taff and through the Welsh valleys, forcing the Taff to burst its banks, bringing misery to communities along its length – including mine in Taff’s Well.

Neighbours, who had been devastated by Storm Dennis in February 2020, were shocked to find that everything they had done to rebuild was undone. Replastered front rooms were submerged yet again. New cars were bobbing once more in the streets.
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Aaron Thierry

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/26/wales-valleys-floods-aberfan-climate-adaptation

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Record number of English bathing sites classified as having poor water quality
River water quality distinctly worse than that of coastal bathing sites, results from tests for harmful bacteria found

Water quality has been designated as poor in a record number of bathing areas this year after 16 rivers were included in summer testing for harmful bacteria, figures reveal.

The push to clean up England’s rivers has led to a spike in demand for bathing water status at river locations across the country. Rivers suffer from water company sewage pollution and agricultural pollution, and the results show river water quality is distinctly worse than that of coastal bathing sites. The results come after sewage pollution into rivers by water companies reached record levels last year.
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Sandra Laville

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/26/record-number-of-english-bathing-sites-classified-as-having-poor-water-quality

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How the battle of Claremont Road changed the world: ‘The whole of alternative London turned up’
Thirty years ago, more than 500 activists united to save a street – and their actions marked a major turning-point in the environmental movement

Walking through Leyton, in east London, you could easily miss Claremont Road. It is hardly a road at all, but a stubby little side street between terrace houses that ends abruptly in a brick wall. But when it comes to the history of direct action, this could be one of the most significant sites in England. Thirty years ago, in November 1994, the scene here was very different: 700 police officers and bailiffs in riot gear marched into a significantly larger Claremont Road and waged battle against about 500 activists, who were dug in – some of them literally – against efforts to evict them.

The activists occupied rooftop towers, treehouses, underground bunkers and even secret tunnels. It took three days to get them all out. In retrospect, the “Battle of Claremont Road”, as it came to be known, was an almost unbelievable event. “I talk about the three C’s that underpin this type of activism: creativity, courage and cheek,” says campaigner Camilla Berens, who was there. “It set the template for the next 20 or 30 years of how to do responsible disruption.”
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Steve Rose

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/26/how-the-battle-of-claremont-road-changed-the-world-the-whole-of-alternative-london-turned-up

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Country diary: A gothic masterpiece reaching out of the ground | Jan Miller
Halkyn Mountain, Flintshire, north Wales: This area of ancient, undisturbed land is rich with fungi. Star of the show is the Cordyceps, scourge of nearby ghost moths

Although this autumn has been very mild, the air is still scented by the rotting breakdown of the previous season’s abundant growth. That means mushrooms, those marvellous and mysterious things. The US poet Marvin Bell wrote: “Each mushroom was a button, each a flowering, some glow in the dark … The dead man has seen them take the shapes of cups and saucers, of sponges, logs and bird nests.”

Up on Halkyn Mountain, we find bird’s nest fungi (Crucibulum laeve) in a churchyard so old the church isn’t even there any more. The curious growths on dead twigs are in fact round, leathery cups, each containing four or more cream, lentil-like “eggs” – containers of spores that are ejected when hit by a single raindrop.
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Jan Miller

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/26/country-diary-a-gothic-masterpiece-reaching-out-of-the-ground

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How late $300bn deal left a sense of dissatisfaction and betrayal at Cop29
While an agreement on climate finance was eventually reached in Baku, many poorer countries were outraged

The Lamborghini showroom and a Tiffany branch sit at either end of Baku’s long boulevards beside the Caspian Sea. Adorned with grand 19th-century mansions, all plaster nymphs and columned facades, that were built by the first oil millionaires, they are a testament to the enduring power of fossil fuels. Oil has been very good to Azerbaijan.

It flows out of the ground here, and gas has seeped out, ignited and burned naturally in the area for so long that the country’s symbol is a flame and its nickname is the Land of Fire. Baku was the world’s first oil town, with wells exploited as early as the 1840s. Ilham Aliyev, the autocratic president, calls oil and gas “the gift of God” to his people. They represent 90% of Azerbaijan’s exports.
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Fiona Harvey in Baku

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/26/how-late-deal-left-a-sense-of-dissatisfaction-and-betrayal-at-cop29-baku

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‘Travesty of justice’: Cop29’s controversial deal – podcast
Madeleine Finlay hears from Guardian environment editor Damian Carrington about the controversial climate finance deal that brought Cop29 negotiations to a close in the early hours on Sunday morning in Baku, Azerbaijan. Developing nations asked rich countries to provide them with $1.3tn (£1.08tn) a year to help them decarbonise their economies and cope with the effects of the climate crisis. But the final deal set a pledge of just $300bn annually, with $1.3tn only a target. Damian tells Madeleine how negotiations unfolded, and what we can expect from next year’s conference in Brazil

Find all the Guardian’s reporting on Cop29

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Presented and produced by Madeleine Finlay with Damian Carrington, sound design by Joel Cox, the executive producer was Ellie Bury

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/science/audio/2024/nov/25/travesty-of-justice-cop29s-controversial-deal-podcast

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The transition to clean energy is happening and it is unstoppable – that’s what I learned from Cop29 | Ed Miliband
Britain wanted much better outcomes on many issues, but seeing the ambition at the conference gives me hope for the future

The climate crisis is all around us. And the world is not moving nearly fast enough. In that context, the Cop process for climate negotiations feels frustratingly slow. Yet it is the best mechanism for multilateral action we have, so we have to use it to do everything we can to speed up action.

The UK went to Cop29 determined to play its part in a successful negotiation because it is in our national interest. As the prime minister said in Baku earlier this month, there is no national security without climate security. That is so clear from the effects of Storm Bert over the past couple of days. If we do not act, we can expect more and more of these extreme and devastating outcomes.

Ed Milband is secretary of state for energy security and net zero
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Ed Miliband

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/25/transition-clean-energy-unstoppable-cop29

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I'm glad we got a deal at Cop29 – but western nations stood in the way of a much better one | Mukhtar Babayev
My negotiating team tried in vain to push up support for the global south. Lessons must be learned before the next summit in Brazil

* Mukhtar Babayev is president of the Cop29 UN climate change conference
* China was willing to offer more in climate finance, says Cop29 president

Nine years after the Paris agreement, and after 11 months of multilateral diplomacy and two weeks of the most intense negotiations at Cop29 in Baku, we have a deal. Under the terms of the Baku breakthrough, the world’s industrialised nations will provide $300bn (£240bn), which, combined with resources from multilateral lending institutions and the private sector will reach $1.3tn in climate financing this year. Cop29 also finalised, after years of failed attempts, a global framework for international carbon markets trading, a critical mechanism for less polluting and less wealthy nations to raise climate finance. A fund for responding to loss and damage – another new financial resource for less developed nations – was brought in shortly before the summit, and funds are already being paid into it.

This deal may be imperfect. It does not keep everyone happy. But it is a major step forward from the $100bn pledged in Paris back in 2015.

Mukhtar Babayev is president of the Cop29 UN climate change conference
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Mukhtar Babayev

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/25/cop-29-western-nations-global-south-brazil

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