The former prime minister called on the government to change course on climate change
Good morning. Keir Starmer faces PMQs a day after Tony Blair in effect fired a torpedo at his net zero strategy – an essential part of Labour’s Plan for Change. We covered the Blair comments on the blog yesterday and here is Jessica Elgot’s story.
Blair has been out of office for 15 years, but he is still an influential and knowledgeable figure and there is no one alive in British politics who has a better record at winning general elections. Until relatively recently, climate policy was an area on which all the main parties were broadly agreed. After Kemi Badenoch recently gave a speech saying that the government’s legal target of getting carbon emissions down to net zero by 2050 was unachievable (despite the fact the Tory government legislated for this, and Badenoch herself was one of the MPs who approved the secondary legislation without voting against), and with Nigel Farage now saying the government does not need to do anything about climate change, the Blair intervention is final proof that that consensus is now in tatters.
[Blair is] making a valid and important contribution to a very significant debate that we’re having. I agree with much of what he said, but not absolutely every word and dot and comma of it.
But this government is moving to clean energy because it’s best for Britain. It’s more energy security for Britain. It’s jobs and investment right across the United Kingdom. And those are all things we all want to see.
I agree with a lot of what [the report from Blair’s thinktank] says. It says that we should move ahead on carbon capture and storage, which the government are doing. It says that we should move ahead on the role of artificial intelligence, which the government are doing. It says that we should move ahead on nuclear, which the government are doing.
Anger in the Labour ranks was palpable last night, with one campaigner telling Playbook the foot soldiers “working their socks off” ahead of the locals are “incredibly pissed off.” The well-connected campaigner suggested it was the tantrum of “someone struggling for influence” … and even went on to point out the TBI has received funds from Saudi Arabia. (Blair’s think tank insisted it was “editorially independent.”)
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
04/30/2025 - 03:54
04/30/2025 - 02:00
EPA says toxicology tests after distressing March event detected fenitrothion – which is currently under review – in all dead birds
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A common agricultural pesticide caused the mass deaths of 200 little corellas across Newcastle in March, the New South Wales environment watchdog has confirmed.
The Environment Protection Authority said toxicology tests had detected the presence of barley grain and the pesticide fenitrothion in all the deceased birds.
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04/30/2025 - 02:00
Annual survey of numberplates from more than 25,000 journeys reveals 63% fall in squashed bugs since 2021
The long-term decline in the number of flying insects being splattered on cars after a journey is well recognised by older drivers. But the latest survey has revealed that the number of insects found on vehicle number plates has plummeted by 63% since 2021.
An analysis of records from more than 25,000 journeys across Britain since 2021 reveals an alarming apparent drop in flying insect abundance, although the rate of decrease slowed in 2024.
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04/30/2025 - 01:00
Leaked documents indicate Harita, owner of key nickel mine in Indonesia, did not reveal water contamination
One of Indonesia’s largest nickel-mining companies, which supplies a mineral critical to the global electric car industry, did not tell the public that local drinking water was polluted, according to documents seen by the Guardian.
Indonesia has become the world’s biggest producer of nickel, used in the production of wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicle batteries. But observers have voiced concerns that regulatory oversight in the country has failed to keep up with the rush to develop mines to satisfy booming global demand.
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04/30/2025 - 00:00
Advertising Standards Authority says neither Lavazza UK nor Dualit’s product can be recycled at home
Descriptions of coffee pods as “compostable eco capsules” were misleading as they could not be composted at home, the Advertising Standards Authority has ruled.
The ASA has banned adverts by Lavazza UK and Dualit, which both made claims about the eco credentials of their coffee products.
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04/29/2025 - 23:00
Temperatures south Asians dread each year arrive early as experts talk of ever shorter transition to summer-like heat
The summer conditions south Asian countries dread each year have arrived alarmingly early, and it’s only April. Much of India and Pakistan is already sweltering in heatwave conditions, in what scientists say is fast becoming the “new normal”.
Temperatures in the region typically climb through May, peaking in June before the monsoon brings relief. But this year, the heat has come early. “As far as Asia and the Indian subcontinent are concerned, there was a quick transition from a short window of spring conditions to summer-like heat,” said GP Sharma, the meteorology president of Skymet, India’s leading private forecaster.
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04/29/2025 - 20:00
Wild weather, elections and rabbit jumping are all part of some of the month’s best images in Australia for April
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04/29/2025 - 18:01
Plans to protect UK from extreme weather are inadequate, Climate Change Committee says in scathing assessment
Labour is putting people, the economy and the environment in increasing peril by failing to act on the effects of the climate crisis, the UK’s climate watchdog has said.
Flooding, droughts and heatwaves are all increasing in severity due to climate breakdown, but current plans to protect people, land and infrastructure against extreme weather have been judged inadequate in a scathing assessment of the UK’s preparedness.
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04/29/2025 - 16:30
The scheme, part of policy blitz for local elections, will encourage councils and police forces to work together
Councils will be encouraged to work with police forces to seize and crush vehicles used by fly-tippers, in the latest phase of a government policy blitz before Thursday’s local elections.
Under a scheme being led by the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), new legislation will impose jail sentences of up to five years for people who illicitly transport waste in England.
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04/29/2025 - 13:59
Tariffs and environmental cuts will make meeting challenging, says summit president André Corrêa do Lago
Crucial United Nations climate talks this year will be a “slightly uphill battle” due to economic turmoil and Donald Trump’s removal of the US from the effort to tackle global heating, the chair of the upcoming summit has admitted.
Governments from around the world will gather in Belem, Brazil, in November for the Cop30 meeting, where they will be expected to announce new plans to deal with the climate crisis and slash greenhouse gas emissions. Very few countries have done so yet, however, and the world remains well off track to remain within agreed temperature limits designed to avert the worst consequences of climate breakdown.
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