Source confirms decision that will help meet net zero targets and pledge to cut energy bills by £300
UK politics live – latest updates
Ministers have decided not to cut Labour’s landmark £13.2bn fund to fix draughty homes and install heat pumps and solar panels in next week’s spending review, it has emerged.
A government source confirmed Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, would not be making cuts to the flagship warm homes plan. The decision, which was first reported by the Daily Telegraph, marks a victory for Ed Miliband in his negotiations with the Treasury over the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero’s budget.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
06/05/2025 - 05:51
06/05/2025 - 02:06
Experts say four more of the marsupials were expected to conceive in breeding season, which runs from February to June each year
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Ten tiny, egg-like joeys have been confirmed as the newest members of mainland Australia’s largest fleet of Tasmanian devils.
It comes after the first pouch check of the 2025 breeding season at Aussie Ark’s Barrington Tops sanctuary in northern NSW.
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06/05/2025 - 02:04
Researchers at Aussie Ark have found 10 Tasmanian devil joeys during the first pouch check of the endangered marsupial's 2025 breeding season, which runs from February to June each year.
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06/05/2025 - 00:00
Environment committee also wants to outlaw dredging and mining due to destructive effects on seabed and marine life
Ministers must ban bottom trawling for fish in marine protected areas, an influential group of MPs has said, because the destructive practice is devastating the seabed and marine life.
The UK parliament’s environmental audit committee called for a ban to encompass dredging and mining as well as the bottom trawling of fish in the 900,000 sq km covered by nearly 180 marine protected areas.
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06/04/2025 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 05 June 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00133-6
The escalating loss and degradation of coastal habitats significantly affect coastal communities, ocean biodiversity, and planetary health. A special Collection launched in npj Ocean Sustainability on “Bridging Land and Seascape Restoration for Ecoscape Recovery” aimed to establish a widely applicable foundation for scalable approaches that support integrated multi-habitat coastal ecosystem restoration and recovery. In this Editorial, we define the concept of “ecoscape restoration” and highlight the key themes emerging from the Collection.
06/04/2025 - 19:01
World Meteorological Organization report says record heat in 2024 was driven by climate crisis and intersected with extreme weather events
Almost 40 million sq kilometres of ocean around south-east Asia and the Pacific – an area five times the size of Australia – was engulfed in a marine heatwave in 2024, a World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report has revealed.
WMO scientists said the record heat – on land and in the ocean – was mostly driven by the climate crisis and coincided with a string of extreme weather events, from deadly landslides in the Philippines to floods in Australia and rapid glacier loss in Indonesia.
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06/04/2025 - 10:00
The Dorrigo Plateau was used for antimony mining until prices collapsed in the 1970s. Now exploration has begun again – but locals are concerned the heavy metal may impact the water supply
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Residents, local councils and environmental groups are calling for government intervention as exploration for the critical mineral antimony ramps up on the New South Wales north coast, citing concerns over the potential for contamination of the regional water supply.
A swathe of exploration licences have been approved across the region in recent months, with one mining company, Trigg Minerals, establishing a 30-acre base at Wild Cattle Creek on the Dorrigo Plateau in preparation for drilling work.
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06/04/2025 - 08:00
Coalition that includes SoCalGas, country’s largest gas utility, has launched fierce campaign against transition away from gas-fired appliances
This story is co-published with Floodlight.
On a windy night in early January, Barbara Ishida, a second grade teacher, spotted the Eaton fire glowing in the hills behind her home in Altadena, California. Her mind turned to the deadly wildfires in Lahaina and Paradise and she thought, “Let’s get out – now.”
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06/04/2025 - 08:00
Ministers understood to be drawing up amendments to bill to try to head off threatened rebellion by two dozen MPs
Labour MPs are planning to rebel over the planning and infrastructure bill after constituents raised concern that it threatens protected habitats and wildlife.
The Guardian understands that about two dozen Labour MPs are calling for ministers to force developers to build more than a million homes for which they already have planning permission before pushing through legislation that rolls back environmental protections for the most protected habitats in England.
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06/04/2025 - 07:33
The legislation is a product of joined-up environmental thinking – aiming to create housing while preventing nature loss
Nick Williams was an economic policy adviser to Keir Starmer between 2023 and 2025, having previously worked in HM Treasury
In recent weeks, various nature groups and newspaper columnists have promoted claims that the government’s flagship planning and infrastructure bill is a “nature sellout”. The argument goes that the government is conspiring with malign developers to destroy irreplaceable habitats as a first resort. This sounds alarming, if only it were true.
The truth is that our current framework for protecting habitats has been in place for decades but has failed to prevent nature loss. This is because we approach conservation in the least effective way possible, with tens of thousands of individual site-by-site protections. Ecological science is clear that this is outdated. Modern conservation strategies recognise the necessity of interconnectivity and scale for supporting complex ecosystems.
Nick Williams was an economic policy adviser to Keir Starmer between 2023 and 2025, having previously worked in HM Treasury
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