Emergency on Planet Earth

As the climate crisis worsens, Channel 4 News charts the devastating impact it is having on Planet Earth as we count down to COP26, the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow.

From melting ice sheets in Greenland, to the threat of food shortages and ecological destruction - we'll update this page with our latest major reports

Climate change deniers host conference in Sin City Today US Vice-President Kamala Harris is travelling to Lake Mead in Nevada to talk up the President’s climate agenda. It’s the biggest reservoir in the US, but it’s drying up because of the twin effects of the heat and the drought, both of which are exacerbated by climate change.

New road building to be stopped in Wales to reduce emissions The Welsh Government has announced a freeze on the building of new road projects while it reviews their environmental impact.

Climate Crisis: ‘Apocalyptic’ heatwave and drought hit parts of US A heatwave described as “apocalyptic” has hit the south-western states of America, pushing people and wildlife in the region to their limits.

Tackle climate change and species destruction together, say scientists For all the grand promises from world leaders to tackle climate change, actually meeting those pledges involves far more than planting a few million trees.

Climate crisis and Covid to occupy UK and US at G7 talks, not Ireland or the EU says former US ambassador We spoke to the Irish Minister for Europe, Thomas Byrne, and to Kim Darroch – the former UK ambassador to the US who also served as a permanent representative to the EU.

UK government hires independent experts to call out ‘greenwashing’ firms Ever wondered if claims from businesses that they are going green are too good to be true? You’re not alone. A new expert body has been tasked by the government to tackle the problem of ‘greenwashing’ by setting out what constitutes a truly environmentally-sustainable investment.

The Argyll community fighting to save a small part of the ocean one oyster at a time As countries mark World Ocean Day with pledges to clean up the seas and protect marine life, a groundbreaking scheme is aiming to put a million oysters back out to sea.

Pollution from sinking ship off Sri Lanka coast causing environmental disaster There are fears that pollution from a stricken container ship off the coast of Sri Lanka could cause an even more severe environmental disaster.

Why England’s coastline is a ‘ticking time bomb’ ready to spew rubbish out into the sea When we throw away our rubbish, it’s never really “away”, it’s just out of sight.

COP26: Will Glasgow conference force UK to meet climate targets? Across the UK, one in seven birds are now endangered and that is the setup the coming COP26 will need to address, as well as tackling the climate crisis, it also has to look at the depletion and extinction of some species.

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COP26: Glasgow has to be the ‘moment the world comes together’, says Alok Sharma We have been speaking to Alok Sharma, the man appointed by the government to run COP26.

Northern Ireland wildfires which damaged environment ‘started deliberately’ The large wildfire which raged through the Mourne Mountains in Northern Ireland over the weekend, causing “unimaginable” damage to the environment, was started deliberately, according to officials.

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Ethiopian Nomads struggle for survival on the climate crisis frontline For the nomadic people of Ethiopia’s Afar region, an area known as the “cradle of humanity” and once famed for the discovery of a three-million-year-old fossil named Lucy, action on climate change can not come soon enough.

Albanian government under pressure to give wild river protection from hydroelectric dams The Vjosa is one of the last major free flowing rivers in Europe – an unspoilt wilderness that can’t be found anywhere else on the continent.

‘Major contradictions’ in climate policy, says government climate policy advisor For the second half of our debate on climate change and COP26, we were joined by Keith Anderson, CEO of ScottishPower and the chair of the business organisation CBI Scotland, Prof Kirsty Park, who is a conservation scientist from the University of Stirling and an expert on biodiversity, and Chris Stark, chief executive of the Climate Change Committee, the independent organisation that advises government on climate policy.

COP26: Climate talks must show ‘ambition’ to tackle climate crisis, say experts We were joined by Keith Anderson, CEO of ScottishPower and the chair of the business organisation CBI Scotland, Prof Kirsty Park, who is a conservation scientist from the University of Stirling and an expert on biodiversity, and Chris Stark, chief executive of the Climate Change Committee, the independent organisation that advises government on climate policy.

Biden looking forward to working with Putin on climate change On the second day of a virtual international summit, Mr Biden urged world leaders to view tackling climate change as an “opportunity for economic prosperity”, ramping up investment in renewable energy and cleaner economies.

Climate crisis: Biden pledges to cut carbon emissions – but will it make a difference? It was an astonishing turnaround from the days of Donald Trump, who thumbed his nose at climate change science and pulled out of the Paris Accord.

Climate plans must create jobs to maintain political support, says UN Special Envoy Mark Carney The former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney is now the finance advisor for the COP 26 climate summit and a UN Special Envoy on Climate Action.

Ella Kissi-Debrah death: coroner says air pollution limits must be toughened Ella Kissi-Debrah was just nine when she suffered a fatal asthma attack.

UK pledges to slash carbon emissions by 78% by 2035 The government has announced a rapid acceleration in its targets to reduce greenhouse emissions.

Activists urge Biden to cancel oil pipeline through Native American land President Biden has made the fight against climate change a key priority of his new administration, cancelling the planned Keystone XL pipeline on his very first day in office. But he hasn’t done the same for Enbridge 3, a pipeline carrying oil across much of Northern Minnesota, including swathes of Native American land. Protesters claim…

Is there a more climate-friendly way to assess the state of our economies? When we want to know how well economies are doing, there’s one measure that’s been used around the world for more than three quarters of a century – GDP. But in the face of looming climate catastrophe, is there a better way to assess the state of our economies? The United Nations is voting on…

National Trust says heritage sites at risk from climate change The National Trust outlined a ‘hazard map’ which shows how 30% of their heritage sites are at risk from the impacts of climate change like flooding.

Indian climate activist arrested and accused of sedition A young climate activist in India has been arrested and accused of sedition, after claims that she edited and circulated a document posted online by Greta Thurnberg which suggested ways to support India’s farmer protests.

Oceans hit highest ever temperatures in 2020 The world’s oceans hit their highest temperatures in recorded history last year, in what scientists say is a worrying sign of the advance of global warming. There have already been devastating consequences in the form of extreme weather across the world. The new Biden administration says that once it has dealt with the Covid crises,…

US wildfire heroes on climate front line America’s West Coast is ablaze. These are the stories of people fleeing, and those staying to fight the fires.

Hundreds of young activists hold ‘Mock COP’ to fight for climate change action The UN’s global summit in Glasgow has been postponed till next year because of the pandemic.

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EU commits to reducing emission by 55% by 2030 – five years on from the Paris Climate Agreement Tomorrow will mark the fifth anniversary of the historic Paris Agreement when the world pledged to keep the global average temperature rise to below two degrees celsius.

Carbon capture and the battle against global heating Once touted as a controversial idea, carbon capture is increasingly seen as a crucial weapon in the battle against global heating. In the run up to the crucial COP26 climate summit in Glasgow later this year, the Science Museum has a new exhibition – the first of its kind – to look at the technologies…

Protest legislation ‘expanding police powers’, says lawyer and climate activist, Farhana Yamin We speak to Sir Peter Fahy, the former chief constable of Greater Manchester Police, and the lawyer and climate activist, Farhana Yamin.

Mother speaks of ‘justice’ after coroner rules that air pollution contributed to daughter’s death We spoke to Rosamund Adoo Kissi-Debrah, Ella’s mother, and asked what this verdict meant to her personally.

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Members of the public give climate change solutions to MPs following ‘citizens’ assembly’ With devastating wildfires raging once again on America’s west coast, there’s no doubt that climate change remains an urgent question.

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Sir David Attenborough interview with Jon Snow on climate change and politics Following our debate last night, I went to speak to Sir David Attenborough this morning.

The Ecological Crisis

Chinese fishing fleets threatening fragile Galapagos ecosystem Chinese industrial fishing fleets have been plundering the waters off the Galapagos coast.

Extinction Britain: Wildlife survey exposes shocking decline in animals One in seven British species is threatened with extinction, according to a new report by the country’s main wildlife and conservation charities.

How climate change is impacting the UK’s most significant wildlife reserves It makes for bleak reading, but the U.N. says drastic action is the only way to avoid the worst effects of climate change: the world, it says, has procrastinated too long.

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How Greenland is polluting itself The government of Greenland says it is planning to build two new incinerators to cope with the country’s waste, after an investigation by this programme.

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Greenland melting four times faster than predicted Remember that heatwave back in August? Well, the Arctic remembers it too. Record rates of ice melt have been recorded on the great ice-shelf of Greenland. It’s critical for all of us because of its potential effect on global sea levels. In the first of a series of special reports from Greenland, we examine the…

Greenland ice melt: Cold War camp and its hazardous remains could be exposed within decades The melting of Greenland’s ice cap is set to expose Camp Century, a US military base that hid a top-secret project along with its nuclear and other toxic waste.It was meant to be buried forever – entombed in ice.

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The Welsh villagers who could become Britain’s first climate refugees Nowhere in Britain is facing the consequences of global warming quite like Fairbourne, a village on the coast of North West Wales.

German villages bulldozed to make space for coal mine Europe’s biggest economy, Germany, has promised to phase out coal by 2038 in order to meet climate change commitments. Yet it is expanding one of its biggest open cast mines, which is 48 square kilometres in size. The expansion will demolish five villages in the process, but the coal company responsible says it is not…

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Climate crisis: Americans forced to move twice because of rising sea levels Let’s return to our special series on climate change. We’ve toured the glaciers of the Arctic and Europe.

How climate crisis is threatening the world’s food supply The changes in our climate are affecting the ability of the land we live on to sustain human life.

Scientists warn of imminent climate catastrophe without massive changes A report by the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change for the United Nations says we need to act without delay to prevent the destruction of coral reefs and stop sea levels rising by as much as ten centimetres.

Greta Thunberg: ‘No-one is too small to make a difference’ 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg tells Channel 4 News we need to act “quickly” and “drastically” over climate change.

The other Amazon forest fire that no-one is talking about While the fires in the Brazilian Amazon have made headlines across the world for the past weeks, in neighbouring Bolivia fires have also been raging.

The Ecological Crisis

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