The Guardian Environment

• ‘You cannot build peace on a burning planet,’ UN chief tells Cop31 in farewell speech

  António Guterres says climate action central to every aspect of UN’s work, as leaders depart Cop31 and talks go on

  Tackling the climate crisis is central to all of human life and must be at the forefront of global governance, the outgoing UN secretary general has said in an emotional farewell address at the Cop31 climate summit.

  “You cannot build peace on a burning planet,” António Guterres said at his final climate press conference as secretary general on Friday. “You cannot eradicate poverty when climate disasters keep throwing people back into it. You cannot promise young people a better future while destroying the natural systems on which that future depends.”

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• Greenpeace boulders may delay building of £12bn windfarms in North Sea

  Activists dumped rocks off Norfolk coast on site of Burnham-backed project in protest against seabed trawling

  The giant offshore windfarms backed by Andy Burnham this week may face unexpected stumbling blocks after Greenpeace activists unwittingly dumped about 15 tonnes of boulders on to the site as part of a campaign against seabed trawling in the North Sea.

  Greenpeace created the “boulder barrier” to safeguard harbour porpoises off the Norfolk coast by dropping giant stone blocks, each weighing up to 2 tonnes, on to the sea floor to prevent a method of fishing known as bottom trawling.

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• Choking fires, deadly heat and devastating floods: 2026 in extreme weather

  People around the world have contended with unprecedented weather events and their fatal effects caused by the climate catastrophe

  After the world’s hottest summer since records began in 1850, the death toll from extreme weather in 2026 is already in the high tens of thousands. That is a conservative estimate and is certain to rise much higher.

  As Cop31 continues and scientists warn that climate breakdown may be accelerating, the Guardian looks back at a year of droughts, fires and floods as a reminder that, unless the world takes urgent action to cut emissions, this disastrous year will be one of the best of the rest of our lives.

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• ‘An environmental and welfare disaster’: British salmon loses its organic status

  This week the Soil Association withdrew certification from organic salmon after 20 years. What went wrong?

  The first haul of farmed salmon in Britain was a relatively modest 14 tonnes, produced off the west coast of Scotland near Fort William in 1971.

  For Unilever, the vast multinational that pioneered salmon farming, it was a triumph after years of experimenting with how to cage fish, battle against diseases and cope with the wild weather. Unilever had spotted in the 1960s that farming salmon, which until then was caught wild and remained a relative luxury, would create a mass market, lower costs and provide steady profits. By 1976, it had expanded into three Scottish sites producing 116 tonnes of fish each year.

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• Bristol aims to become UK’s first ‘wetland city’ and reduce flood risk

  Five-year project will create wildlife corridors by building wetlands and increase access to green and blue spaces

  Bristol could become home to the UK’s first “wetland city” thanks to a charity’s efforts to create vast wildlife corridors that will reduce flood risk and give people more access to green and blue spaces.

  The Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) said the five-year initiative would include more than 200 projects to restore and create wetlands across the city. These will range from small household rainwater ponds and street-level rain gardens to restoring river habitats, reconnecting rivers with their floodplains, and creating new wetlands.

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