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Dale Vince is not your run-of-the-mill power company chief. Here, the founder of Ecotricity talks about green energy, warring with Elon Musk – and his vegan football team

It is fair to say that Britain’s alternative energy sector is not dripping with glamour, but within the world of turbines and micro-inverters, Dale Vince, the multimillionaire founder of Ecotricity, counts as a superstar.

Vince has the directional haircut and the fancy electric motorcycle. He has the maverick past (as a New Age traveller) and the visions of the future (a vegan Britain entirely self-sufficient in green gas). And he has his fingers in many sustainably sourced pies, from rainforest regeneration to electric vehicles, documentaries like Seaspiracy to tidal lagoons, artificial diamonds to plant-based football. In addition to founding the world’s first green energy company – Ecotricity began life as a wind turbine that Vince had built next to his caravan in 1995 – he is the owner of Forest Green Rovers, the world’s first vegan, carbon- neutral football club, whom he has taken to the third tier of English football for the first time in its history. A timber stadium is one of the next items on the club’s agenda.

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Every fraction of a degree increases human suffering, so the fight to end the fossil fuel industry must ramp up

When the history of the climate crisis is written, in whatever world awaits us, Cop27 will be seen as the moment when the dream of keeping global heating below 1.5C died.

Does that mean giving up? Absolutely not. The 1.5C target is not a threshold beyond which hope also dies. Every fraction of a degree means an increase in human suffering and must therefore be fought for. How? With everything we have, to tear down the barrier between us and climate stability: the fossil fuel industry.

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Ukraine says Russia is using the cold as a weapon against Ukrainians, by targeting the country's ability to heat and power homes. Repair crews are struggling to restore power to damaged areas.

(Image credit: Claire Harbage/NPR)

In the US, most food waste ends up in landfills while South Korea recycles close to 100% annually, and its model could illustrates some core principles

Every few months or so, 69-year-old Seoul resident Hwang Ae-soon stops by a local convenience store to buy a 10-piece bundle of special yellow plastic bags.

Since 2013, under South Korea’s mandatory composting scheme, residents have been required to use these bags to throw out their uneaten food. Printed with the words “designated food waste bag”, a single 3-liter bag costs 300 won (about 20 cents) apiece. In Hwang’s district of Geumcheon-gu, curbside pickup is every day except Saturday. All she has to do is squeeze out any moisture and place the bag by the street in a special bin after sunset.

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After two weeks of negotiations, small island states celebrate achievement of ‘mission thirty years in the making’

The main sticking point of Cop27 has been over the creation of a loss and damage fund – finance provided by rich nations to poorer ones to help them prepare for and recover from the worst impacts of climate breakdown.

Some, especially in the rightwing press, have framed this as “reparations”, a highly loaded term. It’s also misleading, as under article 8 of the Paris climate agreement it is explicitly made clear that loss and damage “does not involve or provide a basis for any liability or compensation”.

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Fund’s passage hailed as potential turning point that acknowledges the vast inequities of the climate crisis

A historic deal to set up a “loss and damage” fund to pay poorer countries harmed by the impacts of the climate crisis has been agreed to at a UN summit, capping a decades-long fight by climate campaigners and developing nations.

The decision marked a breakthrough at the climate negotiations, where for years developing countries have pressed wealthier nations to provide a form of compensation for the droughts, wildfires, floods and other escalating climate impacts they’ve faced due to the planet-heating emissions that have mostly come from the richest corners of the world.

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Cold and crappy so I stayed inside most of the day.  Did some more rover research and found this to add to the wish list36,43,40,0,B

Developed countries agree to ‘loss and damage’ fund for vulnerable nations, but delay approving wider deal

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The world’s poorest countries have scored a historic victory at the Cop27 climate summit, after countries agreed to set up a fund to help poor countries being battered by climate disasters, but delayed approving a wider deal outlining global resolve to fight climate change.

After tense negotiations that ran through the night, the Egyptian Cop27 presidency early on Sunday released a draft text for an overall agreement – and simultaneously called a plenary session to gavel it through as the final, overarching agreement for the UN summit.

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This month’s environmental summit opened as our planet wilts under the impact of climate crisis. Here we examine five key areas and assess what success – if any – was achieved in Egypt

A key Cop27 goal was to strengthen emission pledges made at last year’s climate summit in Glasgow. These are needed to ensure global heating is limited to 1.5C. No such commitments have been made in Egypt and most observers now conclude the world is destined to heat beyond this limit.

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Consumers get the chance to buy leftover meals, expiring or misshapen food at discount prices, and aim to encourage consumers to effect policy change in their communities

If food waste were a country, it would be the third-highest greenhouse-gas emitting nation behind the US and China. That’s because 40% of all food grown in the world goes uneaten each year, according to a World Wildlife Fund report from last year. And when food ends up in landfills, it produces huge amounts of greenhouse gases.

So it’s no surprise then that apps designed to combat food waste – by giving consumers the opportunity to purchase leftover, expiring or misshapen food at discount prices – have become increasingly popular in recent years. Some of these apps have millions of users in the US, and are growing internationally. TikTok users often post videos of the food they have salvaged from restaurants through the apps, and a Reddit community with more than 12,000 members shares photos of their hauls.

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‘Thermal effect’ of high-neck jumpers and scarves will save electricity during energy crisis, says governor

The governor of Tokyo has urged people to wear a turtleneck this winter to stay warm and reduce energy consumption.

Yuriko Koike said wearing turtleneck jumpers could help reduce energy bills.

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Kingdom’s Cop27 announcement of new storage hub part of pattern of delaying fossil fuel transition, experts say

Saudi Arabia is bolstering years of negotiation tactics designed to stymie vital climate negotiations with a focus on carbon capture technologies that experts say risk delaying a meaningful transition from fossil fuels.

The kingdom, which is the world’s second largest oil producer, accounting for roughly 15% of global output, announced plans at Cop27 in Egypt for what it labelled the “circular carbon economy”, in partnership with the national oil company, Aramco, which recently reported $42.4bn in profit.

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Lachlan River is at major flood level and SES predicts a record peak of 7.8 metres on Monday. Follow live

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Poppy seed tea warning

Australians are being warned not to drink poppy seed tea, promoted on popular social media platforms, after a spate of poisoning cases across Australia linked to the home-brewed sedative.

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Forbes mayor criticises decision to base recovery team in Parkes as towns and villages downstream wait days for peak

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The New South Wales central-west town of Condobolin is experiencing the worst flood in its history and the expected peak is still days away.

The State Emergency Service has predicted the Lachlan River at the town 100km west of Forbes will peak at 7.8 metres on Monday – a record flood height. On Saturday afternoon an evacuation order was issued for low-lying parts of the town.

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First thing I thought about after checking into a spotless hotel room was that it was definitely time to clean house.  That's what I did for about 4 hours today.  52,61,31,0,B

This year, Chima Williams of Nigeria was a winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize for his activism, targeting Shell for an oil spill in his homeland. Here's how the case went.

(Image credit: KC Nwakalor for NPR)

The European Union has backed a loss and damage fund, one of the key demands of developing countries at the climate talks

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The low-lying Pacific island of Tuvalu has been reacting to the EU’s proposal on “loss and damage”. Its finance minister, Seve Paeniu, called for support for phasing out all fossil fuels, language so far missing from the draft Sharm el-Sheikh agreement.

He described the EU position on loss and damage as a “breakthrough”.

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It’s a miracle that any one of us is alive today. Those with the power to grant that miracle to future generations chose not to

The chances of any one person being born were calculated by the life coach Dr Ali Binazir. He multiplied the probability of your parents meeting, mating and conceiving by the chances of a particular sperm and egg fusing; of all your human and hominid ancestors reaching reproductive age; and of all them successfully reproducing. He arrived at a figure of one in 10 to the power of 2,640,000. In other words, a 10 followed by 2.6m zeros. It’s an unimaginable, miraculous number. Yet here we are.

The chances of being alive right now, as a member of one of the first generations to know the path it is on, and one of the last that can change it, must add several more zeros to this crazy number. The chances of being the president or prime minister of your nation at this critical moment … well you get the idea.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

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The state’s treasury does not expect the taxes to make a significant impact on investment decisions

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The Queensland government’s imposition of higher royalties for coal producers and China’s ban on imports from Australia are having little impact on super profits, despite a campaign against the taxes by the industry.

The state’s coal industry is a clear winner from the global energy shock as the world looks for new supplies, according to data released by the Queensland Treasury.

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It is not enough to professionally communicate the science of climate change. This is not a matter of rationality.

The role of science communication is to counter wilful ignorance. I don’t mean the deliberate placing of blinkers over the eyes or rose-coloured glasses on the nose. I mean the facts that are inconsistent with the pleasant stories we tell about ourselves, our species, our future. I mean the delusions we live by because they are enjoyable, help keep us sane and motivated, and those cultivated by vested interests to hoodwink us into putting their greed ahead of the public good.

Science develops inconvenient facts through the best form of knowledge production we have. It’s not flawless; it’s messy and human.

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