London Luton Airport hopes to almost double annual passenger numbers to 32 million by 2043 after the government approved expansion plans, including a new terminal.
It came despite the Planning Inspectorate recommending Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander rejected them over environmental concerns.
Luton Rising, the airport’s owner, said the decision could bring “significant economic, employment and social benefits for our town”.
However, environmental campaigners said “with climate change worsening, the last thing any of us need is 70,000 more aircraft a year”.
Luton was the UK’s fifth busiest airport last year, with 16.9 million people travelling on 132,000 flights.
The expansion plans involve building a new terminal, new taxiways and increasing capacity in the existing terminal, from its current 18 million passengers a year.
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A spokesman for Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he was “pleased” with the decision.
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A destroyed mechanic’s shop in downtown Swannanoa, North Carolina, US, December 2024, nearly three months after Hurricane Helene in late September. Photograph: Mike Belleme/The Guardian
Floods, heatwaves and supercharged hurricanes occurred in hottest climate human society has ever experienced
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The world is already deep into the climate crisis, with the WMO report saying that for the first time, the 10 hottest years on record all occurred in the last decade. However, global carbon emissions have continued to rise, which will bring even worse impacts. Experts were particularly critical of the purge of climate scientists and programmes by the US president, Donald Trump, saying that ignoring reality left ordinary people paying the price.
“Leaders must step up – seizing the benefits of cheap, clean renewables for their people and economies – with new national climate plans due this year,” said the UN secretary general, António Guterres.
Dr Luke Parsons, of the Nature Conservancy, said: “Every year, we venture further into uncharted territory, with 2024 the hottest year modern human society has ever experienced. Yet the coming decade is expected to be even hotter, pushing us deeper into this unprecedented climate.”
Previous research determining the role of the climate crisis in what are now unnatural disasters has shown that at least 550 heatwaves, floods, storms, droughts and wildfires had been made significantly more severe or more frequent by global heating.
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Some companies were ending home insurance in California due to wildfires, says Allianz SE board member. He says that without insurance, many other financial services become unviable, from mortgages to investments. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images
Action urgently needed to save the conditions under which markets – and civilisation itself – can operate, says senior Allianz figure
The climate crisis is on track to destroy capitalism, a top insurer has warned, with the vast cost of extreme weather impacts leaving the financial sector unable to operate.
The world is fast approaching temperature levels where insurers will no longer be able to offer cover for many climate risks, said Günther Thallinger, on the board of Allianz SE, one of the world’s biggest insurance companies. He said that without insurance, which is already being pulled in some places, many other financial services become unviable, from mortgages to investments.
Global carbon emissions are still rising and current policies will result in a rise in global temperature between 2.2C and 3.4C above pre-industrial levels. The damage at 3C will be so great that governments will be unable to provide financial bailouts and it will be impossible to adapt to many climate impacts, said Thallinger, who is also the chair of the German company’s investment board and was previously CEO of Allianz Investment Management.
Thallinger said: “The good news is we already have the technologies to switch from fossil combustion to zero-emission energy. The only thing missing is speed and scale. This is about saving the conditions under which markets, finance, and civilisation itself can continue to operate.”
Nick Robins, the chair of the Just Transition Finance Lab at the London School of Economics, said: “This devastating analysis from a global insurance leader sets out not just the financial but also the civilisational threat posed by climate change. It needs to be the basis for renewed action, particularly in the countries of the global south.”
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Reform UK’s Arron Banks. Credit: Oxford Union / YouTub
The multi-millionaire Brexit funder has claimed “CO2 and climate change is the ultimate hoax”.
Arron Banks, who is standing as Nigel Farage’s Reform UK candidate for West of England Mayor, has repeatedly rejected elemental climate facts.
The right-wing populist Reform UK describes itself as an “environmentalist” party. However, its leaders and candidates – including Banks – have frequently attacked the science of human-induced climate change.
In a trail of social media posts on X (formerly Twitter), Banks has attacked the notion of climate change as “rubbish”, “absolute cock”, “a scam”, and “the ultimate hoax”.
Reform is standing in several regional mayoral contests in May and has talked up its chances of gaining large numbers of council seats in the local elections.
Banks, the businessman who helped to fund Farage 2016 Brexit campaign, is standing for West of England Mayor, which encompasses Bristol, South Gloucestershire, Bath, and North East Somerset.
Reform UK, an anti-immigration party, campaigns to scrap the UK’s 2050 net zero emissions target and to expand fossil fuel extraction.
As DeSmog revealed, the party received £2.3 million between the 2019 and 2024 general elections from climate science deniers, fossil fuel interests, and major polluters.
However, the views of Reform UK and Banks don’t appear to match those of voters in the West of England.
Polling from the area in 2022 found that 65 percent of people supported net zero, while only 11 percent opposed the 2050 target. And while Reform UK has pledged to strip renewable companies of state subsidies, an overwhelming 87 percent of people said they supported renewable projects in their local area.
Reform UK and Banks were approached for comment.
Climate Denial Posts
In his social media posts, Banks has publicly attacked the science of human-induced emissions causing climate change.
In January 2024, responding to Conservative MP Chris Skidmore resigning over the government’s support for new oil and gas projects, Banks posted: “CO2 & climate change is the ultimate hoax.”
In December 2023, Banks made the familiar argument that the climate has always changed regardless of human emissions. He posted: “Climate change has been in constant flux since the planet was created. A miniscule amount of CO2 in the atmosphere isn’t the likely driver.”
In January 2024, he mocked the notion that carbon emissions were causing climate change and extreme weather. “The climate is in permanent flux”, he posted, “20,000 years ago an Ice sheet covered Scotland & half of England.” Banks added an attack on climate activist Greta Thunberg, writing: “Luckily we didn’t have Greta around to tell us a tiny bit of CO2 was the cause. We’ve always had floods & extreme weather like 1953 floods.”
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s top climate science body, has stated that carbon dioxide “is responsible for most of global warming” since the late 19th century, and has increased the “severity and frequency of weather and climate extremes, like heat waves, heavy rains, and drought”.
Climate scientists working for the IPCC have also said that “it is a statement of fact, we cannot be any more certain; it is unequivocal and indisputable that humans are warming the planet”.
As stated by Dr Philipp Breul, a climate scientist from Imperial College London: “We are causing the climate to change significantly faster than it has, to the best of our knowledge, in the last million years.”
‘Snow on the Ground’
Banks – who attended Donald Trump’s inauguration as U.S. President in January – has also suggested that cold weather disproves the rise in global temperatures.
In December 2022, Banks posted: “I’ve got to say global warming is coming on a treat, snow on the ground and shaping up to be the coldest December on record. It would be very funny if they got it all wrong and we entering a new ice age.”
When challenged, he dismissed climate models as “worthless”.
“The climate is in constant flux and always changing”, he posted. “The sheer number of mathematical variables in any climate model render them worthless. Scientists can forecast all they like but guesses remain guesses… enjoy the snow and ice.”
In fact, climate models have accurately predicted global temperature rises, and observed warming has tracked with the forecasts.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, and deputy leader Richard Tice. Photo: Sipa US / Alamy
In January 2024, Banks responded to reports of cold temperatures in Sweden by posting: “-43c … global warming knocking it out of the park. Let’s hope the windmills can keep us warm.”
Despite cold weather in winter, global average temperatures have been rising over the past century, with some of the hottest years on record taking place in the last decade.
In October 2022, Banks shared a post by Reform UK’s then leader Richard Tice, with a (now deleted) article from the Daily Skeptic, which falsely claimed that “global warming has largely stopped in its tracks”.
Banks commented: “It would be almost amusing to find after bankrupting the western world in pursuit of the net zero cult that the climate is cooling… just like [Covid] lockdown everybody lost their mind.”
Net Zero ‘Scam’
Banks has also attacked efforts to cut emissions to net zero by 2050, which scientists agree is the only way to limit temperatures to 1.5C.
The Reform UK candidate has attacked net zero as a “religion”, a “cult”, and a “scam”.
In July 2021, he posted: “Net zero is the new religion for stupid people” and, in April 2023 he said: “Net zero and climate change have all the hallmarks of a scam.”
When the UK was hosting the COP26 climate summit in November 2021, Banks posted that “protecting the environment is essential but totally different to the absolute cock that is climate change”. He added: “The climate has been changing since the start of time!”
A few weeks earlier, Banks had posted: “I own a country park with tens of thousands of trees and have seen no ill affects of climate change.”
The following summer, Banks once again pitted environmentalism against climate action, posting: “There is a huge difference between global climate change & looking after the natural world. One is complete rubbish the other is an absolute necessity.”
Bankrolling Farage
Banks was a major funder of campaigns for the UK to leave the European Union.
A former Conservative Party donor, he gave £1 million in 2014 to Nigel Farage’s UK Independence Party (UKIP), which also campaigned against climate policies.
During the 2016 EU referendum, Banks gave £8.4 million to Leave.EU, the unofficial Brexit campaign, which was led by Farage and chaired by Tice.
In January this year, Farage helped to launch a new UK/Europe branch of the Heartland Institute, a notorious U.S. climate denial think tank.
Interviewed at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in February, the Reform UK leader claimed it was “absolutely nuts” that CO2 is considered to be a pollutant, while admitting that he is “not a scientist”.
“We cannot stand by and allow this to happen. We need to hold this administration accountable.”
This op-ed was written by a group of current and former employees of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), who have asked to remain anonymous due to concerns about retaliation. It was originally published by Environmental Health News and is republished with permission.
The Trump administration is making accusations of fraud, waste, and abuse associated with federal environmental justice programs under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) as justification for firing federal workers and defunding critical environmental programs. But the real waste, fraud, and abuse would be to strip away these funds from the American people.
As current and former employees at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) who developed and implemented the agency’s environmental justice funding and grant programs, we want to offer our first-hand insights about the efficiency and importance of this work. This is not about defending our paychecks. This is about protecting the health of our communities.
IRA funding is often described as a “once-in-a-generation investment,” putting billions of dollars toward improving the lives of American families in red, blue, and purple states. Working with communities, we’ve been placing these resources directly into their hands, supporting people to better protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land where we live, learn, work, play, and grow — including key protections from natural disasters.
As civil servants, we took an oath to protect and invest in the American public. We are committed to providing effective programs and being responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars, and there are many policies in place to ensure our accountability. But despite our careful planning and oversight, the new administration is halting programs Americans depend on for their health and wellbeing.
We should work together to demand that the Trump administration restore this critical funding back to the people.
The Risks of Losing a Once-in-a-generation Investment
The Bush administration introduced environmental equity (and justice) programming to the EPA in the 1990s. EPA staff working on environmental justice programs partnered with communities to meet their needs and used rigorous systems to track funds and results.
The Trump administration recently paused many of these environmental justice programs that fund community-led projects like air, water, and soil testing; training and workforce development; construction or cleanup projects; gardens and tree planting; and preparing and responding to natural disasters. Other examples of the EPA’s environmental justice programs include providing safe shelters during and after hurricanes, land cleanups to reduce communities’ exposure to harmful pollutants, and providing water filters to protect residents from lead in drinking water.
Global Investigations
This administration has halted funds, claiming “the objectives of the awards are no longer consistent with EPA funding priorities.” In reality, these funds were approved by Congress, and these grants remain in alignment with the agency’s mission to protect human health and the environment. Even though there are court orders to unfreeze billions of dollars in federal grants, the Trump administration continues to withhold this critical money from the people who need it most.
We cannot stand by and allow this to happen. We need to hold this administration accountable to serving the American people, applying the same mandates that we have held our federal workforce and grant recipients to: follow the law, follow the science, and be transparent.
Terminating the EPA’s Environmental Justice Programs Is Hurting Our Communities and the Economy
Some grant recipients who have lost access to EPA funding had already been working for more than a year on projects that must now be paused. Many recipients have hired local employees and made commitments in their communities.
Now that funds are being pulled back, these organizations have had to lay off staff, pause local contracts with private companies and small businesses, and shut down community-driven projects. These attacks will impact the integrity of programs funded by our hard-earned tax dollars and take money away from communities across the country.
By withholding promised funding and terminating existing contracts, the Trump administration is exposing the EPA to increased risks of litigation. Relationships that were built through years of meaningful engagement between communities and the federal government are being jeopardized. Organizations, institutions, and companies will likely shy away from future federal grant or contracting opportunities because no one wants to work with someone who doesn’t pay their bills and backs out on their promises.
It is a waste of taxpayer dollars for the U.S. Government to cancel its agreements with grantees and contractors. It is fraud for the U.S. Government to delay payments for services already received. And it is an abuse of power for the Trump administration to block the IRA laws that were mandated by Congress.
How to Take Action to Restore Funding to the American People
It can feel impossible to keep up with the news right now, but this story touches all of us. We should pay attention to what’s going on in our communities and find ways to stay engaged, like attending town halls to hear about the local impacts of federal policies and making your voice heard.
If you are interested in advocating for the return of federal funding to the American people, we urge you to:
Share on social media. Share our story or similar news stories on social media with #federalfundingfreeze, #federalcuts, or #truthtopower.
Advocate for funding to be restored in your community. Take part in local town hall and other events in your area to advocate for federal funding to be returned to the people. Make your voice heard and claim your right to clean water, clean air, and a safe environment.
Learn how the EPA’s environmental justice programs are investing in your state, city, or community.View this environmental justice grants map to see where IRA dollars and funding from the EPA’s environmental justice programs were invested.
Learn how federal cuts are impacting your communities. Stay tuned to view a Federal Cuts Tracker Map (we’ll add a link here when it’s live) to read and share stories about how federal cuts are currently impacting your communities.
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