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BHP defies its own climate strategy to spend hundreds of millions on polluting diesel trucks in Pilbara

Exclusive: Mining giant says technology is not yet advanced enough to run a fully electrified fleet but experts say it is hooked on federal fuel tax credits

BHP has continued to spend hundreds of millions of dollars buying diesel trucks in the Pilbara despite internal documents suggesting it would increase emissions and be “misaligned” with its decarbonisation goals.

The mining giant is Australia’s biggest consumer of diesel and trucks are its biggest single source of diesel emissions. Replacing the fleet with battery-electric trucks is considered a critical step in the multinational’s efforts to decarbonise.

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© Composite: Guardian

© Composite: Guardian

© Composite: Guardian

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Should I get air conditioning in the UK – and can it be green?

As summers become hotter, air conditioner sales are booming. If you’re looking to invest, here’s what to consider

When a heatwave struck the UK this week, Jon Connorton, a software developer, began monitoring temperatures inside his east Hampshire terrace house. With some rooms reaching close to 40C, it was time to deploy the air conditioner. “We just wheel it out in emergencies,” he said. “We were having trouble sleeping.”

Connorton and his wife have a portable air conditioner. These plug-in devices cool interior air by removing heat from it and blowing that heat outside, typically via a large hose slung from a window or door.

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© Photograph: LeoPatrizi/Getty Images

© Photograph: LeoPatrizi/Getty Images

© Photograph: LeoPatrizi/Getty Images

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Blair’s fossil fuel ideas ‘bizarre’ in face of energy and climate crises, experts say

Energy specialists say abandoning net zero and increasing oil and gas drilling would cause more instability for Britons

Abandoning net zero and drilling for more oil and gas in the North Sea would be a massive setback for the UK and would not help the economy, leading experts have said in response to claims by the former prime minister Tony Blair.

“This is a bizarre intervention to make during the worst May heatwave on record and when the Iran crisis is providing yet more evidence of the enormous costs of oil and gas,” said Ed Matthew, the UK programme director at the E3G thinktank. “Clean energy is cheaper energy – it protects our bills from prices skyrocketing, its running costs are virtually zero, and it doesn’t cause climate change which threatens economic collapse ... The government should ignore Blair’s ideological nonsense and focus on what works.”

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© Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

© Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

© Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

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The race for oil: will Jamaica be the next country to drill and what does that mean for its green pledges?

With early tests suggesting the presence of crude oil, the Caribbean island has begun to debate whether it could justify becoming a producer

Jamaica is closer than ever to drilling for oil. Tests on samples from the seabed off the Caribbean island’s south coast earlier this year identified hydrocarbons, which suggest the presence of crude oil below ground.

Jamaica imports all its fuel, which costs about $1.5-2bn (£1.1bn-1.5bn) annually, depending on global oil prices. It is a persistent drag on an economy that generated $4.3bn from tourism, its biggest earner, in 2024.

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© Illustration: Eleanor Shakespeare

© Illustration: Eleanor Shakespeare

© Illustration: Eleanor Shakespeare

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UK needs to urgently install air conditioning in schools and care homes, climate campaigners say

Government should fit solar panels to power air con units where vulnerable people live, say green advocates

As the country baked in record May temperatures, climate campaigners have said the UK government needs to urgently start installing air conditioning units in schools, care homes and places where vulnerable people live.

In 2022, when temperatures spiked above 40C (104F), about 3,000 people in Britain died of causes associated with heat. Studies show air conditioning can cut heat related deaths by 75%.

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© Photograph: mar-fre/Alamy

© Photograph: mar-fre/Alamy

© Photograph: mar-fre/Alamy

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The BHP files: World’s biggest miner BHP backtracks on climate action with key projects put on ice, leaked documents reveal

Exclusive: Cache of internal documents leaked to the Guardian and the ABC’s Four Corners show multinational has war-gamed ways to massively delay decarbonisation

The world’s biggest miner has halted or delayed projects to cut vast amounts of emissions and has quietly war-gamed options to push major climate investments in its Western Australian iron ore operations into the next two decades, internal documents show.

An exclusive investigation based on documents leaked to the Guardian and the ABC’s Four Corners can reveal that BHP, one of Australia’s biggest historic emitters, has dumped plans for a facility that could have significantly reduced emissions and has put on ice renewable projects designed to power its iron ore operations in the vast, resource-rich Pilbara region.

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© Illustration: Guardian Design

© Illustration: Guardian Design

© Illustration: Guardian Design

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Revealed: the internal BHP memo that slammed the brakes on world’s biggest miner’s climate push

Exclusive: BHP once dubbed climate change an ‘existential’ threat. But leaked documents show it has backtracked on decarbonisation at a vast network of mines

In the middle of 2019, London was sweltering through a heatwave.

Temperature records tumbled. Frail, ill and elderly people died in their hundreds.

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© Composite: Guardian

© Composite: Guardian

© Composite: Guardian

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