Ajit Niranjan

Berlin, Germany

European Environment Correspondent at The Guardian

european environment correspondent @guardian, former climate reporter @dwnews (email me on [email protected])

Articles

German court dismisses Peruvian farmer’s climate lawsuit against RWE

1 week ago | theguardian.com | Ajit Niranjan

A German appeals court has dismissed the case of a Peruvian farmer suing the energy giant RWE for climate damages. The upper regional court in Hamm rejected the argument by the farmer and mountain guide Saúl Luciano Lliuya that his home was at direct risk of being washed away by a glacial flood. Lliuya initially filed a case against RWE in 2015, backed by the non-profit Germanwatch, to make the company contribute to local flood defences in line with its share of planet-heating pollution.
European farmers struggle through driest spring in a century

2 weeks ago | msn.com | Ajit Niranjan

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‘It’s a critical time’: European farmers struggle through driest spring in a century

2 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Ajit Niranjan

When drought descended on Hendrik Jan ten Cate’s farm in 2018, slashing his onion yield to just 10% of a regular year, he slogged through days of heavy labour to draw water from canals and pump it to his crops. One day, overworked and anxious to extract as much as he could, Ten Cate fell into the canal and broke his arm. This year, with plants already growing but a severe dearth of rain to nourish young crops, the Dutch farmer is once again watching the weather forecast with worry.
EU’s ‘chocolate crisis’ worsened by climate breakdown, researchers warn

2 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Ajit Niranjan

Climate breakdown and wildlife loss are deepening the EU’s “chocolate crisis”, a report has argued, with cocoa one of six key commodities to come mostly from countries vulnerable to environmental threats. More than two-thirds of the cocoa, coffee, soy, rice, wheat and maize brought into the EU in 2023 came from countries that are not well-prepared for climate change, according to the UK consultants Foresight Transitions.
Swiss firm that captures carbon from air to cut workforce by more than 10%

2 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Ajit Niranjan

A Swiss startup that has led the way in sucking carbon out of the air has announced plans to cut its workforce by more than 10% amid economic uncertainty and “reduced momentum” for climate tech. The downsizing at Climeworks, the company that built the world’s first direct air capture facilities, comes one week after journalists in Iceland revealed its two flagship plants have captured far less carbon than their advertised capacity. A spokesperson said the timing of the redundancies was unrelated.
Dudes Emit More Greenhouse Gases Than Women Do. It’s the Cars-and the Meat.

3 weeks ago | motherjones.com | Ajit Niranjan

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Cars and meat are major factors driving a gender gap in greenhouse gas emissions, new research suggests. Men emit 26 pecent more planet-heating pollution than women from transport and food, according to a preprint study of 15,000 people in France. The gap shrinks to 18 percent after controlling for socioeconomic factors such as income and education.
Record number of river-blocking barriers removed in Europe, report says

3 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Ajit Niranjan

Europe dismantled 542 river-blocking dams, weirs, culverts and sluices in 2024, a report has found, helping a record number of waterways resume their natural course. The number of removals grew 11% from the year before, according to an annual report from Dam Removal Europe. It found 23 countries had removed a river barrier last year, four of which – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic and Turkey – did so for the first time.
European firms ramping up lobbying for climate action, report finds

3 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Ajit Niranjan

European companies are increasingly lobbying for strong climate action, research has found, in a “profound shift” that analysts say challenges the narrative that businesses see green rules as a threat to profits.
Car use and meat consumption drive emissions gender gap, research suggests

3 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Ajit Niranjan

Cars and meat are major factors driving a gender gap in greenhouse gas emissions, new research suggests. Men emit 26% more planet-heating pollution than women from transport and food, according to a preprint study of 15,000 people in France. The gap shrinks to 18% after controlling for socioeconomic factors such as income and education.
Plan for windfarm in German ‘fairytale forest’ stokes green energy culture war

4 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Ajit Niranjan

Deep in the woods that inspired the Brothers Grimm, past the tower from which Rapunzel threw down her hair and the castle in which Sleeping Beauty slumbered, lies a construction site that the far right has declared a crime against national soil and identity. In this quiet corner of Germany’s “fairytale forest”, workers are clearing land and building access roads to erect 18 wind turbines.