Karl Mathiesen
Karl Mathiesen is Climate Home News' editor. He has written for national newspapers, newswires and magazines in Australia and the UK. Before joining Climate Home News in 2016, he worked mostly with the Guardian’s environment desk. He is based in London.
Climate targets mean an end to oil-fuelled cars by 2035
The world needs to make a paradigm shift to electric vehicles, say experts, predicting that by 2050 half of all cars would need to be “zero-emissions”
Renewable investment beats rising demand for first time
There have been huge falls in renewable energy costs. But investment is still not enough to avoid dangerous climate change, says intergovernmental agency
Palm oil: bad news for forests, and your liver
Documentary maker Michael Dorgan ate three muffins made with palm oil each day. Much of the fat he gained was clustered around his vital organs
Legal wins, coal price up but Adani’s Australian mine still “unbankable”
Despite consistent legal victories, Adani cannot change a coal price that languishes far below the level necessary to make the huge Carmichael mine viable
G20 reaffirms climate commitments – but dodges deadlines
Leaders back rapid implementation of the Paris agreement and ramping up of green finance, but fail to set timeline for phase out of fossil fuel subsidies
Isis’ oil empire is employing thousands of children
Satellites reveal boom in cottage industry in which tens of thousands of civilian workers are engaged in dangerous, toxic work that props up extremist regime
US, China ratify Paris climate agreement together
Observers laud cooperation between world’s two biggest carbon polluters as “a pivotal moment for our planet” as G20 gathers in Hangzhou
G20 talks climate while Australia cuts renewables funding
Despite green energy finance topping the G20 climate agenda, Malcolm Turnbull’s government is planning a $1.4bn raid on its domestic budget
G20 will blow the Paris climate targets – report
Proposed cuts are “far from sufficient” and must be six times greater by 2030 to stop the world warming beyond 2C, a study finds on the eve of the G20 leaders meeting
Korean palm oil company destroys Papua tree kangaroo habitat
Satellite imagery, drones and ground surveys uncover the denuding of 11,700 hectares of pristine rainforest in the past three years
Insurers worth $1.2tn tell G20 to stop funding fossil fuels by 2020
Climate change is the “mother of all risks” says Aviva CEO, and hundreds of billions in annual government assistance to oil, gas and coal is “simply unsustainable”
Paris temperature check: Australia’s climate plans in focus
The outsider who came in from the cold: Malcolm Turnbull said tackling climate change “inspires and energises” him, but has he delivered?
California passes ambitious climate targets
New law requires the US economic powerhouse to cut its emissions by 40% below 1990 levels by 2030
Climate change now has a start date
Researchers have pinpointed the beginning of global warming to a couple of decades in mid-1800s, showing earth’s sensitivity to small atmospheric changes
US gas now a bigger carbon polluter than coal
Coal has entered a structural decline, say experts, leaving gas as the second largest source of carbon behind petroleum
Paris climate agreement set to become law this year
Fifty-seven countries accounting for 59.88% of global emissions have now indicated they will sign agreement before end of 2016
Brian Cox’s sceptic takedown: a low point for climate journalism?
News programmes let us down by hosting irrelevant debates when we face so many urgent and interesting questions.
Visitors rush to the Great Barrier Reef to catch it “before it’s gone”
Survey finds that 69% of visitors to the world’s largest coral reef system are motivated by the fear that it might disappear