Leaders are gathering in Brazil for the UN COP30 Climate Summit as the United Nations declares the world will not meet the 1.5 degree warming limit set in 2015. With 2025 set to be one of the warmest years on record, the most vulnerable small island nations are pleading for stronger action.

This year's global climate summit - COP30 - is being hailed as the most significant in ten years, with experts describing it the "make or break decade" for action on global warming. But doubts are being raised about whether enough can be achieved.

Australians in three states are to be offered three hours of free electricity in the middle of the day, under a scheme to share abundant solar energy harvested in non-peak hours. The plan has been welcomed by environmental groups, but some in the Opposition are unimpressed.

The author of the review that triggered the government's environment reforms has fully endorsed Labor's nature legislation. Professor Graeme Samuel has told SBS the bill implements the 'totality' of the recommendations he made in his report, five years after it was delivered. The Greens and Coalition have objected to the bill, with Greens leader Larissa Waters describing it as 1400 pages gift-wrapped for big business. But Professor Samuel says environmental groups and business interests alike had substantial input into his report, and their desires were fully taken into account in the recommendations. He's been talking to SBS chief political correspondent Anna Henderson.

Australia's most significant environmental law reform in decades has been tabled in Parliament, but it faces immediate political deadlock with opponents in the Senate ready to delay the vote. As Minister Murray Watt pushes for a swift resolution, he must navigate an environment where both the Coalition and the Greens are demanding major concessions on accountability, climate, and industry protection.

A large white coral reef containing important species and fossil traces has been discovered at a depth of more than 500 metres in the Gulf of Naples, in a rare discovery for the Mediterranean. But a new report suggests reefs like this might already be in danger, with global warming crossing dangerous thresholds sooner than expected and the world's coral reefs now in an almost irreversible die-off. It marks what scientists are describing as the first tipping point in climate-driven ecosystem collapse.

South Australia's algal bloom continues to spread, leading to significant environmental, ecological and mental health harm. Those impacts have been heard at a Senate inquiry examining support arrangements for those affected, but also long-term prevention strategies.

Youth advocates from around the world have gathered at the UN headquarters in New York to participate in the high-level plenary meeting of the General Assembly. Their meeting marked the thirtieth anniversary of the World Programme of Action for Youth.

New research has found Australia's heat-stressed forests are rapidly thinning, and could even be producing carbon emissions. It comes as the government prepares to release its 2035 emissions targets and a climate risk report later this month. But local researchers, politicians and Traditional Owner land groups remain divided on how to protect the forest.

Climate advocates say the federal government's 2035 emissions reduction target falls "dangerously short", while the Coalition has said its plan is "grounded in fantasy land". Government ministers are now working to justify the target to the public and the community, as the Coalition is under pressure to outline their climate policy.