Better Planet
Education’s Blog

US overturns ban on plastic straws. But is the real problem single-use items in general?

Reducing sulphur emissions from ships, while beneficial for air quality, may inadvertently accelerate global warming by decreasing the number of sunlight-reflecting particles in the atmosphere.

In this article, Holly, who is one of our Young Trustees, investigates how climate change is threatening the flavour of many beloved foods. Rising temperatures can cause crops like cocoa, fruits, and vegetables to mature too quickly, hindering the development of their full flavour. This could lead to less tasty chocolate, strawberries, grapes, and apples, among other foods.

Recycling lithium-ion batteries significantly reduces emissions and strengthens the supply chain compared to mining new materials, offering a more sustainable future for energy and electronics.

E-fuels offer a promising solution to decarbonise sectors like aviation and shipping that are difficult to electrify.

Claire, who is one of our Young Trustees, gives some advice on buying food that's in season this winter.

Global average temperatures were 1.6C above pre-industrial levels for the first time in 2024, it has been confirmed by a spokesperson for the World Meteorological Organisation. This comes a decade after 2014’s Paris Agreement, which committed the world to keeping increases in global surface temperatures to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels, with an ideal limit being 1.5C. Keeping increases below by 2030 will require cuts in fossil fuel emissions of 45% by that year.

In this article, Holly, who is one of Better Planet Education's Young Trustees, discusses the impacts of AI on our planet.

In today’s rapidly changing world, it is crucial to equip the next generation with the knowledge and skills to tackle environmental challenges. One of the best ways to do this is through eco-friendly classroom activities, which not only engage students but also inspire them to become future environmental leaders. By integrating sustainability into everyday learning, educators can nurture eco-conscious individuals who will be better prepared to make informed decisions for the planet’s future. In this blog, we will explore a variety of exciting and educational eco-friendly classroom activities that can be easily implemented in schools. These activities will help instil a sense of environmental responsibility and foster creative problem-solving skills. Better Planet Education, a charity dedicated to promoting sustainability and environmental awareness, provides an excellent range of resources to support teachers in integrating such activities into their classrooms. Let’s dive into the world of eco-friendly education and discover how we can inspire the environmental leaders of tomorrow.

The Youth Shadow Panel is inviting children and young people across England to share your views on your experience of school or college. Share your opinions on what you like, don’t like, and how your education could be improved. You can submit your views between 2 December 2024 - 12 January 2025.

YPTE has changed its name to Better Planet Education and launched a new website.

The last coal-fired power station in the UK, Ratcliffe-on Soar, Nottinghamshire, is set to burn its last coal today (30 September 2024), having been in operation since 1967. The UK becomes the world's first major economy to end its reliance on coal for producing energy.

May 2024 has left Britons scratching their heads as the Met Office's provisional figures reveal that May 2024 was the warmest since records began in 1884, with a mean average of 13.1C. This not only surpasses the previous record of 12.1C set in 2008 but does so by an entire degree Celsius!

This is a really interesting article, written by Charlie, who is one of our Young Trustees. It discusses a really important, but often forgotten impact of climate change on disabled people.

The United Nations' twenty-eighth Conference of the Parties on climate change (COP28) ended in Dubai on 13 December, 23 hours later than planned. Â Included in the final wording of the 'Global Stocktake' was an agreement to "transition away from fossil fuels", which was ratified by almost 200 nations.

The latest United Nations climate conference, COP28 has started today in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. With 2023 set to be the hottest year on record, surely this will help focus the thoughts and actions of over 160 world leaders, who are meeting there to discuss collective action on the climate crisis. Notable absentees from this year's COP include US President Joe Biden and China's Xi Jinping, but UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will be attending.

In 2019, a staggering seven million Halloween costumes ended up as waste, whilst 60% of people who buy pumpkins admitted that they just threw the insides away.

Use YPTE's new guide to writing a letter to your local MP.

Pope Francis has today issued an update to his 2015 message about the Climate Crisis, which was entitled 'Laudato Si''. His new apostolic exhortation, Laudate Deum, has been written 'to all people of good will on the climate crisis.'

The State of Nature report, published on 27 September brought together data from 64 conservation and research organisations. It found that the abundance of species in the UK has declined by an average of 19% since 1970, with almost one in six (16%) in danger of extinction from Great Britain. But mammals like the Hazel dormouse have seen their population decline in Britain by 51% since 2000. 54% of flowering plants have also seen their distributions reduced.

According to the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), significant growth of renewable energy and green investments over the last two years has meant that the world has a greater chance of staying within a 1.5C global temperature increase.

In some good news for the environment, work is beginning to install the turbine blades at the world's biggest offshore wind farm, which is located at Dogger Bank, off the coast of northeast England.

The world's oceans have reached their highest ever recorded temperature, with global average surface temperatures hitting 20.96C, well above the average for this time of year. Temperatures are likely to continue to increase, because the world's oceans are at their hottest in March.

Forget global warming, "the era of global boiling has arrived". So said United Nations Secretary General António Guterres following confirmation from scientists that July 2023 was on course to be the world's warmest month on record.

We are thrilled to announce the virtual PAGES 2023 Awards Ceremony, where we honour the remarkable achievements of our primary schools who are leading the way in environmental education is now available to view.

Rocky, one of YPTE's Young Trustees has written this fantastic article about how climate change is causing glaciers in the Himalayas to melt more quickly and what that means for our planet.

Rising greenhouse gas emissions are pushing the planet towards irreversible damage that can only now be stopped if drastic action is taken quickly. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report was released on 20 March 2023. UN secretary-general said, "Our world needs climate action on all fronts: everything, everywhere, all at once."

Plans for 199 solar panels to be fitted to the roof of York Minster have received approval from the City of York Council. The panels will be fitted on the roof of the South Quire Aisle. They are expected to generate 75,000 kWh (kilowatt hours) per year, providing energy during the day and also for evening services.

On 4 March 2023, the world came together to protect our oceans for the benefit of future generations. After 38 hours of talks, that were preceded by 10 years of negotiation, the United Nations' High Seas Treaty was signed at the UN's headquarters in New York.

A new study, led by Briana Abrahms of the University of Washington in Seattle, USA has found that climate change is increasing the number of times that humans and wildlife are coming into conflict.

Charlotte, who is one of YPTE's Young Trustees, attended the SOS UK Student Sustainability Summit, which took place in Lincoln Students' Union in early February. Here, she writes about her experience of the Summit.

Two years after the government banned plastic cotton buds, microbeads and drinking straws in England, a new ban has been announced that will apply to single use cutlery, cups and plates. This has the potential to end the production of more than 4 billion items of plastic cutlery and over a billion plastic plates each year.

The Met Office has confirmed that 2022 was the UK's warmest year on record, with the annual average temperature exceeding 10 degrees C for the first time.

A proposed new coal mine in Cumbria gained government approval on 7 December 2022. Levelling up secretary Michael Gove approved the Woodhouse Colliery project, which will be the UK's first new coal mine for three decades. The new mine, near Whitehaven, will cost around £165 million to build and will create around 500 new jobs in the area. Around 100 of these jobs are expected to be taken by people from outside the local area. Once operational, it will produce in the region of 2.8 million tonnes of coking coal per year, most of which will be used in the steelmaking industry. The mine will also produce an estimated 400,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year.

A new ban on domestic flights has been approved by Brussels and will apply to domestic flights in France where there is an existing alternative by rail that takes less than two and a half hours. This will have the immediate effect of ending flights between Paris Orly airport and the cities of Lyon, Nantes and Bordeaux.

After two weeks of intense negotiations, developed countries agreed to provide a fund to assist poorer countries that are being impacted by the extreme effects of climate change. It's not exactly a new idea. Since 2009, a promise has been in place for richer nations to provide $100 billion (84 Bn) in climate finance by 2020, but the new agreement has brought finance for rescue and rebuilding of poorer countries affected by the impacts of climate change that they didn't cause (something they have been requesting for the last 30 years) into reality.

Speaking at COP27 on 15 November, President-Elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva told a delighted audience that 'Brazil is back. In his speech, Lula committed to working towards zero deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, reversing the environmental damage that was allowed under his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro.

On 15 November 2022, the United Nations estimated that the world's human population reached 8 billion people. It was only twelve years ago that the planet's population hit 7 billion. However, the population is growing at its slowest rate since 1950 and is now expected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050 and peaking at around 10.4 billion by 2080.

The government confirmed yesterday that the moratorium on fracking in England, which has been in place since 2019 has been lifted. The moratorium, which effectively banned all fracking operations in England was put in place because of concerns over earth tremors that were being caused by fracking wells.

Endurance runners Charlie Lickiss and Archie Parks completed their run to the equivalent height of Mount Everest in the early hours of this morning.

One donation, twice the impact

The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released on 28 February 2022 has said that many of the effects of climate change are already baked in, but that humanity still has a brief window to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Scientists at the Oxfordshire-based Joint European Torus (JET) laboratory made a significant breakthrough yesterday in their mission to harness the power of nuclear fusion - the energy that powers the stars.

All kinds of climate records were broken in 2021, with a notable one being a new high for December of 19.4C set in Kodiak, Alaska. Meanwhile, China saw its hottest year ever, but perhaps even more dramatic than this was more than a year's worth of rain, which fell on Henan province in just three days, causing flooding, destroying homes and wrecking crops.

Brazil's space agency, INPE, has found that in the past year, deforestation in the country has increased by 22%. Some 13,235 square kilometres of forest was destroyed in the last year, according to INPE's analysis of satellite data. That's the largest area since 2006.

It's now almost a week since COP26 ended and as the dust settles, it's time to take a look at what came out of COP26. It was billed as a vital meeting to chart humanity's path towards a zero carbon future. But did it succeed? Not exactly, but it wasn't a failure either. Here's why:

A lot has been happening at COP26 as it heads towards its conclusion at the end of this week. Â Friday 5 November was 'focussed on youth activities'Youth Day' and saw thousands of young people, their teachers and parents taking to the streets of Glasgow in a protest originally organised by Greta Thunberg's Fridays for Future organisation.

COP26 - the 26th Conference of the Parties got underway on 31 October 2021 at the Scottish Event Campus in Glasgow and is set to run until 12 November. The target for the two-week climate conference is for the world's leaders to commit to keeping global temperatures from rising more than 1.5c above pre-Industrial levels, as set out in the Paris agreement, which was drawn up in 2015 at COP21 in Paris.

This week, the UK's Prime Minister, Boris Johnson contradicted Kermit the Frog's assertion that ‘It's not easy being green'. In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York on 22 September, he declared that COP26 must be a ‘turning point for humanity.

A new study, which asked 10,000 young people aged 16 to 25 from around the world about the anxiety they feel related to climate change has produced results that underline how important tackling climate change is to the majority of young people on the planet.

A new scientific study, published in the journal Nature has found that if we want to have even a 50% chance of keeping global temperature increases below 1.5C, almost 60% of existing oil and gas reserves will need to stay in the ground, along with 90% of coal. The report concludes that we are currently at the peak of oil and gas production and that production will decline by 3% per year from now on.

"Today's IPCC Working Group 1 Report is a code red for humanity." - Antonio Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General.

Episode 5 of the YPTE Podcast is now available to listen to from wherever you get your podcasts. Our guest is Ellie, a.k.a. Jen Zead, author of How To Fix the Planet (When You're a Teenager).

We have some really exciting news for Earth Day 2021!

Lots of sunshine and wind on Easter Monday, coupled with a lower demand for energy meant that nearly 80% of Britain's power was being supplied by zero carbon energy.

YPTE's brand new podcast is now available from all the places you can listen to podcasts.

Supermarket Waitrose will no longer sell magazines for children that have cheap plastic toys on their covers. The move comes in response to a campaign started by Skye, a ten year-old girl from Wales.

New rules that are being introduced this summer should mean that fridges, washing machines, TVs and other home appliances should last longer and cost less to run. Ministers are implementing new rules from the EU, which are aiming to reduce the need for new raw materials whilst saving energy and saving consumers' money.

Joe Biden, the newly-inaugurated 46th President of the United States yesterday signed an executive order for the US to rejoin the Paris climate agreement. The action comes after former President Donald Trump withdrew America from the Paris agreement last year.

The UK government's official advisers on climate change, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) have released a new report, which sees the UK's greenhouse gas emissions in 2035 reducing by 78% when compared with 1990 levels. This new target vastly surpasses the carbon budget set in 2018, accelerating the path to net zero by 15 years, which the CCC said reflected recent rapid falls in renewable energy costs.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson last week announced that the UK will aim to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 68% of what they were in 1990 by the year 2030.

On 1 December 2020, a group of 330 young people from 140 countries sent an open letter calling on world leaders to implement a set of realistic, yet progressive, youth-centred climate policies. Delegates at Mock COP26, an international climate conference led by young people, presented their draft Treaty to Nigel Topping, the High Level Climate Action Champion for COP26.

Beavers that were released onto the Holnicote Estate on Exmoor in January of 2020 have built their first dam. It's also the first beaver dam to have been built on Exmoor for at least 400 years!

The United Nations' World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has this week released the WMO Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, a report, which shows that levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in our atmosphere have continued to increase, despite the shutdown of travel and industry in many parts of the world as a result of Covid-19 lockdowns.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has heralded a new 'green industrial revolution' with the announcement of a new 10-point plan to address environmental issues facing the UK.

Children's immune systems can be significantly boosted by playing in a natural environment, recent research has found. The study, which was carried out in Finland, looked at a group of 75 children aged 3-5, who went to ten daycare centres in two Finnish cities.

An unusually lengthy period of warm weather in northern Russia, along with a flow of warmer waters from the Atlantic Ocean has meant that the Laptev Sea, Siberia's main nursery of sea ice in the Arctic has still to begin freezing. Ocean temperatures have recently been more than 5C above their average in the region, following a summer heatwave.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has today announced an investment of £160 million in offshore wind energy, which will enable every home in the UK to receive electricity generated by wind power by 2030. Speaking at the virtual Conservative Party Conference today, he pledged to make the Covid-19 pandemic a catalyst for growing a new, greener economy in the UK.

From today, it is illegal for businesses to sell or supply single-use plastic items like straws and stirrers. People who have medical conditions meaning that they need to use straws will be exempt from the ban in hospitals or when visiting bars or restaurants.

Leaders from 65 countries, including Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel have warned that we are now facing a planetary emergency because of climate change and the unchecked destruction of the world's ecosystems.

Here's some good news to brighten up your Thursday: new statistics released by the government-funded Recycle Now campaign have shown that almost nine out of ten UK households regularly recycle.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has announced to the United Nations General Assembly that China will aim to reach carbon neutrality by 2060, having hit peak emissions before 2030. His announcement came a week after the European Union pledges to reduce its carbon emissions by 55% by 2030.

The UK looks set to bring forward its ban on sales of new petrol and diesel-powered vehicles from 2040 to 2030. An announcement was planned for later this week, but will now be put back until later in the year, as the government focuses on tackling the new increase in Covid-19 infections. The 2030 ban is supported by the Committee on Climate Change, the government's advisory panel.

New data from the EU's Copernicus atmospheric monitoring service has shown that 245 megatonnes (that's 245 million tonnes or 245 billion kilos) of carbon dioxide (CO2) has been emitted from wildfires in the Arctic from the start of 2020 up until 24 August. In the whole of 2019, total CO2 emissions from the same region were 181 megatonnes, so that's a big increase.

The Greenland ice sheet lost 532 billion tonnes of ice in 2019. The rate of melting has been monitored since 2003 and 2019's ice loss was more than double the average of 255 billion tonnes and broke the previous record, set in 2012, by 15%.

What could be the highest temperature on Earth has been recorded in the Death Valley National Park, California, USA.

Our new essay writing challenge for 15 to 18 year-olds, '2,000 Words to Change the World' produced lots of extremely impressive essays, written on one of four key topics: climate change; sustainable development; responsible travel; and reducing waste. In its first year, 2,000 Words to Change the World has been sponsored by Eurostar.

Four years after ministers scrapped support for new onshore wind energy projects, the UK government has ended its opposition to subsidies.

On Wednesday 26 February, a Reception was held in the House of Commons to launch the first ever education legislation to have been drafted by pupils and students. It was hosted by Nadia Whittome MP, at 24 the youngest serving MP and was attended by 53 MPs and 47 students aged 13 to 26, including three of YPTE's Young Trustees.

On Wednesday 26 February 2020, fifty students, including three of YPTE's Young Trustees will be entering parliament on a mission to engage MPs and Peers in the need to repurpose the education system around the climate emergency and ecological crisis.

A new report, 'A future for the world's children?', has been published by a Commission that has been jointly appointed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the medical journal The Lancet.

At 1pm on 9 February 2020, Brazilian scientists from Marambio base on Seymour Island in the Weddell Sea recorded an air temperature of 20.75C. The reading still needs to be properly confirmed by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), but if it is, it will break the previous record of 19.8C which was recorded on Signy Island back in 1982.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has brought forward the target date to end sales of all new petrol and diesel cars from 2040 to 2035. The ban will now include hybrid vehicles as well, meaning currently that all new vehicles will have to be electric or hydrogen-powered after this date.

Yesterday at the 2020 World Economic Forum, held in Davos, Switzerland, US President Donald Trump addressed delegates with a speech which did its best to ignore climate change. In his view, "We must reject the perennial prophets of doom", while he called for a rejection of "predictions of the apocalypse." In his view, today's climate activists are "the heirs of yesterday's foolish fortune tellers".

Data provided by the UK Met Office, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the USA and the Copernicus Climate Change Service in Europe all agrees that the past five years have been the hottest since global temperature recording began in 1850. The average temperature for 2019 was around 1.1C above the average for 1850 to 1900.

The Met Office has said that a number of high temperature records were broken in 2019 as a result of climate change.

More energy was produced in the UK from renewables than fossil fuels on 137 days during 2019. That makes it he UK's greenest year yet for energy production, but only just!

On Sunday afternoon, two weeks of talks at the UN COP25 climate conference in Madrid ended with a recognition of the need for much deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, but few concrete commitments made towards reductions.

At the United Nations COP25 climate conference in Madrid, the United Nations has said that young people are central to dealing with the climate crisis.

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has said in the preliminary findings of its annual State of the Global Climate report that the last decade has been one of high heat around the world, meaning it will almost certainly become the hottest on record.