Our environment team has been reporting from Cop29 in Baku, Azerbaijan and provided crucial context for this year’s summit, where the focus is to address the issue of climate finance. Fiona Harvey landed an exclusive interview with climate champion and Barbados prime minister Mia Mottley, who said she wants a sit-down meeting with Donald Trump to discuss their common aims on climate. Fiona also revealed the UK’s newly announced target to cut its emissions by 81% (compared to 1990 levels) by 2035.
In addition, we launched a series called This is climate breakdown where, over each day of Cop, we are telling the story of someone who has lived through an extreme weather event and the devastating impact it has had on them. The series began with Tera, who described how her six-year-old son Colton died after being sucked out of their car during flash flooding in Canada last year.
With fears growing of the likely impact of a second Trump term on the Middle East, our team of correspondents continue to report extensively on the war in Gaza. Peter Beaumont covered a new report accusing Israel of crimes against humanity over the forced displacement of civilians in the strip, while Jason Burke reported on how aid to Gaza has dropped to its lowest level in nearly a year despite a US ultimatum to Israel. Patrick Wintour interviewed a senior Unrwa official who warned that the planned shutdown of the agency by Israel would bring further untold suffering to people in the territory.
Our UK team covered the dramatic resignation of Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury. The Anglican church leader resigned over his failure to tackle a major child abuse scandal. How will the man who once vowed to take on the church’s shameful past now be judged by history, asked Harriet Sherwood. And who else knew about the abuse?
Kelly Burke revealed in an exclusive this week how British chef Jamie Oliver had caused offence in Australia with his “disrespectful” portrayal of First Nations people in his latest children’s book. He issued an apology and the book was later shelved globally. Columnist Arwa Mahdawi had a suggestion for him: maybe celebrities should just stop writing children’s books?
Larry Elliott, our retiring economics editor, shared what he learned from his 28 years in the role, from the failures of trickle-down economics, to globalisation going into reverse.
In Afghanistan, photographer Kiana Hayeri and journalist Mélissa Cornet documented how the Taliban are erasing women from all areas of public life including schools, universities, most workplaces – even parks and bathhouses.
For a new series called The wait, Sam Wollaston shared the shocking story of a heart attack victim’s nearly 10-hour wait for an ambulance in north Wales. It was a delay that likely cost Dave Strachan his life.
A restaurant around the corner from the Guardian’s London office has quickly become notorious for its chef’s unique brand of social media marketing: angrily lambasting his customers for not spending enough money. Morwenna Ferrier visited The Yellow Bittern to see whether she could avoid his ire.
Steph Harmon had a great Q&A with writer and broadcaster Jon Ronson for Guardian Australia’s 10 chaotic questions series. Ronson talked about his former “nemesis” Louis Theroux, nearly dying on Concorde while sat next to Keith Richards and how he thinks the next culture war target for the right will be autistic people.
Our excellent coverage of a very enjoyable year of the Booker prize was topped off by an interview by Lisa Allardice with this year’s winner Samantha Harvey, on what it took for her to write Orbital, a 136-page love letter to our troubled planet set on the International Space Station. The piece featured a gorgeous portrait of the author taken by Sarah Lee.
One more thing …The resignation of the archbishop of Canterbury this week was an electrifying story full of shocking detail. I learned a lot from watching Cathy Newman’s 2017 Channel 4 documentary An Ungodly Crime?, and listening toSamira Ahmed’s podcast Disgusted, Mary Whitehouse, on BBC Sounds.
