The Independent announces the return of its acclaimed Climate 100 List

Increasingly frequently, the world is suffering from more wild fires, flash floods, droughts, and hurricanes, caused by the human-induced climate crisis.

Recent data from Nasa revealed a dramatic rise in the intensity of extreme weather events which are happening more regularly, are lasting for a longer period of time and are more severe, such as the LA fires in January that devastated tens of thousands of homes, recent deadly flooding in Beijing, and long heatwaves in the Nordic countries that even reach the Arctic Circle.

Across the US, ‘heat streaks‘ are on the rise, a phenomenon that’s seeing an increase in the number of consecutive hot days across its cities, with life-threatening temperatures. It’s becoming a pattern as for the second year running, the planet has reached record temperatures, following 2024 becoming the warmest year on record.

Alongside the physical extremes on the environment, the effects of the USA’s climate-sceptic administration’s rollbacks are already being felt. Cuts to overseas aid, which many conservation areas like Zambia’s Lower Zambezi National Park rely on, as do vulnerable nations like Malawi who are now struggling to prepare for climate disasters, will have long-lasting and devastating effects.

Despite more awareness than ever, the climate crisis is only worsening and it’s never felt more urgent to react. The Independent has long been at the forefront of calling for action and change when it comes to the climate, as well as reliably reporting on the severity of the global climate crisis.

It’s this understanding and commitment to resolving the issues that sees the important return of The Independent’s Climate 100 List. Back for its second year, it will be published again next month, aptly during the United Nations’ Summit of the Future in New York, part of the 16th annual Climate Week NYC.

The list brings together 100 changemaking and inspiring people to celebrate their contributions in finding positive climate solutions. From around the globe, it includes those who have dedicated their lives to the cause, as well as lesser known newcomers to the movement who need their voices heard and actions seen, across industries as broad as science to activism, food to politics, and business to entertainment, to name a few.

We want to continue to celebrate their courage, innovation and much-needed efforts in paving the way for a cleaner and greener future for the next generation.

The unveiling of the list will also align with the Climate 100 event held in New York, hosted by The Independent’s Editor-in-Chief, Geordie Greig, bringing together global changemakers, business leaders, scientists, policymakers, and activists.

Geordie Greig, Editor-in-Chief of The Independent, says: “Now in the second year of Climate 100, we are excited to continue honoring leaders who are not just raising the alarm, but driving the solutions our planet urgently needs.”

The list is compiled by a team at The Independent, but as we know three out of four of our readers consider themselves to be environmentally friendly, a key part of the list is the Reader’s Choice category, which is returning after last year’s success.

We’re once again asking you, the readers, to get involved and submit your unsung climate hero – someone who has made a significant contribution to protecting the environment through their work and deserves to be properly recognised for it. Perhaps it’s a colleague, a classmate, a mentor, a peer or even a friend or family member.

Submit your nominations for The Independent’s Climate 100 List using the form below – and stay tuned: the full list lands in mid-September.

IDF chief opposes Netanyahu plans to seize Gaza amid hostage fears

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing fierce pushback, including from the head of his own military, over a proposal to widen his devastating offensive and seize the remaining parts of Gaza.

Eyal Zamir, the Israeli military chief of staff, is understood to have warned the prime minister that attempting to take and hold the rest of Gaza – which the army physically withdrew from two decades ago – could corner their forces into a protracted conflict and endanger the lives of the hostages.

The warning came during a tense three-hour meeting held on Tuesday night in which they were set to decide on a strategy before a cabinet meeting on Thursday, an Israeli source briefed on the discussion told The Independent.

It is the latest voice of discontent from inside Israel, as the beleaguered premier has faced mounting pressure to wrap up the 22-month conflict, which has reportedly seen the highest death toll of Israeli soldiers in 50 years. There has also been global condemnation over a famine crisis and the rising Palestinian civilian death toll, which has pushed past 61,000 dead, according to local officials.

During Tuesday’s meeting, Zamir reportedly spoke of the decision to conquer the entire territory creating a “trap in Gaza”. Israeli Channel 12 quoted Zamir as saying that the extended boots-on-the-ground occupation would “significantly endanger the lives of the hostages and cause erosion in the army”.

This week, nearly 600 Israeli retired security officials wrote an open letter to Donald Trump urging him to intervene and pressure Israel to end the war. Just hours before Tuesday’s tense meeting, several former chiefs of Israel’s internal security services, the Mossad spy agency, the military and ex-prime minister Ehud Barak released an extraordinary joint video on social media, echoing those pleas. They said extreme-right members of the government are holding Israel “hostage”.

Netanyahu’s objectives in Gaza are “a fantasy”, Yoram Cohen, former head of Shin Bet, said in the video. “If anyone imagines that we can reach every terrorist and every pit and every weapon, and in parallel bring our hostages home – I think it is impossible,” he said.

Ami Ayalon, another former head of Shin Bet, added: “This is leading the state of Israel to the loss of its security and its identity.”

But Netanyahu is facing increasing pressure from the far-right members of his government, including national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir and finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who have railed against any truce deal or delivery of aid to Gaza as “surrender”.

According to reports in The Times of Israel and Haaretz, Smotrich and Ben Gvir have called for the destruction of Gaza City as part of the takeover plan.

The prime minister’s critics within Israel accuse him of pandering to them, fearing the collapse of his razor-thin coalition, as he faces ongoing corruption trials, which have cast a long shadow over his terms in office.

Israel’s security establishment also fears that an open-ended occupation would bog down and further strain the army – while risking the lives of dozens of troops.

“Israeli soldiers and reservists and everybody are just hugely tired,” one source told The Independent. Continuing the conflict will mean “more soldiers dead, all exhausted, more taxes on Israeli”, they said, adding: “More and more soldiers are dying every day – full occupation with your soldiers not on top form is an issue.”

Netanyahu is also facing condemnation from the families of hostages in Gaza held by military groups Hamas and others, who accuse the prime minister of “leading Israel and the hostages towards devastation”.

“I expect the prime minister to speak to the public, to explain the implications of this idea to the country and the price we’ll pay,” said Itzik Horn, the father of Israeli hostage Eitan and former hostage Iair, according to Haaretz. “We are the people. I want the prime minister to explain why he wants to kill my son.”

“The hostages have no more time,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum added on Wednesday. “Either we save them now, or we will lose them forever. There are moments in history when we must stand up and do the right thing.”

There are believed to be 50 remaining hostages and captives still being held in Gaza, but only 20 are thought to still be alive.

Amos Harel, a senior fellow at Brookings and an Israeli defence expert, told the Independent that risking the “mass death of hostages was a big gamble” for the prime minister, who would also have to call in more reservists to complete the plan.

“It would mean a break, from a massive amount of Israeli voters, including right-wing voters who would like to see the hostages home and have their own growing fears that this would fail as well and would mean more lives lost without actually reaching some sort of victory,” he said.

Meanwhile, Trump said on Tuesday that the decision over whether to fully occupy Gaza is “pretty much up to Israel”, declining to support or oppose the potential expansion of Israeli military activity in the enclave. “I know that we are there now trying to get people fed,” he said when asked about the plan.

The move may also increase Israel’s growing isolation on the international stage, at a time when its allies are taking tougher stances towards the country amid reports of starvation in the Gaza Strip and near-daily reports of Palestinians being shot dead while seeking aid.

On Wednesday, Jordan said Israeli settlers attacked a Gaza-bound aid convoy in the second such incident in days, accusing Israel of failing to act firmly to prevent repeated assaults.

The convoy, carrying 30 trucks of humanitarian aid, was delayed in its arrival in a violation of signed agreements, said Jordan’s government spokesperson, Mohammad al-Momani.

“This requires a serious Israeli intervention and no leniency in dealing with those who obstruct these convoys,” he said.

Earlier on Wednesday, reports from Hamas’ information ministry in Gaza said that 20 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded after a truck carrying humanitarian aid in the strip flipped over.

Ward ‘severely short-staffed’ on day suicidal teenager self-harmed

A mental health hospital was “severely short-staffed” and missing “at least half” their workers on the day a vulnerable teenager fatally self-harmed, an inquest has heard.

Ruth Szymankiewicz, 14, died on 14 February 2022 after she was left alone at Huntercombe Hospital, near Maidenhead in Berkshire, despite requiring constant one-to-one observation, Buckinghamshire Coroner’s Court was told.

Ruth, who had an eating disorder, Tourette syndrome and a tic condition, which had affected her mental health, was left alone for 15 minutes on 12 February, allowing her to make her way to her room, where she self-harmed. She was found and resuscitated before being transferred to John Radcliffe Hospital, but died two days later.

It later emerged that the care worker responsible for watching Ruth at the hospital’s psychiatric intensive care unit – a man then known as Ebo Acheampong – had been using false identity documents and was hired under a false name.

Ellesha Brannigan, who worked as a clinical team leader on the ward where Ruth was staying, said they were understaffed on the day the teenager was left alone.

She told the inquest: “On this day, we were severely short-staffed when we had come in for a shift. We were missing at least half of our staff this day, and we really struggled to get staff to cover the observation levels. We needed the ward below us to send us staff during break times to enable staff to take breaks. Otherwise, breaks wouldn’t have been possible.”

She added: “Staffing was an issue for a long time, for a very long time there. It always was an issue, and me and other staff advocated for our ward and had several meetings with higher management about these staffing levels, but no changes were made.”

On the day Ruth self-harmed, a worker raised the alarm on the low staffing levels by recording it as a safety incident, known as a datix.

They wrote: “We’ve got inadequate staffing levels here” and warned that patient “observations might not be able to be kept” and cited “patient harm”, the court heard.

Ms Brannigan said that Mr Achempong was called to work on the ward that day due to short staffing. The senior nurse also said that due to staffing issues, there was only one staff member available per two patients who both needed regular in-person checks.

She said that shouldn’t happen, but “often” did due to a lack of available staff.

CCTV footage from the ward on the day Ruth was found unresponsive, shown to the court, revealed Mr Achempong left Ruth alone in a lounge just after 8pm.

His shift was due to end at 8.15pm, however, hospital protocol is for a staff member not to leave a patient needing one-to-one observation until they have handed over to another member of staff, Ms Brannigan told the court.

In the footage, Mr Acheampong can be seen leaving the room repeatedly – at first only for seconds at a time, then for two minutes – prompting the teenager to walk up to the door and look into the lobby, seemingly waiting for the opportunity to leave the room.

“Ruth is very aware that she is being left on her own,” coroner Ian Wade KC told the inquest. “Whichever way one looks at it, there has been an egregious breach of level three observation.”

The court also heard how new support care workers joining Huntercombe were required to complete an induction process with a chief nurse, who would then need to sign a checklist or the shift would have to be cancelled, Tim Moloney KC, representing the family, told the hearing.

This was not done for Mr Acheampong, with Ms Brannigan explaining: “We didn’t have the staff to do the induction for him.”

If you are experiencing feelings of distress or are struggling to cope, you can speak to the Samaritans in confidence on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org, or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch. If you are based in the USA, and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call or text 988, or visit 988lifeline.org to access online chat from the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. This is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you are in another country, you can go to befrienders.org to find a helpline near you.

For anyone struggling with the issues raised in this article, eating disorder charity Beat’s helpline is available 365 days a year on 0808 801 0677. NCFED offers information, resources and counselling for those suffering from eating disorders, as well as their support networks. Visit eating-disorders.org.uk or call 0845 838 2040

Casualties reported after shots fired at US army base: latest

An Army sergeant is in custody after officials say he shot five fellow soldiers at a Georgia Army base.

Fort Stewart, located about an hour outside of Savannah, was on lockdown Wednesday due to an “active shooter,” officials said. All five soldiers injured are in stable condition and expected to recover, Brig. Gen. John Lubas told reporters Wednesday.

The suspected shooter has been identified as 28-year-old Quornelius Radford, an automated logistics sergeant assigned to the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, Lubas said. He was apprehended about 30 minutes after the base first went into lockdown, and there is no active threat to the community, officials previously said.

Officials believe Radford used a personal handgun, rather than a military weapon. Radford was previously arrested for a DUI that was “unknown to his chain of command,” Lubas said.

Officials issued an “all clear” for Fort Stewart, Wright Army Airfield and Evans Army Airfield just before 2 p.m. local time. The FBI is also coordinating with the Army Criminal Investigation Division to assist with the investigation.

Fort Stewart is the largest Army base east of the Mississippi River. It’s home to thousands of soldiers and their families.

Ghislaine Maxwell never saw Trump do anything concerning with Epstein: report

Ghislaine Maxwell said that she never saw Donald Trump do anything that would cause concern, during her hours-long meetings with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche over the Jeffrey Epstein case, according to ABC News.

The Trump administration is considering whether to release the transcript from Blanche’s meetings with Maxwell last month, ABC News reported. CNN first reported that the meeting was recorded and is being digitized.

The White House has been trying to contain fallout from the so-called “Epstein Files” for weeks after a Justice Department memo concluded there were no more significant disclosures to be made in the case. Vice President JD Vance is holding a strategy meeting with other top officials Wednesday evening to work on their handling of the Epstein case, CNN reported.

Amid calls for increased transparency from across the political spectrum, Blanche met with Maxwell at a Florida courthouse for two days in July.

Maxwell, 63, is serving a 20-year prison sentence for her role in a sex trafficking scheme to abuse girls with Epstein. Her attorneys have taken an appeal of her conviction to the Supreme Court.

“She was asked about maybe about 100 different people. She answered questions about everybody and she didn’t hold anything back,” her attorney David Oskar Markus said of her meetings with Blanche. “She never invoked a privilege. She never refused to answer a question. So we’re very proud of her.”

Blanche met with Maxwell in Tallahassee, Florida, where she was being held in federal prison. Earlier this week, she was moved to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas.

The president was asked Tuesday if he had personally approved Maxwell’s transfer. “I didn’t know about it at all. I read about it just like you did,” he said. “It’s not a very uncommon thing.”

Trump and Epstein were friendly in the 1990s and early 2000s and were seen together at parties in Palm Beach and New York.

Trump called Epstein a “terrific guy” in a 2002 New York Magazine article, and flight records show that he flew on the financier’s private jet.

Their friendship dissolved around the mid-2000s. After Epstein’s arrest on sex trafficking charges in 2019, the president told reporters he hadn’t spoken to him in 15 years. A Mar-a-Lago member told the Miami Herald that Trump had Epstein kicked out in 2007 after the financier “harassed the daughter of a member.”

The president has repeatedly called Epstein a “creep.” Last week, Trump revealed that he had ended his friendship with Epstein after he “stole” young female employees from his private club.

Trump has never been formally accused of wrongdoing or charged with any crime in connection with the Epstein case.

To try to quell the uproar over the Epstein Files, the president directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to release “any and all pertinent” grand jury transcripts from the Maxwell and Epstein criminal cases. Bondi filed requests with the courts to release the transcripts, which are under seal. Experts say these documents only make up a small portion of the files related to the investigations.

Maxwell, however, is opposed to unsealing the grand jury transcripts.

With her petition pending before the Supreme Court, her lawyers argued that releasing the raw transcripts would “inevitably influence any future legal proceeding” and cause “severe and irrevocable” reputational harm. Maxwell has never been allowed to review the documents, they said in a Tuesday memo to the court.

The judges overseeing the cases previously asked the government to address legal questions before they can consider releasing them.

On Monday, the DOJ gave the judges annotated versions of the transcripts, identifying what information is not publicly available. However in an attached memo, Bondi admitted that “much” of the information in the transcripts is already in the public domain.

“The enclosed, annotated transcripts show that much of the information provided during the course of the grand jury testimony—with the exception of the identities of certain victims and witnesses—was made publicly available at trial or has otherwise been publicly reported through the public statements of victims and witnesses,” Bondi wrote.

The attorney general also noted that the government has provided notice about its requests to unseal transcripts to all but one of the victims referenced in the documents. “The Government still has been unable to contact that remaining victim,” she wrote.

Annie Farmer, a survivor of Epstein who testified at Maxwell’s trial, voiced her support for unsealing the transcripts — with redactions to protect victims’ information — in a letter to the judges overseeing the New York cases.

“Given the magnitude and abhorrence of Epstein and Maxwell’s crimes, unsealing the grand jury transcripts is not just appropriate, it is necessary to understand the full scope of the abuse and those who enabled it,” Farmer’s attorneys wrote in a Tuesday filing.

Farmer called the DOJ’s decision not to investigate uncharged third parties in connection with Epstein as “a cowardly abdication of its duties to protect and serve.”

Two other Epstein survivors criticized the Trump administration’s handling of the case earlier this week. The victims remained anonymous and filed their letters in the New York case related to the late sex offender.

“The latest attention on the ‘Epstein Files’, the ‘Client List’ is OUT OF CONTROL and the ones that are left to suffer are not the high-profile individuals, IT IS THE VICTIMS. Why the lack of concern in handling such sensitive information for the victims sake?” one wrote in a Monday filing.

Another wrote: “Dear United States, I wish you would have handled and would handle the whole ‘Epstein Files’ with more respect towards and for the victims. I am not some pawn in your political warfare.”

The administration’s handling of the case has been under heightened scrutiny since the Justice Department released its July 6 Epstein memo, in which the DOJ confirmed that Epstein died by suicide and stated there was no evidence to support the existence of a “client list” of high-profile individuals involved in his alleged sex trafficking.

The memo put to an end months-long anticipation for new information in the Epstein case. In February, Bondi had released “Phase 1” of the files, a tranche of documents that included mostly publicly available information. She also suggested that the “client list”was sitting on her desk.

Parts of Trump’s MAGA base and prominent lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have called for heightened transparency around the Epstein files.

Those calls grew louder after the Wall Street Journal published a report last month claiming that the president drew a sexually suggestive 50th birthday card for Epstein in 2003. Trump has vehemently denied making the card and sued the Journal in a $10 billion defamation case.

The Wall Street Journal also reported that DOJ officials told the president in May that his name, among many others, had appeared in the Epstein Files. Being named in the files does not suggest any wrongdoing.

The president’s name was reportedly redacted from documents as the administration prepared for their potential public release, Bloomberg reported last week.

How Musk’s X fuelled racist targeting after Southport attack

New analysis investigating X’s algorithm has revealed how the platform played a “central role” in spreading false narratives fuelling riots in the UK last summer.

Amnesty International’s analysis of the platform’s own source code, published in March 2023, has revealed how it “systematically prioritises” content that “sparks outrage” – without adequate safeguards to prevent harm.

The human rights group said the design of the software created “fertile ground for inflammatory racist narratives to thrive” in the wake of the Southport attack last year.

On 29 July 2024, three young girls – Alice da Silva Aguiar, Bebe King and Elsie Dot Stancombe – were murdered, and 10 others injured, by 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class.

Before official accounts were shared by authorities, false statements and Islamophobic narratives began circulating on social media last summer, the report said.

The consequences of this misinformation resulted in weeks of racist riots which spread across the country, with a number of hotels housing asylum seekers targeted by the far-right.

Amnesty International said that in the critical window after the Southport attack, X’s algorithm system meant inflammatory posts went viral, even if they contained misinformation.

The report found no evidence that the algorithm assesses the post’s potential harm before boosting it based off of engagement, allowing misinformation to spread before efforts to share correct information was possible.

“These engagement-first design choices contributed to heightened risks amid a wave of anti-Muslim and anti migrant violence observed in several locations across the UK at the time, and which continues to present a serious human rights risk today,” the report read.

“As long as a tweet drives engagement, the algorithm appears to have no mechanism for assessing the potential for causing harm – at least not until enough users themselves report it.”

The report also highlights the bias towards “Premium” users on X, such as Andrew Tate, who posted a video falsely asserting the attacker was an “undocumented migrant” who “arrived on a boat”.

Tate had been previously been banned from Twitter for hate speech and harmful content, but their accounts were reinstated in late 2023 under Elon Musk’s “amnesty” for suspended users.

Since his takeover of the platform in 2022, Musk has also laid off its content moderation staff, disbanded Twitter’s Trust and Safety advisory council and fired trust and safety engineers.

Pat de Brún, Head of Big Tech Accountability at Amnesty International said: “Our analysis shows that X’s algorithmic design and policy choices contributed to heightened risks amid a wave of anti-Muslim and anti-migrant violence observed in several locations across the UK last year, and which continues to present a serious human rights risk today.

“Without effective safeguards, the likelihood increases that inflammatory or hostile posts will gain traction in periods of heightened social tension.”

The Independent has contacted X for a comment.

Tax gambling more to lift children out of poverty, says think tank

Around half a million children could be lifted out of poverty through reforms to UK gambling laws, a leading think tank has found.

The Institute For Public Policy Research (IPPR) is urging the government to look at measures which could raise £3.2 billion from changes to how gambling is taxed.

This would be the amount of funding needed to scrap the two-child limit and benefit cap, a new report from the group finds, which would lift 500,000 children out of poverty.

Eliminating these two policies would be “the most effective single step” the government could take to reduce child poverty, it adds.

Backed by former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown, the IPPR’s proposals focus on raising duties on online gambling firms, especially online casinos, slot machines, and high-stakes betting.

The think tank says harms are especially concentrated in this sector, with over 60 per cent of profits coming from just five per cent of users – many of whom are vulnerable.

Henry Parkes, principal economist and head of quantitative research at IPPR, said: “The gambling industry is highly profitable, yet is exempt from paying VAT and often pays no corporation tax, with many online firms based offshore.

“It is also inescapable that gambling causes serious harm, especially in its most high-stakes forms. Set against a context of stark and rising levels of child poverty, it only feels fair to ask this industry to contribute a little more.”

The findings come as the chancellor is under pressure to raises taxes at Labour’s upcoming autumn budget to address poor economic performance.

The government is facing an “impossible trilemma” caused by Labour U-turns, higher borrowing and sluggish economic growth, economists from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) said on Wednesday.

Its economists say the chancellor must look to raise £51.1 billion at her upcoming fiscal event, arguing that both tax rises and spending cuts will be necessary to deliver the funds.

Treasury officials are reportedly already considering ways to raise taxes on the gambling sector, including simplifying the varying rates of duty applied to gambling products.

Lobbyists for the gambling industry have begun pushing back on these proposals, reports The Guardian, with representatives understood to have already outlined their objections to the Treasury and have reached out to Labour MPs and staff.

Lending his support the the IPPR’s recommendations, Gordon Brown said: “There are many reasons why the highly profitable betting and gaming industry should pay a fairer share towards the cost of UK’s unmet needs. Most important is that it would enable half a million children to be lifted out of poverty in this autumn’s budget, and so help to build our country for the next generation.”

A government spokesperson said: “We are consulting on bringing the treatment of online betting in line with other forms of online gambling to cut down bureaucracy – it is not about increasing or decreasing rates, and we welcome views from all stakeholders including businesses, trade bodies, the third sector and individuals.

“Every child – no matter their background – deserves the best start in life. That’s why as part of our Plan for Change our Child Poverty Taskforce will publish an ambitious strategy to tackle the structural and root causes of child poverty, and we are already investing £500 million in children’s development, expanding free school meals and ensuring the poorest children don’t go hungry in the holidays through a new £1 billion crisis support package.”