Heat caused 2,300 deaths across 12 cities, of which 1,500 were down to climate crisis, scientists say
Planet-heating pollution tripled the death toll from the “quietly devastating” heatwave that seared Europe at the end of June, early analysis covering a dozen cities has found, as experts warned of a worsening health crisis that is being overlooked.
Scientists estimate that high heat killed 2,300 people across 12 major cities as temperatures soared across Europe between 23 June and 2 July. They attributed 1,500 of the deaths to climate breakdown, which has heated the planet and made the worst extremes even hotter.
NZ Post committed to cutting its emissions by 32% by 2030 (based on 2018 levels), but recently announced it would abandon its climate target.
The company was part of the Science Based Target initiative (SBTi), the leading international body allowing businesses worldwide to set and validate targets which they can then promote as backed by science.
More than 10,000 businesses have joined SBTi and the database currently includes 36 New Zealand businesses with active targets or commitments.
NZ Post was one of the early adopters of SBTi in New Zealand. Its initial commitment in 2018 included not only the company’s own direct emissions (known as scope 1) but also purchased energy (scope 2) and other indirect emissions (known as scope 3, such as emissions from air freight or waste disposal).
In the past few years, NZ Post has signalled its intention to update its target to pursue even greater reductions of 42%. In 2023, it made a commitment to align itself with a pathway to achieve net zero by 2050.
But the company has now decided to fully withdraw from SBTi. NZ Post’s website announcement states:
After careful consideration and a thorough assessment of both technical feasibility and financial implications, it has become clear that our target is no longer feasible at a technical level and, given the scale of investment required, under present economic conditions.
NZ Post seems to have found itself in the contradiction between economic objectives and climate action. Ambitious climate action seems to rarely win such a battle.
The company was already questioning its ability to meet its SBTi targets in its 2022 and 2023 climate disclosures. Its parcel volumes were growing and it struggled with emissions associated with heavy freight and aviation.
It also stated its emissions had increased due to the acquisition of Fliway Group, improved supply-chain data, and emission factor changes. This indicated it would struggle to meet even less ambitious climate targets.
Why this is a problem
One might commend NZ Post for their transparency in disclosing their decision to withdraw from SBTi. However, so far the announcement hasn’t been included in the company’s media releases and remains tucked away in the sustainability section.
The broader issue is that businesses can use SBTi to gain reputational value without following up with required decarbonisation. The current SBTi setup has some limitations that allow such behaviour.
For instance, companies can make an SBTi commitment and promote it for two years before having to submit an actual target for validation. Businesses can also promote their SBTi targets for years without making required progress. Finally, some SBTi businesses provide limited reporting, making assessment of their progress difficult.
In a 2025 consultation, SBTi acknowledged some of these problems and signalled its plan to enhance tracking and accountability.
Climate action vs profitability
There are other issues that make transparency limited. For instance, businesses such as Air New Zealand seem to be able to withdraw from the SBTi and fully disappear from the SBTi public target dashboard, making it difficult to track those that have decided to withdraw.
In business contexts, climate action remains subordinate to profitability and revenue growth objectives. Hence, not many businesses are willing to pursue all potential ways to meet their targets as this would require making difficult decisions around economic objectives.
Many companies struggle to make progress towards science-based goals or don’t have credible transition plans aligned with the goal to keep overall warming at 1.5°C.
The question remains whether the current SBTi engagement of businesses genuinely reflects ambitious climate action or whether it is merely designed to give stakeholders the impression of global progress through symbolic commitments.
The more organisations committed to the science-based reductions, the greater our collective ability to achieve decarbonisation.
The opposite is true as well. The decision of NZ Post and other companies to drop their SBTi targets may diminish the collective ability of businesses in New Zealand to achieve decarbonisation aligning with global climate goals.
SBTi’s plan to implement new monitoring and reporting mechanisms would enhance accountability. However, it will not make meeting targets any easier. Committing to and promoting ambitious but potentially unrealistic targets can cause reputational damage.
A safer pathway for many businesses wanting to do as much as they can within the boundaries of the current economic system may be a public disclosure of their support for climate action, transparency about the actions the business is taking, and providing transparent and detailed emissions reporting.
Pii-Tuulia Nikula does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Have you ever gone to toss something into the recycling bin – a jam jar, a pizza box, a takeaway container encrusted with yesterday’s lunch – and wondered if you’re doing it right? Perhaps you asked yourself: should I scrub the jar with hot water? Scrape the mozzarella off the box? Wash off that palak paneer?
Research shows most Australians believe they are good recyclers. But only 25% of people separate waste correctly and up to 35% of recycling goes to landfill unnecessarily. And one in four Australians tends not to rinse or empty food containers before sending them to the bin.
So just how well does recycling need to be rinsed? What should you do with your plastic lids and pizza boxes? And will robots one day work it all out for us?
One in four Australians tends not to rinse or empty food containers before recycling them.ThamKC/Shutterstock
The problem of contamination
Mechanical recycling methods – such as shredding and melting – struggle to operate when food and other residues are present.
In fact, one spoiled item might ruin the entire cycling batch. Queensland’s Goondiwindi Regional Council, for example, said nearly a quarter of its kerbside recyclables collected in 2022–23 was contaminated and sent to landfill.
Some councils use “advanced materials recovery” that can tolerate lightly soiled recyclables. These facilities use mechanical and automated sorting processes, including optical sorters and artificial intelligence.
But other councils still rely on human sorting, or basic mechanical systems, which require items to be relatively clean.
While local recycling capabilities come into play, as a general rule, rinse containers when you can. As well as avoiding contamination, it helps reduce smells and keep bins clean.
The best pre-cleaning method for recycling depends on the type of packaging.
Paper and cardboard: these items must be clean and dry – no exceptions. Paper and cardboard absorbs contamination more than other materials. So if it gets wet or greasy, it can’t be recycled – though it may be compostable.
So for pizza boxes, for example, recycle the clean parts and bin the parts that are greasy or have food stuck to them.
Unfortunately, traditional cardboard coffee cups are not usually recyclable in Australia. That’s because the plastic lining inside is bonded tightly to the paper, making it difficult to separate during standard paper recycling.
However in some areas, programs such as Simply Cups collect coffee cups and recycle them into sustainable products such as asphalt, concrete and building products.
And in some states, such as South Australia and Western Australia, single-use cups lined with polymer are banned and only compostable cups can be used.
The plastic lining in disposable coffee cups is tightly bonded to the paper, making recycling difficult.maxbelchenko/Shutterstock
Glass and metals: these items are washed and processed at extremely high temperatures, so can tolerate a bit of residue. But too much residue can contaminate paper and cardboard in the bin. So rinse glass and plastic to remove visible food and empty liquids. Just a quick rinse is enough – there’s no need to scrub or use hot water.
But not all glass and metals can be recycled. Mirrors and light bulbs, for instance, are treated in such a way that they melt at different temperatures to other glass. So check before you chuck.
Plastics: rinse plastics before putting them in the recycling bin. It’s important to know that the numbers 1 to 7 on plastics, inside a recycling symbol, do not necessarily mean the item can be recycled in your area. The number is a code that identifies what plastic the item is made from. Check if your council can recycle that type of plastic.
Complicating matters further is the question of plastic lids. On this, guidelines differ across Australia, so check your local rules.
Likewise, the rules on plastic bottle lids differ. Some councils allow bottle-lid recycling, but even then, the processes vary. In the Australian Capital territory, for example, a lid larger than a credit card can be put in the recycling bin, but consumers are asked to remove the lid from the bottle. But Brisbane City Council asks consumers to leave the lids on.
Meanwhile, organisations such as Lids4Kids collect plastic lids and make them into new products.
Advanced chemical recycling breaks plastic down into its chemical building blocks. It can process plastic types that traditional methods can’t, such as soft plastics, and turn it into valuable new products.
AI and automation are also reshaping recycling, by improving sorting and reducing contamination. And closed-loop washing systems, which filter and reuse water, can clean lightly soiled recyclables.
Other innovations are emerging, too, such as dissolvable packaging and AI-enabled “smart bins” that might one day identify and sort materials – and maybe even tell consumers if items need rinsing!
But upcycling still requires clean, well-sorted streams to be viable. And until all these technologies are widespread, each of us must help keep our recycling systems working well.
Pooria Pasbakhsh is also affiliated with Monash University Malaysia as an Adjunct Associate Professor. He received funding from CRC-P project entitled "Upcycling of Convoluted Subsea Flexible Flow Lines", Grant number: 108439.
The chief scientist of the Botanic Gardens of Sydney is warning of an imminent and deadly risk to the city’s trees posed by an invasive beetle that has led to the removal of thousands of trees in Perth.
The tiny polyphagous shot-hole borer, which is native to south-east Asia, is a “fungus farmer” that burrows into trees and can spread a fungus that kills the host tree.
