Vladimir Putin’s suggestion that Russian could supply weapons to North Korea is “incredibly concerning”, a senior US official has said, days after Putin and the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, signed a defence pact that requires their countries to provide immediate military assistance if either is attacked.

Matthew Miller, a US state department spokesperson, said the provision of Russian weapons to Pyongyang “would destabilise the Korean peninsula, of course, and potentially … depending on the type of weapons they provide … violate UN security council resolutions that Russia itself has supported”.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and South Korea’s foreign ministry said the treaty between Russia and North Korea posed a “serious threat” to peace and stability on the Korean peninsula. Blinken said the US would consider “various measures” in response to the pact, which elevated ties between the sanctions-hit states to their highest level since the cold war.

Friction over shipments of weapons to both sides in the war in Ukraine has worsened this week, amid speculation that Putin and Kim discussed additional supplies of North Korea missiles and ammunition for use by Russian forces when they met in Pyongyang on Wednesday.

During a state visit to Vietnam on Thursday, Putin said reciprocal supplies of Russian weapons to the North would be an appropriate response to the west’s supply of weapons to Ukrainian forces.

“Those who send these [missiles to Ukraine] think that they are not fighting us, but I said, including in Pyongyang, that we then reserve the right to supply weapons to other regions of the world, with regard to our agreements” with North Korea, Putin said. “I do not rule this out.”

Putin, who met Kim for the second time in nine months, also warned South Korea that it would be making a “big mistake” if it decided to supply arms to Ukraine.

“I hope it doesn’t happen,” he told reporters in Hanoi. “If it happens, then we will be making relevant decisions that are unlikely to please the current leadership of South Korea.”

South Korea, a growing arms exporter with a well-equipped military backed by the United States, has provided non-lethal aid and other support to Ukraine, and joined US-led sanctions against Moscow. But it has a longstanding policy of not supplying weapons to countries that are at war.

But on Friday, Chang Ho-jin, the national security adviser to the South Korean president, Yoon Su Yeol, said Seoul would reconsider its stance on providing arms to Ukraine.

The head of Nato, Jens Stoltenberg, also voiced concern that Russia could help the North further its ballistic and nuclear missile programmes – both of which have made significant progress despite years of UN security council sanctions.

US officials believe North Korea wants to acquire fighter aircraft, surface-to-air missiles, armoured vehicles, materials and equipment to build for ballistic missile production, and other advanced technologies from Moscow.

The US and South Korea say there is evidence that Pyongyang has already provided significant numbers of ballistic missiles and artillery shells to Russia. The North has described the allegations as “absurd”.

Exports of Russian weapons to the North would add to tensions on the Korean peninsula and, according to some experts, risk intensifying a regional arms race that has drawn in South Korea and Japan – both US allies.

Relations between the two Koreas have deteriorated dramatically in recent weeks with the resumption of cold war-era psychological warfare that included North Korea using balloons to drop huge quantities of rubbish on the southern side of the countries’ border.

Seoul has responded by broadcasting anti-North Korean propaganda via loudspeakers. On Friday its troops fired warning shots after soldiers from the North reportedly crossed the border for the third time this month.

There is also evidence that North Korea is building walls at points along the border, days after several of its soldiers were reportedly killed or injured while clearing land in areas packed with mines.

The BBC said high-resolution satellite imagery of a 7km stretch of the border appeared to show at least three sections where barriers have been built.

“My personal assessment is that this is the first time they’ve ever built a barrier in the sense of separating places from each other,” it quoted Dr Uk Yang, a military and defence expert at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul, as saying.

Experts believe the intrusions could be related to the large number of troops the North Korea has deployed to fortify the border, possibly to prevent civilians and soldiers from defecting to the South.

Putin’s visit to Vietnam, where he was given a 21-gun salute on Thursday, has also caused unease in Washington. In response, the US’s most senior diplomat for east Asia, Daniel Kritenbrink, will visit Vietnam on Friday and Saturday to underline Washington’s commitment to working with Hanoi to ensure a “free and open” Indo-Pacific region.

When New Zealand opened its borders after the pandemic, the departures began immediately. For Kirsty Frame, then a 24-year-old journalist for the country’s national broadcaster in Wellington, the sense of loss was constant.

“It was goodbye dinner after goodbye dinner, leaving drinks after leaving drinks, and I think that started to take a toll.”

For her, the city’s beauty came from its people. “If what made Wellington so great as a place to live and work was my community, and I feel I don’t have that here now and there’s a lot less people my age, what do I want to do?”

She considered moving to Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city, but heard it felt empty too. She mulled London, but Britain seemed too distant. Finally, in the middle of 2023, she moved to Melbourne.

The flow of departures from New Zealand has accelerated since then. Now, record numbers of people are leaving the country as cost-of-living pressures increase and residents grapple with limited job opportunities. Provisional figures from Statistics NZ show a net loss of 56,500 citizens in the year to April – up 12,000 from the previous record.

Separate figures indicated that half of those who left New Zealand recently moved to Australia. Now, experts are worrying that a grim economic picture means departing Kiwis may not come back.

“We can’t compete with the salaries in Australia,” says David Cooper, director of immigration firm Malcolm Pacific. “Some people view that New Zealand has gone backwards, and so they’re voting with their feet.”

Frame says it “just felt like bad news after bad news” in New Zealand, and in Melbourne she found a higher-paying job in communications and a flat with lower rent.

“I could be happy here for a long time. I think I will be here for the long run.”

‘Grass looks a lot greener’ in Australia

New Zealand has a tradition of young residents travelling for an overseas experience. According to Gareth Kiernan, chief forecaster at economics consultancy Infometrics, part of the reason the recent surge hit record levels is a backlog of people travelling abroad after delaying their plans due to travel restrictions and uncertainty amid the pandemic.

Among them is Joshua Scott, who weathered the pandemic in Wellington, then decided to move to the UK. The prospect of European adventures and a larger city beckoned, and the 29-year-old settled in east London last year, and found a job in healthcare.

The shift was made easier by the number of New Zealanders making a similar move. “I haven’t really made new friends here, beyond getting to people that I sort of knew from Wellington,” he says.

But much of the record flow out of New Zealand, according to Cooper and Kiernan, is also due to the growing attraction of Australia. As New Zealand inches out a recent recession, many citizens have a perception that the cost of living is lower and salaries higher in Australia, says Keirnan, which might lead to more permanent shifts.

“It’s all very heavily in favour of people getting across the Tasman, because the grass looks a lot greener,” he says.

Emily Partridge is one of those who recently left New Zealand in search of opportunity. The 26-year-old, who grew up in Dunedin, made a professional calculation when the clothing company she worked for was sold to new owners.

“I was working in a relatively small industry in a small country,” she says. “Looking into the future five or 10 years, I’d think: I’m not sure how much growth there is down the line.”

She decided earlier this year to move to Sydney, where she works for a perfume brand.

“In New Zealand, you could either work for a cool company and get paid quite poorly, or you could work a job that’s less exciting but pays well. In Australia, because the economy is better, I can do both of those things.”

Fears New Zealanders won’t return

Maia Vieregg, a 26-year-old geologist, graduated university last year and struggled to find work in Wellington or elsewhere in the country. And when several conservative parties displaced New Zealand’s former progressive government at the last election, she felt “cynical and hopeless” about New Zealand’s future.

She had never planned to go overseas, but the combination pushed her to consider new options. In January, Vieregg moved to Newcastle – a couple of hours’ north of Sydney – where she found a job with a mining company that paid much better than anything she had seen at home. She has found Australia difficult to adjust to.

“New Zealand is a quite down-to-earth place,” she says, compared with Australia’s materialism. She plans to eventually return home – but does not expect that to happen any time soon.

Cooper worries that outflow might worsen an already severe skills shortage in the country.

“The record numbers of Kiwis leaving are not the desperate and dateless. They’re the young, skilled people,” he says.

“These are people who are well qualified, with good skills. It’s hard to attract the highly skilled people we need to replace the ones leaving.”

Kiernan agrees. “If we’re not able to keep people here because the economy isn’t going well and the cost of living is too high, it does reflect pretty poorly on our economic situation.”

For many of the young travellers, the pull of having children will probably be the driver to bring them home. Partridge does not expect to return to New Zealand unless she decides to have children, while Scott will also head back when he’s ready to start a family.

Frame, meanwhile, says: “What might bring me back is that feeling of missing my family, or a new chapter of my life starting. Or just feeling homesick for the country and the smallness of it.”

In the meantime, she does not even need to return to New Zealand to get a taste of home.

“There’s so many New Zealanders here, it’s kind of ridiculous,” Frame says. “Bumping into people from Wellington here is almost an everyday event.”

Rishi Sunak has indicated that young people might face restrictions on access to finance or driving licences if they refuse to do national service, as he faced a TV quizzing from voters.

Asked during a BBC Question Time special what sanctions people could face for declining to take part in the Conservative policy of compulsory national service for all 18-year-olds, the prime minister pointed to “driving licences, or the access to finance, all sorts of other things”.

Questioned on whether this could mean denying young people bank cards, he replied: “There’s lot of different models around Europe.”

In his half-hour slot on the show, following Keir Starmer, Ed Davey and John Swinney, the Labour, Liberal Democrat and Scottish National party leaders, Sunak was also repeatedly challenged on why the public should trust the Tories after 14 sometimes chaotic years in office.

He received shouts of “shame” after refusing to say he would keep Britain in the European convention on human rights.

He was also challenged on revelations about alleged betting on the general election date, saying he was “incredibly angry” about the issue. .

The prime minister was asked why Brexit was “absent” from the current Conservative manifesto, a question which prompted applause from the audience in York.

Pressed on NHS waiting lists, he conceded that the government “haven’t made as much progress as I would like” but insisted things were improving. Asked if this had convinced him, the questioner replied: “No.” Another audience member, a doctor, then attacked Sunak over his NHS plans, saying: “People are suffering.”

The sceptical tone was set by the first question to Sunak, which noted the quick succession of five Tory prime ministers, including Liz Truss’s six weeks in office: “I am asking if you would confess to us tonight even just a small amount of embarrassment to be leading the Conservative party?”

Sunak insisted people should judge him on his own record, but was then asked why young people should trust him given the “shenanigans with the Tory party”. Fiona Bruce, hosting the show, said: “There’s a bit of a theme emerging.”

In his half-hour slot before Sunak’s, Starmer was also asked a series of tricky questions, with one audience member calling out “all of the backtracking on policies from Labour”.

Starmer gave a bullish response, saying tough decisions were needed, characterising one as being between reducing NHS waiting lists and removing student tuition fees.

“They are political choices,” he said, calling himself “a commonsense politician” and adding: “I’m telling you what they are before the election, so people can make their mind up.”

The Labour leader faced a grilling over whether he was being sincere when he praised Jeremy Corbyn during the 2019 election as someone who would make a “great” prime minister.

After deflecting the question by saying he did not expect Labour to win in 2019, as he has done before, Starmer said: “I was campaigning for the Labour party, I was a Labour politician.”

Pressed by Bruce for a yes or no answer about whether he meant it, Starmer indicated he believed Corbyn would have been better than his Conservative opponent, saying: “Look what we got – Boris Johnson.”

Asked about transgender rights and differences within the Labour party over the issue, Starmer stressed that he wanted to bring the public together on divisive issues. He contrasted this with Sunak’s decision to make a “trans joke” in parliament, winning applause.

Davey, the first leader to be grilled, faced audience opprobrium over his party’s role in the 2010-15 coalition government, with one audience member winning applause by accusing the Lib Dem leader of having “enabled Cameron’s and Osborne’s austerity”.

Another questioner prompted applause by asking how young people could trust the Lib Dems when they had broken a pledge over introducing tuition fees.

Davey conceded that he was “not proud” of some of the policies enacted, saying that one lesson he had learned from the coalition period was that in 2010 his party “promised what we couldn’t deliver”.

Similarly, Swinney was asked about the succession of recent scandals for his party, with one questioner saying it had “destroyed itself from the top down”. The SNP leader said he realised his party had to “rebuild the trust of people in Scotland”.

He was also pressed on whether the SNP would continue to push for independence if it did not achieve a majority of Scottish Westminster seats, a question he somewhat dodged.

Federal authorities have raided a home belonging to the mayor of Oakland, California, as part of an investigation that included a search of at least two other houses, officials said on Thursday.

The raid took place on Thursday morning, when FBI agents carried 80 boxes out of a four-bedroom home that property records link to Sheng Thao, who is serving her first term as the city’s mayor.

Details about the nature of the raid and investigation remain thin. In a statement to the Guardian, an FBI spokesperson confirmed the bureau had conducted “court-authorized law enforcement activity” but declined to provide further information.

Agents also conducted searches about 3 miles (5km) to the south at two homes owned by members of the politically influential Duong family that owns the recycling company Cal Waste Solutions, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The firm has been investigated over campaign contributions to Thao and other elected city officials, the local news outlet Oaklandside reported in 2020.

One of the properties is owned by Andy Duong and the other is connected to David and Linda Duong, according to records cited by the Chronicle.

Thao, 38, assumed office in January 2023 after a stint on the Oakland city council. She campaigned for mayor on a progressive platform that championed her experiences with homelessness and pledged to address Oakland’s ongoing struggles with housing and crime.

Thao has faced criticism since taking office from some residents who remain frustrated with crime levels in the East Bay city and is likely to face a recall vote in November.

Aileen Cannon, the Florida judge who has come under fire for her handling of classified document charges against Donald Trump, ignored the advice of more senior colleagues to decline the case and pass it to another jurist, it has been reported.

Two senior judges on the Florida bench urged Cannon to defer when it was randomly assigned to her last June, in part due to a perception that she was biased in Trump’s favour because of her actions after the allegations against him of illegally retaining sensitive government documents first came to light.

According to the New York Times, Cannon – who was appointed to the federal bench by Trump – rejected the advice and kept the case, in which the former president faces charges being prosecuted by the special counsel Jack Smith.

She has since issued a series of widely criticised rulings that have had the effect of delaying the trial, playing into Trump’s legal strategy of holding the case at bay until after November’s presidential election, when he could be elected president once again and be in a position to instruct the Department of Justice to drop the charges.

Her rulings have drawn the scorn of Trump’s former White House counsel, Ty Cobb, who this month described as “dangerous and incendiary” Cannon’s refusal to grant a gag order request from Smith against Trump.

Smith had asked for the order after the former president falsely alleged that the FBI was “locked and loaded” and ready to kill him and his family when officers entered his Mar-a-Lago home to retrieve a trove of documents in 2022. In fact, the raid had been agreed with Trump’s lawyers in advance and timed to take place when he would not be present.

The attempt to persuade Cannon to step aside was reportedly prompted by her actions after the FBI seized the documents – when she intervened on Trump’s side after he had filed suit claiming they were his personal property, appointing a special master to review them before prosecutors had a chance to see them.

This ruling was later reversed by the 11th court of appeals in Atlanta, which issued a rebuke of Cannon’s judgment, saying she had no authority to bar investigators from seeing the documents.

The argument that this episode was sufficient reason for Cannon to pass on the case was reportedly put forward by Cecilia Altonaga, the chief judge of Florida’s southern district.

Another unnamed judge was said to have put a different line of reasoning to her – that it would be better to have the case transferred to a jurist based closer to the district’s busiest courthouse in Miami, which had a facility to store the classified documents and where Trump had initially been indicted.

Since Cannon rejected entreaties to defer the case to another judge, a secure facility to store the documents has since been built at taxpayers’ expense in the courthouse where she presides at Fort Pierce, around two hours’ drive north of Miami.

“England, England, It’s Never ­Coming Home.” The chant from the ­Denmark support – to the tune of ­Yellow Submarine – had been heard outside the stadium in the hours before kick-off and it would reverberate inside it ­during a highly stressful 90 minutes. On this evidence, it was the understatement of Euro 2024 so far.

Gareth Southgate can highlight the point, which moved England closer to the job-done territory of qualification for the last 16. It must be said there is precious little jeopardy around that. Who exactly does not advance?

The jeopardy was to be found in the England performance. They might have nicked the win, Phil Foden hitting a post in the second half; a few other assorted flickers. But, equally, they might have lost because ­Denmark had their chances. There was a last-ditch quality to England’s defending and when Pierre-Emile Højbjerg shaped a curler for the far corner in the 85th minute, England’s hearts were in their mouths. Fortunately, the shot was off target.

England lacked structure and progressive patterns in midfield, progressive patterns, with all three of Southgate’s starters – Trent Alexander-Arnold, Declan Rice and Jude Bellingham – enduring difficult games. The manager raised eyebrows when he withdrew his front three of Bukayo Saka, Harry Kane and Foden on 70 minutes but the first two could not complain. Is Kane fully fit? Foden was bright enough. Jarrod Bowen, Ollie Watkins and Eberechi Eze brought something in their places.

For England, the control was not there and nor was the belief. They looked edgy, the pressure weighing heavily. The worst thing that could be said was they looked less than the sum of their vaunted parts. The hope had been when Kane put them ahead that they could settle but they did not. Southgate had demanded care with the passing. It did not happen. It was horrible to see how poor they were in this department.

After the 1-0 win over Serbia on Sunday, which featured a second-half retreat, it was a backwards step for England, Denmark good value for the draw, which they secured with Morten Hjulmand’s scorching 30-yard drive just after the half-hour. The hope remains that England can put their problems behind them and grow into a tournament that they started as one of the favourites. Who was buying that in Frankfurt?

England were ragged at the outset, making errors, so many loose passes. There was a lack of cohesion when it mattered on the ball while many of the players had problems with the turf, which cut up noticeably.

Kyle Walker was one of them, ­slipping over twice in the early ­running, rolling his ankle on the second occasion, which looked bad. Fortunately, he was able to continue, changing his boots before he returned to the pitch. Walker would be key to the move for the breakthrough goal.

Quite how Victor Kristiansen, the Denmark left wing-back, was unaware of Walker stealing up on his outside was a mystery. Maybe it was because any shouts from ­teammates were impossible to hear amid the remorseless din under the closed roof of an excellent venue.

Kristiansen just did not see him as the Dane pondered a backpass and, when Walker robbed him, England felt the surge of possibility. Their luck was in, Walker’s low cross, seemingly intended for Foden, deflecting first off Jannik Vestergaard and then Andreas Christensen to break perfectly for Kane. It was a done deal at that point.

Denmark did not panic. They had given up a couple of flickers at 0-0, Foden slipping away from Højbjerg after a Walker cutback only to shoot wildly; Kane seeing a shot blocked after Rice had won the ball high up. But it was Denmark who looked the more cohesive.

It was worrying to see how much space they were able to enjoy, ­England’s midfield looking open against the ball. The pressing ­simply did not click. Denmark pushed, with England forced to defend with a degree of desperation.

There were an alarming number of situations where England had no options on the ball and Kane was guilty of trying to force a crossfield pass from the left inside his own half for the Denmark equaliser. It went straight to Kristiansen and when he moved it to Hjulmand, he unleashed his rocket, watching the ball glance in off Jordan Pickford’s right-hand post. The power and precision were extraordinary.

Foden would slice past a couple of challengers on 41 minutes only to ignore Kane and shoot weakly and England were the happier to hear the half-time whistle.

Southgate made a move on 54 minutes, introducing Conor Gallagher for Alexander-Arnold, whose performance will deepen the debate about the balance of the England midfield with him in it. Before the Liverpool player departed, he had pumped a long ball forward for Saka, which the winger almost made something of, waiting for the bounce and looping a header just off target.

England sought greater intensity, Gallagher helping, although he would tread a fine line after being booked for a stamp on Christensen. Foden almost scored with his best moment, a couple of touches followed by a rasping low drive from distance that rattled the upright.

Southgate made a triple change and Watkins got on to a Bellingham pass and forced a save from Kasper Schmeichel. The closing stages were frantic, Marc Guéhi dispossessed by the substitute Alexander Bah after a bad Rice pass but he raced back to make a crucial tackle. From the corner, Christensen went close and so did Højbjerg shortly afterwards. England got away with it.

The UK’s most hazardous nuclear site, Sellafield, has pleaded guilty to criminal charges related to cybersecurity failings brought by the industry regulator.

Lawyers acting for Sellafield told Westminster magistrates’ court on Thursday that cybersecurity requirements were “not sufficiently adhered to for a period” at the vast nuclear waste dump in Cumbria.

The charges relate to information technology security offences spanning a four-year period from 2019 to 2023. It emerged in March that the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) intended to prosecute Sellafield for technology security offences.

Late last year the Guardian’s Nuclear Leaks investigation revealed a catalogue of IT failings at the site dating back several years.

Sellafield pleaded guilty to a charge that it had failed to “ensure that there was adequate protection of sensitive nuclear information on its information technology network”, the Financial Times reported.

The Guardian reported last year that the site systems had been hacked by groups linked to Russia and China in December last year, embedding sleeper malware that could lurk and be used to spy or attack systems. At the time, Sellafield said it did not have evidence of a successful cyber-attack.

Paul Greaney KC, acting for Sellafield, told the court: “It is important to emphasise there was not and has never been a successful cyber-attack on Sellafield.”

Greaney added that Sellafield’s systems were now robust and said media reports of hacks were “false”.

An ONR spokesperson said: “We acknowledge that Sellafield Limited has pleaded guilty to all charges.

“There is no evidence that any vulnerabilities have been exploited,” the spokesperson said, adding that due to ongoing legal proceedings the ONR could not offer further detail at this time.

Sentencing is expected to take place on 8 August.

The site has the largest store of plutonium in the world and is a sprawling rubbish dump for nuclear waste from weapons programmes and decades of atomic power generation.

The Guardian investigation revealed a string of IT issues, including concerns about external contractors being able to plug memory sticks into its computer system while unsupervised.

The investigation found problems had been known by senior figures at the nuclear site for at least a decade, according to a report dated from 2012, which warned there were “critical security vulnerabilities” that needed to be addressed urgently.

Sellafield’s computer servers were deemed so insecure that the problem was nicknamed Voldemort after the Harry Potter villain, according to a government official familiar with the ONR investigation and IT failings at the site, because it was so sensitive and dangerous.

At the time, Sellafield said that “all of our systems and servers have multiple layers of protection”.

“Critical networks that enable us to operate safely are isolated from our general IT network, meaning an attack on our IT system would not penetrate these,” a spokesperson said.

Britain’s public spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, launched an investigation into risks and costs at Sellafield earlier this year.

Serbia are demanding that Uefa punish Croatia and Albania after accusing their fans of hateful chanting during their Euro 2024 clash in Hamburg on Wednesday.

Jovan Surbatovic, general secretary of the Football Association of Serbia, said a formal complaint had been submitted, claiming that Croatia and Albania fans chanted “Kill, kill, kill the Serb” during the 2-2 draw. He even threatened that Serbia, themselves charged by Uefa for incidents during their defeat by England on Sunday, could withdraw from the tournament.

“First of all, I want to thank our fans for their support in the match against England and I hope we will beat Slovenia,” Surbatovic has been quoted as saying. “What happened is scandalous and we will ask Uefa for sanctions, even if it means not continuing the competition. If Uefa doesn’t punish them, we will think about how to proceed.”

On Monday, the Serbian Football Association was charged by Uefa after their supporters displayed a banner that “transmitted a provocative message unfit for a sports event” against England and for throwing objects inside the stadium in Gelsenkirchen.

That charge came after the Kosovo Football Federation complained to European football’s governing body about “Serbian fans displaying political, chauvinistic, and racist messages against Kosovo” during the same game.

“We were punished for isolated cases and our fans behaved much better than the others,” Surbatovic said. “One fan was punished for racist insults and we don’t want it to be attributed to others. We Serbs are gentlemen and we have an open heart.”

Serbia fans chanted “Kosovo is the heart of Serbia” in Munich’s Marienplatz on Thursday. Fans had gathered in the city-centre square before their team’s game with Slovenia at the Allianz Arena.

Two-time Olympic champion Katie Archibald will miss Paris 2024 after suffering a double leg break in a freak accident.

The 30-year-old Scottish cyclist fractured a tibia and fibula and dislocated an ankle having tripped over a garden step. She also sustained substantial ligament damage during the incident on Tuesday and has since undergone surgery.

“I tripped over a step in the garden and managed to, somehow, dislocate my ankle; break my tibia and fibula; and rip two ligaments off the bone. What the heck,” she posted on Instagram alongside a picture of her in a hospital bed.

“Had surgery yesterday to pin the bones back together and reattach the ligaments. Then hopefully this afternoon I’ll be going home. A hundred apologies for what this means for the Olympic team, which I’ve been told won’t involve me.

“I’m still processing that bit of news, but thought I better confirm it publicly instead of leaving it to the grapevine (trip hazard and all that).”

Archibald, who won team pursuit gold at Rio 2016 and then topped the podium in the madison alongside Laura Kenny at Tokyo 2020, has endured a horrendous past couple of years.

She missed the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham after colliding with a vehicle amid a series of injury setbacks, while her partner, mountain biker Rab Wardell, died suddenly that summer aged 37.

“A hundred thank yous for the fabulous doctors, nurses, radiographers, porters, physios, surgeons and more at the Manchester Royal Infirmary,” Archibald wrote in her social media post. “Might be back with more updates, might be gone from the socials for a bit – TBC. Ciao for now. Katie x”.

You are in denial about the climate crisis. We all are, argues the American scholar Tad DeLay. Right-wing climate deniers are not the only ones with a problem, he says when we speak in early June after the release of his book, Future of Denial. For denial doesn’t only amount to rejecting the evidence, he argues – it also consists of denying our role in the climate crisis; absolving ourselves through “carbon offsets, hybrid cars, local purchases, recycling”. And in this, far more of us are implicated.

In some ways, this argument might not seem all that new. Multiple authors have pointed out that green capitalism, not rightwing deniers of the crisis, is our greatest obstacle to properly confronting the problem. DeLay agrees. The difference is the lens he brings to it – using psychoanalysis to explain the mechanisms behind denial.

In doing so he refuses the neatness of a definite or concretely optimistic path forward. Elaborate yet accessible – one chapter tells the history of Earth through rising and falling carbon dioxide – Future of Denial is an eloquent, forthright text about the realities of the crisis and where it is heading. Similarly, when we speak, he is friendly, open and does not seem to wallow in despondency, but his research has led him to informed conclusions that recognise the uncertainty and difficulty of where we are. He forgoes “how to solve the crisis” answers. To offer up such promises would, I imagine, itself be a form of denial.

DeLay looks to Freud for a framework to understand denial: individuals negate distressing ideas and when the repressed thoughts begins to surface, people either deny reality or accept it but deny their moral culpability. This is how people respond to the climate crisis: rejecting the science or committing to “pseudo-solutions, gimmicks and false promises” to get themselves off the moral hook. “I like to joke that America and many western countries conveniently have a political party for whichever form of denial you would like with regard to the climate,” he says.

Raised as part of a “very Baptist evangelical fundamentalist megachurch” in Little Rock, Arkansas, he thought he would be a minister, but when he started reading theology and philosophy everything began to fall apart. As a first-generation college student, the literature, plus psychoanalysis, gave him a language to think through and out of the very religious “conceptual and cultural baggage” with which he grew up. DeLay brings all of his interests – psychoanalysis, philosophy and religion – to bear on the climate crisis.

One impetus for writing Future of Denial, he says, was watching the UK Labour party’s 2019 manifesto and US Democrat Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign proposals “get rejected largely by people who probably thought of themselves as science believers even though both of them were proposing the most ambitious climate plans” these countries had ever seen. This frustration shapes the book, which includes a chapter called What Does the Liberal Want?, that is sharply critical of liberalism and ends with the damning line: ”They have no plan … nothing is fine.”

This denial is seductive to us all and in many ways it is in fact essential to function in the world. “You can’t admit, as a capitalist subject, that there’s little you as an individual can do,” DeLay writes, “and neither can you imagine the end of capitalism.” Your options, then, are “intensely boring” (attending meetings to “advocate for a ban on new gas hook ups”) or “terrific” (“ecoterrorism”), and “denial is going to come out in surprising other ways”. DeLay himself is not immune. “My second child was born while this book was being written,” he says. “Sometimes people will ask me: is that a type of denial? Perhaps. Is … writing this book, me trying to be able to at least in part show them that I did what I could? Perhaps.”

Though an enthusiastic supporter of the youth climate movement, he has little time for clutching at the promise of young people saving us. “I am all too familiar with this impulse; when I’m especially despondent about the state of the world I look to them: they are the hope, they know what’s what. But it’s a “comforting fantasy”, he writes, which rests on believing that “education and passion will get the job done without mucking up free markets with regulation or central planning”. It also provides an easy out: “If generational politics works, then we needn’t concern ourselves with class politics.” There is the denial again – and one I hadn’t really recognised in myself.

Denial is, of course, part of our everyday behaviour, and DeLay has many examples. Teenagers act recklessly because they deny their own morality, someone who will not go to the doctor when they know they should is in denial and so, too, are people who have affairs and buy expensive cars because they cannot face up to how unsatisfying their life is. But when it comes to climate, there is too much focus on denial as “conscious belief”, DeLay thinks. “We talk as if we are Protestants who think you get saved by having the correct thoughts about the big important question.”

If it is possible at all, then, forcing action on the climate crisis will not be achieved by making people believe it is real and dangerous. “Most people don’t really care that much about their beliefs,” he says. Evangelicals who believe the end of the world is coming “still invest in retirement funds, right, they still have children, they still do all of the things [to] materially express a belief in some sort of future”.

The higher up the chain you go, the less individual neuroses are the problem. Even if everyone involved in fossil fuel extraction decided to stop, he argues, new companies would form overnight and file for leases with governments; the drive to consolidate profits and private property is unrelenting. DeLay points to the tight correlation between GDP and emissions, in particular GDP per capita: “The more money you have, the richer you are and the richer you are the more likely you are to emit according to a high emissions lifestyle.” He asks us all to reflect on the fact that whenever we hear the economy is doing well, that means fossil fuels are “doing great”.

Where to go from here? DeLay does not seem to have too much time for self-indulgent doom (he says some people seem to almost enjoy the anxiety and impotence), nor for simplistic, rosy roadmaps for a way forward.

He says there are some mitigation activities we should focus on. Though he’s no fan of reformism, without the Labour party in the UK or the Democrats in the US taking power, there is no chance of climate action, he says. Although what they offer is “not very much at all”, you can get some concessions from what he calls “capitalist climate governance” – the Paris accord, COP and “limited funding”. DeLay also does not advocate for living as hedonistically as you want, suggesting there is use in reducing your own emissions, even if this is patently not going to even touch the sides of the crisis.

We “cannot stop the progress of the storm”, he tells me. “This is too big, there is not a person on Earth who has the agency to stop this individually, it’s not even clear to me that anybody has much agency to stop this collectively … we might just be at the mercy of market logics where falling renewable prices eventually convert us over. At least that’s the hope, right, evidence is still kind of wanting.”

Adaptation has more of a chance, he thinks. Some of the things that are being proposed now are “grifts”, such as carbon offsets, but “may save us later”, such as carbon capture. More immediately, he says, we could all use any expertise we have to support local activist groups and encourage young people to devote their “life to this cause”.

As the effects of the crisis worsen, DeLay argues, inequality will rise, food prices will increase and police and border budgets will balloon. It will probably be people of colour, migrants, homeless people who will suffer the most, especially because when people see the hurricanes and the fires, they may believe in the climate crisis less, not more; politicians will turn up the barbarism and there will be something – or someone – else to blame. In this context, adaptation is also about unionising in your workplace and engaging with reactionaries while you do it, discouraging police work and doing things that are “illegal” to help house migrants.

There is no personal salvation though. “Just by driving to get groceries you emit carbon dioxide … a fifth of [which] … will still be in the air in 500,000 years, killing species that haven’t yet evolved.” We need to ask ourselves: “What if there just is no solution to that on any sort of meaningful scale?” and act accordingly.

Future of denial: the ideologies of climate change is published by Verso Books