Environment | The Guardian

Exclusive: Electric car company says Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries is running a concerted public campaign' by suggesting plan would push up price of popular cars

Research finds almost all land cleared in the state between 2016 and 2021 in areas where threatened species habitat likely to occur'

Exclusive: Wildlife groups welcome promise to ban pesticides approved by government against scientists' advice

Rural households led by women lose about 8% more income to heat stress than male-led families, data showsWomen in rural areas suffer substantially greater economic losses from the impacts of climate breakdown than men in developing countries, research has shown, and the gap is likely to widen further.Households headed by women in rural areas lost about 8% more of their income to heat stress than male-headed households, and their reduction in income when floods struck was about 3% greater than the loss to men, according to data released by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Britain spent about 26bn in three years on low-carbon measures, less than Italy, Germany, France and Spain, Greenpeace findsThe UK spends less on low-carbon energy policy than any other major European economy, analysis has shown, despite evidence that such spending could lower household bills and increase economic growth more than the tax cuts the government has planned.Spending on low-carbon measures for the three years from April 2020 to the end of April 2023 was about $33.3bn (26.2bn) in total for the UK, the lowest out of the top five European economies, according to an analysis by Greenpeace of data from the International Energy Agency. Continue reading...

Dedicated groups called Bantay Dagat aim to conserve the abundant marine life surrounding their thousands of islands, which has been under pressure for years from intensive overfishing

Homeowners in wealthy towns watching anxiously in face of heavy storms that have caused flash floods and coastal erosionThe torrents of water coming from the sky are having ripple effects on the cliffs that hold up some of California's most expensive real estate. In the first two months of the year, nearly 18in of rain has fallen in the southern California area, about 8in above normal to date - and more is on the way this week.The California governor, Gavin Newsom, declared a state of emergency in eight counties covering more than 20 million people, and flash-flood warnings were issued for parts of Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. Continue reading...

Long delays after Extinction Rebellion members parked truck across three city-bound lanes

BBC presenter defends climate activists' right to target MPs' homes amid debate over politicians' safety

Invasive species could be worse than rabbits, cane toads, foxes, camels, wild dogs and feral cats combined, committee hears

Permission granted for judicial review after Planning Inspectorate overturned local council's decision to reject planCampaigners have been given permission to challenge plans for a new oilfield in an area of outstanding natural beauty - which they say threatens one of England's hidden rural treasures".The proposed oil-drilling operation is in Biscathorpe in the Lincolnshire Wolds, an important habitat for nature and wildlife that has been officially designated an area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB). Continue reading...

South32's project was fast-tracked by the Biden administration, but residents are worried about its impact on a fragile ecosystemGrowing up on both sides of the Arizona-Mexico border, Denise Moreno Ramirez got respite from the border town bustle by hiking through sycamore and juniper trees in the mountains near her home. These isolated mountains - known as the Sky Islands - provide a crucial habitat for native plants and animals, but also played a special role in Moreno Ramirez's family history: like many in the area with Indigenous Yaqui or Mayo origins, her ancestors once mined the mountains for precious metals.Moreno Ramirez's great-grandfather, Alberto Moreno, dug for copper when he first came to Arizona from Mexico in the early 1900s. He found that the mining industry powered the state economy and put food on his table; eventually his son - Moreno Ramirez's grandfather - followed suit and worked in the mines, too. Continue reading...

Darren Woods tells Fortune consumers not willing to pay for clean-energy transition, prompting backlash from climate expertsThe world is off track to meet its climate goals and the public is to blame, Darren Woods, chief executive of oil giant ExxonMobil, has claimed - prompting a backlash from climate experts.As the world's largest investor-owned oil company, Exxon is among the top contributors to global planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions. But in an interview, published on Tuesday, Woods argued that big oil is not primarily responsible for the climate crisis. Continue reading...

Outgoing climate chief says he is not ready' to give up on 1.5C target he helped negotiate in Paris agreementThe US continues to be a force for good in tackling the climate crisis, despite its soaring fossil fuel production, the John Kerry has insisted.The outgoing US climate chief acknowledged, however, that strong safeguards were needed to dismantle oil and gas infrastructure before the switch to renewables could become permanent, as he prepared to leave his post as special presidential envoy. Continue reading...

Sixty years after fatal floods and subsidence halted gas extraction in the Po delta region, politicians are once again eyeing methane reserves. But at what cost to one of the Mediterranean's largest wetlands and the people who live there?To a visitor driving through Polesine in north-east Italy on a winter morning, the area might seem blessed with an abundance of wildlife. The biodiversity is among the richest in Italy, with 400 species of bird, lagoons, marshes and reed beds that have created a true natural labyrinth. Yet, it soon becomes obvious that something is not right: houses and fields are all lower than the road, visibly sunken, protected by embankments about four metres high. The reason? Without those barriers, they would be under water.The entire area of Polesine, a strip of land between the Po delta and the Adriatic Sea, has long suffered the consequences of subsidence, but it was aggravated by gas extraction, which is why the practice was banned by the government in 1961. Continue reading...

Four-metre shark euthanised after becoming beached on shore at Kingscliff on Tweed Coast

As part of the state-sponsored programme to restore arctic fox populations, Norway has been feeding the animals for nearly 20 years, helping boost numbers from as few as 40 in Norway, Finland, and Sweden, to about 550 across Scandinavia today. Without these conservation measures, the arctic fox would surely have become extinct in Norway,' said Bjorn Rangbru, a senior adviser on threatened species with the country's environment agency Continue reading...

Exclusive: Ex-employees of Australian Agribusiness Group allege dozens of injuries occurred as blue gums cleared for agricultural use, claims which the company rejectsWARNING: contains images some viewers may find distressing

City of Sydney lord mayor reveals testing of potentially contaminated mulch has cost $200,000 with remediation costs likely to be substantial'

Some farmers have turned from livestock to crops to avoid the financial pitfalls and thorny ethics of industrial agricultureFarmer Tom Lim had been raising poultry for 20 years when the company he worked for as a contractor terminated him without warning, leaving him saddled with debt and unsure of where to turn. My heart just dropped," he said. I didn't know where to make money to pay off our loans."Lim was born in rural Cambodia, where his parents tended rice fields with water buffalos, raised a smattering of chickens and grew vegetables around their home. That lifestyle shaped his love of farming, but was a far cry from what he found himself doing as an adult, raising 540,000 chickens a year in North Carolina for Pilgrim's Pride, one of the largest meat producers in the US that supplies chicken to Walmart, Costco and KFC. Continue reading...

The tree will be exhibited at the Sill in Hexham, close to where it once stoodThe largest section of the Sycamore Gap tree unlawfully cut down last September is to go on public display, Northumberland national park has announced.The tree, which stood in a dip next to Hadrian's Wall, will be exhibited at the Sill, a tourist attraction in Hexham, not far from where it once stood. Continue reading...

The wildlife charity allegedly dropped a study highlighting farm pollution linked to the supply chain of its former supermarket partnerThe wildlife charity WWF-UK shelved a report that warned how intensive chicken production is devastating the River Wye, the Observer can reveal.Since 2018, the charity has received more than 6m in donations from the supermarket chain Tesco, which has faced action from campaigners over the decline of the Wye because many of the intensive poultry farms in the river's catchment area are in its supply chain. Continue reading...

US ski industry is losing billions as average season has become five to seven days shorter in past half centuryIf you have been enjoying lushly covered mountains by skiing or snowboarding this winter then such an experience could soon become a receding memory, with a new study finding that an era of reliably bountiful snow has already passed due to the climate crisis.The US ski industry has lost more than $5bn over the past two decades due to human-caused global heating, the new research has calculated, due to the increasingly sparse nature of snowfall on mountain ranges. Previous studies have shown that in many locations precipitation is now coming in the form of rain, rather than snow, due to warming temperatures. Continue reading...

Kanchha Sherpa, 91, says more respect should be shown to sacred peak that has been climbed thousands of times since 1953 ascentThe only surviving member of the mountaineering expedition that first reached the summit of Mount Everest has said the world's highest peak is too crowded and dirty, and the mountain is a god that needs to be respected.Kanchha Sherpa, 91, was one of the 35 members of the team that helped the New Zealander Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay to the top of the 8,849-metre (29,032ft) peak on 29 May 1953. Continue reading...

Michael Gove said UK needed coal to make steel, but business department papers drafted around same time say it will notPreviously unseen documents have emerged that appear to contradict the government's case for a new coalmine in Cumbria.When Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, approved plans to build the Woodhouse Colliery near Whitehaven in December 2022, he said the UK would need the coal in order to carry on making steel. Continue reading...

Higher temperatures and winds forecast in the coming days could make firefighting conditions more difficultAs the largest wildfire in Texas history engulfed his town, Danny Phillips was left helpless.We had to watch from a few miles away as our neighborhood burned," he said, his voice trembling with emotion. Continue reading...

Our nature series Young Country Diary is looking for pieces written by children about their spring wildlife adventuresOnce again, the Young Country Diary series is open for submissions! Every three months, as the UK enters a new season, we ask you to send us a piece written by a child aged 8-14.The article needs to be about a recent encounter they've had with nature - whether it's a woodland walk, some nesting birds or a thriving rockpool. Continue reading...

Campaigners say decision against Danish Crown, Europe's largest pork producer, sends resounding messageEurope's largest pork producer misled customers with its climate-controlled pork" campaign, Denmark's high court has ruled in the country's first climate lawsuit.Campaigners argued that Danish Crown greenwashed its meat with round, pink stickers on its packaging that said pigs were climate-controlled", along with a marketing campaign that claimed its pork was more climate-friendly than you think". Continue reading...

Authorities asked to step in to protect Black-a-Tor Copse, an ancient temperate rainforest in Devon at risk from overgrazingThere are acorns galore and tiny oaks sprouting from tussocky grass beside the gnarled ancient trees of Black-a-Tor Copse on the northern slopes of Dartmoor national park.But each tiny sapling grows no higher than a sheep's chin and there it stays, its new shoots and tender leaves repeatedly shorn each spring by the livestock roaming through this national nature reserve. Continue reading...

The first documented sex between two male humpback whales is just the latest challenge to our presumptions about sexualityWhales are extraordinarily sensuous creatures. Those blubbery bodies are highly sensitive, and sensitised. At social meetings, pods of sperm, humpback and right whales will roll around one another's bodies for hours at a time. I've seen a group of right whales engaged in foreplay and penetration lasting an entire morning.I have also watched a male-female couple so blissfully conjoined that they appeared unbothered by our little fishing boat as they passed underneath it. And in what may sound like a career of cetacean voyeurism, I have also been caught up in a fast-moving superpod of dusky dolphins continually penetrating each other at speed, regardless of the gender of their partner. Continue reading...

Two ranches also allege biosolids with forever chemicals' ruined crops, polluted drinking water and left their properties worthlessA Texas county has launched a first-of-its-kind criminal investigation into waste management giant Synagro over PFAS-contaminated sewage sludge it is selling to Texas farmers as a cheap alternative to fertilizer.Two small Texas ranches at the center of that case have also filed a federal lawsuit against Synagro, alleging the company knew its sludge was contaminated but still sold it. Sludge spread on a nearby field sickened the farmers, killed livestock, polluted drinking water, contaminated beef later sold to the public and left their properties worthless, the complaint alleges.This story was amended on 1 March 2024. The previous version stated that testing of drinking water in two properties' wells found levels as high as 268,000 parts per trillion. That number has been corrected to 268 ppt. Continue reading...

First-year vehicle excise duty is a fraction of that in countries such as France and the NetherlandsLow taxation on petrol SUVs in the UK compared with much of Europe is inviting a glut of large, polluting luxury cars, according to an analysis by a green thinktank.The tax paid when buying a new petrol or diesel SUV in the UK is only a fraction of the levies in neighbouring countries, including France and the Netherlands, and lower than many others in Europe, making it a tax haven" for the bigger, less environmentally friendly vehicles, the report from Transport & Environment (T&E) found. Continue reading...

The best of this week's wildlife photographs from around the world Continue reading...

Health campaigners are voicing concerns that the issue is being neglected - despite the devastating death toll around the worldSeven million people die each year from illnesses attributable to air pollution, yet it has never had global recognition in the same way as Aids, tuberculosis and malaria, and now there are growing calls from the health sector for that to change.Relative to other health issues that have access to billion-dollar global funds, air pollution has a far greater health impact, said Christa Hasenkopf, the director of clean air programmes at the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (Epic). Continue reading...

Campaigners and human rights experts point to crackdown on climate and Gaza protestsThe Conservatives have been accused by human rights experts of hypocrisy after cracking down on climate and Gaza protests while celebrating and endorsing farmers' protests in Wales.Rishi Sunak joined a protest of farmers in Wales last Friday, after they had obstructed a road while campaigning against the Labour government's new farming subsidies scheme. But this week he vowed to crack down on protests, referring to them as mob rule". On Wednesday, the Welsh Conservative leader, Andrew Davies, along with many of his colleagues greeted and posed for photographs with farmers who formed a large group outside the Senedd and blocked a main road with tractors. Continue reading...

Two groups are striking for better working conditions and investment in Germany's underfunded public transportAt first sight, the gathering in an office complex in east Berlin resembles a self-help group. But the public transport workers and climate protesters sitting in a semi-circle introducing themselves have been thrown together, they say, to fight for a common cause.Hello, my name is Erdogan. I'm a bus driver in the northern zone of Berlin and have been in the job for 32 years. I'm glad someone is finally taking our profession seriously," says one. Continue reading...

Group claims oil firms transferred depleted wells to another company which then conspired to avoid clean-up through fraudCindy McCormick and her husband bought a new property in Hudson, Colorado, in 2020. It was expansive, close to friends and had a stunning mountain view.There was just one problem: an aging, abandoned oil well sat on one far edge of the land. The couple was a bit concerned, but the realtor and the well's owner, Painted Pegasus Petroleum, assured them that it would be cleaned up. Continue reading...

Coastal areas facing enormous and urgent climate crisis' as event supercharges human-caused global heating, scientists sayThe current climate event known as El Nino is likely to supercharge global heating and deliver record-breaking temperatures from the Amazon to Alaska in 2024, analysis has found.Coastal areas of India by the Bay of Bengal and by the South China Sea, as well as the Philippines and the Caribbean, are also likely to experience unprecedented heat in the period to June, the scientists said, after which El Nino may weaken. Continue reading...

Campaigners say Ineos project in Antwerp will turbocharge plastic production on a scale not seen before in EuropeThe UK government is providing a 700m (600m) guarantee for the billionaire Jim Ratcliffe to build the biggest petrochemical plant in Europe in 30 years that will turbocharge plastic production.The huge petrochemical plant has been described as a carbon bomb" by campaigners. Being constructed in the Belgian city of Antwerp by Ratcliffe's company Ineos, it will bring plastic production to Europe on a scale not seen before, just as countries are trying to negotiate a binding global treaty to tackle the growing problem of plastic pollution. Continue reading...

State accuses Brazilian company of misleading customers with claims it can reduce carbon footprint despite growth plansThe state of New York is suing the US arm of JBS, the world's largest meatpacker, accusing the Brazilian company of misleading customers over its climate goals, including a plan to reach net zero carbon neutral standards by 2040.Letitia James, the New York attorney general, filed the suit alleging that JBS USA had repeatedly assured the public and consumers with sustainability claims that could, in effect, provide environmentally conscious consumers with a license to eat beef". Continue reading...

New analysis finds money from Biden's $1.2tn infrastructure bill has overwhelmingly been spent on widening highways for carsRoads, roads and more roads. The US is continuing to spend billions of dollars on expanding enormous highways rather than fund public transport, with a landmark infrastructure bill lauded by Joe Biden only further accelerating the dominance of cars at the expense, critics say, of communities and the climate.Since the passage of the enormous $1.2tn bipartisan infrastructure law in 2021, hailed by Biden as a generational effort to upgrade the US's crumbling bridges, roads, ports and public transit, money has overwhelmingly poured into the maintenance and widening of roads rather than improving the threadbare network of bus, rail and cycling options available to Americans, a new analysis has found. Continue reading...

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights will hear how climate is driving forced migration across the AmericasCommunities under imminent threat from rising sea level, floods and other extreme weather will testify in Washington on Thursday, as the region's foremost human rights body holds a first-of-its-kind hearing on how climate catastrophe is driving forced migration across the Americas.The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) will hear from people on the frontline of the climate emergency in Mexico, Honduras, the Bahamas and Colombia, as part of a special hearing sought by human rights groups in Latin America, the US and the Caribbean. Continue reading...

Royal Society of Edinburgh says money should be spent on longer-living native forests with greater biodiversity benefitsA report has called on ministers to scrap the huge subsidies and tax breaks given to conifer forests because they do too little to combat the climate crisis.The report from the Royal Society of Edinburgh said the tens of millions of pounds in subsidies given to the timber industry should instead be spent on longer-living native forests, which have greater and clearer climate and biodiversity benefits.In Scotland, ministers have subsidised forestry by more than 390m over the last decade, with roughly 80% of that spent on commercial conifer plantations, as well as extra subsidies for haulage.Timber companies and landowners pay no corporation tax on their income from forests; profits from timber sales are tax-free; there is no capital gains tax on the value of the trees, and 100% inheritance tax relief on the forestry property.Forest owners were also able to sell carbon credits, adding to the attractiveness of forestry as an investment.These grants, tax breaks and carbon credits had helped to substantially drive up land prices in Scotland, up by 73% in a single year, greatly distorting the land market and pricing people out.Government agencies are not properly enforcing policies which require environmental impact assessments on new forest projects; their approach is inadequate" and passive". Continue reading...

Liberal leader's plan criticised by political opponents, environmentalists and industry representatives

There are now three Queensland schools, a dog park, as well as 16 businesses that may have received soil with friable asbestos

After drought devastated prized arborio and carnaroli harvests in the Po valley, new rice varieties offer a glimmer of hope. But none are yet suitable for use in the traditional recipe

Environment Protection Authority originally demanded asbestos be cleaned up by end of February but Transport for NSW granted extra month by watchdog

Anyone reading the Australian's Newspoll survey might think there was an actual proposal in place to build small modular nuclear reactors around Australia - except there isn't

Onward touts a vision of a clean energy future', but experts say ventures like this are part of fossil fuel firms' greenwashing plan

Decision by premier Danielle Smith further pits Canadian province against environmental groups pushing green energyAlberta will block renewable energy projects on prime" agricultural land and limit the placement of wind turbines to preserve pristine viewscapes", a decision that increasingly pits the western Canadian province against environmental groups pushing green energy - and the companies investing in it.The decision, announced by the premier, Danielle Smith, and utilities minister, Nathan Neudorf, on Wednesday, follows a controversial six-month ban on new renewable energy projects that is due to expire on 29 February. Continue reading...