Environment | The Guardian

Darren Jones says party will decide budget based on state of economy and individual projects if it wins election

Green campaigners hope to win landmark vote, which is being watched closely by other cities such as LondonGreen activists in Paris are making a final push to win a landmark vote tripling parking charges for SUVs in a move aimed at tackling air pollution that is being closely watched by other cities such as London.Paris residents will be asked to vote on Sunday for or against a special parking tariff for heavy, large and polluting SUVs parked by non-residents, as the French capital aims to target rich, out-of-town drivers entering the city in order to tackle climate breakdown and air pollution. Continue reading...

Anger at EDF proposals to flood wildlife-rich farmland as compensation' for killing millions of fish at nuclear siteStanding in a field close to the Somerset coast surrounded by her flock of sheep, Juliet Pankhurst shook her head. It doesn't make any sense," she said. They want to flood this land that has been farmed for generations. We've got great crested newts in the pond over there, water voles in the ditches, hares all over the place. They'll be lost."Her partner, Mark Halliwell, shrugged. But they'll get their way - they always do. No matter what scheme they come up with." Continue reading...

Researchers have conducted an annual survey of the animals' population every year since 1958, except in 2021 due to Covid-19A stretch of unusually warm weather has forced federal officials to temporarily halt researchers' annual count of wolves and moose in remote Isle Royale national park for the first time in more than six decades.Isle Royale is a 134,000-acre island situated in far western Lake Superior between Grand Marias, Minnesota, and Thunder Bay, Canada. The Michigan park is a wildlife biologist's dream - it offers a rare opportunity to observe wolves and moose without human influence. Continue reading...

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

At least 80 pairs recorded in 2023 after species began breeding again in 1979, having disappeared from UK in 16th centuryBritain's tallest bird, the spectacular, wetland-loving crane bred in higher numbers last summer than at any point since they disappeared from the UK in the 16th century.At least 80 pairs of cranes were recorded in 2023, up from the previous high of 72 two years earlier. The birds, which make distinctive bugling calls but are surprisingly elusive in the breeding season, as they hide in reedbeds, successfully fledged at least 36 chicks. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Party will keep plan to invest in green infrastructure but will in effect cut green ambitions by about two-thirdsKeir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are ditching Labour's flagship policy pledge to spend 28bn a year on green investment, party sources have said.The sources said the party would keep the core mission of investing in green infrastructure, as well as already announced plans such as the creation of GB Energy, a publicly owned clean energy company, and a mass home insulation programme. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Meal attended by Environment Agency and Ofwat chairs attacked as outrageous example of regulatory capture'Water company bosses and the chairs of the regulator Ofwat and the Environment Agency went for dinner at an exclusive private members' club to discuss how to quell public anger over bill rises and sewage spills, the Guardian can reveal.Campaigners have said the private meeting is an outrageous example of regulatory capture" as Ofwat and the Environment Agency are supposed to hold water companies to account, rather than help with their public relations. Continue reading...

The Washington insider brings a wealth of experience but will combine role with implementing US domestic climate policyJohn Podesta's elevation to become the US's top climate diplomat has been welcomed by environmental groups but the stakes, as well as the scope of the job itself, are set to be enormous.Podesta, the veteran Democratic party strategist, has been chosen by Joe Biden to lead his administration's international climate policy efforts, replacing John Kerry, the US climate envoy who will step down at some point this spring. Continue reading...

Delivery workers and advocates say it could lead to over-policing of already taxed employees, but agree firms should be regulatedA proposed agency to regulate new forms of ebikes and mopeds commonly used by delivery drivers could lead to increased surveillance and harassment of couriers, according to labor and transit advocates.Last week, Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, announced plans for a first-in-the-nation department of sustainable delivery that would aim to regulate the tens of thousands of ebikes, mopeds, cargo bikes and other two- and three-wheeled vehicles that deliver food and parcels across the city. Continue reading...

Plan to raise shareholder payouts by 4% follows surprise $7.3bn profit in final quarter despite fall in gas pricesShell's investors can expect another year of growing payouts after the oil company reported better than expected profits of more than $28bn (22bn) for 2023 in one of its most profitable years on record.Shell's profits tumbled by almost a third to $28.3bn last year, from record high profits of $40bn at the peak of the global energy crisis in 2022, after a cooling of oil and gas markets. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Investigation finds banned chemicals at levels up to 260 times higher than that deemed safe to consumeSeventeen landfills across England are known to be producing a highly toxic liquid substance containing some banned and potentially carcinogenic forever chemicals", in some cases at levels 260 times higher than that deemed safe for drinking water, it can be revealed.However the government says it does not know where these landfills are. Continue reading...

Unwanted items the supermarket thought would feed animals were used to generate energyTesco has found that thousands of tonnes of unwanted food it thought was going to feed animals has instead been used to generate energy, dramatically damaging its progress on reducing food waste.The UK's biggest supermarket had said it had cut food waste by 45% between the 2016-17 financial year and 2023. But it has been forced to reduce the figure to just 18% after discovering that an unnamed food waste processor breached the terms of its contract. Continue reading...

New study says manufacturing solar photovoltaic panels domestically would help achieve emission goals and create jobs as global demand grows

Customs officers and scientists are working together to combat the highly lucrative illicit trade in wildlife meat that is helping to push some species to extinction

Federal and Queensland governments are trying to convince UN body not to add the reef to list of world heritage sites in danger

Family of Lauren O'Neill told we believe a NSW Ambulance staff member was responsible' for leak after St Vincent's hospital launched investigation

Senior adviser will take over responsibilities, but not title, of John Kerry, who stepped down to work on Biden's re-election campaignThe White House senior adviser John Podesta will add international climate policy to his job responsibilities, replacing the special climate envoy, John Kerry, as the top US official on international climate issues, the White House said on Wednesday.Kerry announced in mid-January that he would step down from the climate job to work on Joe Biden's re-election campaign. Podesta will take over Kerry's responsibilities, though not his title, when he departs, probably this spring, the White House said. Continue reading...

Environmentalists say Vulcan South mine would be an absolute disaster' for animals including koalas, greater gliders and glossy black cockatoos

Los Angeles, San Francisco and others say carmaker improperly labelled materials like antifreeze and sent it to the wrong landfillsA group of 25 California counties have sued Elon Musk's Tesla, claiming the electric vehicle maker mishandled hazardous waste at its facilities across the state.The lawsuit from Los Angeles, Alameda, San Joaquin, San Francisco and other counties was filed on Tuesday in California state court. It seeks civil penalties and an injunction that would require the company to properly handle its waste in the future. Continue reading...

The move to grant 17 companies the right to drill for fossil fuels is a pipe dream' that will do little for energy security, say environmentalistsBritain has handed major oil companies the right to drill for fossil fuels in 24 new licence areas across the North Sea as part of the government's mission to extend the life of the ageing oil and gas basin.The North Sea regulator said 17 oil companies, including Shell and BP, were granted licences in the Central North Sea, Northern North Sea and West of Shetland areas to provide benefits to the local and wider economy". Continue reading...

Three new levels added by US Coral Reef Watch after extreme' unprecedented heat, with highest alert warning of near complete mortality'The world's main system for warning about heat stress on the planet's coral reefs has been forced to add three new alert categories to represent ever-increasing temperature extremes.The changes introduced by the US government's Coral Reef Watch program come after reefs across the Americas were hit by unprecedented levels of heat stress last year that bleached and killed corals en masse. Continue reading...

Local fishers helped halt underwater mining off Baja California's coast in 2018. But then an obscure international legal process was put into motionWhen it first appeared, it looked like a floating city. For months in the summer of 2012, the ship just sat there - a hulking, confusing presence off the Pacific coast of Baja California Sur. Continue reading...

When Rakel took over the last farm in her Norwegian village, she was not only taking responsibility for a flock of accident-prone woolly animals, but also a way of life at a crossroads. This was a chance to follow in the footsteps of her much-loved father, and live the way she had always dreamed, alongside her wife. A flock of sheep comes with a flock of problems, so the saying goes. With the help of community and family, can Rakel succeed? Continue reading...

Bob Brown Foundation wants logging banned in area of forest south of Hobart, claiming it is breeding habitat for endangered bird

MSF begins vaccine drive against incurable disease, which is spread via dirty water and kills thousands of pregnant womenA push to tackle an outbreak of hepatitis E in South Sudan is being hampered by flooding that has isolated populations and turned villages into islands.A pioneering vaccination drive has begun to protect people against a spate of cases but the true scale of the disease outbreak is unknown. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Report proposes action to reduce overall demand rather than simply increasing green' productionThe global extraction of raw materials is expected to increase by 60% by 2060, with calamitous consequences for the climate and the environment, according an unpublished UN analysis seen by the Guardian.Natural resource extraction has soared by almost 400% since 1970 due to industrialisation, urbanisation and population growth, according to a presentation of the five-yearly UN Global Resource Outlook made to EU ministers last week. Continue reading...

In one Kenyan reserve, women are taking up roles that give them a say in community life and protecting the land they depend on - inspiring a new generation to follow in their footstepsIn the hot midday sun on the edge of Mara Ripoi conservancy in Maasai Mara, a group of women gather under the shade of a gnarled, old Balanites aegyptiaca tree, or oloireroi in Maasai.The women listen keenly as Everlyne Siololo outlines some key benefits of belonging to the newly formed 5,500-hectare (13,500-acre) conservancy.Norkishili Kayiaa, one of three female administrators on the Mara Ripoi conservancy committee, addresses its members Continue reading...

Analysis finds difference between greenhouse gas emissions the automakers declared and the researchers' estimates averaged 27%Some of the world's biggest automakers are still grossly under-reporting" greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new report, despite improvements in their estimates.The research, undertaken by consultancy firms Carbon Tracker and Nomisma, was released on Wednesday and found car manufacturers ranked among the world's highest carbon producers and needed to improve the way they declared their environmental impacts. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Locals say huge penalities and fines' needed after deaths increased almost 90% in one year

Country may be the first to do so, amid increasing concerns about the health and environmental risks posed by the virtually indestructible chemicalsNew Zealand is banning so-called forever chemicals" in cosmetics from 2026, in what could be the first example of a country doing so.The Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) said it has banned the use of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in cosmetics to protect people and the environment from the chemicals. Continue reading...

Exclusive: one of Britain's rarest butterflies, found only in Norfolk Broads, critically threatened by climate crisisThe swallowtail, one of Britain's rarest butterflies and also the largest, has suffered its worst summer since records began.The butterfly is confined to the Broads in East Anglia, where its caterpillar's food plant is found, and is now breeding on just 16 sites. Continue reading...

Documents show industry-backed Air Pollution Foundation uncovered the severe harm climate change would wreakThe fossil fuel industry funded some of the world's most foundational climate science as early as 1954, newly unearthed documents have shown, including the early research of Charles Keeling, famous for the so-called Keeling curve" that has charted the upward march of the Earth's carbon dioxide levels.A coalition of oil and car manufacturing interests provided $13,814 (about $158,000 in today's money) in December 1954 to fund Keeling's earliest work in measuring CO2 levels across the western US, the documents reveal. Continue reading...

Inquiry into invasive pest hears of risks fire ants pose to health, agriculture and the environment if they become endemic

Activists in Berkeley, which has no factory farms, hope other cities will follow suit - but not everyone is convincedThis year voters in Berkeley, California, will get to choose whether to ban factory farms in its city limits - marking the first time in the US that such a measure has been put on the ballot.It may seem like an unusual mandate for a city that presently has no factory farms. (There's a horse race track field that would be shut down if the measure passes.) But the activists behind the ballot initiative say it's part of a broader strategy to ban this type of industrial style of livestock production in which cattle, chickens and pigs are held in confined spaces before slaughter. Continue reading...

Northvolt, a Swedish battery maker, has planned a gigafactory' in the region, which protesters have called an ecocidal disgrace'When the Swedish battery manufacturer Northvolt announced plans to build a multibillion-dollar gigafactory' in Quebec, the proposal was heralded as a win for Canada's ambitions to become a global green energy powerhouse - and lauded as an environmentally sensitive project which would minimize harmful emissions.Four months later, however, protestors are describing the sprawling plant an ecocidal disgrace", and driving steel bars and nails into trees, to prevent the company from clearcutting forests and destroying wetlands ahead of construction. Continue reading...

Committee urges UK to set powerful example' of tackling climate change after mixed messages' of Cop28The UK must act urgently to meet its international climate commitments, the independent climate watchdog has warned, after sending mixed messages" to other countries at the Cop28 UN climate summit in December.While carbon reduction from electricity generation has shown progress, the rate at which all other sources of emissions are being cut must quadruple to meet the UK's target under the Paris agreement of 68% reductions in emissions by 2030, according to the Climate Change Committee. Continue reading...

Baffled' MPs express alarm at captain's call' while premier Jacinta Allan says cabinet followed normal process' in a consensus decision'

Open letter calls for Soil Association certification to be removed from industry, amid concerns of negative environmental impactThe British body that certifies food in the UK as organic has been accused of misleading consumers over its labelling of Scottish farmed salmon.Thirty charities, conservation and community organisations, including WildFish, the Pesticide Action Network and Blue Marine Foundation, say the negative environmental impacts of the industry in Scotland run completely counter" to the principles of the Soil Association's promotion of healthy, humane and sustainable food. Continue reading...

Regional mayor Dan Norris launches project to explore potential for former mines to produce low-carbon heatWhen Bryn Hawkins worked in coalmines through the 1960s and early 1970s he says few understood the impact the burning of fossil fuels would have on the planet.Now, public officials are hoping disused mines that provided millions of tonnes of fossil fuels could be used as a potential source of renewable energy across the country. Continue reading...

Parts of south-east Queensland have been hit by flash flooding and torrential rain with homes and businesses underwater. More than a dozen people have been rescued from areas north and west of Brisbane. The Bureau of Meteorology said forecast rainfall in those areas could lead to flash or riverine flooding in the next 48 hours. Ex-Tropical Cyclone Kirrily is also ensuring more wet weather in Queensland's north-west, days after crossing the coast

Exclusive: Hundreds of anglers take part in UK's largest citizen science water-testing projectEighty-three per cent of English rivers contain evidence of high pollution caused by sewage and agricultural waste, according to the largest citizen science water testing project ever to take place in the UK.Hundreds of anglers took part in the study, organised by the Angling Trust, after being angered by the brown blooms of sewage in the waters they painstakingly tend for the benefit of fish. Continue reading...

Michael Porter says he saw the victim trying to pull herself to safety out of Elizabeth Bay harbour pool

Shadow chancellor says flagship green policy must be approached in a way where the numbers add up'The economic picture is very different" from when Labour set out its green investment plan, Rachel Reeves has said, as she refused to repeat her party's 28bn spending commitment.The shadow chancellor said her party's green prosperity plan was important but had to be approached in a way where the numbers add up". Continue reading...

A documentary, Razing Liberty Square, examines the plight of families in Liberty City as developers revitalize' community on desirable higher landAaron McKinney had high hopes for Liberty City.In 2015, Miami-Dade county officials announced a $74m development project aimed at revitalizing the historically Black neighborhood in the north-west of the city. The plan was to raze Liberty Square, the dilapidated housing project in the heart of the neighborhood, and build 1,900 new apartments in its place. Continue reading...

Draft rules follow the polluter pays principle' and will mean companies cover 80% of extra clean-up costsBeauty companies will have to pay more to clean up microplastic pollution after EU negotiators struck a new deal to treat sewage.Under draft rules that follow the polluter pays principle", companies that sell medicines and cosmetics will have to cover at least 80% of the extra costs needed to get rid of tiny pollutants that are dirtying urban wastewater. Governments will pay the rest, members of the bloc said, in an effort to prevent vital products from becoming too expensive or scarce. Continue reading...

With confirmed or suspected cases in two Antarctic penguin species, researchers fear highly contagious virus could rip through coloniesAt least one king penguin is suspected to have died from bird flu in the Antarctic. If confirmed, it will be the first of the species killed by the highly contagious H5N1 virus in the wild.Researchers have previously raised alarm about one of the largest ecological disasters of modern times" if bird flu reached remote Antarctic penguin populations. The birds are currently clustering together for breeding season, meaning the disease could rip through entire colonies if it continues to spread through the region. Continue reading...

Strong waves and sediment-laden freshwater pushed out from river catchments may have damaged parts of reef system, experts say

Dacorum borough council in Hertfordshire says policy has legal basis after 88 fines draw criticismA council in England has doubled down on the fining of people caught peeing in the countryside for littering, even after it emerged its own legal advice did not appear to fully support its stance.There have been at least two cases of men handed 88 fines by Dacorum borough council in Hertfordshire after being caught in the act by council enforcers apparently lying in wait in laybys. Continue reading...

Suriname's Saamaka Maroons still grow rice from seeds an ancestor escaping from a plantation carried in her hair. Now a gene bank seeks to widen use of the rare species to help fight the climate crisisWhen enslaved Africans escaped the Surinamese plantations overseen by Dutch colonists from the 17th to the 19th century, several women ingeniously hid rice grains in their hair to grow when they found refuge deep in the Amazon rainforest. Now, centuries later, a gene bank is working to save Suriname's rare rice species while also preparing communities to be more resilient to the climate crisis.In Suriname's hinterlands, near the town of Brokopondo, Albertina Adjako, a descendant of those Africans - who became known as Maroons - carefully walks in her flip-flops through her rice seedlings. We are worried because we had a long period of drought," she says, inspecting her plants. Continue reading...