West Cumbria Mining, which set up Whitehaven office during push for new mine, owned by EMR Capital• What is the Cumbrian coalmine and why does it matter?The first deep coalmine to be dug in the UK in a generation is ultimately owned by an international private equity company, with executives whose mining interests have stretched to Russia, Asia, Africa and across Australia.West Cumbria Mining positioned itself as a local company with an office in Whitehaven, and promised it would provide jobs for people in the area, during its campaign for permission to extract 2.8m tonnes of coking coal a year from the site. Continue reading...

Bouvier’s red colobus monkey was ‘rediscovered’ after an expedition up river and through swamps in the Republic of the Congo“They have a nice black eyebrow, but I especially liked the fluffy white hairs on their cheeks.” For Congolese primatologist Gaël Elie Gnondo Gobolo, seeing Bouvier’s red colobus monkey (Piliocolobus bouvieri) for the first time “was an unexpected moment, like being in a dream”.No one knew the monkey still existed in the Republic of the Congo. Assessments for the IUCN in 2008 and 2016 classified it as critically endangered, with a note saying it was “possibly extinct”. There had been no recorded sightings since the 1970s until Lieven Devreese, a primatologist from Belgium, led a two-month expedition in 2015. Gnondo Gobolo was a biology student at Marien Ngouabi University in Brazzaville, Congo’s capital, at the time and accompanied him. Continue reading...

Serious pollution, poor service and weak financial management embedded, says England and Wales water industry regulatorSerious pollution by water companies has increased in the past year, the regulator has said in a damning report on the performance of the sector in England and Wales.Ofwat said poor performance by some firms was embedded, and named Northumbrian Water, Southern Water, South West Water, Thames Water, Welsh Water and Yorkshire Water as lagging in the way they served customers and ran the system. Continue reading...

Critics accuse authorities of ‘bogus environmentalism’ over installation in historic Piazza VeneziaA row has broken out over two “ugly” solar panels intended to power the lights on Rome’s traditional Christmas tree.There is always much anticipation in the Italian capital when the fir arrives at the Piazza Venezia in the historic centre – a Unesco world heritage site – with many giving their view on the choice of decoration. Continue reading...

The mass-scale removal of resources is a key driver of biodiversity loss. Extractivism’s grip on the planet must be brokenAt the biodiversity Cop taking place in Montreal, much attention will focus on a policy proposal calling for 30% of the planet’s land and oceans to be protected by 2030, known as 30x30. Protected areas have their place in addressing the biodiversity crisis, but we also know that they are insufficient. Since the 1970s, they have increased fourfold globally, expanding to about 17% of the planet, but extraction rates have more than tripled. This unrelenting expansion of forestry, mining, monoculture farming and fossil fuel developments is a central driver of biodiversity loss. Ending or at least reducing “extractivism” must be front and centre at Cop15.Extractivism is more than extraction. Extraction is the not inherently damaging removal of matter from nature and its transformation into things useful to humans. Extractivism, a term born of anti-colonial struggle and thought in the Americas, is a mode of accumulation based on hyper-extraction with lopsided benefits and costs: concentrated mass-scale removal of resources primarily for export, with benefits largely accumulating far from the sites of extraction. One estimate puts the drain south to north at a staggering $10tn (£8tn) a year. Continue reading...

Cumbrian Lib Dem MP condemns decision to give green light to Britain’s first new coalmine in 30 years

Canada’s prime minister calls on China, Russia and Brazil to expand protected areas for natureJustin Trudeau has urged China, Russia, Brazil and other large countries to massively expand protected areas for nature at Cop15 while putting Indigenous rights at the heart of conservation, as momentum gathers behind a controversial target to conserve 30% of Earth.On Wednesday, the Canadian prime minister committed C$800m (£510m) of funding over seven years for Indigenous-led conservation projects in his country across an area the size of Egypt, starting a “story of reconciliation” with Indigenous peoples. Continue reading...

Experts create guide to help save seabirds from bleak future caused by global heatingThe majority of puffin nesting sites in western Europe are likely to be lost by the end of the century due to climate breakdown, a report has warned.Other seabirds will also be affected unless urgent action to limit global heating is taken, with razorbills and arctic terns forecast to lose 80% and 87% of their breeding grounds respectively owing to reduced food accessibility and prolonged periods of stormy weather. Continue reading...

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Crossbench says government’s response ‘moving in the right direction’ but lacks aspects such as a climate trigger and a pause on logging

If Qatar exploits all its reserves it will add 50bn metric tons of CO2 to atmosphere, more than entire annual emissions of whole worldQatar’s longest-lasting legacy following the World Cup won’t be football or even its human rights record – it will be the climate crisis, according to a new report warning that its huge expansion of gas extraction could push the planet into catastrophic global heating.Should Qatar exploit all of its oil and gas reserves it will eventually add an enormous 50bn metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere once burned, which is more than the entire annual emissions of the whole world, the new research, shared with the Guardian, has found. Continue reading...

Report from chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty finds air pollution kills up to 36,000 people a year in England“Ecodesign” wood burning stoves produce 450 times more toxic air pollution than gas central heating, according to new data published in a report from Prof Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England.Older stoves, now banned from sale, produce 3,700 times more, while electric heating produces none, the report said. Continue reading...

Mine could affect Britain’s climate commitments, which some believe could help get decision struck downThe government has given the green light to a new coalmine in Cumbria, the first in the UK for more than 30 years, but already moves have begun to challenge the decision before construction work can start.Climate campaigners are examining the decision with a view to a legal challenge, based on the UK’s national and international legally binding climate commitments. Continue reading...

Australia’s largest coal producer says it’s reviewing plans for project in Bowen Basin citing net zero commitment and state’s royalty hike

Albanese government commits to agency and new national environment standards in response to Samuel review of EPBC Act

Despite positivity in Whitehaven, near the former Marchon chemical plant, proposals still cause worry“If it brings jobs, then I’m all in favour of it,” said retired chemical worker Keith Walker as he wandered with his dog Eddie on the site of what could be something many thought would never be seen in the UK again: a coalmine.Walker worked at the Marchon chemical works on the outskirts of Whitehaven, the proposed site of the mine, for 27 years. Continue reading...

In today’s newsletter: AMA says ‘weak political leadership’ has opened the door to ongoing virus risk; ‘abhorrent’ Umar Patek out on parole; David Warner launches spray at Cricket Australia

Senator had proposed to attach energy bill to appropriations legislation but plan fails amid criticism of party leadershipA last-ditch effort to force through legislation that would weaken environmental protections and fast-track energy projects has failed.Joe Manchin, the fossil fuel-friendly senator from West Virginia, had attempted to latch the controversial deregulation and permitting reforms to a must-pass defense bill – after failing to get his so-called “dirty deal” passed earlier this year. Continue reading...

Letter urges sponsors provide ‘corporate climate political influencing statements’ after 630 lobbyists attend Cop27Senior Democratic senators have written to the head of the United Nations warning that public trust in global negotiations on climate action is at risk because of the scale of corporate lobbying – and new controls are needed.Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Ben Cardin of Maryland and Ed Markey of Massachusetts have sent a letter to António Gutierres, the UN secretary general, urging the UN to require sponsors and participants at future climate conferences to provide “audited corporate climate political influencing statements”. Continue reading...

Leading researchers say the UN biodiversity summit is ‘vastly more important’ than the recent Cop27 climate meetingThe “fate of the entire living world” will be determined at the Cop15 UN biodiversity summit, according to leading scientists.They said the gathering of the world’s nations, which began on Wednesday in Montreal, is “vastly more important than Cop27”, the recent high-profile UN climate meeting. “We say this because of the many dimensions of anthropogenic global change … the most critical, complex and challenging is that of biodiversity loss,” the researchers said. Continue reading...

Locals desperate for lower bills, jobs and economic revival have been seduced by this plan, but they – and we – will sufferToday, the government has thrown its weight behind a climate-busting, backward-looking coalmine in Cumbria. The staggering hypocrisy of demanding other countries phase down coal, just when we’re phasing it back in again, sends a truly terrible message to global south countries and marks this decision as a climate crime against humanity.Given this, you’d be forgiven for wondering why a new coalmine appears to have garnered local support. Areas such as Whitehaven in west Cumbria have been told it will “level up” the community – bringing lower bills, more jobs and economic revival to areas that have severely lacked all three for generations. So when a private coal company turned up, the community, understandably nostalgic for its more prosperous past, bit their arm off. Continue reading...

PM’s commitment to green targets questioned as top climate adviser calls decision ‘absolutely indefensible’Opening a new coalmine when the world stands on the brink of climate catastrophe is “absolutely indefensible”, in the words of the UK government’s independent climate adviser, the chair of the Climate Change Committee and the former Conservative minister Lord Deben.The £165m mine in Cumbria will produce coking coal for steelmaking, which the government has said will still be needed, even though steelmakers must move to low-carbon production in the next 13 years. Two of the UK’s existing steel companies have rejected the new coal, which means much of it will be exported to a world already awash with fossil fuels. Continue reading...

Some argue it’s a low-carbon alternative to importing coal, but others say Woodhouse Colliery would damage UK’s climate reputationA new coalmine, the Woodhouse Colliery, has been proposed at a site near Whitehaven in Cumbria, with £165m investment and a production capacity of about 2.8m tonnes of coal a year. The proposal has been mooted for more than two years. Continue reading...

Michael Gove greenlights £165m project that will produce estimated 400,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a yearThe UK will build its first new coalmine for three decades at Whitehaven in Cumbria, despite objections locally, across the UK and from around the world.Michael Gove, the levelling-up secretary, gave the green light for the project on Wednesday, paving the way for an estimated investment of £165m that will create about 500 new jobs in the region and produce 2.8m tonnes of coking coal a year, largely for steelmaking. Continue reading...

Cut-price deals at Aldi, Lidl and Sainsbury’s come despite concerns over rising costs for UK farmersAldi, Lidl and Sainsbury’s have kicked off the annual price battle on Christmas vegetables, offering bags of sprouts, carrots, parsnips and potatoes for just 19p.The price deals, which include swedes and cabbages at 19p each, come despite concerns about rising costs for farmers in the UK amid inflation on labour, fertiliser and fuel for tractors and other vehicles. Continue reading...

Star Trek prepared me to feel a connection with the universe. Instead, I felt terrible grief for our planet. At Cop15, our leaders must negotiate to protect itLast year, at the age of 90, I had a life-changing experience. I went to space, after decades of playing a science-fiction character who was exploring the universe and building connections with many diverse life forms and cultures. I thought I would experience a similar feeling: a feeling of deep connection with the immensity around us, a deep call for endless exploration. A call to indeed boldly go where no one had gone before.I was absolutely wrong. As I explained in my latest book, what I felt was totally different. I knew that many before me had experienced a greater sense of care while contemplating our planet from above, because they were struck by the apparent fragility of this suspended blue marble. I felt that too. But the strongest feeling, dominating everything else by far, was the deepest grief that I had ever experienced. Continue reading...

Australian Security Leaders Climate Group says measures needed to contain climate change will be disruptive, but better than ‘existential threat’ of the alternative

Pressure is increasing on world leaders to make progress at the UN biodiversity summit – but the pile of unfinished tasks is mountingAll procrastinators know the feeling: an enormous task is not close to being finished, time is slipping away and the pressure to act has become impossible to ignore. But despite the mounting unease, there is still not yet enough pressure to take action, and it is unclear if there ever will be.At the Palais des congrès de Montréal convention centre at Cop15, after more than two years of delays, there is a sense that governments tasked with agreeing this decade’s targets for protecting life on Earth are in just such a situation. Continue reading...

Fighting the climate emergency is only one side of the story. Science tells us we must tackle the biodiversity crisis at the same time as addressing global heating to save the planet from further catastrophe.Both crises centre on carbon. Burning carbon in the form of fossil fuels has led to global heating, and that needs to stop, but biodiversity – nature – is also built on carbon and it can be part of the solution.The Age of Extinction reporter Phoebe Weston explains how the Cop15 summit in Montreal is a once in a decade chance to stop the loss of biodiversity and bend the curve to help save Earth.

Committee on Climate Change says nation is highly likely to miss 2030 carbon reduction goals because of lack of plans to reach themNicola Sturgeon has been warned Scotland’s highly ambitious climate targets are “in danger of being meaningless” because her government still has no clear plan to meet them.The UK Committee on Climate Change (CCC), an official advisory body, said the Scottish government would almost certainly miss its world-leading carbon reduction targets for 2030 by a substantial margin, despite Sturgeon’s repeated promises of radical action on the climate.Despite pledging to stop the sales of all petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030, sales of electric cars in Scotland had fallen behind England.Scotland’s plans to rapidly decarbonise heating in buildings “were still wholly inadequate” despite recent funding increases.Scottish ministers were failing to tackle high levels of meat and dairy consumption, key causes of CO emissions from farming.Scotland was meeting only half its target to restore 20,000 hectares (50,000 acres) of peatland a year.Scottish ministers were failing to work collaboratively with other UK governments on shared climate strategies. Continue reading...

Moama’s council forced to reassure residents water is filtered and safe to drink after complaints over colour on social media

Leaders announce partnership to reduce global dependence on Russian energyJoe Biden has agreed a deal to ramp up gas exports from the US to the UK as part of a joint effort to cut bills and limit Russia’s impact on western energy supplies.Sunak and Biden announced an “energy security and affordability partnership” and set up a joint action group, led by Westminster and White House officials, with the aim of reducing global dependence on Russian energy. Continue reading...

The flight takes less than one hour and yet there are few environmentally friendly alternativesIf a flight is so short you don’t have time to finish your complimentary cheese and biscuits before having your rubbish whisked away for landing, chances are there’s a more environmentally friendly and convenient way of getting to where you’re going.The French government’s recent decision to ban short-haul domestic flights between cities that are connected by a train or bus trip of less than two and a half hours has sparked some energetic debate this week about whether Australia could follow the French in moving away from short-haul flights. Continue reading...

António Guterres calls for end to destruction of nature as Canada pushes proposal to protect 30% of EarthHumanity has become a weapon of mass extinction and governments must end the “orgy of destruction”, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, has said at the beginning of the biodiversity Cop15.“We are out of harmony with nature. In fact, we are playing an entirely different song. Around the world, for hundreds of years, we have conducted a cacophony of chaos, played with instruments of destruction. Deforestation and desertification are creating wastelands of once-thriving ecosystems,” he said. Continue reading...

Labour’s motion calling on the government to release all documents and advice relating to contracts awarded to PPE Medpro has also now passedLabour received £4.7m in donations between July and September, more than any other party, PA Media reports. PA says:The sum received by Labour is significantly greater than that donated to the Conservatives, which, according to Electoral Commission data, received £2.9m over the same period.The Liberal Democrats recorded about £1.7m, according to returns submitted to the Electoral Commission, with more than £11m in total donated to 19 separate UK political parties.Lynch, the RMT general secretary, said the government was to blame for not allowing the train companies to make an offer acceptable to his members. He said:The government are running the playbook and the strategy for the railway companies and directing what is going on. They have held back even these paltry offers to the last minute.He claimed the rail companies were not losing out from strike action, because they were subsidised by the government, and he described this system as “perverse and corrupt”. He explained:They get indemnified for every day of strike action. They are paid the money that they would otherwise have lost, and the only people that lose are my members who lose their wages and the public and these businesses in hospitality who lose their income as well, while the people I negotiate with lose no money whatsoever.It is the most perverse and corrupt system we have ever seen in British business where those people that are conducting the dispute make no losses whatsoever and the taxpayer subsidises those people by money given directly from the DfT [Department for Transport].He said the timing of the latest strikes was “unfortunate”, but he claimed the union was forced to act. He said:We have to respond to what the companies are doing, and they’re doing that very deliberately. They’re seeking to ratchet up the dispute.He accepted that, although the additional strikes were over Christmas, when rail services were very minimal anyway, they would create further disruption for passengers. In the past Lynch had said the RMT wanted to avoid strike action over Christmas.He defended the RMT’s decision to object to a move to driver-only trains. Driver-only operation was “less safe”, he said. Women and disabled passengers wanted to see guards on trains, he said, because they felt that was safer and more welcoming. When the presenter, Justin Webb, put it to Lynch that driver-only trains still had another member of staff on board, and that they just did not have a staff member operating the doors, Lynch said that was wrong. He said most of these services did not have anyone else on board, apart from the driver. Continue reading...

The environment secretary tells MPs it is ‘not the role of government to provide free food’ or to intervene in marketsThe government has ruled out making any intervention in the market to help farmers or consumers with high food prices, the environment secretary, Thérèse Coffey, has said.Food prices have soared in the past year, in part owing to higher input prices such as energy, fertiliser and animal feed. Last month, food price inflation hit a fresh high of 12.4%, with poorer households hit hardest. Continue reading...

Australians also searched for ‘floods’ and ‘La Niña’ more than any other country in the world

Deal reached that paves way for communities in England to authorise projects without unanimous support

Expected approval for coalmine opening could provoke backlash from party’s many opposing voicesMichael Gove could green light the first UK coalmine in a generation as soon as Wednesday, in a move likely to open up new dividing lines among Conservatives.A number of high-profile Tories have previously spoken out against the plans for a new mine outside Whitehaven in Cumbria, including former cabinet ministers Kwasi Kwarteng, Alok Sharma, Robert Buckland and Tobias Ellwood. Continue reading...

Activists and experts say green light for coal would show UK’s ‘posturing, double standards and broken promises’For the UK to open a new coalmine would be “hypocritical”, would “send the wrong message”, and makes “a mockery” of climate action, developing country activists and experts involved in global climate negotiations have said.A decision on whether to go ahead with a new coalmine in Cumbria is expected from the UK government as soon as Wednesday. Continue reading...

Just Stop Oil’s Hannah Hunt and Eden Lazarus found guilty after glueing themselves to Constable’s The Hay WainTwo climate protesters have been ordered to compensate the National Gallery after they were found guilty of causing more than £1,000 of damage to the Hay Wain, probably John Constable’s best-known painting.In July Just Stop Oil supporters Hannah Hunt, 23, and Eden Lazarus, 22, taped printed posters of a dystopian reimagining of the landscape over its canvas, before glueing their hands to its gilt frame. Continue reading...

Plans to redevelop 72 Upper Ground ignore material and climate impact, detractors sayDevelopers have been urged to “stop demolishing youthful concrete towers at whim” on the opening day of a planning inquiry which will examine plans to replace ITV’s former headquarters on London’s South Bank with a £400m office complex.Objectors say the plans for 72 Upper Ground, nicknamed “the Slab”, will generate more carbon emissions in its construction than if the 4,000 officer workers it is designed to house were to drive in from Surrey for 30 years. Continue reading...

Deutsche Bahn passengers will be able to opt for reusable cups, plates and bowls for their food and drink from next yearDeutsche Bahn passengers will be able to get their coffee in a porcelain cup from next year, the German rail operator has announced, as it seeks to cut waste.Travellers would be able to choose a “high-quality porcelain or glass” option when ordering food and drink on its intercity and high-speed services, the company said in a statement. Continue reading...

Modelled on the Climate Council, the body says it will be a ‘strong and trusted voice’ backed by science including First People’s knowledge

‘Reduce, reuse, recycle’ ethos has long been part of Alice Clanachan’s life, but now she avoids creating waste in any form

Treasury had initially predicted the new system would increase revenue by $765m this financial year

Regulator calls spending on network improvements ‘extremely disappointing’ after companies undershot budgetsOfwat has criticised water companies for failing to invest enough in treatment plants to stop the overuse of raw sewage discharges.The water regulator for England and Wales said on Tuesday that water and wastewater companies were falling behind on their investment plans, leaving promised service improvements behind schedule or undelivered. Continue reading...

Cattle on Ireland’s most south-westerly island face starvation and humans extreme isolation if aerial link does not run, warns farmerIf Ireland’s only island cable car is not quickly repaired, cattle on the Dursey face starvation and humans may abandon it for the first time in 420 years, locals have warned.Martin Sheehan, a third-generation farmer on Dursey, delivered the stark warning this week after a delay in fixing the cable car put a question mark over the habitability of Ireland’s most south-westerly island. Continue reading...

Nature is under threat as never before, but what does that actually mean? We explain what is at stake – and why action at Cop15 is more crucial than everDespite humanity’s many technological advances, we can only manage a well-informed guess at the true extent of life on Earth: 8.7 million species, according to the most commonly cited figure, with other estimates ranging between 5.3 million and one trillion.There is greater certainty about the decline of biodiversity that human behaviour is driving, with species dying off as much as 1,000 times more frequently than before the arrival of humans 60m years ago, as one study suggests. Continue reading...

Iata director general Willie Walsh calls for greater production of sustainable aviation fuelAirline passengers face higher ticket prices as the industry moves towards its target of reducing emissions to net zero by 2050, the head of a global trade association said on Tuesday.Willie Walsh, the director general of the International Air Transport Association, which includes most of the world’s big airlines, called for swifter action in Europe to drive up scarce production of greener sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). Continue reading...