Sadiq Khan to press on with plans for ultra-low emission zone despite challenge being allowed to proceedA legal challenge to the expansion of London’s ultra-low emission zone will be heard in the high court later this year, after a judgment permitted councils to proceed.The city’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, vowed to press on regardless with plans to extend the Ulez, which he has argued is needed to tackle toxic air that is responsible for thousands of premature deaths a year. Continue reading...

Analysis suggests government policies would achieve reduction less than half target of 30% by 2030The UK is still well off track on meeting its international commitments to cut methane emissions, analysis has shown, despite moves to stop cows from belching out so much of it.Ministers unveiled a host of initiatives to reduce UK greenhouse gas emissions in the government’s “green day” of energy announcements more than a week ago, including plans to introduce methane-suppressing feed for livestock from 2025, and to stop biodegradable waste going to landfill from 2028. Continue reading...

Proposal would require two of every three new vehicles sold in US to be electric by 2032The Biden administration on Wednesday proposed strict new automobile pollution limits that would require that all-electric vehicles account for as many as two of every three new vehicles sold in the US by 2032 in a plan that would transform the US auto industry.Under the proposed regulation, released by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), greenhouse gas emissions for the 2027 through 2032 model years for passenger vehicles would be limited to even stricter levels than the auto industry agreed to in 2021. Continue reading...

New Mexico’s ancient water systems nurtured its rural farmlands through climate change. But after last year’s wildfires, there’s little time left to save themJimmy Sanchez knows that making things grow during a megadrought isn’t impossible – it just requires a bit of creativity.In 1882, his ancestors constructed a 24-mile-long ditch to bring water from headwaters in the nearby mountains to the bone-dry foothills where they lived in Holman, New Mexico, allowing their village to sustain fruit, vegetables, and livestock. Continue reading...

Greenpeace report finds heavy machinery made by South Korean firm contributing to destruction of Brazilian rainforestHyundai is being urged to prevent its heavy machinery products from being used in illegal mining and environmental destruction in the Brazilian Amazon.A report published by Greenpeace on Wednesday found the South Korean conglomerate’s excavators and other heavy machinery are precipitating the destruction of the rainforest and putting the survival of Indigenous populations at risk. Continue reading...

Lily D’Ambrosio says less than a quarter of the energy needed will come from the SEC and urges industry to produce remaining 20.5GW

Hybrid vehicle pollution and van traffic update adds 26 megatonnes of carbon emissions to Department for Transport decarbonisation planThe UK’s net zero targets will be missed because of a planned “road-building spree” by the Department for Transport, campaigners have said.Officials had to edit the department’s “transport decarbonisation plan” to add 26 megatonnes of carbon emissions because of an oversight regarding polluting hybrid vehicles, and projections for an increase in van traffic. Continue reading...

The number of cows has nearly doubled in a generation, and the resulting fertiliser and irrigation needs are having a devastating impactIn tourism adverts and on movie screens, Aotearoa has sold its pristine landscapes, churning alpine waterfalls and bright jade-braided rivers to the world, under the tagline “100% pure New Zealand”.A new report, however, reveals the dire state of many of the country’s fresh waterways: contaminated by thousands of sewage overflows, flooded with nutrient pollution, blooming with toxic algae, risking public health and rendered unswimmable to the communities that have lived by them for years. Continue reading...

Scientists attribute the ‘unprecedented’ visibility of the water body to a boom in the population of zooplanktonLake Tahoe has attained a clarity that scientists haven’t seen in 40 years – and it’s all because of a microscopic animal acting as a “natural cleanup crew” to restore the clear blue waters.On Monday, researchers from the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center (TERC) released their annual report showing that the lake’s average visibility in 2022 was at 71.7ft – compared with 61ft in 2021 – which was largely due to a spike in clarity in the last five months of the year. Continue reading...

Radical rise in spending on trains, trams and buses needed to cut car use, reports body representing unions in England and WalesMinisters have been urged to ramp up spending on public transport in England and Wales to tackle the climate emergency, and to unlock a £50bn a year boost to the economy, in a report by the Trades Union Congress (TUC).The report released by the TUC, a federation representing 48 unions, argues for a radical increase in investment – calling for £18bn more a year to be spent on operating trains, trams and buses to help cut car use by 20%, improve quality of life and boost the UK economy. Continue reading...

Climate researchers say magnitude of predicted weather event uncertain but if an extreme El Niño occurs ‘we’ll need to buckle up’

Nine new species of fish are now on the brink of extinction, with scientists calling for urgent action to control invasive freshwater species

SSE’s Seagreen project will deliver enough energy to power more than 1.6 million homesThe world’s deepest offshore wind turbine has been installed almost 17 miles off the coast of Angus as part of Scotland’s biggest offshore windfarm.The Scottish energy company SSE installed the 2,000-tonne turbine foundation at a depth of more than 58 metres (192ft) in the early hours of Easter Sunday as part of the £3bn Seagreen offshore windfarm, which it is developing in partnership with the French oil supermajor Total. Continue reading...

United Utilities revelation prompts calls for water firms to be taxed to extent they cannot pay huge sums to CEOsThe chief executive of the UK’s most polluting water company made £1.4m from the sale of shares in the business before his retirement, the Guardian can reveal.Politicians have called for water companies to be taxed to the extent that they cannot pay huge sums to CEOs after it was revealed that Steve Mogford of United Utilities retired on 31 March and in the months beforehand sold his shares for just under £1.4m. Continue reading...

Campaigners say potential energy plan would leave consumers bearing cost of building hydrogen economyBlending hydrogen into the UK’s gas heating systems could raise consumer bills by almost £200 for an average household, analysis suggests.The blending of natural gas with about 20% hydrogen, for use in home heating systems, is one of the key recommendations by the government’s hydrogen champion, Jane Toogood, in a report to ministers on how to produce and use hydrogen in the UK. Continue reading...

Agency sued after ProPublica and the Guardian revealed the EPA gave a Chevron refinery approval for a fuel that could leave people nearby with a one-in-four lifetime risk of cancer

Nests placed close to where three young birds have been spotted with intention of encouraging them to reproduceTwo artificial eyries have been placed high in the trees on a private estate in southern Scotland to encourage translocated golden eagles to breed in the region.Expert climbers erected the huge nests in hard-to-reach locations on the Duke of Northumberland’s Burncastle estate, close to where three young satellite-tagged golden eagles have been spotted. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Satellite analysis shows toxic blackwater flowed into the Darling-Baaka River via the Wetherell outlet two days before the deaths

Exclusive: funding requests, uncertain responsibilities and a failure to secure long-term contracts has critics asking if the fossil fuel-based venture is still a good deal

Pools and well-watered gardens at least as damaging as climate emergency or population growthThe swimming pools, well-watered gardens and clean cars of the rich are driving water crises in cities at least as much as the climate emergency or population growth, according to an analysis.The researchers said the vast difference in water use between rich and poor citizens had been largely overlooked in seeking solutions to water shortages, with the focus instead on attempts to increase supply and higher prices for water. They said the only way to protect water supplies was by redistributing water resources more equally. Continue reading...

Twin studies reveal that ‘acceleration’ of sea-level rise under way, leaving southern US cities in even greater perilCoastal cities in the southern US, including Miami, Houston and New Orleans, are in even greater peril from sea-level rise than scientists already feared, according to new analysis.What experts are calling a dramatic surge in ocean levels has taken place along the US south-eastern and Gulf of Mexico coastline since 2010, one study suggests, an increase of almost 5in (12.7cm). Continue reading...

They make up 75% of the animal kingdom, yet wildlife film-makers routinely overlook bugsWhile running a biodiversity workshop at a local primary school, Kate Howlett, a zoologist, encouraged children to turn over the bricks and logs at the edges of their playing field to see what was living underneath.That’s when one child asked her if she had come to their school early that morning to plant the woodlice for them to find. Even after insisting that the bugs were living there all along, the suspicious pupils were reluctant to believe her. Continue reading...

At least two dozen activists in Indigenous and rural areas murdered, disappeared and jailed in wave of attacksA wave of attacks against environmental defenders has left Indigenous and rural communities across Mexico and Central America reeling amid a lack of government protection and widespread impunity.At least two dozen defenders have been murdered, disappeared and jailed across the region so far this year, according to research by the Guardian. On Wednesday, the Indigenous rights and anti-mining activist Eustacio Alcalá Díaz was found dead in Michoacán, Mexico, three days after he was abducted by armed men while traveling with Catholic missionaries. Continue reading...

Advocates warn plants like the latest addition to the Texas complex generate hazardous pollutants and provide cover for oil giants to produce new plastic productsExxonMobil just launched one of the largest chemical recycling plants in North America – but environmental advocates say the technology is a dangerous distraction from the need to reduce plastic production.On the surface, the latest addition to ExxonMobil’s giant petrochemical refinery complex in Baytown, Texas, sounds like it could be a good thing: An “advanced recycling” facility capable of breaking down 36,000 metric tons of hard-to-recycle plastic each year. But plastic waste advocates warn that plants like it do little actual recycling, and instead generate hazardous pollutants while providing cover for oil giants to keep producing millions of tons of new plastic products each year. Continue reading...

The 900 residents of the Manitoba town have learned to share their streets on the edge of the Arctic with the huge animals and the eager tourists who come to see themWords and photographs by Zed NelsonPerched on the southern edge of the Arctic on the shores of Hudson Bay, residents of the Canadian town of Churchill share their streets with the world’s largest land carnivore. Their regular encounters with polar bears have earned Churchill the nickname “Polar bear capital of the world”.Sparring polar bears on the Hudson Bay shore near Churchill, Manitoba. The bears congregate here every year while waiting for the sea to freeze over so they can resume hunting seals. Photographs by Zed Nelson / Copyright © not to be reproduced without permission Continue reading...

Dozens of storage sites found across Australia but estimated amount of plastic reportedly falls from 12,350 tonnes to 11,000

Bathing waters in Rutland, Devon and Suffolk will be monitored for water quality regularlyWild swimming fans will be able to enjoy access to four new sites in the UK that are being designated as bathing waters ahead of summer, the government has announced.The sites in Rutland, Devon and Suffolk will receive bathing water status from next month, meaning they will soon benefit from regular water-quality monitoring. Continue reading...

Large numbers of cetaceans are dying from lethal collisions with vessels, even in protected areas. Now science may provide the means to protect themJanie Wray could tell there was something horribly wrong from the way her colleague gasped. They were on a research station off the coast of British Columbia and Wray’s colleague was watching live drone footage through a pair of goggles. “She just went, oh my God,” says Wray.She had spotted a humpback whale on its migration south, swimming without the use of its tail. Wray and her colleagues at BC Whales crowded around a computer screen to watch the footage. “Immediately, we all knew that we had a whale that most likely had a broken back,” she says. It was almost certainly the result of a ship strike. Later, they discovered it was a whale they knew: Moon. Continue reading...

Exclusive: National Energy Action says progress on energy efficiency is too slow and not well targeted at fuel-poor householdsThe government’s home insulation scheme would take 190 years to upgrade the energy efficiency of the UK’s draughty housing stock, and 300 years to meet the government’s own targets to reduce fuel poverty, according to industry calculations.Critics of the Great British Insulation Scheme, which aims to insulate 300,000 homes a year over the next three years, have raised concerns that the plan does not go far enough to reach the 19m UK homes that need better insulation. Continue reading...

Health and Safety Executive also issued several notices related to worker safety and explosive substances at JV EnergenA green energy company set up by King Charles was investigated for numerous health and safety breaches after the unauthorised leak of more than 1,000 tonnes of global-heating gases.Methane, CO and traces of the toxic gas hydrogen sulphide were released after a gas-holder at the plant split open in 2020. The incident, which lasted for 38 days, was described as “significant” by the Environment Agency. Continue reading...

The 188-year-old coastguard’s tower in Cornwall is to be moved 100m inland to save it from coastal erosionPerched on an exposed clifftop above the Atlantic, which gnaws ominously at the sandstone and shale foundations below, Bude storm tower in Cornwall has helped to save many mariners from strife over the past two centuries. But now this cherished coastguard’s lookout is to be rescued itself.The 188-year-old Grade II-listed tower at Compass Point, affectionately known as the Pepperpot, will be carefully deconstructed and rebuilt 100 metres inland later this month to avoid its otherwise inevitable loss over the cliffs to coastal erosion. Continue reading...

Councillors and residents hope to limit the number of daytrippers arriving by boat to preserve the city’s streets and characterThe ships, at times dwarfing the average apartment building, begin lumbering into Barcelona while much of the city is still asleep. Stretching as long as five buses, some come to embark or disembark passengers, while others disgorge thousands of daytrippers keen to glimpse the city’s modernist architecture and stroll the narrow streets of the gothic quarter.It’s a scene that plays out daily in Barcelona – much to the chagrin of some local officials. Last Monday, five cruise ships were slated to arrive; this Friday, on 14 April, eight are expected. Continue reading...

The national park is open again but intense storms mean the specter of climate crisis is more evident than everIt’s been a winter few in Yosemite valley will ever forget.After wildfires left the national park’s dramatic views shrouded in smoke over the summer, winter brought a series of historic storms that left the region inundated with snow. The deluge buried homes, cars and fire hydrants, chewed into stretches of winding mountain roads and downed trees along the park’s slopes. Continue reading...

Distressed mammal was reported at lunchtime on Friday, but marine rescue service arrived too late to save itA sperm whale is feared to have died after it washed up on the Lincolnshire coast.British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) was called at about 12.15pm on Good Friday to help with a “large stranded whale” on the beach at Cleethorpes. The charity said the whale had been spotted “upright in the water” at about midday, but by the time it reached the beach, it was stranded on its side. Continue reading...

Reservoirs whose water levels had plummeted during punishing drought have recovered – but officials warn of ‘weather whiplash’Water levels fell so low in key reservoirs during the depth of California’s drought that boat docks sat on dry, cracked land and cars drove into the center of what should have been Folsom Lake.Those scenes are no more after a series of powerful storms dumped record amounts of rain and snow across California, replenishing reservoirs and bringing an end – mostly – to the state’s three-year drought. Continue reading...

New law – condemned as ‘illegitimate giveaway to the oil and gas industry’ – requires state parks to be leased to interested partiesEnvironmental groups have launched a last-minute effort to halt an extraordinary new law in Ohio that requires government agencies to lease state parks and other public state lands to the oil and gas industry.A temporary injunction filed on Thursday seeks to put the brakes on legislation that requires state parks to be leased for fracking and which redefines the potent greenhouse gas methane as “green energy”. The law was due to go into effect on 7 April, but the court has not yet responded to the injunction. Continue reading...

Critics say a proposal to dispose of salt from waste brine by burying it in lined landfill is ‘not a long-term solution’

Increasing number of trees draw large crowds as National Trust plans 4m blossoming trees across EnglandTourists have long travelled to Japan to see its famous cherry blossom in spring.But the UK could soon have its own industry as the increasing number of the trees in the country draw large crowds each year when in bloom. Continue reading...

Data from 100,000 US Major League games reveals higher temperatures lead to more balls hit out of parkSteroids once gave many of baseball’s sluggers a power boost. Now research suggests that today’s home run hitters are seeing their shots turbocharged by the climate crisis.A study by researchers at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire used data from 100,000 Major League Baseball games and 220,000 individually hit balls to show that higher temperatures increase the number of balls hit out of the park. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Sultan Al Jaber aims to use UN talks to set out how private sector can limit greenhouse gas emissionsThe world needs a “business mindset” to tackle the climate crisis, the president of the next UN climate summit has said.Sultan Al Jaber, the president-designate of the Cop28 summit to be hosted in the United Arab Emirates later this year, said he aimed to use the UN talks to set out how the private sector can limit greenhouse gas emissions and give businesses and governments a clear set of tasks and targets. Continue reading...

Research found that ‘forever chemicals’ had ‘no practical benefit’ in repelling water and stains as compared with untreated fabricA new peer-reviewed study calls into question how well PFAS-based products repel water and stains in furniture, shoes, clothing, carpeting, outdoor gear and other consumer goods made of fabric.Most water and stain repellents applied to fabrics worldwide use toxic PFAS as a main ingredient, and though the controversial chemicals are in thousands of products, water and stain repellency are two of their main consumer functions. Continue reading...

Leaks were contained and posed no danger, official reports say, but past disasters continue to cause fears of power sourceIn December, Janica Jammes started a microgreens business in the basement of her home in Big Lake, Minnesota, just across the river from Xcel Energy’s nuclear plant in Monticello.At least once each day, she uses water from her well to nourish the plant trays. She delivers her product to customers within a 10-mile radius and says the business has been a success. Continue reading...

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs, including a rare leopard, very deep-swimming fish and baby ducks Continue reading...

Having already discovered the presumed extinct great fox-spider, Mike Waite goes hunting on MoD land armed with a pair of his wife’s tights, an old medicine syringe and plastic cupsAs a spider-hunting specialist, Mike Waite’s artillery of choice is a pooter. It’s a homemade sucking contraption made from his daughter’s old Calpol syringe and a pair of his wife’s tights (“I like to think they were old ones”), which he uses as a filter so he doesn’t inhale any spiders.I’m with Waite, from Surrey Wildlife Trust, on Brentmoor Heath, which is partly owned by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and managed by the trust. It sounds like New Year’s Eve, with continuous bangs from the shooting range. We’re in the buffer zone, on lowland heathland, where the public are allowed and spiders are just waking up from their winter slumber. We see a wolf spider, a gorilla jumping spider, and a raft spider (which recently featured on David Attenborough’s Wild Isles) all in a single morning. Continue reading...

Revenue from mining key metal used in EV batteries to triple by 2027-28 while thermal coal exports set to fall by more than 70%

Swedish prosecutor casts doubt over theories that independent group was responsible for pipeline blastsThe Swedish prosecutor investigating the Nord Stream sabotage attack has said the “clear main scenario” was that a state-sponsored group had been involved, seemingly casting doubt over theories that posited an independent group was responsible for the pipeline blasts.Mats Ljungqvist told Reuters on Thursday that though a non-state-backed plot was still theoretically possible, the type of explosive used in the bombings ruled out a “large portion of actors”. Continue reading...

Noaa report shows rapid increase in atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxideRecord temperatures, devastating floods and superstorms are causing death and destruction across the planet but humans are failing to cut greenhouse gas emissions fueling the climate emergency, new US data shows.Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide (CO), methane and nitrous oxide – the greenhouse gases emitted by human activity that are the most significant contributors to global heating – continued to increase rapidly during 2022, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa). Continue reading...

Government’s UKEF criticised for ‘locking us all into more carbon emissions for decades to come’ with assistance for the sectorA UK government agency has financially supported the high-carbon aviation industry with billions of pounds since the Paris climate agreement was adopted, it can be revealed.The effective subsidy for new airports, aircraft and maintenance comes despite the agency believing the oil-dependent sector is unlikely to begin cutting emissions “materially” before the next decade. Continue reading...

Troy, New York, has yet to remove a single lead pipe five years after getting the money. What went wrong?In 2018, almost 30 cities across New York state received federal money to carry out a specific, urgent task: removing lead service lines that poison drinking water.The city of Troy – which sits across the Hudson River and just north of Albany – was among them, receiving $500,000. But five years later, city leaders have failed to spend a single dollar of that money, and have yet to remove a single lead pipe. Continue reading...

Tulare Lake was drained a century ago. Now locals fear flooding as agencies rush in sandbags and rebuild leveesKayode Kadara is worried about the rising waters near his home. Just a few months ago, this landscape in California’s Central Valley was a dry basin filled with pistachio and almond groves.Then a winter of historic rain and snow brought Tulare Lake – a huge freshwater body drained a century ago by agricultural canals – rushing back from the dead. Workers from state agencies have brought sandbags in by helicopter, rebuilt levees and constructed walls to hold the deluge back. Continue reading...