Environment | The Guardian

Wealthy landowner Alexander Darwall wins case against national park after arguing right to pitch tent on moors did not exist

Some operators weigh up weekend-only opening as soaring energy prices remain stubbornly highThe bright illuminations and chaotic sounds of amusement arcades are an essential part of the British seaside experience, but the lights could soon start going out as owners warn of eye-watering energy bill increases of up to 1,000%.The jump in costs driven by soaring wholesale gas prices has had a severe impact on a sector that has barely recovered from Covid restrictions, leaving many operators looking at slashing their opening hours or closing completely. Continue reading...

Carbon credits are about to play a central role in Australia’s climate responseThere are three issues that will determine whether the major climate announcement the Albanese government made this week can deliver the transformational change Australia needs.The details can be mind-numbing, but a quick summary for those still enjoying a summer break: on Monday the climate change minister, Chris Bowen, released a review into Australia’s carbon credit system. It followed expert allegations the scheme is “largely a sham” as it has failed to deliver real cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Continue reading...

A luxury cruise has been hailed as the start of a new age of Indian tourism. But conservationists fear the impact of increased river traffic and pollutionThe Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, has officially launched the “world’s longest river cruise” from the city of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. The luxury voyage will last 51 days, travelling 3,200km via Dhaka in Bangladesh to Dibrugarh in Assam, crossing 27 river systems.The three-deck MV Ganga Vilas, with 18 suites, is the latest venture in a trend for cruise tourism in India being promoted by the government. Modi hailed the cruise industry on the Ganges as a “landmark moment”, which will herald a new age of tourism in India. Continue reading...

Aesthetics and social inequity are cause for concern as locals grapple with proposals to protect cities from climate changeThere were more than a few issues with a recent federal plan to wall Miami off from the dangers of climate change.The $5bn proposal involved building a massive concrete seawall in the fragile marine ecosystem of Biscayne Bay. It included using taxpayer money to elevate private waterfront mansions, while constructing a wall through the middle of downtown and sometimes low-income neighborhoods. Continue reading...

It’s been very wet in San Francisco and parts of New Zealand, while extreme cold has swept across RussiaOver the past couple of weeks, California has seen the effects of a persistent atmospheric river bringing in constant spells of rain from the Pacific across the state. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and National Weather Service (NWS) have released rainfall totals for some areas of California over the course of 16 days from 26 December 2022 through to 11 January 2023. Over the 16-day period downtown San Francisco received 345mm and in nearby Oakland totals reached 327.7mm, breaking their 16-day rainfall record. The significance of the flooding is only increased by having had extremely dry soils through the summer and autumn with severe droughts, therefore preventing soils from easily soaking up the intense rainfall that has occurred over recent weeks.Tropical Cyclone Hale affected the North Island of New Zealand on 9-12 January. Severe thunderstorms brought 156.5mm to Hikuwai in Gisborne in the space of 12 hours, and more than 100mm to other places around Gisborne in the same period. Over the course of 18 hours, 219mm was recorded at Pinnacles in the Coromandel ranges and in Whitianga aerodrome on 10 January, making it the fifth wettest January day on record. Continue reading...

Lobbying industry flexed muscle to ensure bills that aimed to set stricter standards on PFAS compounds went nowhereAll legislation aimed at regulating toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” died in the Democratic-controlled US Congress last session as companies flexed their lobbying muscle and bills did not gain enough Republican support to overcome a Senate filibuster.The failure comes after public health advocates and Democratic lawmakers expressed optimism at the legislative session’s outset that bills that would protect the public from dangerous exposure to the chemicals could gain sufficient bipartisan support. Continue reading...

Campaigners warn ‘breathtaking conflict of interest’ could jeopardise climate negotiating processSultan Al Jaber, the government minister for United Arab Emirates who will preside over this year’s crucial UN climate talks, will retain his roles as head of the country’s oil company and sustainable energy businesses, UAE has confirmed.Campaigners have been angered by the decision, revealed by the Guardian on Wednesday and confirmed on Thursday by the UAE government, which they see as a clear conflict of interest, with some likening it to putting a tobacco company head in charge of an anti-smoking treaty, and warning it could jeopardise the negotiating process and hasten climate breakdown. Continue reading...

The best of this week’s wildlife pictures, including grazing goats, a recovering vulture and relaxing monkeys Continue reading...

Climate campaigners accuse leaders of hypocrisy as flights emit as much CO in a week as 350,000 carsPrivate jet emissions quadrupled as 1,040 planes flew in and out of airports serving Davos during the 2022 World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting.Climate campaigners accused the rich and powerful of hypocrisy in flying in on private jets to a conference discussing climate breakdown. Continue reading...

Rising numbers of people are taking air pollution measurements to push authorities to take actionMore and more people are making their own air pollution measurements and using these to press for action from national and local governments.Last year Mark Tebbutt installed Chorley’s seventh air pollution monitor. Since 2013 Tebbutt, his family and friends have been buying and operating their own air pollution instruments. These are mounted on garden fences and on the sides of houses across the Lancashire town. You can find their data online alongside those from more than 30,000 citizen scientists around the world. Continue reading...

Authorities to begin release of a million tonnes of water from stricken nuclear plant after treatment to remove most radioactive materialThe controversial release of more than a million tonnes of water from the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant will begin in the northern spring or summer, Japan’s government has said – a move that has sparked anger among local fishing communities and countries in the region.The decision comes more than two years after the government approved the release of the water, which will be treated to remove most radioactive materials but will still contain tritium, a naturally occurring radioactive form of hydrogen that is technically difficult to separate from water. Continue reading...

Traditional lawn has been under fire for years because of its lack of biodiversity and voracious appetite for fertiliser, herbicides and mowingDig up your “imperial” lawn and replant it with trees to combat the climate crisis, researchers have urged, after the latest study to lay bare the emissions cost of maintaining that pleasant, green patch.If a third of the world’s city lawns were planted with trees, more than a gigatonne of carbon could be removed from the atmosphere over two decades, researchers from Auckland University of Technology found. The problem is not the grass itself, but the mowing, fertilisation and irrigation required. Continue reading...

Roughly 46% of state remains categorized in ‘severe drought’, a sharp shift from more than 71% just last weekA weeks-long onslaught of heavy rain has made a notable dent in California’s extreme drought, new data shows, even as the state braces for another round of punishing storms with no reprieve in sight until next week.The storms have killed at least 18 people so far, with more fatalities likely to be confirmed in the coming days. The dramatic increase in precipitation has raised sunken reservoirs and boosted the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada range, putting the state in a much better position to weather warm and dry days that probably lie ahead. Continue reading...

Oil company drove some of the leading science of the era only to publicly dismiss global heatingThe oil giant Exxon privately “predicted global warming correctly and skilfully” only to then spend decades publicly rubbishing such science in order to protect its core business, new research has found.A trove of internal documents and research papers has previously established that Exxon knew of the dangers of global heating from at least the 1970s, with other oil industry bodies knowing of the risk even earlier, from around the 1950s. They forcefully and successfully mobilized against the science to stymie any action to reduce fossil fuel use. Continue reading...

World Meteorological Organization data shows last year’s average temperature was 1.15C more than pre-industrial levelsThe relentless challenge of global heating has again been underscored by the tally of a passing year, with 2022 ranking as one of the warmest years ever recorded and the past eight years now collectively the hottest documented by modern science.Last year’s average temperature was about 1.15C warmer globally than levels seen in the pre-industrial era, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), with searing, record heat enveloping much of Europe and Asia, which both experienced their second hottest years on record. Europe had its warmest ever summer. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Lack of confidence in ‘inconsistent’ government is huge barrier to investors, finds Chris Skidmore• Why the review is a damning indictment of Tory governmentRishi Sunak has been criticised by his own net zero tsar, who says the UK risks missing its green targets due to inconsistent policies and lack of commitment to pledges.In his net zero review, seen by the Guardian, Chris Skidmore said a large barrier to renewable energy was a lack of confidence in the government, which has inconsistent policy support for green energy, with measures such as Sunak’s new electricity tax. Continue reading...

Female killer whale died after grounding itself north of Daytona Beach in first recorded instance in south-eastern USWildlife officials in Florida will conduct a necropsy to determine the cause of death of a 21ft (6.4-metre) orca, the first recorded instance of a killer whale beaching itself in the south-eastern US.The female orca was still alive when it came ashore in Flagler county, about 30 miles north of Daytona Beach, early on Wednesday, but died before rescuers arrived. Continue reading...

The row between Mike Cannon-Brookes and Andrew Forrest reveals the technical, economic and even geopolitical hurdles to completion

Piles of rubbish fill the space normally taken by summer visitors, with businesses facing the loss of a season’s earnings

Experts say while boom in invasive species is not good news for some native fish, there will be winners – including water birds

No one knows how many of these elusive and mysterious creatures are left but time is thought to be running out as artificial barriers fragment their habitatWildlife photographer Yukihiro Fukuda first began diving in the cool waters of the Hino River in south-western Japan 15 years ago. But it was not until six years later that he was able to capture the extraordinary image of a male Japanese giant salamander guarding hundreds of eggs, which gained him a place in the finals of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, staged by London’s Natural History Museum. The salamander was named Fukuda-kun in his honour.It was the first time the nesting behaviour of these mysterious amphibians, which it is thought could live up to 100 years and whose biology has changed little over the last 23m years, had been caught on camera. Continue reading...

Julien Féral also receives life hunting ban over death of Morgan Keane, as government tightens rules for sportA hunter who shot dead a French-British man he mistook for a wild boar has received a two-year suspended sentence and has been banned from hunting for life, days after the government outlined tighter rules for the sport.Julien Féral, 35, who had only possessed a French hunting licence for four months before the incident, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. He had told the court he mistook 25-year-old Morgan Keane for a wild boar when he shot him dead in south-west France in December 2020. Continue reading...

Local government survey shows 26 council sites already spilling waste on to cliffs and into seaHundreds of ageing landfill dumps on the coast of England containing plastics, chemicals and other waste are a ticking timebomb threatening to leach pollution on to beaches and into the sea, new research shows.The waste sites date back 100 years in some cases, and little is known about what has been dumped in them. Climate breakdown with associated rising sea levels and flooding are increasing the risk of a cocktail of pollutants entering the sea. Continue reading...

Will Thornton, 39, was having a coffee on his balcony when he saw the koala heading for the highway and raced down, barefooted, to save the day

Report from climate activist groups says City is unprepared for potential collapse in value of fossil fuel assetsThe UK could suffer 500,000 job losses and be forced to spend £674bn of taxpayer cash to rescue its banks and ensure financial stability, unless the City prepares for the value of fossil fuels to collapse as a result of climate crisis regulations, research shows.The report, published by a collective of climate activist groups known as the One for One campaign (pdf), suggests those financial repercussions could eclipse those linked to the 2008 banking crisis, which forced tohe government to bail out major lenders including Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group, and cost the UK roughly $556bn (£457bn). Continue reading...

Arctic bird of prey made famous by Harry Potter series and rarely seen so far south and west draws crowds to Orange countyOrange county has long served as a warm winter getaway for those escaping chillier climates, and since last month it’s hosted an unusual visitor from the Arctic: a snowy winter owl.The bird of prey, which typically calls the Arctic Circle and northern Canada home, has migrated to a residential neighborhood in Cypress. Its presence in the suburban community east of Los Angeles is highly unusual, experts say, and has drawn regular crowds eager to catch a glimpse of the majestic creature featured in the Harry Potter series. Continue reading...

In an area prone to natural disasters, residents claim a new mining project has damaged homes and livelihoods and left them fearing for their safetyVillagers in North Sumatra have accused the Indonesian government of putting their lives at risk by allowing a zinc mining firm to operate in an area prone to earthquakes and flooding.People in the mountainous Dairi Regency claim construction work carried out by Dairi Prima Mineral (DPM) has damaged their homes and livelihoods. They fear for their safety as the mine, which is expected to be operational in 2025, will sit on the Great Sumatran fault. Continue reading...

Ratcliffe-on-Soar’s fourth unit to be kept viable until late 2024 as ministers make request prompted by energy crisisA Nottinghamshire coal-burning power plant will stay fully open for two years beyond its planned closure date after a call from ministers prompted by the UK’s energy crisis.Ratcliffe-on-Soar had initially been pencilled in to shut in 2022, but last year said it would have an initial extension until 31 March 2023. Continue reading...

Study suggests the thousands of dams clogged with sediment pose a threat to water suppliesThousands of the world’s large dams are so clogged with sediment that they risk losing more than a quarter of their storage capacity by 2050, UN researchers have concluded, warning of the threat to water security.A new study from the UN University’s Institute for Water, Environment and Health found that, by mid-century, dams and reservoirs will lose about 1.65tr cubic metres of water storage capacity to sediment. Continue reading...

Molly Sampson found an Otodus megalodon shark species tooth at a beach near her home in Maryland while hunting for fossilsFor Christmas, nine-year-old Molly Sampson and her sister Natalie, 17, asked their parents for one thing: insulated waders, to “go shark’s-tooth hunting like professionals”, said Molly’s mother, Alicia Sampson.When the waders arrived from Santa, Molly told the Guardian, she declared that she would be looking “for a Meg”, or megalodon tooth, and ventured to Maryland’s Calvert Beach to hunt fossils on Christmas Day with Natalie and their father, Bruce Sampson. Continue reading...

Sultan Al Jaber, chief of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, expected to be named president of global climate talksThe United Arab Emirates will launch its presidency of global climate talks on Thursday, with the head of its national oil company likely to be given the leading role.Sultan Al Jaber has served as climate envoy to the country, and is chief of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc), the world’s twelfth-largest oil company by production, and is hotly tipped to take on the pivotal role of president of the talks. Continue reading...

Aly Domínguez and Jairo Bonilla, co-founders of grassroots resistance group to iron ore mine in Guapinol, murdered in streetTwo environmental defenders have been shot dead in broad daylight in Honduras, triggering fresh calls for an independent investigation into the persecution and violence against a rural community battling to stop an illegally sanctioned mine.Aly Domínguez, 38, and Jairo Bonilla, 28, from Guapinol in northern Honduras, were murdered on Saturday afternoon as they returned home on a moped after finishing work collecting payments for a cable company. They were intercepted by armed assailants and died at the scene, according to relatives. Continue reading...

A pilot program by the agriculture department in 2013 detected chemicals not found by the wholesalers’ system

Fast action in global gigafactory race is happening outside UK, as Swedish pacesetter showsIn a fantasy world, the would-be rescuer of Britishvolt would be a consortium that included a car manufacturer or two. The ailing startup would instantly get what it needs most after six months of crisis: endorsement for a battery product that is still in development, plus some , future customers.At that point, the big political claims made about Britishvolt, its planned gigafactory in Northumberland and “the UK’s place at the helm of the global green industrial revolution”, as the former prime minister Boris Johnson put it a year ago, would start to sound more credible. Continue reading...

Hundreds of climate activists barricaded themselves in a camp at an abandoned village in western Germany in an anti-coal protest. About 700 demonstrators occupying the deserted village of Lützerath in North Rhine Westphalia clashed with officers after eviction orders were issued by a local court. Environmentalists say bulldozing the village to expand the nearby Garzweiler coalmine would result in huge greenhouse gas emissions. The government and utility company RWE say the coal is needed to ensure Germany’s energy security

Animal has been evading capture from Rochford fishing lake since mid-DecemberA seal trapped in a fishing lake has “found himself in a branch of Waitrose” and has no incentive to escape, according to an expert.The animal has evaded multiple attempts at capture since first being spotted at Rochford Reservoir, in Essex, almost a month ago, the BBC reported. Continue reading...

Campaigners say most sites cannot cope with amount of wastewater, raising risk of raw discharges into riversInvestment into expanding sewage treatment works by Thames Water falls far short of what is needed to stop raw sewage discharges into rivers, according to a campaign group.Campaigners analysed 106 treatment works in the upper Thames area, which stretches from the Chilterns into the Cotswolds. A treatment works is where wastewater is stored and treated, before being released to the environment. The research suggested three-quarters of the works examined did not have enough capacity to cope with the amount of wastewater from the population. If a treatment works is over capacity, it increases the likelihood of raw sewage being released to the environment. Continue reading...

Seas dominate global weather patterns and the climate crisis is causing profound and damaging changesThe world’s oceans were the hottest ever recorded in 2022, demonstrating the profound and pervasive changes that human-caused emissions have made to the planet’s climate.More than 90% of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions is absorbed in the oceans. The records, starting in 1958, show an inexorable rise in ocean temperature, with an acceleration in warming after 1990. Continue reading...

Australian billionaires had backed $30bn Sun Cable venture designed to help power Darwin, Indonesia and Singapore but the company has gone into voluntary administration

George Eustice says adapted kerosene boilers can run on ‘hydro-treated vegetable oil’ and cut emissions by 88%A proposal to incentivise households in rural areas to run their heating systems on vegetable oil is to be put to parliament.The former environment secretary George Eustice will introduce a bill proposing the removal of duties on renewable liquid heating fuels and incentives to replace kerosene in existing boilers. Continue reading...

Startup firm making 7.5 tonne truck at Essex facility after receiving European type approvalThe truck startup Tevva has become the first company to start high-volume production of electric lorries in the UK.The company has started making its 7.5 tonne electric truck for customers at a facility in Tilbury, Essex, after receiving European type approval – the regulatory clearance required by all volume manufacturers. Continue reading...

The pilot program that ran in 2013 was cancelled by then agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce and the results never released

PM accused of wasting taxpayers’ money with ‘extravagant’ flight rather than taking the trainRishi Sunak has been accused of undermining the government’s green credentials and wasting taxpayers’ money after it emerged he travelled from London to Leeds on a 14-seat RAF jet.Sunak used the jet to travel 200 miles to the Rutland Lodge medical practice on Monday, which he visited alongside the social care minister, Helen Whately. The trip was organised to publicise the government’s announcement of £200m to buy thousands of extra care home beds. Continue reading...

Supermarket’s switch from glass to aluminium cans expected to halve carbon footprint per drinkWaitrose is canning the mini wine bottle in an effort to reduce the carbon footprint of takeaway drinks.The supermarket plans to switch all of its 187ml glass wine bottles – except those containing champagne, prosecco, cava and rioja because of restrictions imposed by those particular appellations – to aluminium cans by next week. The cans will come in 187ml, 200ml and 250ml sizes. Continue reading...

Corporate responsibility lawsuit begun by NGOs accusing Evian brand owner of ‘failing’ to address environmental footprintDanone, the French yoghurt and bottled water company, is being taken to court by three environmental groups who accuse it of failing to sufficiently reduce its plastic footprint.The company behind Evian and Volvic mineral water was failing in its duties to act under a groundbreaking French law, the groups said. Continue reading...

Disasters costing at least $1bn killed 474 people last year, government figures showThe US endured a particularly painful year as communities wrestled with the growing impacts of the climate crisis, with 18 major disasters wreaking havoc across the country as planet-heating emissions continued to climb.Storms, floods, wildfires and droughts caused a total of $165bn in damages in the US last year, $10bn more than the 2021 total and the third most costly year since records of major losses began in 1980, according to new US government data. Continue reading...

Hundreds of protesters prepare to defy police at abandoned village of Lützerath in North Rhine WestphaliaHundreds of climate activists who have barricaded themselves in a protest camp on the site of an abandoned village in western Germany have said they are prepared to risk their lives to prevent it from being mined for coal.Lützerath in North Rhine Westphalia (NRW) has been emptied of its residents, who have all been relocated. An estimated 700 anti-coal protesters, who started occupying the deserted village and surroundings two and a half years ago, squatting in empty houses, outbuildings and farmland, are preparing for a showdown with police after eviction orders were issued by a local court that are valid from Tuesday. The number of protesters has grown in recent weeks as hundreds of activists from Germany and around the world join the protest. Continue reading...

I grabbed my friend’s arm, frozen, and imagined my tombstoneWhen you are a child, the first letter of your name will associate you with one animal or another. Mine was, inevitably and to my great disappointment, a hippo: an animal of thick, grey skin, whiskers sprouting from its cheeks, feet that were far too small for its body. Hippos weren’t even cute, I knew this: their strange mouths, cheeks at the end of a long nose, hid (where? how?) vast discoloured teeth which they used to chomp anything from antelope to zebra. I wanted my name to start with an elegant lowercase h: a letter that also happened to be the shape of a miniature giraffe. Instead I was H for Hippo, stocky and sturdy, like a Kalabari mask from Nigeria.Hippos eat grass instead of fish, according to Kikuyu legend, because of a deal with God: the hippo wanted to swim in waters cooled by the snow from Mount Kenya but God worried he would eat his little fishes, which were very dear to him. (And why wouldn’t they be? Little silver fish, quick and made of light.) So the hippo promised that, at night, he would emerge from the water “every time that food passes through my body, and I will scatter my dung on the earth with my tail”. Continue reading...

Cornwall Insight warns reduction in support could curb businesses’ ability to invest in reducing fossil fuel emissionsThe reduction in government support for companies’ energy bills could threaten their efforts to reduce fossil fuel emissions, a leading consultancy has warned.The Treasury announced on Monday that it plans to slash the support available to “non-domestic” energy customers – including businesses, schools, hospitals and charities – from April in a bid to reduce the cost to the government. Continue reading...