Local leaders are calling for a loan system or longer-term funding to build more resilient roads than those washed away

The Wilderness Society says ‘it’s time to take a good, hard look’ at the state’s beef industry, which is blamed for 80% of clearingMore than 90,000 hectares of koala habitat in Queensland was cleared in a single year, according to new analysis that finds most of that clearing occurred for beef production.The analysis, produced by environmental organisation The Wilderness Society (TWS), examined the Queensland government’s most recent Statewide Landcover and Trees Study (Slats), which showed landholders cleared 680,688 hectares of woody vegetation in 2018-19. Continue reading...

Dave Hathaway on a remarkable forgotten heroine of our modern livesRe the feminist tube map (Letters, 7 March), St John’s Wood station could celebrate a remarkable forgotten heroine of our modern lives, the electrical pioneer Dame Caroline Haslett. Born of humble origins near Crawley in 1895, Caroline kickstarted the Electrical Association for Women. In the 1920s she wired her St John’s Wood home and designed a square kettle and saucepan that she could use together on a single hotplate. She was also the only female member of a committee that came up with the BS 1363 safety standard in 1947: this covers the three-pin fused plugs and shuttered sockets that we still use in Britain today.

Home owners are being left to cover ‘catastrophic’ financial risks as the climate crisis and a legacy of poor planning coalesce, expert says

Billionaires Mike Cannon-Brookes and Andrew Forrest’s investment accelerates company’s plans to explore similar plants in Australia and beyond

Tension between agriculture and resources is bubbling over as farmers seek urgent clarity on who owns the ground beneath their properties

Former UN secretary general says countries face stark choices brought on by the war in UkraineThe former UN secretary general has warned the UK against fracking, as the world stands at a “dangerous” point in the climate crisis, brought on by the invasion of Ukraine.Ban Ki-moon, now deputy chair of the Elders group of former world statespeople and public figures, said countries faced stark choices as a result of the Ukraine war and energy crisis, and must embrace renewable energy instead of returning to fossil fuels. Continue reading...

Campaigners say subsidy scheme could create £2bn in health benefits and cut 1m tonnes of emissions annuallyMinisters should consider subsidising e-bikes as they do electric cars, campaigners have urged, after a study found that mass use of such bikes could create more than £2bn in health benefits and cut a million tonnes of emissions annually.While grants of up to £1,500 are available for low-emission cars, vans and motorbikes, there is no such assistance for electric-assist bikes, which help propel riders up to a maximum powered speed of 15mph when the bike is being pedalled. Continue reading...

Planning rules to be relaxed so that renewables and nuclear power can boost energy independence after Ukraine invasionA massive expansion of wind farms across the UK is now needed for national security reasons, the business secretary has declared, as, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the government considers sweeping changes to planning laws to improve Britain’s energy independence.Boris Johnson is planning to unveil a radical new “energy strategy” within a fortnight to ensure the UK can meet its domestic needs from a mix of renewables and nuclear. The war in Ukraine has brought further huge rises in global fossil fuel prices and exposed countries’ dependence on overseas supplies. Continue reading...

Winner from shortlist of five will have its genome sequenced as scientists raise awareness of species’ amazing roles in natureFrom the sea butterfly to the naval shipworm to the barge-footer, a strange cast of characters is vying for the public’s affection as part of a mollusc of the year competition.Researchers in Germany are asking people around the world to vote for their favourite creature out of a list of five nominees. The winner will have its genome sequenced, with scientists extracting DNA to work out more about how it evolved. This is a significant prize for a group of animals that remains largely unexplored from the genetic point of view, with only a few dozen genomes fully sequenced. Continue reading...

Demonstrations call for greater focus on environmental crisis in runup to presidential election next monthTens of thousands of people protested across France on Saturday to call for more attention to the climate crisis in the runup to the presidential election next month.“Look up,” read one message in giant orange letters demonstrators held up in Paris, urging politicians to make protecting the planet a priority. Continue reading...

First European nuclear facility to open in 15 years will reduce need for imports from RussiaEurope’s first nuclear power plant to open in 15 years began production in Finland on Saturday, at a crucial moment for energy supply following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.The much-delayed Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor started test production, delivering power to the national grid, which over time is expected to reduce the need for electricity imports and lead to lower prices. Continue reading...

As government reviews UK dependence on Russian energy, Ed Miliband calls for clean sprint towards renewables

Insulating homes and investing in wind and solar are the only solutions to the energy crisis. But Johnson is busy pandering to climate deniers

Repairs could top $1bn and mayors say roads and bridges shouldn’t just be rebuilt but ‘rebuilt to withstand future disasters’

Volodymyr Zelenskiy | Diet Wordsearch was hard to swallow | Hot houses | Giving Chelsea to the fansVladimir Putin will never forgive Volodymyr Zelenskiy for making him look old (Admire Volodymyr Zelenskiy all you like. But please don’t treat him as a heart-throb, 8 March). Putin aped the tough-guy look with his photo ops (bare-chested horse riding etc), whereas Zelenskiy has looked the part without even trying. Furthermore, Zelenskiy has displayed passion, an overused word lately, but apt here, whereas Putin can only achieve a cold dispassion, fed by vanity.

UK ban covers Russian vessels but Seatribute is registered in Malta and ExxonMobil denies it is carrying Russian oilA supertanker carrying crude oil that sailed from a Russian port was due to dock in Southampton on Friday with cargo destined for an ExxonMobil refinery.The Seatribute is one of 148 tankers carrying oil and gas that have left Russian ports since Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine began 14 days ago, according to data on shipping movements gathered by Greenpeace. Continue reading...

Party says disgust at continuing sewage discharges could push seats their wayIt may seem an unlikely electoral secret weapon, but as the Liberal Democrats gather for their spring conference this weekend, polls and canvassing have highlighted an issue the party hopes can help secure soft Tory votes: sewage in rivers.Described by one official as the rural equivalent of air quality in cities, the problem of privatised water companies discharging raw sewage has, Lib Dems say, become electorally toxic for the government, and could push more Conservative-held seats the party’s way. Continue reading...

Crackdown on sweeping eco-friendly claims hoped to boost faith in genuine sustainable productsConsumers are being duped into paying a premium for fashion products that make grand claims about their environmental credentials but have no evidence to back them up, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has said as it prepares to name and shame high street clothing companies.Entire lines of clothing are being labelled “sustainable” and “eco-friendly”, without the company having proof that the whole process – from manufacture to delivery, packaging and sale – is good for the environment, according to the CMA. Continue reading...

In 2015, the country’s worst environmental disaster forced Jonathan Knowles to leave his Brazilian home. Now he and 200,000 other victims hope to win a £5bn lawsuit in an English courtAs the pale yellow glow of Brazil’s spring sun set over the Doce River on a Friday evening in October 2015, life for Jonathan Knowles was as good as it had ever been. The modest living he made from a water-valve business saw him end each working week in the same way, with his wife Sheila and their four-year-old son, Enzo. They would set out chairs in the garden of their two-bedroom home, a new-build on the outskirts of Governador Valedares, in the Minas Gerais region of the Brazilian countryside, where they would pick marinaded beef off the barbecue and screen 80s music videos from a projector on to a wall. “We adored our life,” recalls Knowles, a Yorkshireman who moved to Brazil for love.A week later, at 3.45pm on 5 November, the Fundão tailings dam burst in the city of Mariana, 150 miles away, unleashing about 40m cubic metres of toxic mining waste into the Doce (“sweet”) River visible from their home, killing 19 people, rendering hundreds homeless and triggering the country’s biggest environmental disaster. Villages, livelihoods, farms, fish and wildlife were obliterated. It destroyed, damaged or contaminated everything in its path, law courts have since heard. Continue reading...

Government backs down from guidance that would have allowed birds such a crows to be shotThe government has U-turned on guidance to shooters that reclassified pheasants as livestock, meaning that wild birds such as crows could be shot to protect them in certain circumstances, after a furious reaction from the public.The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs changed the definition of livestock in its general shooting licences earlier this year. Under the new definition, game birds such as pheasants were considered livestock if given food, water or shelter by a keeper for their survival. Continue reading...

Russia has used its gas supply as an “economic weapon”. The West should counter with its own energy-saving measures

The best of this week’s wildlife pictures, including a short-legged snake eagle, a popa langur and a rooster interrupting play Continue reading...

Australia follows lead of US and UK with latest Russia sanctions; ‘We want tradies to come to Queensland,’ premier says; helicopter crashes in NSW Snowy Mountains; Japanese encephalitis outbreak grows to 15; nation records at least 30 Covid deaths, seven in New Zealand. This blog is now closed

Democrats hope climate measures in Build Back Better will be resurrected amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – but green groups want Biden to go even furtherAs Joe Biden ratchets up the pressure on Russia by banning imports of its oil, American drivers grumble about rising gasoline prices and the oil and gas industry clamors for more land to drill, a more fundamental demand has emerged – for the US to decisively cut its umbilical reliance upon fossil fuels.Environmental groups and progressive Democrats are aiming to build upon the backlash to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by ending the era of fossil fuel dependency and help address the unfolding climate crisis. Continue reading...

Boris Johnson’s suggestion practice could re-emerge after invasion of Ukraine has rallied campaignersAnti-fracking campaigners have vowed to give energy firms “no peace” if the government lifts the moratorium on fracking, pledging “inconvenient and noisy” protests at every site.Steve Mason, campaign director of Frack Free United, said there was an army of retired “geri-activists” ready to lie down and face prosecution for the cause again. Continue reading...

NSW government pausing new developments while it revises flood strategy but pressure to open up more land isn’t expected to recede

Readers respond to George Monbiot’s article about moving away from oil and gas to nuclear power – and reflect on other ways to limit our dependency on Russia for fuelAgreed, Russian gas bad – but George Monbiot’s attack on Germany, Europe’s largest economy, seems deeply misplaced (It’s not too late to free ourselves from this idiotic addiction to Russian gas, 9 March). The German energy transition is all about replacing conventional power plants, fissile as well as fossil fuel, with renewables. Looking at both short- and mid-term energy scenarios, Germany decided that the costs and risks of keeping nuclear outweighed the limited benefits. Meanwhile, worldwide, renewables are exponentially ramping up, and nuclear declining.Global renewable electricity capacity is forecast to increase by over 60% between 2020 and 2026, reaching more than 4,800GW. This is equivalent to the current global power capacity of fossil fuels and nuclear combined. And here’s the killer: Russia produces about 35% of the world’s enriched uranium for nuclear reactors, and the EU’s uranium imports from Russia equal those from Niger, at 2,545 tonnes. The Fukushima disaster made Monbiot pro-nuclear and now military attack on nuclear in Ukraine makes him even more so. Good luck with that.

Heavy rainfall can cause untreated sewage containing viruses and bacteria to flow into waterways posing health risks to swimmers

From the questioning of fossil fuels to greater support for refugees, the shock of this terrible war has already made us more human

Businesses blamed for rise of toxic hotspots hitting poor communities hardestA UN expert has warned of the creation of pollution “sacrifice zones” across the world, where tens of millions of people are suffering strokes, cancers, respiratory problems and heart disease as a result of toxic contamination of the environment.“There are sacrifice zones all over the world, in every region: in the north, in the south, in the east, in the west, in rich countries, in poor countries,” David Boyd told the Guardian. Continue reading...

Negotiators aim to agree on legal framework for protecting international waters that are key to ‘life as we know it’The world has a “once in a lifetime” chance to protect the high seas from exploitation, warned scientists and environmentalists, as negotiators meet at the UN headquarters in New York this week to hammer out a new treaty on the oceans.One scientist described the treaty, which will set out a legal framework to protect biodiversity and govern the high seas, as the most significant ocean protection agreement for four decades. Continue reading...

Four studies are first to support theory PFAS could hinder body’s ability to fight virus, but authors say more is research neededHigher levels of exposure to toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” may increase the likelihood of Covid-19 infection, more serious symptoms and death, a group of recent studies have found.Public health advocates and researchers have feared since the coronavirus pandemic’s onset that PFAS, which are known to be immunotoxic, could hinder the body’s ability to fight Covid-19, and the four studies represent the first bit of research supporting the theory. However, the authors caution that more research is needed. Continue reading...

US military aims for net zero by 2050 but with a carbon footprint greater than some 140 countries critics say it needs radical changeThe US military, an institution whose carbon footprint exceeds that of nearly 140 countries, says it wants to go green.On 8 February, the US army released its climate strategy. Continue reading...

Analysis: fear of shortages gives fossil fuel companies leverage with governments that could be disastrous for the climateOil and gas companies are facing a potential bonanza from the Ukraine war, though few in the industry want to admit it, and many are using soaring prices and the fear of fuel shortages to cement their position with governments in ways that could have disastrous impacts on the climate crisis.“There is a huge opportunity for oil and gas companies, though I’m sure it is not one they would have chosen,” said Robert Buckley, head of relationship development at Cornwall Insight, an energy analysis company. “They have the opportunity to reposition themselves [as crucial to policymakers]. There is going to be a very high price for oil for a very long time, and even the prospect of physical shortages.” Continue reading...

Slower driving and shorter showers could help Britain wean itself off Russian resourcesThe prime minister’s pledge to join the US in phasing out Russian oil – and exploring ways to do the same with gas – is aimed at hitting the Kremlin’s coffers but it also presents a problem for the UK.In Britain, about 4% of gas and 8% of oil comes from Russia, far lower than its European neighbours. But turmoil in the energy markets has sent gas and petrol prices soaring, exacerbating the cost of living crisis. Weaning ourselves off Russian resources – by sourcing supplies elsewhere or pursuing the increased use of renewables and nuclear – will cost money and take time. Continue reading...

Environment groups say visiting scientists must be given true picture of the reef, ahead of world heritage committee meeting in June

Australia has been through worse, Chris Kenny contends, while Andrew Bolt suggests global heating is ‘brilliant for farmers’

Demonstration against what activists call a historic assault floods capital after musician Caetano Veloso’s call for actionThousands of demonstrators have gathered in Brazil’s capital after one of the country’s leading musicians, Caetano Veloso, called a major protest to denounce what environmentalists call a historic assault on the Brazilian environment under President Jair Bolsonaro.The “Ato pela Terra” (Stand for the Earth) demonstration was held in Brasília to oppose what activists call a “death combo” of five environment-related bills being considered by Brazil’s congress. Continue reading...

Former energy minister Greg Barker went to climate talks as part of Russian Federation party

More than a million single-use grills end up in UK landfill each yearWaitrose and Aldi are to stop selling disposable BBQs because of their impact on the natural environment and wildlife.As the weather gets hotter, British people flock to the supermarket to buy the foil devices so they can sit in parks or gardens and sizzle sausages. Continue reading...

Environmental agencies investigated reports of dredging, illegal tree felling and profiling of banks of protected riverA landowner is facing legal action for what environmental regulators say is the decimation of a protected river.Natural England and the Environment Agency (EA) say the charges against the landowner include causing damage to a site of special scientific interest (SSSI), carrying out clearance and reprofiling of the riverbank which was likely to cause damage to or endanger the stability of the river and allowing silt to discharge into the river. Continue reading...

Josep Borrell says bloc failed to act in past but must now cut dependence on supplies by two-thirds this yearVladimir Putin is able to finance his war machine thanks to EU payments for Russian gas and oil, the bloc’s foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, has said.Speaking in the European parliament, the Spanish former foreign minister told MEPs that the west should have acted more quickly in the face of Russian aggression over the last decade. Continue reading...

Business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng’s comments come as No 10 opens door to shift in UK position on frackingBoris Johnson has told the business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, that it does “not make sense” to seal its shale gas wells, the business secretary has revealed, amid tensions with his department which has repeatedly denied the government will change its position on fracking.Johnson’s spokesperson opened the door to a shift in the UK’s position on fracking on Wednesday, saying that “all options” would be considered before the forthcoming energy strategy is completed. A No 10 source confirmed it was under review. Continue reading...

Like Paris climate agreement, treaty could provide tool to hold firms and states to account, say legal expertsA series of lawsuits against plastic producers and governments is expected after a “historic” international agreement on waste, say legal experts.Last week, world leaders agreed to draw up a legally binding treaty over the next two years that covered the full lifecycle of plastics from production to disposal. The move was described by the head of the UN Environment Programme as the most important multilateral environmental deal since the Paris agreement in 2015. Continue reading...

Callum Isted, who wants reusable bottles for all pupils, is youngest to present petition to Scottish parliamentA seven-year-old schoolboy has made Holyrood history as he became the youngest person to present a petition to the Scottish parliament, in his attempt to provide every child in the country with a reusable water bottle.Callum Isted was questioned by MSPs at Wednesday’s citizen participation and petitions committee, where he explained that the petition followed his original campaign to provide all pupils at Dedridge primary in Livingstone, where he goes to school, with reusable water bottles to replace the single-use plastic bottles they were given on a weekly basis. Continue reading...

Study of 200 cities shows dangerous environmental inequality fueled by 20th-century practice dividing cities along racial linesA new study has found that neighborhoods in which the federal government discouraged investment nearly 100 years ago – via a racist practice known as redlining – face higher levels of air pollution today.Looking at more than 200 cities across the nation, researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, found that people who live in neighborhoods that were once categorized as “hazardous”, based on racist factors such as how many Black or “foreign-born” people lived there, now breathe 56% more of the freeway pollutant nitrogen dioxide than those in top-rated areas. Continue reading...

Regulator taking action against Anglian, Northumbrian, Thames, Wessex and Yorkshire WaterThe water regulator Ofwat has serious concerns over the way sewage treatment works at five water companies have been operated, as it continues to investigate the industry.Anglian Water, Northumbrian Water, Thames Water, Wessex Water and Yorkshire Water submitted reports in December that the regulator, Ofwat, said were worrying. It said on Wednesday it had started enforcement cases against all five companies. Continue reading...

The extreme weather that hit Britain last month brought down oaks, pines and beeches across the country. Here, three people explain why their favourite tree was so specialJenny Bennion has a wooden throne in her garden. It is a monument to the damage caused by Dudley, Eunice and Franklin, a hat-trick of storms that swept across the UK in the space of a week in February. It was the first time this had happened since the Met Office began naming storms in 2015.The trio battered down Bennion’s beloved 30-metre-tall Scots pine, which had overlooked her semi-detached house in Hutton, Lancashire, for more than a century. It was one of the reasons Bennion chose to move there two and a half years ago. The tree is believed to have been planted in 1901, the same year the house was built, and stood four metres away from it. Life feels strange without it. Continue reading...

With soil already waterlogged and dams at capacity even small amounts of rainfall could be disastrous, experts say