Plan is to tighten rules to stop energy firms exaggerating environmental benefits of green tariffsThe UK government has launched an investigation into renewable electricity deals amid growing concern over the extent of “greenwashing” by large energy firms claiming to offer environmental benefits to customers.In a crackdown as increasing numbers of people switch to a renewable energy deal, the government said it would review how the sector markets its green electricity tariffs to consumers. Continue reading...

Ashjayeen Sharif wants Australia’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter to be 100% renewable by 2030An 18-year-old student and climate change campaigner is bidding for a seat on the board of energy company AGL, Australia’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter.Ashjayeen Sharif, from Melbourne, wants the company to phase out its “dirty coal-burning power stations” by 2030 and replace them with 100% renewable energy. Continue reading...

Upside down, they resemble a pair of scalesDragonflies have a near-perfect hunting record, successfully grabbing their prey in mid-air 95% of the time: they do this while flying skywards, earthwards, side to side, backwards and upside down. In one experiment, a dragonfly with numbers drawn on its clear wings alights backwards from a reed, legs raised above its head like a person making an offering to God, and scoops up the bug flying behind it. The dragonfly appears to catch its prey both benevolently and malevolently: snatching it and saving it, like a ball or a falling baby.Dragonflies transform from their larval stage with similarly precise acrobatics: the skin splits, the insect wriggles its head and chest out with the awkwardness of someone trying to get into a sleeping bag while standing up, and then it hangs upside down for a while, its tail still trapped in the skin. The almost-dragonfly regains its strength, then does an upside down sit-up at the same time it pulls and flicks its tail out: a perfectly controlled dismount, a precisely calibrated monkey acrobat toy. Continue reading...

Greens says government’s support for fossil fuel expansion is ‘bonkers’ and no one will visit the tourist site ‘if it’s surrounded by gas drilling rigs’The Victorian government has given consent for a gas company to produce gas extracted from beneath a national park in the state’s south-west, near the celebrated tourist site the Twelve Apostles.Documents tabled in Victorian parliament earlier this month show Lily D’Ambrosio, the state energy and climate change minister, gave consent for an existing exploration gas well underneath the Port Campbell national park to be developed into a production well. Continue reading...

How can Britain persuade other countries to ditch fossil fuels when it won’t do so itself?Boris Johnson’s apparent willingness to sign off a new oilfield, Cambo, in the North Sea makes a mockery of his claim to global climate leadership. The first phase of Cambo would produce up to 170m barrels of crude. That is the equivalent, say Friends of the Earth, of the annual emissions of 18 coal-fired power plants. This sends dark clouds scuttling over the UK’s presidency of Cop26, held in Glasgow in November this year. For the UN climate summit to be a success, Mr Johnson’s team, headed by Alok Sharma, must cajole recalcitrant countries into line. It is doubtful that Mr Sharma can persuade other nations of the merit of forsaking fossil fuels when Britain will not lead by example.Last week, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change delivered its starkest warning yet about the planetary emergency. To have a 50% chance of keeping global heating below 1.5C requires the world to get net emissions of carbon dioxide down to zero before 2050. In a foreword to the IPCC report, António Guterres, the UN secretary general, wrote that countries should “end all new fossil fuel exploration and production”. The International Energy Agency, an intergovernmental group founded to protect access to hydrocarbons, has said much the same. Continue reading...

Increase means country will slip back from goal of cutting emissions by 40% from 1990 levelsGermany is forecast to record its biggest rise in greenhouse gas emissions since 1990 this year as the economy rebounds from the pandemic-related downturn, according to a report by an environmental thinktank.Berlin-based Agora Energiewende said the country’s emissions would probably rise by the equivalent of 47m tons of carbon dioxide. Continue reading...

Author of government study says Treasury resistance to green spending programmes could halt progress to net zeroImposing “premature austerity” again will undermine the fight against climate change and stop poorer households going green, one of the world’s leading climate economists has warned the government, amid claims that the Treasury is resisting policies to tackle the crisis.Nicholas Stern, the author of the seminal 2006 government study into the costs of climate change, said comprehensive programmes were needed to help poorer households make the switch to electric cars and away from gas heating, if the government hoped to bring all greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. Continue reading...

People thought to be trapped in collapsed buildings in Bozkurt as rescuers search for survivorsFamilies of those missing after Turkey’s worst floods in years anxiously watched rescue teams search buildings on Saturday, fearing the death toll from the raging torrents could rise further.At least 57 people have died from the floods in the northern Black Sea region, the second natural disaster to strike the country this month. Continue reading...

Eight Russian and Turkish crew members and emergency workers killed trying to land in Adana provinceA firefighting plane from Russia crashed on Saturday in a mountainous area in southern Turkey, killing the eight crew members and emergency workers aboard, Russia’s defence ministry said.The ministry said five Russian and three Turkish citizens were on the amphibious Beriev Be-200, which crashed while trying to land in Turkey’s Adana province. A team to investigate the accident was dispatched to the Kahramanmaras area, Turkish state media said. Continue reading...

The fuels we use to warm our homes create a carbon burden. Systems that capture ambient heat could offer a solutionOne of the greatest contributors to pollution is such a part of everyday life it is easily overlooked: the fossil fuels used in our homes for heating, hot water and cooking make up more than a fifth of the UK’s carbon emissions.This is why the government plans to ban gas boilers in new-build homes from 2025, a policy which could extend to all new gas boilers in homes from the mid-2030s. Beyond this date, newly installed heating systems would need to be low-carbon or able to be converted to use clean-burning fuel such as hydrogen. Continue reading...

Farmers are laying out carcasses to tempt vultures and eagles back to the UK countrysideWhen a griffon vulture last year graced the UK with its presence, awed birdwatchers from across the country gathered in the Derbyshire moors in the hope of catching a glance.Now conservationists are hoping to make sightings of these magnificent birds more frequent by adding raw nature back into the countryside. Continue reading...

Authorities in Hiroshima and northern Kyushu issue evacuation alert amid unprecedented rainfallMore than a million people have been urged to seek shelter as torrential rain triggered floods and landslides in western Japan, leaving at least one dead and two missing.Authorities in Hiroshima and the northern part of Kyushu issued their highest evacuation alert as the weather agency reported unprecedented levels of rain in the area on Saturday. Continue reading...

• Hunters killed double limit during February breeding season• State wildlife officials recommended a 130-kill limitWisconsin wildlife officials have authorized the killing of 300 wolves for the 2021 fall hunting season, more than doubling biologists’ recommendation of a 130-wolf kill limit.Scientists with the state department of natural resources (DNR) recommended the 130 limit after the four-day hunting season in February saw hunters kill almost twice as many wolves as allotted during the wolves’ breeding season, raising concerns over potential long-term ramifications for the population. Continue reading...

In the search for sustainable flying, Cranfield University might have found the answer in hydrogenThis row of brick sheds, locked away down overgrown country lanes in Bedfordshire, feels a long way from the glossy boardroom presentations about sustainable aviation. But it was recently the backdrop, in the search for greener flying, to a strange and remarkable scene.“Anyone passing would have wondered why these people were staring at a pipe and whooping and laughing,” says Bobby Sethi, associate professor of gas turbine combustion at Cranfield University. “But we were almost certainly the only people in the world right then burning anything without producing CO.” Continue reading...

Rescuers sift through rubble for victims and survivors as country reels from floods and wildfiresThe death toll from Turkey’s flash floods has risen to 38 as emergency crews searched for more victims and survivors in the devastated Black Sea region just as the country was gaining control over hundreds of wildfires.The health minister, Fahrettin Koca, announced on Twitter late on Friday that 32 people died in Kastamonu province, along the Black Sea, and six in the neighbouring area of Sinop. The toll was also reported by the government’s disaster agency AFAD. Continue reading...

The Coalition promised to release a long-term plan before the Glasgow climate talks – and that’s just 80 days awayLeading Australian industry groups have warned that the government has failed to consult them on a promised long-term emissions reduction strategy, despite it planning to present it at pivotal climate talks in Glasgow in just 80 days.The government has been saying for more than 18 months that the strategy is in development and has promised to release it publicly and to the UN before the Glasgow talks in November. Continue reading...

Temperatures expected to hit triple digits in Portland and Seattle as Pacific north-west bakes in second heatwave of summerWashington and Oregon endured scorching temperatures, and a sense of deja vu hung in the air as the region baked in the second intense heatwave of the summer.Temperatures were expected to soar to triple digits again on Friday in Portland and Seattle. Forecasters said hot weather and wildfire smoke would pose a problem through the weekend. Continue reading...

Global land and ocean surface temperature last month was 0.9C hotter than 20th-century average, beating July 2016 recordJuly was the world’s hottest month ever recorded, US government scientists have confirmed, a further indication of the unfolding climate crisis that is now affecting almost every part of the planet.Related: Greenhouse gas emissions must peak within 4 years, says leaked UN report Continue reading...

Asian giant hornet spotted about two miles from where first US nest was found last yearWashington state has confirmed its second “murder hornet” sighting of 2021 – the first glimpse of a live one, officials reported.A statement released by the Washington state department of agriculture (WSDA) confirms the first report of a live Asian giant hornet in the state this year. Continue reading...

Twenty-seven killed in Turkish flash flooding, with southern Europe bracing for more extreme weatherThe death toll from flash floods in Turkey has reached 27 and fresh wildfires erupted on the ravaged Greek island of Evia, as southern Europe braces for more extreme weather events caused by human-made climate change.Record Mediterranean heatwaves fuelled blazes that have devastated parts of Italy, Turkey and Algeria, with Spain and Portugal on high alert, while Turkey’s Black Sea region has been hit by some of the worst floods in living memory. Continue reading...

Region has fastest-growing network with number of electric vehicles in Coventry alone tripling in three yearsThe West Midlands has overtaken London as the region with the fastest-growing network of electric car chargers, thanks to a push by Coventry to rapidly move away from petrol and diesel cars.The number of electric car chargers in the West Midlands rose by a fifth between April and July, according to data from Zap-Map and the Department for Transport. That compared with growth of 12.6% in the east of England. Continue reading...

Experts say chancellor refusing to commit spending needed to shift economy to low-carbon footingThe Treasury is blocking green policies essential to put the UK on track to net zero emissions, imperilling the UK’s own targets and the success of vital UN climate talks, experts have told the Guardian.A string of policies, from home insulation to new infrastructure spending, have been scrapped, watered down or delayed. Rows about short term costs have dominated over longer term warnings that putting off green spending now will lead to much higher costs in future. Continue reading...

Hundreds of spills off Gulf of Paria having ‘dire’ impact on local fishing in one of the most biodiverse areas of Trinidad and TobagoHands masked in thick black oil, the fisher drips toxic globules back into the sea as he pleads with the camera, urging viewers to “share this video”.In the footage, filmed onboard a small boat, Gary Aboud documents an oil spill this week in the Gulf of Paria, off the Caribbean coast of Trinidad. It is just the latest of many spills that threaten to wreak havoc on the area’s vulnerable marine life and fishing industry. Continue reading...

The best of this week’s wildlife pictures, including rescued storks, wandering elephants and a whiting inside a jellyfish Continue reading...

From whales to monkeys, elephants and even fruit flies, researchers say they are starting to understand animal culture just ‘as it disappears before our eyes’At the peak of the whaling industry, in the late 1800s, North Atlantic right whales were slaughtered in their thousands. With each carcass hauled on to the deck, whalers were taking more than just bones and flesh out of the ocean. The slaughtered whales had unique memories of feeding grounds, hunting techniques and communication styles; knowledge acquired over centuries, passed down through the generations, and shared between peers. The critically endangered whale clings on, but much of the species’ cultural knowledge is now extinct.Whales are among the many animals known to be highly cultural, says Prof Hal Whitehead, a marine biologist at Dalhousie University. “Culture is what individuals learn from each other, so that a bunch of individuals behave in a similar way,” he says. Continue reading...

Burning the fuel in the cauldron symbolised its zero-carbon properties – but it does cause air pollution tooThe hydrogen flame above the Tokyo Olympic Stadium was symbolic of a zero-carbon future but illustrated a warning too.Hydrogen, created using zero-carbon methods, looks set to play a big role in decarbonisation as energy storage and fuel. It can then be used in fuel cells to generate electricity or burned in boilers or generators. One option to decarbonise home heating is to inject hydrogen into the existing natural (fossil) gas pipelines. Studies are under way to reduce the explosion risk from hydrogen leaks, but less attention is being paid to the air pollution from combusting hydrogen. Continue reading...

Greece, Turkey and Italy have borne the brunt of wildfires, while parts of Spain and France are on alert for very high temperaturesHundreds of fires are burning across the Mediterranean, displacing thousands and causing irreparable damage as human-made climate change causes record-breaking summer heatwaves.With very high temperatures expected in parts of Spain and France on Friday and Saturday, the crisis threatens to spread with weeks of scorching summer weather still to come across the region. Continue reading...

Yakutia leader declares ‘non-work’ day over health concerns as 22m acres burn in east Russia regionThe leader of a Siberian region has declared Friday a non-working day and urged residents to stay at home as smoke from raging forest fires raised health concerns.Aisen Nikolayev, the head of Yakutia, Russia’s largest and coldest region, which has been hard-hit by wildfires this year, said on Thursday that the day off would apply to the regional capital, Yakutsk, and several other districts. Continue reading...

Nature agency needs community-minded buyer to save Kinloch Castle, on Rum in the Inner HebridesWith red sandstone battlements, a sprung-floor ballroom, and a prized orchestrion organ said to have been made for Queen Victoria, Kinloch Castle on the Inner Hebridean island of Rum was one of the most luxurious private residences of its time upon completion in 1900.More than a century later, with collapsing chimneys and extensive rot, the “right owner” is now sought for the category A listed building and its extensive grounds – which included a Japanese garden and glasshouses filled with hummingbirds and, briefly, small alligators – after several stalled restoration attempts. Continue reading...

Campaigners criticise first minister for not demanding end to North Sea drilling in letter to Boris JohnsonNicola Sturgeon has been criticised by climate campaigners for failing to call for the new Cambo oilfield to be blocked because of the climate crisis.Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth Scotland accused the Scottish first minister of “hiding behind Boris Johnson” and not showing leadership after she resisted intense pressure to call for an end to new North Sea drilling. Continue reading...

If Joe Biden is serious about tackling the climate crisis he must use his country’s leverage to curb fossil fuels, not boost themThe UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report has driven home just how dangerous the climate crisis is. Faced with this unprecedented and unique challenge, the central question is: can we change course rapidly enough to contain the damage and preserve a halfway liveable planet? If the stark findings of the IPCC were not alarming enough, they are all the more so given the mounting evidence that the impetus for large-scale climate action may be ebbing.Given the onrushing disaster, we may be forgiven mood swings. Earlier this year, it seemed that the balance of political and economic forces might be swinging in favour of rapid decarbonisation. China, Japan and South Korea had all made net-zero pledges. Trump, the climate-denier-in-chief, had lost the White House. The new Biden administration was pushing what was billed as a major green infrastructure programme. The NextGenerationEU stimulus package was raising ambition. First the Bank of England and then the European Central Bank (ECB) took on the climate issue. The German Green party was riding high in the polls. Investors and financial markets were dumping dirty assets. Even a lobby like the International Energy Agency, once created to represent the interests of oil consumers, was charting a course to net zero. On 14 July, the EU announced its Fit for 55 plan, which implied, among other things, an end to the sale of new internal combustion engine cars by the early 2030s. Continue reading...

Landowners, councils and residents putting measure in place to discourage or ban general publicLandowners, councils and residents across the UK are increasingly putting measures in place to either discourage or ban the general public from accessing waterways.Swimming groups say the measures are creating further challenges to already complex rights to roam and increasing division between visitors and residents, who are often wealthier. Continue reading...

Infrastructure bill includes $8bn to develop ‘clean hydrogen’ but study finds large emissions from production of ‘blue’ hydrogenThe large infrastructure bill passed by the US Senate and hailed by Joe Biden as a key tool to tackle the climate crisis includes billions of dollars to support a supposedly clean fuel that is potentially even more polluting than coal, new research has found.The $1tn infrastructure package, which passed with bipartisan support on Tuesday, includes $8bn to develop “clean hydrogen” via the creation of four new regional hubs. The White House has said the bill advances Biden’s climate agenda and proponents of hydrogen have touted it as a low-emissions alternative to fuel shipping, trucking, aviation and even home heating. Continue reading...

Just when we must be rejecting new drilling, fracking and pipeline infrastructure, Biden isn’t just tolerating fossil fuels – he’s uplifting themThe latest report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change paints a stark and sobering picture: a global future of extreme weather events that are guaranteed to become more frequent and more intense over coming decades. The horrific flooding that has recently shocked Europe will become more common. The unrelenting fires that have engulfed the western United States and Canada will intensify and widen. And some island nations, it seems, may already be doomed to eradication by inevitable sea level rise.The only glimmer of hope offered in the IPCC report is that immediate, aggressive action by world leaders could still prevent a future of assured climate chaos from being even worse. As devastating as a 1.5C global temperature increase will be, a 2.5C increase would be unfathomable. Continue reading...

Oregon’s Bootleg fire has offered new evidence that Indigenous techniques can change how megafires behaveThe Bootleg fire stampeded through southern Oregon so fiercely that it spit up thunderclouds. But when the flames approached the Sycan Marsh Preserve, a 30,000-acre wetland thick with ponderosa pines, something incredible happened.The flames weakened and the fire slowed down, allowing firefighters to move in and steer the blaze away from a critical research station. Continue reading...

California may legalize human composting, a process in which the body breaks down into soil over the course of about 30 daysIs there a greener way to honor those who have died?Humans have caused unprecedented and irreversible changes to the climate in our time on Earth – pollution that continues even in death. But, across the US, some are posing an alternative: human composting. Continue reading...

Academics warn ‘fugitive’ emissions from producing hydrogen could be 20% worse for climate than using gasThe government’s plan to replace fossil gas with “blue” hydrogen to help meet its climate targets could backfire after US academics found that it may lead to more emissions than using gas.In some cases blue hydrogen, which is made from fossil gas, could be up to 20% worse for the climate than using gas in homes and heavy industry, owing to the emissions that escape when gas is extracted from the ground and split to produce hydrogen. Continue reading...

Just as inequality fuelled the pandemic, it could wreck plans to cut emissionsThe message from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change could hardly be clearer. Business as usual means global temperatures will rise by more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels within two decades. Preventing that happening will require a massive and rapid drop in the amount of greenhouse gases being emitted.Diagnosis is the easy bit. The question is not whether human beings are on a collision course with nature but how to use the time left to bring about the far-reaching economic changes required to avoid catastrophe. Continue reading...

‘This pipeline is the key piece of infrastructure that would enable Australia’s most polluting fossil fuel project to proceed’ says climate campaignerThe Western Australian government has been criticised for approving the final stage of a controversial Woodside Energy-led gas export development in the state’s north, three days after the launch of a landmark climate science report.The government gave the green light to 32.7km of pipeline to be constructed through state waters on the Pilbara coast. It allows the installation of the full 430km pipeline, most of it in commonwealth waters, that Woodside has proposed to transport gas from the Scarborough offshore basin to the Pluto liquified natural gas (LNG) processing facility on the Burrup Peninsula. Continue reading...

Rewilding on marginal land could bolster employment without halting traditional agricultural activities, data shows

Just £145m of budget went on environment with £40bn spent on emissions-increasing measures, says charityThe UK government is spending many times more on measures that will increase greenhouse gas emissions than on policies to tackle the climate crisis, according to an analysis of the spring budget.Only £145m in the March 2021 budget was devoted to environmental spending, most of it on the post-Brexit emissions trading scheme for industry, according to an analysis by the conservation charity WWF. But the cost of tax breaks to companies to encourage investment came to more than £34bn, while maintaining the fuel duty freeze – for an 11th consecutive year – is costing about £4.5bn in lost revenues. Continue reading...

Established in 2016, the Reteti sanctuary rescues and rehabilitates young elephants so that they can be reintroduced to the wild. It is the first to be owned and run by an indigenous community

Company maintains oil spills in 1970 were caused by third parties during civil warRoyal Dutch Shell has agreed to pay around €95m (£80.4m/$111.6m) to communities in southern Nigeria over crude oil spills in 1970, lawyers involved in the case have said.The decision is the latest involving Opec-member Nigeria’s oil-producing south where communities have long fought legal battles over oil spills and environmental damage. Continue reading...

Scores of fires blaze across 17 provinces as calls made for aid convoys and Morocco and France offer helpAlgeria’s president, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, has declared three days of national mourning amid the death toll from raging wildfires in the north of the country rising to 69.The state-run news agency APS said the rash of more than 50 fires which broke out on Tuesday had claimed four more lives, bringing the total to 69, including 28 soldiers deployed to help the emergency services. Continue reading...

Reading at monitoring station in Syracuse unverified but comes amid heatwave in last few daysThe highest temperature in European history appears to have been recorded in Italy during a heatwave sweeping the country, with early reports suggesting a high of 48.8C (119.85F).If this is accepted by the World Meteorological Organisation it will break the previous European record of 48C (118.4F) set in Athens in 1977. The temperature was measured at a monitoring station in Syracuse, Sicily, and confirmed soon after by the island’s meteorological authorities. Continue reading...

Residents around the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach were paid to show support for natural gas trucks at community hearingsDiesel truck pollution from the busiest port complex in the United States has fouled the air in nearby neighbourhoods in southern California for decades. So when port officials asked for feedback on cleaning up that pollution, hundreds of people weighed in.Los Angeles and Long Beach officials hoped residents would help them decide whether to require zero-pollution electric trucks or instead promote vehicles powered by natural gas, a fossil fuel. Continue reading...

Communities on the frontline of the climate crisis say radical solutions must be on the table – before it’s too lateAyisha Siddiqa doesn’t want fossil fuel companies to determine her future anymore. The industry has promoted climate denial for longer than the 22-year-old has been alive. Rather than watch companies pad their profits as the world burns, Siddiqa has a radical solution in mind.“Abolish these oil companies, finish them, get rid of them, no more,” she said. Continue reading...

Revealed: investigation shows how Tyson’s near monopoly in its home state of Arkansas gives it huge power, at a cost to farmers and the environmentThe tight grip that America’s largest meat processing company has on the chicken industry has generated dire consequences for its workers, farmers and the environment in one of the US’s leading poultry-producing states, an investigation has found.Tyson Foods is ranked 73rd on the Fortune 500 list, with a revenue of $43bn in the last fiscal year. Continue reading...

Calls for deposit return scheme now, with report tracing 65% of branded packaging pollution back to 12 firmsCoca-Cola bottles and cans were the most prevalent branded litter on beaches in the UK, a report has found, as campaigners call on the government to get on with introducing a deposit return scheme.Almost two-thirds (65%) of all branded packaging pollution across the UK coastline can be traced back to just 12 companies, according to the findings by the marine conservation charity Surfers Against Sewage (SAS). Continue reading...

Organic farming methods, which use fewer pesticides and store more carbon in soil, are becoming more popularThere is growing momentum behind a shift to ‘regenerative’ agriculture in the UK, which can help to mitigate the climate crisis, say leading experts in the sector.“More and more people are seeing other farmers doing it [regenerative farming] and are happier for it,” said John Cherry, who founded Groundswell, the UK’s flagship event for regenerative agriculture, on his farm in Hertfordshire. “People may be getting a higher yield with conventional approaches, but it is costing them more too with all the inputs, so they are not making more money.” Continue reading...