Takeover bid comes as energy companies look to expedite shutdown of coal-fired power plants in face of growing renewable competition, Schott says

Hank, who is far bigger than the average black bear, has broken into nearly 30 homes near Lake TahoeAuthorities in South Lake Tahoe in California have launched a special trapping effort to trap a 500-pound black bear known as “Hank the Tank”.Hank is, according to authorities, “readily identifiable due to [his] exceptionally large size and dark coat with a lighter muzzle”. Continue reading...

Ex-Paralympian James Brown and James Ruggles claimed rail project a danger to London’s drinking waterTwo environmental activists have been convicted of charges relating to a protest against HS2 after occupying a 100ft-high drilling rig to highlight damage they claimed the rail project was causing to London’s drinking water supply.James Brown, 57, a partially sighted former Paralympics cycling champion, and James Ruggles, 25, appeared at Uxbridge magistrates court charged with criminal damage and aggravated trespass after a protest in February 2020 when they climbed on to drilling machinery in the Colne Valley, Hillingdon. Continue reading...

Mike Cannon-Brookes believes backing renewable energy over old coal power plants will keep electricity prices down, create jobs and slash emissions – is he right?It is, by any measure, an extraordinary intervention in Australia’s rapidly evolving electricity market. A consortium worth hundreds of billions of dollars on Saturday lodged a formal offer to buy AGL Energy – the country’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter – for just short of 5% above the closing share price on Friday. Continue reading...

Donations include £1.3m from Italian oil group Eni and appear to run contrary to aim of being net zero by 2035The University of Oxford accepted at least £1.6m from oil, gas and petrochemical companies in 2020-21 despite its 2035 net zero commitment, according to a report by students.The funding was in addition to the more than £11m Oxford received from fossil fuel donors between 2015 and 2020. Continue reading...

Animal, which was caught in a trap and had leg amputated, cannot return to wild, but region lacks resources to rehabilitate itA rare Persian leopard being temporarily held in an Iraqi zoo faces an uncertain future, wildlife specialists fear.Six weeks ago the male leopard was caught in a trap set by a villager who had recently lost dozens of goats in the mountainous Batifa area of northern Duhok province, in the autonomous Kurdistan region, and had to have its right hind leg amputated. Continue reading...

Members’ links with energy companies prompt fears over church’s plans to end investments in high-carbon firmsKey members of the Church of England’s pensions board have strong links to the fossil fuel industry, research has shown, amid concerns over the organisation’s plans to end its investments in high-carbon companies.Analysis by DeSmog, the environmental investigation group, has found three prominent members of the pensions board of the Church Commissioners, the body that looks after Church of England investments, with former or current roles in energy companies, while other major figures have indirect links. Continue reading...

As campaign launched to enshrine right to green space, Bolton woman describes how ‘tranquility walks’ helped her through lockdown

As a campaign veteran, I know people here won’t stand for the latest attempt to use the energy crisis to save a dying industryWe thought fracking in England was over after the government banned it in 2019. So the call by more than 30 Conservative MPs, along with the fracking company Cuadrilla, to reopen exploration in Lancashire is disappointing. It is also desperate: a last-minute attempt to use the recent energy crisis to save a dying industry.And the people of Lancashire won’t stand for it. Nor will other communities threatened by this damaging industry. Neither the company nor this minority of MPs seem to understand how united people are against fracking. It’s telling that nobody who is publicly backing the letter is from an area directly threatened by fracking. Most are from the south, not the “industrial” north, as it is perceived to be. These MPs and their allies are at best misinformed and at worst delusional. Continue reading...

Licensing regime for flood plain harvesting has already been disallowed twice by the upper house

Activists say one in three people in England cannot access green spaces, with the poorest most deprived

Bid led by Atlassian founder to buy Australia’s biggest polluter and shut its coal plants earlier than planned rejected as not in shareholders’ best interests

New data exposes a strategic failure to drive growth in sectors that can provide the good jobs of the futureIn the lead-up to Cop26 in November, Boris Johnson was at his most panglossian as he extolled the economic benefits of the country’s transition to net zero. “The UK’s path to ending our contribution to climate change,” the prime minister forecast, “will be paved with well-paid jobs, billions in investment and thriving green industries … by moving first and taking bold action, we will build a defining competitive edge in electric vehicles, offshore wind, carbon capture technology and more.”Back in the real world, matters stand rather differently. Far from forging ahead of the rest, Britain risks falling behind in the new industrial revolution, as latest figures from the Office for National Statistics make depressingly clear. The green economy more or less flatlined between 2014 and 2020, the ONS found. Employment in the low-carbon and renewable energy sectors – which include manufacturing, energy supply and construction – actually fell. This dismal state of affairs predated the Covid pandemic and the accompanying recession. Continue reading...

The Rosebud Sioux nation in South Dakota aims to build the largest Indigenous owned herd to help food security and restore the landA trio of bison has gathered around a fourth animal’s carcass, and Jimmy Doyle is worried.“I really hope we’re not on the brink of some disease outbreak,” said Doyle, who manages the Wolakota Buffalo Range here in a remote corner of south-western South Dakota in one of the country’s poorest counties. The living bison sidle away as Doyle inspects the carcass, which is little more than skin and bones after coyotes have scavenged it. Continue reading...

Lobbyists for energy companies help to run parliamentary groups without needing to declare their roleLobbyists representing fossil fuel giants are quietly helping run parliamentary groups on energy and climate policy without the need to formally declare their involvement.The trade associations, which are funded by oil and gas producers including Shell, BP and ExxonMobil, provide administrative and public relations support to groups of MPs. Continue reading...

Senator Angus King urges US trade representative to press Beijing to live up to promise to increase spending on tasty crustaceansChina has failed to live up to its promise to buy more Maine lobster under a deal that opened the door to an easing of a trade war under Donald Trump, Maine’s congressional leaders say.Maine’s lobster industry was hurt by retaliatory Chinese tariffs in 2018 but failed to see substantial export gains after China committed to buying an additional $200bn in US goods, the delegation contends. Continue reading...

Expert report warns of dangers of relying on Victorian drainage system, lack of funding and awareness of risksThere is now a significant risk of people drowning in London as the threat of major flash floods increases in the city because of climate change. According to a report by a London Councils taskforce published this month, the danger is particularly severe because there is no overall plan or authority to tackle the increasing threat of flooding in the city.In its analysis of the citywide disruption that struck last July, when torrential rain swept across London on several occasions, the group says that more than a month’s average rain fell on the city in an hour on several different days. For example 48.5mm of rain fell on Shepherd’s Bush in an hour on 12 July while its average rainfall for that month is 46.8mm. Continue reading...

Energy giant assessing unsolicited bid worth up to $8bn from tech billionaire and Canadian investment firm

Infrared satellites made by British company will use thermal imaging to pinpoint heat lossA flotilla of British-built heat-sensing satellites is to be launched into Earth orbit to pinpoint badly insulated buildings across the planet. Seven thermal-imaging probes are being constructed in Guildford, and these are intended to play a key role in the battle against global heating by showing how homes, offices and cities can be made more energy efficient.This week, the British space company Satellite Vu will announce that the first of its heat-sensing satellites is to be carried aloft early next year on a Falcon 9 rocket, the launcher operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company. Continue reading...

With fewer than 2,000 Australasian bitterns left in the wild, the endangered bird relies on the wet rice fields to fledge their young

After Friday’s record-breaking winds, rail chaos and power cuts, weather warnings remain amid fears of more storms to come

City won’t issue final permit necessary for potentially toxic plant in majority Latino neighborhood to openA year after a hunger strike brought national attention to a potentially toxic metal shredder in a majority Latino neighborhood in Chicago, the city has announced it will not issue the final permit necessary for the plant to open, calling it an “unacceptable risk”.“In an already vulnerable community, the findings from the [city’s health impact assessment] combined with the inherent risks of recycling operations and concerns about the company’s past and potential noncompliance are too significant to ignore,” said the Chicago department of public health commissioner, Allison Arwady, in a press release. Continue reading...

Greater Manchester mayor says comments made in relation to Marie-France van Heel are ‘frankly disgraceful’

Eraring, the country’s largest coal-fired power station, will shut in three years, but transition plans for employees, communities – and the grid – are lacking

A rare red warning has been issued as back-to-back storms sweep the UKStorm Eunice is battering parts of the UK, felling trees and scattering roof tiles as forecasters warn of a “significant threat to life”. But is it caused by climate breakdown, and can we expect an increase in such disruptive storms? Continue reading...

After Met Office warning, we explain hard to predict phenomenon that could cause risk to life

The best of this week’s wildlife pictures, including a patient great tit, a hungry lemur, and a lucky escape for one humpback whale Continue reading...

A comprehensive study confirms that oil companies are largely all talk and no action when it comes to clean energy initiativesThis week a peer-reviewed study confirmed what many have suspected for years: major oil companies are not fully backing up their clean energy talk with action. Now the PR and advertising firms that have been creating the industry’s greenwashing strategies for decades face a reckoning over whether they will continue serving big oil.The study compared the rhetoric and actions on climate and clean energy from 2009 to 2020 from the world’s four largest oil companies – ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP. Writing in the journal Plos One, researchers from Tohoku University and Kyoto University in Japan conclude that the companies are not, in fact, transitioning their business models to clean energy. Continue reading...

Taskforce will ‘listen to local people’s concerns’, as government plans to release more than 1m tonnesA UN nuclear taskforce has promised to prioritise safety as it launches a review of controversial plans by Japan to release more than 1m tonnes of contaminated water into the ocean from the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.Japan’s government announced last April that it had decided to release the water over several decades into the Pacific Ocean, despite strong opposition from local fishers and neighbouring China and South Korea. Continue reading...

As Australia’s largest coal-fired plant announces an early closure, groups say government intervention in market ‘undermines confidence’

Exclusive: Dens being installed on east coast and A9 after predator’s return was found to reduce numbers of greysPine martens are to be deployed as wildlife bouncers along the east coast of Scotland and the A9 corridor to halt the northward march of grey squirrels.More than 35 artificial pine marten dens are being installed by Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) at strategic locations on the grey squirrels’ path of northward migration in an attempt to save the Highland red squirrel populations. Continue reading...

UN warns of looming catastrophe as hundreds of thousands more arrive at settlements that do not have enough food or waterSomalia’s displacement camps are coming under intense pressure with more than 300,000 people leaving their homes in search of food and water so far this year as the country experiences its worst drought in decades.People have been walking miles to camps, already home to those escaping the country’s protracted violence, after three consecutive failed rainy seasons since October 2020 that have decimated crops and livestock. Somalia has more than 2,400 such settlements, which already lack resources. Continue reading...

Police and surf lifesavers searching Little Bay for further human remains after swimmer killed in first fatal shark attack in Sydney since 1963

Harmful levels of toxic lead were found in bones of 46% of bald eagles sampled in 38 states from California to Florida, study findsAmerica’s national bird is more beleaguered than previously believed, with nearly half of bald eagles tested across the US showing signs of chronic lead exposure, according to a study published Thursday.While the bald eagle population has rebounded from the brink of extinction since the US banned the pesticide DDT in 1972, harmful levels of toxic lead were found in the bones of 46% of bald eagles sampled in 38 states from California to Florida, researchers reported in the journal Science. Continue reading...

The conflict is the latest highlighting key debates on affordable housing and education equality in the stateThe University of California, Berkeley may have to slash its new admissions by about one-third after a neighborhood group in the hilly Bay Area city challenged the environmental impact of the top college’s expansion plan.The university is asking California’s supreme court to intervene after the local group, called Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods, successfully argued the university was violating a major environmental law by failing to account for increases in the trash, traffic and noise that increased enrollment and new construction would bring. Continue reading...

Colin Burke on when thick curtains won’t suffice, Phil Ebbrell on the problems of external insulation and David Symington on the joys of an air-source heat pumpWhile welcoming the Royal Institute of British Architects’ call for the insulation of 3.3m interwar houses (Report, 11 February), I am reflecting on the refusal of local planning officers to agree to effective measures to reduce the carbon footprint of my “interwar” property, although in this case the wars involved were the Seven Years and Napoleonic wars. There are over 370,000 listed buildings in the UK, listed not by worth but by age. Despite my repeated efforts to replace old and inefficient sash windows with almost identical but double-glazed ones, planners refuse to contemplate such works, recommending instead that thick curtains should suffice.Having already fitted such drapes, I am reluctant to keep them drawn for 24 hours a day, so would call upon Riba to include listed homes to its worthy campaign.

Even if the optimists are right and the picture is brighter than the ONS suggests, there’s still a long way to goThe government has big plans for the green economy. There are targets galore: 2m skilled jobs by 2030, sale of petrol and diesel cars to be phased out by 2035, a net zero carbon economy by 2050.Having been the birthplace of the first industrial revolution in the 18th century, the idea is that the UK can again lead the way in the next phase of technological development. There is a 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution as a statement of intent. Continue reading...

Mayor joined by Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, whose daughter’s death was linked to pollution, at clean air summitAir pollution is a social justice issue, the mayor of London has said, as he convened a summit of regional and national health leaders to tackle toxic emissions that are damaging the health of Londoners.“For me the issue is very simple: it’s one of social justice,” Sadiq Khan said, opening the meeting at the Royal College of Physicians in London. “It’s the poorest people, least likely to own a car, least likely to cause the toxic air problems, who are most likely to suffer the consequences.” Continue reading...

Office for National Statistics finds ‘no significant change’ in turnover and jobs in low-carbon and renewable energy sectorThe UK’s low-carbon and renewable energy economy has failed to grow since 2014, according to official data showing a fall in the number of green jobs.In a blow to the government’s pledge to boost net-zero employment opportunities, the Office for National Statistics said its latest figures, covering 2020, showed “no significant change” in turnover and job numbers in the sector compared with six years earlier. Continue reading...

Scientists plan a vast global store of aquatic noises to help monitor marine life, identify species – and even uncover regional dialectsFrom the “boing” of a minke whale to the “drum” of a red piranha, scientists are documenting more sounds in our world’s oceans, rivers and lakes every year. Now, a team of experts wants to go a step further and create a reference library of aquatic noise to monitor the health of marine ecosystems.The Global Library of Underwater Biological Sounds, “Glubs”, will include every “thwop”, “muah” and “boop” of a humpback whale as well as human-made underwater sounds and records of the geophysical swirl of ice and wind, according to a paper in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. Continue reading...

Further links emerge between Craig Mackinlay’s Net Zero Scrutiny Group and Global Warming Policy FoundationA Tory MP who leads a group which campaigns against the government’s net zero measures has recruited two members of staff from a controversial organisation that questions climate science.After the Guardian revealed links between members of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, run by the MP Craig Mackinlay, and the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), further ties between the two organisations have been found. Continue reading...

New alliance from 14 nations pledges to fight latest EU curbs on ‘indefensible’ practice of scooping up fish from the sea floorAn EU action plan to deal with fishing practices that trawl the ocean floor is set to trigger a row between conservationists and a new industry alliance that says it is fighting for Europe’s culture and identity.About 32% of Europe’s fish are caught by industrial fishing vessels that rake the sea floor with enormous nets in a process called bottom trawling. Studies indicate that these nets can suck up to 41% of all invertebrate life from the sea floor and cause grave damage to marine environments such as cold water coral reefs and seagrass beds. Continue reading...

Walkers and horse riders had been given until 1 January 2026 to apply to save unmapped rights of way through private landCampaigners are celebrating a victory in the battle for public access to the countryside, after the government agreed to cancel a deadline to register forgotten footpaths.Walkers and horse riders had been given until 1 January 2026 to apply to save any rights of way through private land that existed before 1949 but did not appear on official maps, after which they would lose the opportunity to add them to maps. Continue reading...

Government-financed support in sectors including agriculture, fossil fuels and water is incentivising the annihilation of the natural world. But reforming the system is politically fraught

Research prompts warnings humanity is ‘financing its own extinction’ through subsidies damaging to the climate and wildlife

Origin Energy says the 2,880MW black-coal generator in NSW is not well-suited to rapidly changing conditions in the national electricity market

Grattan Institute energy experts say News Corp’s eye-watering figures on the projected costs and job losses of an improbable moratorium are ‘inflated’

Most comprehensive scientific analysis to date finds words are not matched by actionsAccusations of greenwashing against major oil companies that claim to be in transition to clean energy are well-founded, according to the most comprehensive study to date.The research, published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, examined the records of ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP, which together are responsible for more than 10% of global carbon emissions since 1965. The researchers analysed data over the 12 years up to 2020 and concluded the company claims do not align with their actions, which include increasing rather than decreasing exploration. Continue reading...

EPA analysis paints grim picture for ecosystems under increasing threat from habitat destruction, invasive species and climate crisis

Campaigners say Tory MP for Wycombe is trying to ‘wreck’ government plans for environmentConstituents of Steve Baker MP who are concerned about his environmental position have set up a “Steve Baker Watch” group and are launching a crowdfunding page to raise money. The constituents in Baker’s constituency of Wycombe in the rolling Chiltern Hills believe that Baker is trying to “wreck the government plans to improve the environment”.Baker, who as chair of the European Research Group was instrumental in pressing for a hard Brexit, helped set up the Net Zero Scrutiny Group (NZSG), which has close links to the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a lobbyist group that has been accused of denying climate science. Continue reading...