Institution jumps 66 places on People and Planet’s annual university sustainability league

People and Planet’s annual sustainability league table finds patchy progress across sectorMore than half of universities are not on track to meet their emissions targets, according to an analysis.The student network People and Planet has published its annual sustainability university league, which found that 46% of higher education institutions were on course to meet the target, up from a third in 2019. Continue reading...

Trump’s energy department blocked a rule intended to phase out less efficient bulbs. Now Biden plans to move forward, slowlyThe Biden administration has moved to reverse the depredations endured by one of the more unusual targets of Donald Trump’s culture wars during his time as US president: the humble lightbulb.The US Department of Energy has put forward a new standard for the energy efficiency of lightbulbs that would essentially banish the era of older, incandescent technology in favor of LED lighting. Continue reading...

Care for creation unites every person in this room, Anthony Albanese tells faith summit

Climate change is happening, and businesses know it. So why don’t company reports show it?Last week, Shell walked away from 170 million barrels of oil off the coast of Shetland, declaring the “economic case for investment” too weak. As might be expected with such a politically sensitive venture, there has been much speculation about what other factors might have been at play, whether pressure from Nicola Sturgeon or from Whitehall. But let’s try another question: how did Shell ever decide that there was an economic case? After all, the energy giant does not deny that its entire business will have to change. It advertises its “target to become a net zero emissions” company by 2050, publishes a “sustainability report” and partners with environmental organisations around the world. Yet little of this environmental awareness shows up in the hard numbers.The company’s latest accounts features this disclaimer: “Shell’s operating plans, outlooks, budgets and pricing assumptions do not reflect our net zero emissions target.” In other words: whatever the oil giant says is not what it thinks. Continue reading...

Outages hit Ireland and parts of UK after severe winds, rain and snow sweep in from AtlanticAlmost 30,000 homes in Ireland and 500 properties in Scotland have been left without power after Storm Barra swept in from the Atlantic bringing severe winds, rain and snow.The latest outages came days after the final homes in Britain were reconnected after Storm Arwen, which caused “catastrophic damage” to electricity networks mainly in north-east Scotland, affecting 135,000 properties. Continue reading...

Farmers and rural business owners call for stricter rules and enforcementFly-tipping incidents in England increased last year, with household waste accounting for by far the biggest proportion of the problem, which has been worsened by the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.From March 2020 to March 2021 in England, 1.13m fly-tipping incidents were dealt with by local authorities, an increase of 16% on the 980,000 reported in the previous year, according to data released by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on Wednesday. Higher numbers of incidents were reached in 2007-09, but the way the data is collated has changed, so direct comparisons with years before 2018 are not possible. Continue reading...

MeaTech 3D created the 4oz steak using 3D printing with real bovine cells that mature into muscle and fatThe largest lab-grown steak yet produced has been unveiled by the Israeli company MeaTech 3D, weighing in at nearly 4oz (110 grams).The steak is composed of real muscle and fat cells, derived from tissue samples taken from a cow. Living bovine stem cells were incorporated into “bio-inks” that were then placed in the company’s 3D printer to produce the steak. It was then matured in an incubator, in which the stem cells differentiated into fat and muscle cells. Continue reading...

Emails tabled in NSW parliament reveal consultant on motorway project and ex-government conservation officer hold shares in offset site

Firm illegally discharged about 360,000 litres of raw sewage from Worcestershire treatment plants in 2018Water company Severn Trent has been fined £1.5m by a court for illegal sewage discharges from its wastewater treatment plants.The firm was fined for discharges from four sewage treatment works in Worcestershire between February and August 2018, the Environment Agency said. Continue reading...

High court hearing puts UK financial support for the fossil fuel industry in the spotlightThe UK government failed to account for the billions of pounds in financial support it provides to the fossil fuel industry when deciding how much oil and gas to extract from the North Sea, climate campaigners have argued.A high court hearing that began on Wednesday has put the economics of the fossil fuel industry under the spotlight and raised questions about the compatibility of oil and gas production with a net zero goal. Continue reading...

After demonstrations see police use teargas and the death of one man, work begins to clear waste in Sfax after decision to move siteWork has begun to clear 30,000 tonnes of household rubbish from the streets of Tunisia’s “second city” of Sfax after the government backed down in a long-running dispute over a landfill site.Residents and activists in Agareb, where the current dump is located, said the site, opened in 2008 near the El Gonna national park, was a risk to human health. In recent weeks, unrest in the region has escalated, with access to the site blocked and police using teargas against demonstrators from the town. One man, Abderrazek Lacheb, has allegedly died after being caught up in the demonstrations, although the police have denied his death was due to teargas. Continue reading...

Conservation groups call the deaths ‘shocking and heartbreaking’ and have offered a $43,000 reward for informationThe dead wolves began turning up in Oregon in early February.First, state fish and wildlife troopers found an entire pack of five wolves – known as the Catherine pack – killed by poison in Union county. Then, between March and July, authorities found three grey wolves, two females and a male, similarly poisoned to death within the same county about 275 miles east of Portland. Continue reading...

Charity warns of ‘catastrophic’ increase in tree and plant disease because of climate breakdownAt least 30,000 ash trees are due to be felled by the National Trust this year at a cost of £3m due to dieback, as the charity warns of a “catastrophic” increase in tree and plant disease because of climate breakdown.Changing weather patterns are expected to cause pests and diseases that destroy trees to thrive, which could bring dramatic change to British landscapes. Continue reading...

Jake Fiennes is putting wildlife back into the farmed landscape, showing how nature can be at the heart of post-Brexit reformsFrom the driver’s seat of his pickup truck, Jake Fiennes points to the dark green strips of grass that betray the location of a dried-out saltwater creek system on the Holkham estate in Norfolk. If the early autumn rains allow, a rotary ditcher dragged by a tractor will soon score shallow channels in the sandy soil to excavate many of the old waterways. Fiennes, the estate’s conservation director, and his wardens, Andy and Paul, will then fill them with standing water from the site’s chalk aquifers, part of a plan to transform dozens of fields into grazing wetlands on the 10,000-hectare (25,000-acre) farm and nature reserve.Fiennes is certain that next spring will see yet more lapwings, avocets and other rare wetland birds thriving in the mud on the edges of the channels – known as field drains – in the habitat they share with a herd of about 800 cattle. Continue reading...

The smelter, Victoria’s biggest electricity consumer, could slash emissions if Alinta’s proposed offshore windfarm goes ahead

They are Britain’s largest bird and, flying overhead, Theroux described them as sounding like ‘a couple making love in a hammock’The mute swan is not so much a bird, more of a national treasure: the avian equivalent of Sir David Attenborough or the Queen. And just like them, swans are widely loved and admired.Yet people also sometimes fear swans: when a territorial male chases after you, hissing and spreading his wings, he can be a fearsome adversary. And at times, people wilfully seek to harm them. Perhaps because they present such huge and obvious targets, swans are regularly shot and killed. Continue reading...

Vibrant soundscape shows Indonesian reef devastated by blast fishing is returning to healthFrom whoops to purrs, snaps to grunts, and foghorns to laughs, a cacophony of bizarre fish songs have shown that a coral reef in Indonesia has returned rapidly to health.Many of the noises had never been recorded before and the fish making these calls remain mysterious, despite the use of underwater speakers to try to “talk” to some. Continue reading...

Activist investor Elliott Management is right – if SSE wants to be the UK renewables champion it needs green heavyweights on boardElliott Management’s open letters are improving. When the US activist hedge fund tried to take a pop at GlaxoSmithKline in the summer, it produced 17 pages of waffle that could have been condensed to a few sentences of substance. Tuesday’s 10-page blast at energy group SSE was tighter, scored a couple of solid hits and should make the newish chairman, Sir John Manzoni, realise the Perth-based firm is in a scrap.That is not to say Elliott is right on every score, or even on its main demand that SSE should be split in two. Indeed, one of the activist’s points was plainly exaggerated – the idea that an “unequivocal message” was sent by the 4% fall in SSE’s share price on the day last month when the company unveiled its energy transition strategy alongside a delayed dividend cut. Continue reading...

Representatives at industry gathering in Houston launch attack on the speed of transition to clean energyLeaders of the world’s biggest oil companies have used an industry gathering in Houston to launch an attack on the speed of transition to clean energy, claiming a badly managed process could lead to “insecurity, rampant inflation and social unrest”.Executives from oil companies including Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil producer, and US oil giants ExxonMobil and Chevron publicly described the shift towards clean energy alternatives as “deeply flawed”. They called for fossil fuels to remain part of the energy mix for years to come despite global efforts for an urgent response to the climate crisis. Continue reading...

Perhaps Kwasi Kwarteng can explain how people will make calls in the future when telephone connections will rely on broadband, writes Geoff ThomasKwasi Kwarteng urged those still without electricity to call 105, the emergency power cut phone number (Report, 1 December). Perhaps he could explain how in the future, when BT has completed the conversion of the telephone network to an all-digital one, this will be possible when vast areas will be without mains power for days on end as now, and your telephone connection will depend on your broadband connection? Will BT still have battery or generator backup that keeps the current service working in power cuts? Will mobile phone stations have such emergency power backup on every facility? I have seen no answers to these questions.

In 1479 beetles were put on trial for ‘creeping secretly in the earth’If you hold a Christmas beetle – small, brown, mechanical – in the palm of your hand, it moves as though under a spell. The spell commands it to keep walking, to burrow its surprisingly strong legs endlessly forwards, like the end of the year growing steadily nearer and just as steadily receding.In Europe, Christmas beetles are called “cockchafers”. In the year 1478, they appeared in a French court to stand trial on the charge of having been sent by witches to destroy the laity’s crops (and jeopardise the church’s tithes). Continue reading...

Blockade Australia says 26-year-old climate activist had been living in the car when she was arrested in Newcastle

The Kemp’s ridley sea turtles, the most endangered of six species found in US waters, were flown to MississippiForty endangered sea turtles injured when the water off Massachusetts cooled down so quickly that they couldn’t swim away are being nursed back to health at the Mississippi Aquarium, having been flown there by a volunteer pilot group, Turtles Fly Too.All were Kemp’s ridley sea turtles, the world’s smallest sea turtles and the most endangered of six species found in US waters, the aquarium said. Continue reading...

Food and Agriculture Organization says most plastics are burned, buried or lost after useThe “disastrous” way in which plastic is used in farming across the world is threatening food safety and potentially human health, according to a report from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.It says soils contain more microplastic pollution than the oceans and that there is “irrefutable” evidence of the need for better management of the millions of tonnes of plastics used in the food and farming system each year. Continue reading...

Leaders say Adani Group, a major operator of coal mines, is responsible for land destructionIndigenous leaders on the frontline of the climate crisis are calling on the Science Museum to cancel its sponsorship deal with a company they say is responsible for widespread destruction in their homelands.Leaders from communities in Australia, India and Indonesia warned that the museum’s new agreement with Adani Green Energy, whose parent company Adani Group is a major operator of coal mines and coal-fired power stations, is legitimising its “destructive coal expansion activities”. Continue reading...

Department sources say emergency authorisation of neonicotinoid Cruiser SB likely to be announcedThe UK government may be about to approve the use of a controversial bee-killing pesticide, wildlife groups fear.Sources inside the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) say that, after pressure from the sugar beet industry, an emergency authorisation of the neonicotinoid Cruiser SB is likely to be announced in the coming weeks. Continue reading...

Two generations of energy workers discuss how their family has responded to the climate emergency• Are you a fossil fuel industry insider? We want to hear from youWhat do you do when your family has deep ties to the oil and gas industry, yet all agree that burning fossil fuels is accelerating the climate crisis?For one family, the fossil fuel industry’s role in stoking the climate emergency is more than just a dinner table debate. It’s their legacy. Andy and Wendy met in the 70s while working as engineers for Exxon. They spent decades working in oil and gas while raising their children.Andy, 65, retired engineer,Wendy, 62, retired engineerLiz, 33, environmental safety managerDara, 35, Liz’s husband and engineerJames, 31, IT consultant Continue reading...

Businesses, unions and green groups say ministers must ensure all policies are compatible with climate targetsBoris Johnson should set up a new cross-government initiative on reaching net-zero emissions, and subject all government policies to tests to ensure they are compatible with the climate target, businesses, unions and green campaigners have said.Ministers should review current policies in the next few months and use the result to present a new national plan on the climate crisis before the next UN climate meeting in November 2022, the leaders urged. The UK retains the presidency of the UN climate talks until then, having hosted the Cop26 climate summit last month. Continue reading...

Prediction for 2021-22 comes despite flooding and rain damage in the country’s east

Fire at warehouse storing beauty products caused large quantities of chemicals to enter canal, killing plantsSince early October, residents of Carson, California, have been sickened by a noxious smell coming from the Dominguez Channel that has been likened to “a rotten egg” or “the stench of death”. Now, officials have pinpointed a cause: a fire at a warehouse that stored beauty and wellness products.South Coast Air Quality Management District, the agency tasked with investigating the foul stench, said on Friday that the large warehouse fire, which began on 30 September and took several days to extinguish, caused vast amounts of chemicals to flow into the 15-mile canal. That spurred a die-off of plants living in the waterway, which in turn produced huge amounts of hydrogen sulfide, a flammable and colorless gas that can be harmful to human health. Continue reading...

Kristina Keneally expresses support for every school to require all staff to ‘live out and profess’ its values

Wayne Hsiung’s trial on theft and trespass charges could set a legal precedent for the ‘right to rescue’ agricultural livestockOn a rainy night in February, 2018, animal rights activist Wayne Hsiung sneaked into a small scale North Carolina farm and, depending on your perspective, either stole or rescued a baby goat. The maneuver was highly risky – on a live stream, Hsiung tells his audience what awaits: an electric fence, barking dogs and armed security guards, according to the farm’s website.Undeterred, Hsiung and his co-conspirators filled their pockets with dog treats and broke into the Sospiro farm, owned by farmer Curtis Burnside. Continue reading...

Ted Hughes felt the soon-to-be minister for economy and climate was ‘on the same wavelength’The man who will spend the next four years trying to bring about a green transformation of Germany’s coal-hungry industry once faced another daunting challenge in a previous, less publicly exposed career: translating the most controversial poems in recent British history from English into German.As Germany’s next vice-chancellor and minister for economy and climate, Green party co-leader Robert Habeck will be one of the most powerful politicians not just in Germany but Europe, overseeing a new super-ministry that will span general economic policy, renewable energy and the expansion of the country’s electricity grid, with a mooted budget upwards of €10bn. Continue reading...

Reefs from Seychelles to South Africa may become functionally extinct due to global heating and overfishing, study findsAll coral reefs in the western Indian Ocean are at high risk of collapse in the next 50 years due to global heating and overfishing, according to a new assessment.From Seychelles to the Delagoa region off the coast of Mozambique and South Africa, the reef systems are at risk of becoming functionally extinct by the 2070s, with a huge loss of biodiversity, and threatening the livelihoods and food sources for hundreds of thousands of people. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Consortium of energy firms and universities says underground storage of hydrogen can also be investigatedExhausted oil and gas wells would be turned into the UK’s first deep test sites for burying carbon dioxide next year, under plans from a consortium of universities and energy companies.There are hundreds of active onshore oil and gas wells in the UK. But as they come to the end of their lives, some need to be redeployed for trials of pumping COunderground and monitoring it to ensure it does not escape, the group says. The test wells could also be used to assess how hydrogen can be stored underground. Continue reading...

Annastacia Palaszczuk brings forward Qld border reopening; Steven Marshall ‘very concerned’ by Omicron as SA records four Covid cases; Perth stripped of Ashes series finale; Victoria records 1,073 new cases and six deaths, NSW records 208 cases, ACT six; Katherine lockdown extended as NT records one case; Australia could be renewables ‘superpower’ but has wasted time, Chris Bowen says.This blog is now closed

Chris Bowen says party’s stance is not negotiable as Morrison claims a vote for Labor is a vote for ‘Greens targets’

Artist Steuart Padwick says the child’s arms reach across Glasgow with a simple, positive messageA new public sculpture that calls for optimism about humanity’s response to the climate crisis has been installed in a park once home to Glasgow’s last working coalmine.The Hope Sculpture, featuring an androgynous child placed more than 20 metres high, has been erected on the bank of the Clyde as a permanent reminder of Glasgow’s role as host of the Cop26 climate summit in November. Continue reading...

Decision to reject Dendrobium plans has been reversed despite potential damage to drinking water

OR-93 traveled further south than any wolf had in a hundred years. Even after death, he continues to inspireThe young gray wolf who took experts and enthusiasts on a thousand-mile journey across California died last month, ending a trek that brought hope and inspiration to many during a time of ecological collapse.The travels of the young male through the state were a rare occurrence: he was the first wolf from Oregon’s White River pack to come to California and possibly the first gray wolf in nearly a century to be spotted so far south. Continue reading...

Heatwaves kill more people in Australia than all other natural disasters combined, and some experts believe naming them might help reduce deathsCalifornia has become the latest jurisdictions to set up a system that would categorise and name heatwaves like cyclones or hurricanes, raising questions about whether Australia should adopt a similar system to reduce heat-related deaths.Following the recent example of Greece and the city of Seville in Spain, authorities in California will introduce a bill in January to develop the ranking system. Continue reading...

Even species ‘superbly adapted’ for Australia’s harsh conditions suffered, with up to 60% of trees dying in some areas

Climate campaigners claim the government is giving billions of pounds in subsidies to oil and gas producersEnvironmental campaigners will this week ask the high court to rule that the government’s fossil fuel strategy is unlawful, in a case that could undermine the UK’s claim to be leading the fight against climate change.The campaigners will argue that the government is effectively subsidising oil and gas production with billions of pounds in handouts, which conflicts with its legal duty to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. Continue reading...

Exxon and other fossil fuel companies are running podcast ads that suggest they are taking aggressive climate action. Climate experts call them greenwashingIf you’re a regular listener of the New York Times podcast The Daily, you would have heard an ad for ExxonMobil’s carbon capture investments more than once in November.The ad – which coincided with the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow – told listeners that carbon capture technology could remove more than 90% of CO emissions from “carbon-intensive industries” and that the company was working to “deploy this technology at scale”. It gave the sense of an oil company tackling the climate crisis with technology that could solve it – and quickly. Continue reading...

Grouse moors are not known for being friendly places for birds of prey – but the Swinton estate has a fresh attitudeIn the trees beside the heather-clad, snow-smattered moorland is an elusive creature that to some conservationists is as mythical as a unicorn: a gamekeeper looking after endangered birds of prey.“Two hen harriers coming in now,” said Gary Taylor, head keeper on the Swinton estate in North Yorkshire. Taylor is sitting in a hide he built himself overlooking one of the country’s best hen harrier roosting sites – in the middle of his boss’s grouse moor. Continue reading...

Researchers say conservative estimate shows importance of wooded areas to wellbeing, with street trees also beneficialWalks taken by people in UK woodlands save £185m a year in mental health costs, according to a report.Spending time in nature is known to boost mental health, but the report by Forest Research is the first to estimate the amount that woodlands save the NHS through fewer GP visits and prescriptions, reduced hospital and social service care, and the costs of lost days of work. The research also calculated that street trees in towns and cities cut an additional £16m a year from antidepressant costs. Continue reading...

Key Honolulu aquifer may also be at risk as residents say they face stomach pain and headachesCheri Burness’s dog was the first to signal something was wrong with their tap water. He stopped drinking it two weeks ago. Then Burness started feeling stomach cramps. Her 12-year-old daughter was nauseous.“It was just getting worse every day,” said Burness. Continue reading...

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Britain won’t convince anyone else to ditch fossil fuels when it won’t do so itselfDoes the decision by oil giant Royal Dutch Shell to pull out of the Cambo oilfield mark the end of oil and gas investment in the North Sea? For the planet’s sake, one would hope so. However, it may be more realistic to see Shell’s act as a first victory in a longer war to keep hydrocarbons in the ground. Campaigners say that there are dozens more offshore oil and gas fields coming up for approval in the next three years. To keep the climate safe and limit global temperature rises to 1.5C, none ought to go ahead. Oil majors have lost the battle for public opinion in Scotland and this has dramatically altered the calculations for the ruling Scottish National party, which for decades ran on oil. Without supportive politics, and with the science against them, oil majors – this time – bowed out.Despite that, and despite brandishing its credentials as a climate champion at Cop26 in Glasgow last month, the UK government still wants extractive industries to suck the seabed dry. Rather than joining an alliance of nations – led by Denmark and Costa Rica, and including France and Ireland – which have set an end date for oil and gas production and exploration, Boris Johnson will allow companies to keep exploring the North Sea for new reserves. Continue reading...