If overlooked open spaces were used, dependence on overseas imports could be reduced, research findsBritain could grow up to eight times its current production of fruit and vegetables if all available urban and under-used green space were turned to cultivation, new research has shown.Only about 1% of urban green space is made up of allotments, but if gardens were used, along with parks, playing fields, watersides and other overlooked open spaces, the area would add up to enough to grow nearly 40% of the UK’s fresh fruit and vegetable consumption, most of which comes from overseas, according to the study. Continue reading...

One-horned species was nearly extinct before poaching was curbed. Now the climate crisis could pose a greater threatGanesh Pant worries about the future. While he delights in the stunning conservation accomplishment that has seen the numbers of greater one-horned rhinos in Nepal jump from 100 in 1965 to 752 in 2021, he wants to be sure that success will continue.Before the 1950s, as many as 1,000 rhinos roamed the grasslands and forests of Nepal. But by 1965, rampant hunting, poaching and changes in land use had brought the species close to extinction in the country. Then, the national park was established in 1973 and thanks to concerted conservation efforts, the rhino population began to bounce back. Continue reading...

Charles county authorities say neighbors did not know about venomous and non-venomous reptiles including a 14ft pythonPolice officers called to a Maryland residence by a concerned neighbour found a 49-year-old man dead – and surrounded by more than 125 venomous and non-venomous snakes, held in tanks on racks.The discovery by Charles county sheriff’s deputies and emergency responders at the house in Pomfret became even more bizarre when they established that none of the reptiles, including a 4.3m (14ft) Burmese python, had escaped or were slithering free. Continue reading...

Exclusive: climate tilt by USS will immediately reduce emissions associated with its holdings by 30%The UK’s biggest private pension fund will shift £5bn of its investment in equities to an index avoiding the worst polluters, in a move that will immediately reduce the carbon emissions associated with the shareholdings by 30%.The Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), which manages the pensions of British academics, will introduce a climate “tilt” to the money, shifting it to companies that are making efforts to cut emissions. Continue reading...

The pork industry claimed new animal welfare rules would bring chaos to the supply chain. Proponents say they need to get with the programIn the months leading up to the arrival of a strict new animal welfare law in California, headlines warned of a “Great California bacon crisis”. The law sets minimum living-space requirements for breeding pigs, which restaurants said could make bacon more expensive and harder to get.But so far, the pork apocalypse has yet to arrive. Continue reading...

Four years after a new post-Brexit payments system was promised by ministers, confusion leaves bid to improve biodiversity in limboFarmers are putting off planting trees because of the uncertainty surrounding the government’s plans for subsidies based on protecting nature, delaying the UK’s efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions and stem the drastic decline in farmland wildlife.New farm payments are expected from 2024, under the post-Brexit subsidy regime the government has promised, but farmers fear if they plant trees now they will not get the credit for it when the new schemes start. Meanwhile, they face potentially losing their existing subsidies if they switch to more tree-planting now. Continue reading...

The multiyear deal with the fossil fuel company had been the target of a campaign against ‘sportswashing’

Leicester politicians hope levy on local firms will help cut pollution in cityCouncils across the UK are using radical strategies to cut the number of polluting vehicles on their streets in response to the climate emergency.Leicester city council hopes a new charge on workplace parking will improve air quality, fund public transport and incentivise walking and cycling. Continue reading...

Rewilding teams are facing a huge task to encourage the return of wildlife after decades of damage by the forestry industryChopping down trees is not how most people would expect a river restoration project to begin, but Janne Raassina – who is expertly using a chainsaw to take down four or five earmarked trunks around the Särkkäjoki River in remotest eastern Finland – explains that the rotting wood will be hugely useful to the ecosystem.“This is a huge buffet for insects, and it’s something that has been missing in our nature for 100 years,” he says. “We are creating the food chain from scratch.” Continue reading...

Project does not meet EU’s requirement for environmental impact assessment, NGOs sayThe British petrochemicals company Ineos is facing a legal challenge over plans to build a giant plastics plant in Antwerp.The legal NGO ClientEarth, acting with 13 other NGOs, on Friday launched an appeal against Antwerp’s decision to grant Ineos a permit to build a chemicals installation to make ethylene from fracked US shale gas, the Guardian has learned. Continue reading...

NSW government’s approval compromises ‘environmental integrity of the operation’, say campaignersLocals and advocates have been left “devastated” and concerned about the environmental impacts of the New South Wales government’s decision to allow Whitehaven Coal to bury used tyres onsite at the Maules Creek coalmine.The government approved Whitehaven’s modification application on 14 January to allow off-the-road (OTR) tyres that can no longer be used at the mine to be buried within the mine’s waste rock emplacement areas, “subject to appropriate environmental controls”. Continue reading...

City council expected to vote to ban new oil and gas wells, and phase out existing ones, which residents have blamed for chronic health issuesThe University Park neighborhood of Los Angeles has a lot in common with urban areas across the US: a dense population with lots of businesses and housing. A cluster of car dealerships. A row of restaurants. Schools and a community center.But nestled in the predominantly Latino community is something rarely found in urban areas outside California: an oil field. Continue reading...

Officials from Exxon, Shell, Chevron and BP have been summoned to appear before the House oversight committee in FebruaryA US congressional committee has invited board members at four large oil companies to testify in February about the industry’s role in the climate crisis and spreading “disinformation”, turning up the heat on big oil after lawmakers grilled their CEOs last year.The hearing of officials from Exxon, Shell, Chevron and BP, scheduled for 8 February, is the next phase of the House oversight committee’s investigation into the role of fossil fuel companies in blocking action on climate change and misrepresenting the industry’s efforts to address it. Continue reading...

The best of this week’s wildlife pictures, including beluga whales, a ‘snow fairy’ and two egrets hitching a lift Continue reading...

Morrison government hails engineering milestone but researchers raise concerns and say it could increase emissions

The deal to build an electric car battery plant near Blyth will bring up to 3,000 jobs to the area by 2028The UK government will invest £100m in Britishvolt as the car battery manufacturing startup seeks to build Britain’s first large-scale “gigafactory” in the north-east of England.The government’s Automotive Transformation Fund will invest alongside asset management company Abrdn and its majority-owned property investment arm, Tritax, to fund a sale and leaseback deal for the huge building that will house the electric car battery factory, near Blyth in Northumberland. Continue reading...

Government considers scrapping scheme that pays for energy efficiency measures for poorer householdsMore than 30,000 jobs would be put at risk if the government were to scrap the energy bill levy that pays for home insulation improvements for poor households, the industry has warned.Ministers are mooting an end to the Energy Company Obligation (ECO), a £1bn levy on energy bills that pays for energy efficiency measures for people on low incomes. The energy price cap is expected to rise by about £700 to £2,000 for the average household bill in April, after a surge in gas prices. Continue reading...

£140 might have been knocked off typical bill if rollout of projects had happened sooner, says industryBritain’s wind and solar farms could help to reduce households’ energy bills by paying back almost £800m to consumers by the end of the winter after gas and electricity market prices rocketed above their set subsidy levels.Households earned a £157m windfall from renewable energy generators for the first time in the final quarter of last year following record high market prices, according to official figures. Continue reading...

Some rightwingers claim renewables have increased costs, but Energy UK blames over-reliance on gasEnergy companies want the government to implement policies to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions, the industry’s leader has said, despite claims from some on the political right that high energy prices should spark a rethink.Emma Pinchbeck, chief executive of Energy UK, which represents the industry, said: “The government should press on with net zero policies. That’s something they still need to do. We are missing the carbon budgets.” Continue reading...

A fifth of those polled said they could reduce food waste if they knew more recipesAlmost £1.2bn worth of fruit, veg and bread is binned in the UK every year, with one in five consumers stating the reason they waste so much is they “don’t know what to cook”.Close to 76m items – an average of nearly three a household – are thrown away every week, according to data based on research by the Censuswide, which asked consumers how much food they threw away. The scale of the waste is staggering, with 914m potatoes, 733m tomatoes and 728m carrots ending up in dustbins each year. Continue reading...

Tim Westley takes up chef friend’s challenge to transform laughing gas litterThe little steel bulbs that litter parks, roadsides and city centres – the discarded canisters from Britain’s second favourite drug, laughing gas – cause misery to many communities. But now one blacksmith has found an innovative use for them: turning them into handmade kitchen knives.The prevalence of the canisters has prompted some councils to impose local bans, while the home secretary is keen to outlaw them nationally. But Tim Westley’s handmade kitchen knives are gaining a cult following among environmentally conscious foodies after being endorsed by chefs committed to low waste. Continue reading...

Scientists say find shows importance of mapping deep ocean where coral can escape effects of global heatingA huge coral reef has been discovered off the coast of Tahiti in the Pacific Ocean’s “twilight zone”, offering hope that more pristine ecosystems are waiting to be discovered at unexplored depths.Stretching along the ocean floor for nearly 2 miles, the reef, covered in rose-shaped corals, is one of the largest such discoveries at depths of more than 30 metres, where sunlight levels are much lower. Continue reading...

If carbon emissions stay at current levels, just 0.02% of the desert tree would survive. Volunteers are now banding together to plant seedlingsThe trees are not exactly imposing. Slim and spiny, with limbs that grip small poms of sharp leaves, they look like something a child might dream up. Or maybe Salvador Dalí. Even the name, Joshua tree, sounds kind of awkward.On a wet and chilly December morning, I stood at a makeshift encampment in the Mojave national preserve in San Bernardino county, California, listening as a group of strangers fretted over the trees’ precarious future. Within the preserve is Cima Dome, a broad-sloping mound that, until recently, contained the densest Joshua tree forest in the world.The August 2020 Dome Fire in the Mojave national preserve burned more than 1m Joshua trees to varying degrees. Continue reading...

More than a thousand crows roost in Sunnyvale every night, ruffling locals’ feathers with caws and droppingsEach night, more than a thousand crows descend on Sunnyvale, California. In recent years a growing contingency of corvids have been roosting in the Silicon Valley town’s downtown district, filling the night air with a chorus of caws and painting the roads, Pollock-esque, with droppings.The spectacle has failed to charm residents and local business owners. Vice-Mayor Alysa Cisneros said constituents had been complaining about the crows since she began campaigning for office in 2019. “In terms of the kinds of complaints I get on a consistent basis, crows are a top concern, right after speeding drivers,” she said. Continue reading...

Delayed legislation includes ban on trophy hunting imports and stricter sentences for puppy thievesSome of the government’s most prized new animal welfare policies are being put on pause in what supporters see as a sneaky attempt to ditch the “woke” measures altogether.Senior sources in the Conservative party have confirmed to the Guardian that a series of policies including a ban on trophy hunting imports, stricter sentences for puppy thieves and a ban on live exports of livestock have been put on pause after a campaign led by Mark Spencer, the chief whip. Continue reading...

Retired salesman John Stimpson was so moved by the cries of birds unable to find nests, he decided to act. Now he has made enough boxes to house half the UK’s swiftsRetired salesman John Stimpson is 80 today. He will be celebrating with a cake at Slimming World this evening, followed by dinner with his family on Friday. Stimpson has one achievement in particular to mark: he has just completed his goal of building 30,000 swift boxes, which could house half of the UK’s breeding population of 60,000 pairs.Stimpson has been making these peculiarly shaped boxes for 13 years using three saws and three drills in his garage attached to his bungalow near Ely in Cambridgeshire. What started as a retirement hobby morphed into a full-time job after orders increased, and he sometimes works 13-hour days to get them all done. He sells them for £20, which is enough to cover his costs. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Officers say cuts and operational decisions have made England’s regulator ‘toothless’Staff at England’s Environment Agency say it has been cut back to such an extent that they cannot do their jobs and the regulator is no longer a deterrent to polluters.Three officers at the EA have described to the Guardian and Ends Report how they are increasingly unable to hold polluters to account or improve the environment as a result of the body’s policies. Continue reading...

There’s still much to learn about these ‘strange alien creatures’, but climate change likely to create ideal breeding conditions, expert says

Endangered coho salmon spotted returning to spawning grounds after well-timed precipitationThe heavy rains that soaked California late last year were welcomed by farmers, urban planners – and endangered coho salmon.“We’ve seen fish in places that they haven’t been for almost 25 years,” said Preston Brown, the director of watershed conservation for the Salmon Protection and Watershed Network (Spawn). Continue reading...

Northumbrian Water admitted two breaches of law after manhole collapse led to sewer blockageA water company has been fined £240,000 after a damaged manhole led to two unauthorised sewage discharges into a stream.Untreated sewage leaked into Coundon Burn in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, on 13 March 2017. A member of the public rang Northumbrian Water after seeing effluent in the stream, and the firm – which had a turnover of £834.6m that year – sent workers to free a sewer blockage. Continue reading...

Tightening regulations and a growing eco-conscious workforce are major factors in heralding green office campusesAbout 40 miles south of San Francisco, three futuristic structures rise from the earth. With sloping roofs clad in thousands of overlapping tiles, the buildings could be mistaken for the world’s most architecturally advanced circus tent.They are, in fact, part of Google’s new Bay View campus, which is due to welcome employees this year – pandemic allowing – and is situated a few miles east of its existing HQ campus in Mountain View. Continue reading...

Customers saddled with paying 600 times the usual price for energy as regulators are accused of being too close to the industry they monitorWhen Neil Crittenden heard that an extreme winter storm was about to hit Oklahoma last winter, he did what officials advised him to do and kept his heat on and water running so that his pipes wouldn’t freeze. The 40-year-old Oklahoma City resident even used hair dryers to keep them thawed.What Crittenden didn’t know at the time was that the energy he used was going to cost him significantly. As winter storm Uri swept across the south central US last February, utilities that weren’t prepared scrambled. The storm caused blackouts in several states and resulted in the deaths of at least 223 people. Continue reading...

‘Urgent’ coordinated action to tackle overconsumption, farming subsidies and the climate crisis also needed to halt biodiversity lossExpanding national parks and protected areas will not be enough to halt the destruction of nature, warn leading scientists, who say urgent action on overconsumption, harmful subsidies and the climate crisis is also required to halt biodiversity loss.Governments are expected to commit to a Paris-style agreement for nature at Cop15 in Kunming, China, later this year, with targets that include protecting at least 30% of the oceans and land by 2030. Continue reading...

New solar capacity in Australia grew by 10% in 2021, a third less than expected, but nation still leads the world with 17GW of installed panels

Federal water minister allocates $126m to Murrumbidgee Irrigation for works it says will save just 7.4 gigalitres of water

Special bricks could attract mites or encourage spread of disease if not cleaned properly, say some expertsAn initiative in Brighton aimed at helping protect the bee population could do more harm than good, scientists have warned.The council in Brighton has passed a planning condition that means any new building more than five metres high will have to include swift boxes and special bricks with holes known as bee bricks. They will provide nesting and hibernating space for solitary bees.There are about 270 species of bee in Britain, just under 250 of which are solitary bees that live alone, although often nest close to one another.Solitary bees in Britain are highly diverse, and so are their nesting habits. Most British species nest in the ground, excavating their own nest.The honeybee is probably the best-known bee. They live socially and are led by a queen and serviced by male drones and female worker bees.The bee population is thought to have declined in the UK since the 1970s. For example, the number of managed honeybee hives in England dropped by 50% between 1985 and 2005, and 67% of common widespread moth species have declined since the 1970s.Since 1900, the UK has lost 13 species of bee, and a further 35 are considered under threat of extinction.The decline in population is thought to be because of changes in land use, which has led to habitat loss. Other issues affecting bees include disease, pesticides, pollution and climate change.One of the best ways of helping bees is thought to be by planting flowers rich in nectar. Continue reading...

Investment fund manager says firms that do not plan for a carbon-free future risk being left behindLarry Fink, the chief executive of BlackRock, the world’s biggest investment fund manager, said pushing climate policies was about profits, not being “woke”.In his annual letter to CEOs , Fink said businesses, cities and countries that do not plan for a carbon-free future risked being left behind. He argued that the pursuit of long-term returns was the main driver behind climate policies, after being criticised for seeking to influence companies. Continue reading...

Country at risk becoming ‘the dirty corner of Europe’ without more ambitious targets, say campaigners Continue reading...

America’s largest oil firm claims its history of publicly denying the climate crisis is protected by the first amendmentExxonMobil is attempting to use an unusual Texas law to target and intimidate its critics, claiming that lawsuits against the company over its long history of downplaying and denying the climate crisis violate the US constitution’s guarantees of free speech.The US’s largest oil firm is asking the Texas supreme court to allow it to use the law, known as rule 202, to pursue legal action against more than a dozen California municipal officials. Exxon claims that in filing lawsuits against the company over its role in the climate crisis, the officials are orchestrating a conspiracy against the firm’s first amendment rights. Continue reading...

Study calls for cap on production and release as pollution threatens global ecosystems upon which life dependsThe cocktail of chemical pollution that pervades the planet now threatens the stability of global ecosystems upon which humanity depends, scientists have said.Plastics are of particularly high concern, they said, along with 350,000 synthetic chemicals including pesticides, industrial compounds and antibiotics. Plastic pollution is now found from the summit of Mount Everest to the deepest oceans, and some toxic chemicals, such as PCBs, are long-lasting and widespread. Continue reading...

Assessment contains inadequate surveys of threatened species habitat and fails to identify that project could cause flooding of 284km of waterways, officials say

Government offices will relocate to province of East Kalimantan, easing burden on Java metropolis as it battles environmental problemsIndonesia plans to name its new capital Nusantara, which translates as “archipelago”, when government offices are relocated to the province of East Kalimantan from Jakarta, on the island of Java.President Joko Widodo first announced the plan to move Indonesia’s capital in 2019, in an effort to relieve the huge environmental challenges facing Jakarta, and to redistribute wealth. The move has been delayed due to the pandemic, but could go ahead in 2024. Continue reading...

Mayor says air pollution and climate crisis are issues of ‘social justice’ in capital and across the globeMotorists across the whole of London could be charged for every journey from 2024 under plans being drawn up to reduce carbon emissions and improve air quality.The mayor, Sadiq Khan, said London should be a global leader in introducing smart road pricing, as a report found car journeys in the capital needed to be cut by more than a quarter to meet net zero emissions targets by 2030. Continue reading...

Former justice secretary defends police and crime bill as it reaches final stages in parliamentThe police, crime, sentencing and courts bill that has sparked “kill the bill” demonstrations across the country is a “proportionate” response to recent protests such as those by Insulate Britain, the former justice secretary Robert Buckland has said.Protesters took to the streets in cities across the UK at the weekend to rally against the police and crime bill, which is reaching its final stages in parliament and will be considered by the House of Lords on Monday. Continue reading...

In blow to climate campaigners, state encourages miners to ramp up output to avert winter gas crisisChina’s coal production reached record levels last year as the state encouraged miners to ramp up their fossil fuel output to safeguard the country’s energy supplies through the winter gas crisis.The world’s biggest coal producer and consumer mined 384.67m tonnes of the fossil fuel last month, easily topping its previous record of 370.84m tonnes set in November, after the government called for miners to work at maximum capacity to help fuel the country’s economic growth. Continue reading...

Chris Hohn’s TCI fund, known as one of the most aggressive activist investors, made a 23% gain in 2021The world’s 20 top performing hedge fund managers earned a record $65.4bn ($48bn) profit for their clients in 2021 after bets placed on rising stock markets paid off.The biggest winner was TCI, the fund run by British billionaire Sir Chris Hohn, which made a gain of $9.5bn last year, according to the annual rankings by LCH Investments. Continue reading...

After a late surge in donations, appeal remains open for a few more days as it aims to hit £1m mark

Seabed permits given to 17 projects from companies including Scottish Power, Shell, BP and SSEThe Scottish government is in line for a windfall of almost £700m after the largest ever auction of the country’s seabed plots attracted bids from big oil and renewable energy companies hoping to build next generation windfarms.Crown Estate Scotland has awarded oil companies including BP and Shell, and renewable energy veterans Scottish Power and SSE, permission to lease the Scottish seabed where they plan to build enough windfarms to power the equivalent of 23m UK homes a year. Continue reading...

Some families say purifiers turned down by heads prioritising cleaning and open windows in absence of DfE guidance

Fish Legal calls for Environment Agency to reveal details on 2,000 sites under investigationA campaign group is challenging what it says is an information blackout imposed by the Environment Agency on its investigation into suspected illegal sewage dumping in England.The inquiry began after water companies admitted to the agency they may have been illegally discharging raw sewage from treatment works into rivers and streams. Continue reading...