Environment | The Guardian

Critics say the costs could have been avoided if ministers had agreed to bring in low-carbon standards sooner

Critics ask if some appointees to the Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee have a potential conflict of interestThe Morrison government has quietly appointed fossil fuel industry leaders and a controversial economist to a committee responsible for ensuring the integrity of projects that get climate funding.Critics have raised concerns about whether some appointees to the Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee may have a potential conflict of interest that could leave its decisions open to legal challenge. Continue reading...

Global study finds that species numbers reported in the wild fell sharply between 1990 and 2015The number of wild bee species recorded by an international database of life on Earth has declined by a quarter since 1990, according to a global analysis of bee declines.Researchers analysed bee records from museums, universities and citizen scientists collated by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, (GBIF) a global, government-funded network providing open-access data on biodiversity. Continue reading...

Global study calls on governments to step up maintenance efforts to prevent failures, overtopping or leaksBy 2050 most people will live downstream of a large dam built in the 20th century, many of which are approaching the limits of the useful lifetime they were designed for, according to global research.To avoid the potential for dam failures, overtopping or leaks, the dams will require increasing maintenance, and some may have to be taken out of service. Many governments have not prepared for these needs, warn the authors of a study by the United Nations University. Continue reading...

Consultation comes after the birds have been successfully rewilded in other parts of the UK

Key operations shut down as Sepa officials say they may never know true extent of data theftOfficials at the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) have warned a cyber-attack that led to the theft of thousands of confidential documents and shut down key operations has still not ended.The ransomware attack on Sepa, where criminals seized about 1.2GB of confidential data in an attempt to extort money for its return, began on Christmas Eve. Continue reading...

Electricity cable stretches 149 miles on seafloor between UK and FranceA new high-voltage subsea cable linking the UK to France has begun importing enough electricity to power 1m British homes.The delayed power cable, which is the second interconnector linking the UK to France, will stretch 149 miles along the seafloor between Hampshire in the UK and Normandy in France. Continue reading...

The environment and tourism can benefit from a programme teaching tour guides about returning nature to a wilder stateTour guides across the world are being taught about rewilding as part of a new training programme that aims to create economic opportunities within wilder landscapes.The training is run by not-for-profit organisation Rewilding Europe, which is working to return nature to a wilder state across eight regions of Europe by removing human management and reintroducing certain species. This vision includes rejuvenating the tourism industry by attracting visitors to remote areas, such as the southern Carpathians in Romania or the Velebit mountains on the Croatian coast, with the possibility of encountering wild animals including lynx and wolves – and creating jobs within local communities. Continue reading...

Residents say Dirty Dancing project in Walthamstow could present Covid risk and ‘hijack’ vital green space

Significance of changes are unclear and could reflect various ways in which humans are impacting the environmentRivers may seem like immutable features of the landscape but they are in fact changing color over time, a new study has found.Researchers compiled a database of satellite images of major rivers in the United States from 1984 to 2018 and learned that about a third have significantly changed color in less than 40 years. Continue reading...

Environment secretary says water companies too reliant on overflows discharging pollution after stormsThe environment secretary, George Eustice, has made a commitment to reducing releases of raw sewage by water companies into rivers and coastal waters. Eustice said there was “still too much reliance” by water companies on storm overflows to discharge sewage into waterways.A government taskforce set up following growing pressure over sewage pollution in rivers announced that water companies had agreed to be more transparent about pollution discharges from storm overflows. The taskforce said it had agreed an objective to reduce the harm of sewage releases via storm overflows. Continue reading...

TV presenter says government is reneging on Brexit green pledges by breaking with EU banChris Packham, the naturalist and TV presenter, has accused the government of sending “shivers of fear” through Britain’s environmentalists by backtracking on green pledges since Brexit.The wildlife expert accused the government of “irresponsible and embarrassing” practices on plastic waste, following a report by the Guardian last week that the UK would continue to ship unsorted plastic waste to developing countries, even though the EU has banned the practice since 1 January. Continue reading...

International mining conference among forums involving oil, coal and gas industries approved for subsidies in program touted as boosting events sectorThe Morrison government is offering fossil fuel companies grants of up to $250,000 to attend industry events as part of a program that is supposed to help the Australian conference industry recover from a coronavirus-induced slump.A dozen events involving the oil, coal and gas industries are among 150 so far approved by the Australian Trade and Investment Commission as part of the $50m stimulus package. Continue reading...

World leaders will meet for Climate Adaptation Summit to consider how to adapt to extreme weatherMore than 1 million young people around the world have urged governments to prioritise measures to protect against the ravages of climate breakdown during the recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.World leaders are due to meet by video link on Monday to consider how to adapt to the extreme weather, wildfires and floods that have become more common as temperatures rise. Ban Ki-moon, the former UN secretary general, will lead the Climate Adaptation Summit, and leaders including Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel and Narendra Modi are expected to attend. Continue reading...

The new administration shares many of the state’s concerns and has been quick to address Trump’s de-regulation effortsCalifornia has led the resistance to Donald Trump’s efforts to roll back environmental regulations in the past four years, with the state’s attorney general, Xavier Becerra, filing a whopping 122 lawsuits challenging Trump administration rules, most of them focused on climate and public health.Now, following Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s swearing in on Wednesday, the Golden state once again has allies in the White House when it comes to environmental protections. Continue reading...

Joe Biden’s new climate envoy says: ‘All nations must raise ambition together – or we will all fail, together’The world is lagging behind the pace of change needed to avert catastrophic impacts from the climate crisis, John Kerry has warned in his first remarks as the US’s new climate envoy.Kerry, the former US secretary of state, acknowledged that America had been absent from the international effort to contain dangerous global heating during Donald Trump’s presidency but added that “today no country and no continent is getting the job done”. Continue reading...

Senators approve law to protect the noises and smells of the countryside following high-profile casesFrom crowing roosters to the whiff of barnyard animals, the “sensory heritage” of France’s countryside will now be protected by law from attempts to stifle the everyday aspects of rural life from newcomers looking for peace and quiet.French senators on Thursday gave final approval to a law proposed in the wake of several high-profile conflicts by village residents and vacationers, or recent arrivals derided as “neo-rurals”. Continue reading...

Plan has been approved despite environmental objections and criticism over climate leadershipA legal challenge to the UK government’s approval of a new gas-fired power plant has failed in the court of appeal.The challenge was brought after ministers overruled climate change objections from the planning authority. The plant is being developed by Drax in North Yorkshire and would be the biggest gas power station in Europe. It could account for 75% of the UK’s power sector emissions when fully operational, according to lawyers for ClientEarth, which brought the judicial review. Continue reading...

US scientist Thomas Lovejoy says the rainforest’s rich biodiversity has been undervalued compared to economic activities such as farming and miningThe Amazon will be transformed into a “highly degraded nightmare” unless a sustainable biodiversity-based economy develops which properly values ecosystem services and products produced by the rainforest, a leading scientist has warned.Prof Thomas Lovejoy, the “godfather of biodiversity”, said if agro-industrial economic developments such as cattle farming, palm oil production and mining continue, the rainforest’s hydrological cycle will be “in tatters”, with global weather systems severely disrupted. Continue reading...

Tribes and environmentalists hail decision to cancel Keystone XL pipeline but call on president to go furtherIndigenous leaders and environmentalists are urging Joe Biden to shutdown some of America’s most controversial fossil fuel pipelines, after welcoming his executive order cancelling the Keystone XL (KXL) project.Activists praised the president’s decision to stop construction of the transnational KXL oil pipeline on his first day in the White House, but they stressed that he must cancel similar polluting fossil fuel projects, including the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL), to stand any chance of meeting his bold climate action goals. Continue reading...

President has vowed to rejoin Paris agreement, cut fossil fuel reliance, and invest in low-carbon growth

St Dominic, Tamar valley: Rainfall may have destroyed the weir, but there are still old methods present to pump water back uphillThe beat of a hydraulic ram reverberates along the deep ditch, running fast with spring water towards a little tributary originating from beneath Viverdon Down. The water joins other streams along the incised course through steep woods and pastures before meeting the tidal Tamar, more than two miles downstream. Last month’s exceptional run-off along this network of streams contributed to the destruction of the National Trust’s weir, which channelled water along a leat to Morden Mill’s historic water wheel and the more recent hydroelectric plant.Hydro-rams used to be common in the dissected hilly countryside. They used the water’s momentum to pump a proportion of the flow uphill to storage tanks or reservoirs, which then gravity-fed farmsteads and field drinking troughs. Mains water supplies gradually ousted these slow, but low-maintenance, machines. Continue reading...

Biden administration rolls out a flurry of executive orders aimed at tackling climate crisisJoe Biden has moved to reinstate the US to the Paris climate agreement just hours after being sworn in as president, as his administration rolls out a cavalcade of executive orders aimed at tackling the climate crisis.Biden’s executive action, signed in the White House on Wednesday, will see the US rejoin the international effort curb the dangerous heating of the planet, following a 30-day notice period. The world’s second largest emitter of greenhouse gases was withdrawn from the Paris deal under Donald Trump. Continue reading...

Study tests public support for bringing back species after 500-year absence, while farmers fear for sheep

Arrow Energy is seeking to amend its environmental authority at Hopeland, where one of the state’s worst contamination disasters occurredA coal seam gas company has proposed drilling hundreds of new wells in an area the Queensland government previously declared off-limits after one of the state’s worst environmental contamination disasters.Arrow Energy, a joint venture between Shell and PetroChina, has lodged an application to amend its environmental authority for a petroleum lease at Hopeland in the western downs, which forms part of the company’s Surat gas project. Continue reading...

The Bushfire Recovery Project, led by five scientists, is tracking forest regrowth in NSW and Victoria using data gathered by citizen scientistsForests in some subalpine areas near Mount Kosciuszko and in Victoria’s East Gippsland region are struggling to recover from the 2019-20 bushfires, according to researchers examining the aftermath of the disaster.But eucalypts in forested areas of the New South Wales south coast appear to be recovering well, say the scientists, who are tracking the sites using data gathered by groups of citizen scientists. Continue reading...

‘Renoducts’ will help animals who have to roam further for food due to global heatingSweden is to build up to a dozen bridges so reindeer can safely cross railway lines and major roads in the north of the country as global heating forces them to roam further afield in search of food.State broadcaster SVT said the transport authority aimed to start work on the first of the new bridges, named “renoducts”, a portmanteau from ren (reindeer) and viaduct, later this year near the eastern city of Umea. Continue reading...

Efforts are under way to designate site of submerged forest off the Alabama coast a marine sanctuaryWhen divers jump into a particular stretch of water off the coast of Alabama, they travel back to a time before humans arrived in North America.Submerged below the waters are the remains of a cypress tree forest that grew 60,000 years ago, but was inundated by the Gulf of Mexico and preserved from decomposition beneath sediment. Nothing like Alabama’s underwater forest, in terms of age or scale, has ever been found. Continue reading...

World Health Organization estimates air pollution kills more than 7 million people each yearLimiting air pollution to levels recommended by the World Health Organization could prevent more than 50,000 deaths in Europe annually, according to research.The WHO estimates air pollution kills more than 7 million people each year and is one of the leading causes of sickness and absence from work globally. Continue reading...

Group of GPs and other health experts say planned Thames tunnel will increase pollution in the areaDoctors and healthcare workers have warned that plans for a new four-lane tunnel under the River Thames in east London represent an “assault on the health” of families in the surrounding area.The group of 25 GPs, nurses and specialists – including experts in child health and respiratory disease – say the £2bn Silvertown tunnel project will funnel more traffic through some of the most deprived and polluted boroughs in the country – with a devastating impact on people’s health. Continue reading...

After studying how microplastics damage the oceans, schoolgirl Lizzie wants the government to stop sending waste to developing countriesA petition by a nine-year-old schoolgirl calling on Boris Johnson to stop shipments of plastic waste to developing countries has received more than 70,000 signatures in less than a week.Lizzie A*, who is studying plastic pollution in year 4, said she began the petition because sending Britain’s unsorted plastic waste to poorer nations is “unfair” and wrong. She took action last week after her mother, Esther, showed her a piece in the Guardian’s Seascape series, revealing the UK will continue to ship plastic waste to developing countries despite an EU ban on the practice from this month. Continue reading...

Weather forecast to ease by Australia Day after ‘big burst of summer heat’

Warm winter weather and strong gusts have led to an early start for 2021’s fires, following a record-breaking year of blazes in 2020Unusually warm and dry conditions coupled with powerful wind gusts have ignited a spate of winter wildfires that call into question the idea that California has a “fire season” at all any more.Residents of several communities in the Santa Cruz mountains were ordered to evacuate by the local sheriff’s office Tuesday morning as California’s fire agency, Cal Fire, responded to more than a dozen new vegetation fires across the area. Some of the fires were ignited when power lines were toppled by high winds; others were wind-driven reignitions of areas that burned in 2020, Cal Fire said. By midday Tuesday, six fires in the area were still burning. Continue reading...

Met Office issues amber weather warning as South Yorkshire also declares major incident

Withdrawal a blow to Boris Johnson’s desire for UK to achieve first zero-emission long-haul flightShell has pulled out of a joint venture with British Airways and Velocys to build a flagship sustainable jet fuels plant in the UK – in a blow to Boris Johnson’s claims that Britain could deliver the world’s first zero-emission long-haul flight.The oil firm was named last year as one of the top companies set to “turbocharge government plans” for sustainable aviation fuels, the centrepiece of the so-called “jet zero” plan to decarbonise flights. Continue reading...

Some species feed on nectar or honey. Others drink the tears of horses and peopleIn The Writing Life, Annie Dillard is watching a sphinx moth preparing to take off. She is on a ship. On its railing there is “a heavy-bodied moth panting”. Dillard is summoning the strength to continue writing her book. The moth is raising its temperature so that it can fly.

Blazes, intensified by the climate crisis, are reversing decades of gains in cutting air pollution, scientists reportIncreasingly ferocious wildfires in the western US are taking a devastating toll on the region’s air quality, with wildfire smoke now accounting for half of all air pollution during the worst wildfire years, according to a new study.Scientists from Stanford University and the University of California, San Diego, found that toxic plumes of smoke, which can blanket western states for weeks when wildfires are raging, are reversing decades of gains in cutting air pollution. While heat-related deaths have previously been predicted as the worst consequence of the climate crisis, researchers say that air pollution caused by smoke could be just as deadly. Continue reading...

Influential IEA cuts forecasts for rebound in market as new lockdowns biteWorld oil demand will be lower than forecast this year as a surge in new coronavirus cases looks likely to keep restrictions on the global economy in place, the International Energy Agency has said.The agency warned that a string of new lockdowns across big economies will keep a lid on oil demand over the first months of the year, before the impact of Covid-19 vaccines begins to take effect in the second half. Continue reading...

President-elect to block Keystone XL pipeline among other swift environmental moves – but challenges lie aheadJoe Biden is set for a flurry of action to combat the climate crisis on his first day as US president by immediately rejoining the Paris climate agreement and blocking the Keystone XL pipeline, although experts have warned lengthier, and harder, environmental battles lie ahead in his presidency.In a series of plans drawn up by Biden’s incoming administration for his first day in office, the new president will take the resonant step of bringing the US back into the Paris climate accords, an international agreement to curb dangerous global heating that Donald Trump exited. Continue reading...

Birds that became tangled in baited lines appear to be scared off by coloured pipesA cheap and simple change to the equipment used by Namibian fishing boats is saving tens of thousands of vulnerable seabirds annually, researchers have estimated.Some industrial fleets often use long lines fitted with thousands of baited hooks, which attract seabirds. In attempting to snatch away the bait, the birds can become tangled in the lines and die. Continue reading...

Environmental issues are biggest danger in coming years, says international organisation

Gardeners in the UK are doing their bit to expand the range of plant seeds for a richer and more diverse future

Ambition to become the UK’s first carbon-neutral county, by 2037, looks to reduce the impact of visitors, especially in the LakesAcross Cumbria local communities, businesses and grassroots organisations are being mobilised to map out ways that they hope will help it become the UK’s first carbon-neutral county. The county is aiming to decarbonise by 2037, an ambition initially supported by £2.5m of national lottery funding, awarded last August and to be drip-fed over five years starting this month. Tourism will be an area of focus, alongside housing, transport and agriculture.“The national lottery funding is an injection of adrenaline at the beginning of a long journey,” said Karen Mitchell, CEO of Cumbria Action for Sustainability (Cafs). The funding was secured by the Zero Carbon Cumbria Partnership, which was set up by Cafs in 2019 with the help of the county council. The partnership has 68 members tasked with leading the drive to cut emissions, including the Lake District national park authority. Continue reading...

Little humped spider usually found in Sydney is now thriving in Christchurch and is just one of dozens of invasive spider speciesAn Australian spider that crushes its prey in a tightly spun web is one of dozens of new trans-Tasman arrivals making itself at home in New Zealand, where it has few predators and often lives completely undetected.The Philoponella congregabilis, sometimes called the little humped spider, is usually found in Sydney and along the east coast of Australia, but has recently been tracked to the South Island city of Christchurch, where it is thriving. Continue reading...

Kimi weakens from category two system to storm but strong winds and severe weather still pose threat to QueenslandEx-Tropical Cyclone Kimi has weakened to a tropical low off north Queensland but emergency services are warning people the storm is still packing very strong winds and could bring flooding.Coastal residents have been spared the worst after the cyclone weakened from a category two system to a storm, sitting 135km north of Townsville, on Tuesday morning. Continue reading...

Indigenous communities say planned Øyfjellet turbines will interfere with migration pathsIndigenous reindeer herders are bringing a legal action against a proposed wind power project that would be one of the largest in Norway.The Sámi herders from Nordland county are accusing the Øyfjellet windfarm constructors of breaking licensing agreements which stipulated that construction would not interfere with reindeer migration paths. Continue reading...

Plan would open up desert areas to mining projects, eliminating up to 2.2m acres of conservation landsThe outgoing Trump administration is proposing to strip away protections for millions of acres of California desert, threatening damage to Joshua trees, desert tortoises and landmarks.The plan would open up California’s desert areas to mining projects, eliminate up to 2.2m acres of conservation lands, as well as remove 1.8m acres designated as Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (Acecs). Continue reading...