Habitat untouched by the fires, which were five times as large as those in the Amazon last year, is critical for their survival, report finds

Melting Arctic sea ice could cause starvation and reproductive failure for many as early as 2040, scientists warn

Divers and biologists trying to free whale caught in illegal netting near island of SalinaThe Italian coastguard is struggling to free a sperm whale caught up in illegal fishing netting off the coast of one of Sicily’s Aeolian islands.A team of divers and biologists have been working for more than 48 hours to help the whale close to the island of Salina. The whale’s huge size and agitated state has made the operation more challenging. Continue reading...

Biden rode a wave of establishment endorsements to the nomination this spring. But it’s progressive ideas that might carry him to the presidencyOn Tuesday, Joe Biden did something unprecedented for a Democratic candidate assured of nomination: he moved left. In a speech delivered from Wilmington in his home state of Delaware, Biden unveiled the most ambitious clean energy and environmental justice plans ever proposed by the nominee of a major American political party. The plans, which the Biden campaign described to reporters as “the legislation he goes up to [Capitol Hill] immediately to get done,” outline $2tn in investments in clean energy, jobs and infrastructure that would be carried out over the four years of his first term.Forty percent of these investments would be directed to communities of color living on the toxic edge of the fossil fuel economy – communities that have also been among the most devastated by the coronavirus pandemic. Biden proposes to pair these investments with new performance standards, most notably a clean electricity standard that would transition the United States to a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035. Continue reading...

Review of EPBC Act finds protection laws are ineffective and recommends sweeping changes, including developing legally enforceable national environmental standardsAustralia’s environment is in an unsustainable state of decline and laws set up to protect unique species and habitats are ineffective, a major review of the national environmental framework has found.The interim report from the review of Australia’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act recommends sweeping changes, including the establishment of a set of legally enforceable national environmental standards that set clear rules for environmental protection while allowing for sustainable development. Continue reading...

Three decades after 13 were flown in by jet from Spain, there are nearly 2,000 breeding pairs of red kites across the countryIn July 1990, 13 red kites had to be flown by British Airways jet from Spain before they could grace the skies of the Chilterns.Thirty years on, nearly 2,000 breeding pairs of red kites display their distinctive forked tails as they soar over virtually every English county, in what has been hailed as one of the most successful reintroduction projects in the world. Continue reading...

Nigel Lawson’s thinktank is pushing dirty energy on the continent with the greatest capacity for creating clean fuelThe power of climate science denial in the UK, thankfully, has been in retreat over the past decade. Nigel Lawson’s Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) may still boast a prime Westminster address, but its influence has waned. In fact, its decline aptly mirrors the fortunes of the coal industry, including US titans such as Peabody Energy, which saw its share price plunge 99% between 2008 and 2016 before filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy.With countries rightly phasing coal out of their energy mix, the GWPF has turned its sights on Africa to peddle its misinformation about the merits of burning fossil fuels. It has published a new report, derisively titled Heart of Darkness: Why Electricity for Africa is a Security Issue, and launched a glossy website for “energy justice”, which uses the language of climate justice campaigners to try to undermine renewable energy. Continue reading...

Ou Hongyi, who took part in the #FridaysforFuture protest, says she has been told she cannot return to school unless she stops her activismTakes initiative. An independent thinker. Engages in study outside of the curriculum. Cares deeply about her community and the world around her. Stands up for her convictions and beliefs.These are all qualities that would appear to make Ou Hongyi a suitable candidate for studying at her dream institution of Harvard University. Continue reading...

Greenhouse gas emissions from energy and transport sectors climb as more people return to work

Exclusive: Minority ethnic patients twice as likely to live in deprived environments and to be admitted to intensive care

The UK has lost its lead in windpower and batteries, but there is one eco fuel that could transform its post-Covid fortunes…At the entrance to Saltend Chemicals Park, on the outskirts of Hull, there is a small blue heritage-style plaque, placed there four years ago by the Royal Society of Chemistry. It proudly commemorates: “100 years of innovation in supplying the UK with transportation fuels and important base chemicals.”A sense of pride in Saltend’s past is understandable: places like this helped drive Britain’s industrial age. But the biggest, most dramatic innovation of all may be yet to come. This month, the Norwegian energy company, Equinor, (formerly Statoil), unveiled proposals to install the biggest facility in the world for making hydrogen from natural gas, using capture and storage technology to extract and bury the resulting carbon under the North Sea. Continue reading...

Campsites in popular areas are close to capacity, so holidaymakers pitch tents without permission on public or private land

Fears grow for coastal wildlife as ministerial supporters of ‘free ports’ seek to scrap vital safeguardsThe looming cranes of the Humber’s four ports are surrounded by wildlife, from bitterns and marsh harriers to grey seals, lounging on the mudflats and hunting for fish in the estuary waters. Despite the steady flow of cargo ships in and out of the ports, wildlife has thrived – testament to the success of decades of environment policies, according to green groups.Yet those groups are now increasingly alarmed that the government’s plans to turn ports like those in the Humber into free ports will have a “disastrous” effect on the seals and other wildlife across the UK. Continue reading...

Met Office weather radar picks up swarm over south-east coast of England

Whole town wants designated status for River Wharfe and Defra is stalling, say campaignersCampaigners seeking to make a river in Yorkshire the UK’s first to be designated a bathing area have accused environment ministers of blocking their application.In the spa town of Ilkley, river users and residents submitted a 65-page application to turn part of the River Wharfe in the town into a bathing water area last October. Continue reading...

Two houses partially collapse and 66 more believed to be at risk as police ask some residents to evacuateTwo houses in the New South Wales Central Coast suburb of Wamberal have partially collapsed after powerful surf caused massive erosion near beachfront homes.Structural engineers were assessing the area on Saturday morning after the partial collapses overnight. A NSW police spokeswoman said residents of up to 30 houses on Ocean View Drive had been advised to evacuate as a precaution. Continue reading...

As dry season starts campaigners sound alarm over ‘shocking’ scale of fires, as Bolsonaro doubles down on denials

UN and IEA call for stricter standards to improve energy efficiency and cut use of HFCsUp to eight years’ worth of global greenhouse gas emissions could be prevented over the next four decades by setting tougher standards for air conditioning, according to a study.It found that improving the energy efficiency of cooling systems by using climate-friendly refrigerants could remove emissions equivalent to between 210bn and 460bn tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2060. Continue reading...

Species is one of Europe’s largest and rarest raptors, last seen in England in 2016Birdwatchers have been flocking to the boggy and desolate moors of the Peak District to try to spot a bearded vulture, one of the rarest birds ever seen in the UK, which has set up home on a remote cliff in the national park.This is only the second sighting of a bearded vulture in the UK, one of the largest and rarest raptors in Europe, and which was last seen in England in 2016. Continue reading...

Ten-year-old was fishing with his father and two other men about 5km from shore when he was ‘grabbed from the boat’A boy who was grabbed by a shark from a boat off Tasmania’s north-west coast has suffered arm, head and chest injuries.The 10-year-old was taken to hospital on Friday afternoon following the attack near Stanley. Continue reading...

Samsung group company responds to protesters targeting electronics brand saying it will give no more financing to ‘any of Adani’s coal projects’A company in the Samsung group will not provide any further financial backing for Adani’s coal port in Queensland or any of the company’s coal projects just days after protests targeted the group’s electronics brand.In an email to campaigners, seen by Guardian Australia, Samsung Securities said it would not provide any further financing for the Adani Abbot Point Terminal or “any of Adani’s coal projects.” Continue reading...

Startup firm Britishvolt, serving energy storage and electric cars, plans 30GWh battery plant at Bro TathanA startup company with plans to build Britain’s first gigafactory to make batteries for electric cars has chosen a site in south Wales for the plant after discussions with the Welsh government.Britishvolt, which in May launched an ambitious effort to create a £1.2bn factory, has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Welsh government ahead of signing a lease for a former Royal Air Force base at Bro Tathan business park, south Wales. Continue reading...

Several houses on Ocean View Drive now dangerously close to cliff edge as huge waves wash away beachesBeachfront homes along the New South Wales Central Coast have been left dangling over the ocean and in danger of collapse after powerful surf caused massive erosion.A powerful low across Australia’s east coast earlier in the week created large swells and high waves battering some coastal areas. Continue reading...

Saudi Aramco joins Oil and Gas Climate Initiative pledge but critics say targets are insufficientThe world’s biggest oil company, Saudi Aramco, has joined an alliance of oil companies to set the first industry-wide target to help tackle the climate crisis by setting carbon emissions goals.Saudi Arabia’s state oil giant has agreed to reduce the carbon intensity of its business as part of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) which includes Shell, BP and ExxonMobil. Continue reading...

‘Questions naturally arise’ about review’s independence, environmental group saysEnvironment groups are increasingly anxious and frustrated as they wait for the release of an interim report from a review of Australia’s national environmental laws.The review’s chair, the former competition watchdog head Graeme Samuel, handed his report to the environment minister, Sussan Ley, almost three weeks ago. Continue reading...

Biden’s $2tn green agriculture plan is ambitious but realistic. That’s important, because everything is riding on it

Schemes including Fairtrade and FSC may serve to mask human rights abuses and allow government inaction, study claimsMany of the world’s leading certification standards are not only failing to improve the ethical conduct of large corporations but are serving to entrench abusive business practices, a damning new report argues.

Spill from decaying vessel could wreck environment and livelihoods for decadesTime is running out to prevent a disastrous oil spill from a deteriorating tanker loaded with 1.1m barrels of crude that is moored off the coast of Yemen, the UN’s environment chief has said.Inger Andersen told the UN security council that a spill from the FSO Safer, which has had no maintenance for more than five years, would wreck ecosystems and livelihoods for decades. Continue reading...

International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List changes ocean giants’ status to ‘critically endangered’With their population still struggling to recover from over three centuries of whaling, the North Atlantic right whale is now just “one step from extinction”, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The IUCN last week moved the whale’s status on their Red List from “endangered” to “critically endangered” – the last stop before the species is considered extinct in the wild.The status change reflects the fact that fewer than 250 mature individuals probably remain in a population of roughly 400. While grim, scientists and conservationists expressed hope that this move may help speed up protections for these dwindling giants. Continue reading...

Auditor general finds no framework to maximise value from buybacks, including from company founded by Angus TaylorA highly critical audit of $190m spent by the federal government on water entitlements in 2017 without open tender has found that the department of agriculture did not develop a framework designed to maximise value for money.The acting auditor general, Rona Mellor, found that the department only negotiated on price in one purchase and then made just one counter-offer. Continue reading...

Activists protest at Samsung Electronics store in Sydney over debt purchase by affiliate Samsung SecuritiesA company in the Samsung Group invested in Adani’s Australian coal operation last year in a deal that has prompted environmental activists to call for a boycott of the Korean conglomerate’s flagship electronics products.Samsung Securities, a publicly-traded brokerage and part of the broader group of affiliated companies that includes Samsung Electronics, purchased a share of $120m of debt in the Adani-owned Abbot Point coal terminal last year with another Korean firm. Continue reading...

Acidic runoff from abandoned Urals mine puts spotlight on hazardous industrial wasteRussian prosecutors are inspecting a facility supposed to treat acid runoff from an abandoned Urals mine after videos emerged of streams running orange.Drone footage uploaded last week by an Instagram travel blogger showed a bright-orange landscape near the disused copper-sulphide mine close to the village of Lyovikha. Continue reading...

Across the world, failure of official advice to provide sustainable, healthy diets is shocking, say scientistsOfficial dietary advice across the world is harming both the environment and people’s health, according to scientists who have carried out the most comprehensive assessment of national dietary guidelines to date.Food is responsible for a quarter of the emissions driving the climate crisis and millions of early deaths. The analysis assessed all available dietary guidelines, covering 85 countries and every region of the world. The researchers said governments’ failure to help people eat good diets was “shocking”. Continue reading...

Plan reduces number of projects, such as pipelines and highways, subject to review and limits scope of investigationsThe Trump administration is rolling back major environmental protections that require the US government to comprehensively analyze how proposed projects like pipelines and highways affect surrounding communities.Trump announced the changes on Wednesday afternoon from a UPS airport hub in Atlanta, where he backed the widening of commercial truck lanes on Interstate Highway 75. The White House said projects like the Atlanta expansion would have taken seven years to permit and now should take less than two years. Continue reading...

Tiny west African country enjoys warm temperatures, which are cooler on its tourist-filled coastAs the smallest country on the African mainland – just 30 miles (50km) across at its widest point, and barely larger than Devon and Cornwall combined – you would not expect the Gambia to have a very varied climate. The low-lying nature of the country, which runs along the Gambia River, also means there is little or no altitudinal variation.But there is a difference in temperature, and especially humidity, between the Atlantic coast in the west and places further upriver: inland sites are noticeably hotter and more humid, especially from March to June. Hence the vast majority of the holiday resorts are situated along the 50-mile coastline, where pleasantly warm winds also offer some relief from the heat. Continue reading...

Egypt fears hydroelectric project will restrict limited waters on which its population dependsEthiopia has allowed a controversial dam built across the headwaters of the Nile to fill with rain water, raising tensions with Egypt and Sudan.The huge hydroelectric project on the Blue Nile, known as the Grand Renaissance dam, is at the centre of Ethiopia’s plan to become Africa’s biggest power exporter, but Egypt fears already limited Nile waters, on which its population of more than 100 million people depends, might be restricted. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Shine Energy, which has proposed a new plant at Collinsville in north Queensland, describes itself as a ‘traditional owner company’The company proposing a coal-fired power station at Collinsville in north Queensland, Shine Energy, is promoting itself as a representative of Birriah traditional owners without having consulted their formal native title body, a Birriah elder has said.Shine Energy – which has been promised $3.3m by the federal government to conduct a feasibility proposal on the controversial power station – describes itself as a “traditional owner company”. Continue reading...

Conditions at plants contributed to transmission of virus, experts say, as country remains second only to US for deaths

Scientists aren’t sure they can mitigate the spread of the virus, which causes fevers, internal bleeding and liver failureIn early March, Gary Roemer was walking in the hills of New Mexico with his dog, Duke. Usually Duke would chase rabbits, but never catch them. This time, though, he brought back a jackrabbit.Roemer, a wildlife biologist with the University of New Mexico in Las Cruces, initially thought the rabbit was just feeble. But the next day he found a fresh carcass with grisly conditions: it was bleeding from the nose and the anus. “That’s when I thought: this is pretty unusual,” Roemer says. Continue reading...

Oklahoma no longer has legal authority to prosecute cases involving Native Americans across about 3m acresThe news alert about a ruling from US supreme court took Kimberly Tiger by surprise.On Thursday, the court ruled that the federal government never formally disestablished the expansive reservation that is home to Tiger’s tribe, the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, in Oklahoma. Continue reading...

Plan to stamp out ‘lethal’ plastic, which gets stuck in airways of wildlife and pollutes waterways, follows South Australia’s proposalThe Queensland government will move to ban plastic straws, cutlery, stirrers and plates in a bid to stem the destructive effects of plastic on marine life and waterways.The government introduced legislation on Wednesday that would ban the single-use items, making Queensland the second state after South Australia to put such a proposal before parliament. Continue reading...

G20 countries aim their pandemic bailout spending at fossil fuel industries, leaving Paris climate change targets in doubt

Conservationists say timber millers may be ‘subject to legal exposure’ if they accept logs from VicForests ‘salvage logging’A proposal by Victoria’s state-owned forestry agency to log forest burnt in the summer bushfires would affect habitat for more than 30 threatened species, according to analysis by The Wilderness Society.VicForests has proposed opening 59 new coupes in the state’s north-east and East Gippsland regions for so-called salvage logging of burnt native forests. Continue reading...

IPPR says 12m homes will need to be refitted to meet net-zero targets but £3bn earmarked is not nearly enoughThe government’s new plans to upgrade the energy efficiency of homes will make only a fraction of the progress needed to help the UK meet its legally binding climate targets, according to a new study.A report by IPPR, a left-leaning thinktank, has found at least 12 million homes will need to be fitted with low-carbon heat pumps and energy efficiency measures, such as insulation, over the next 30 years for the UK to meet its net zero targets. Continue reading...

Move to help finance climate ambitions follows calls from campaigners and economistsThe UK government is poised to reveal plans for a new state-backed green bank to help finance Britain’s climate ambitions, three years after ministers agreed to sell the UK’s Green Investment Bank.Kwasi Kwarteng, the energy minister, said that he expects the government to set out how it plans to create a successor to the Green Investment Bank “in the not-too-distant future”. Continue reading...

Loop will offer 150 products from major brands in refillable containers, with more to followThe UK’s first online shopping service that delivers food, drink and household essentials from leading brands in reusable packaging is to launch on Wednesday, aiming to kickstart moves to reduce single use plastic that stalled as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.Loop – already established in the US and France and due to be rolled out to Japan, Australia and Canada next year – is one of the most ambitious attempts yet to eliminate plastic waste from the household shop. It is backed by major consumer goods companies such as Unilever and PepsiCo, who have created eco-versions of popular brands – including Tropicana, Persil and Hellmann’s – to sell via the website. Continue reading...

Tourism, transport and the climate crisis found to be major drivers of rise in alien plants and animals, which can decimate ecosystems

Proposal outlines $2tn for clean energy infrastructure and climate solutions, to be spent as quickly as possible in next four yearsJoe Biden has unveiled a new, more aggressive climate and jobs plan which advisers say he would take to Congress “immediately”, if elected president.The new proposal outlines $2tn for clean energy infrastructure and other climate solutions, to be spent as quickly as possible in the next four years, what would be the Democrat’s first term in office. Last year, he proposed $1.7tn in spending over 10 years. Continue reading...