Environment minister Sussan Ley stares down Senate on conservation laws and says damage by Kosciuszko feral horses makes her ‘extremely angry’The Morrison government is attempting to stare down the Senate over changes to conservation laws, warning the wording of controversial new environment standards before parliament is “not negotiable” and will not be strengthened.The push was immediately rejected by two key crossbench senators, with one declaring the legislation to change the laws – which all parties agree are failing – was “dead in the water” unless the standards were strengthened. Continue reading...

Officials advise to avoid using large appliances such as ovens and washing machines, amid soaring summer temperaturesAs temperatures rise to unseasonably warm levels across Texas this week, its citizens are being asked to use less energy on basics like cooking and washing clothes to ease strain on the state’s power grid that is struggling to generate enough electricity to cope with the high temperatures.The move triggers memories for many Texans of the cold snap in the winter that incapacitated much of the state’s power infrastructure and raises fears that Texas – and other US states – are not prepared to deal with the extreme weather events that come with the global climate crisis. Continue reading...

Help is needed to replace gas boilers with low-carbon alternatives, warn builders, energy firms and charitiesHouseholds on low incomes should be supplied with free heat pumps in order to kickstart the market for low-carbon heating equipment and meet the UK’s climate targets, experts have told the government.Heat pumps can currently cost thousands of pounds to install, but the more that are installed, the faster that cost is likely to come down. They are widely regarded as the best way to replace the UK’s gas boilers and reduce carbon dioxide emissions from homes. Continue reading...

It is ‘absolutely illogical’ not to tackle the risks of heatwaves and power blackouts, says Climate Change CommitteeThe UK government is failing to protect people from the fast-rising risks of the climate crisis, from deadly heatwaves to power blackouts, its official climate advisers have warned.The climate change committee said action to improve the nation’s resilience is not keeping pace with the impacts of global heating, many of which are already causing harm. The CCC’s experts said they were frustrated by the “absolutely illogical” lack of sufficient action on adaptation, particularly as acting is up to 10 times more cost-effective than not doing so. Continue reading...

Centuries-old trade has been thwarted by trafficking and now Brexit. An unusual rewilding mission hopes to aid a 4,000-mile migration back to British rivers

Landscape painting discovered in Killerton house informs National Trust development of groundsA 19th-century painting found in the archive of a Devon country house is being used to help inspire the 50-year restoration and enrichment of the estate.The artwork depicts a healthy and diverse landscape at Killerton, near Exeter, rich in mature trees hedgerows and scrubland being grazed by Highland cattle. Continue reading...

Swedish carmaker joins forces with steel firm to use technology that replaces coal with hydrogenVolvo plans to build cars using steel made without fossil fuels by 2026, as part of a deal that could significantly reduce the carbon emissions from manufacturing its vehicles.The Swedish carmaker and compatriot steelmaker SSAB signed a letter of intent to commercialise technology that replaces coal with hydrogen in a crucial part of the process. Continue reading...

Scientists concerned as severe perkinsea infection found in European tree frog tadpoles kept in an aquarium in SurreyA disease that causes mass die-offs in frogs has been found in captive UK populations for the first time, scientists have warned.Severe perkinsea infection (SPI) has caused large tadpole mortality events across the US, and this is the first proof that its geographic range is spreading. Researchers also found the disease-causing microbe in wild and seemingly healthy populations in Panama, where some of the most rapid declines in frog populations globally have occurred. Continue reading...

Traces of drugs found in water can make crustaceans more outgoing – but also vulnerable to predatorsAntidepressant drugs in water can alter the behaviour of crayfish, making them bolder and more outgoing, and therefore more vulnerable to predators, researchers have found.Low levels of antidepressants – excreted by humans or disposed of incorrectly – are found in many water bodies. Researchers from the University of Florida assessed the impact of these medicines on crayfish, which are a fundamental component of many aquatic food webs – given they eat almost everything, from plants, insects, leaf litter to small fish (even cannibalising each other). Continue reading...

Increasing droughts in producer nations will also make palm oil and soya imports highly vulnerable, study findsCoffee and chocolate supplies in Europe soon could be disrupted by the climate crisis as droughts hit producer countries, according to a study.The research also found a high vulnerability for palm oil imports, used in many foods and domestic products, and soybeans, which are the main feed for chickens and pigs in the European Union. Continue reading...

It isn’t clear yet if president will follow recommendation, but during his campaign he pledged to restore Utah’s monumentsIt was one of Donald Trump’s most provocative environmental decisions. After a year in office, he angered preservationists and Native American tribes and ordered that two treasured national monuments be dramatically reduced in size.The areas falling outside the diminished monuments, both expanses of rocky outcroppings dense with archaeological artifacts in Utah, lost environmental protections. A few years later, he also ordered that commercial fishing be allowed in a marine preserve off the coast of New England. Continue reading...

Flooded roads and paddocks disrupt local spiders which seek higher ground on road signs, trees and any tall grass they can find

Underwater surveyors found the remains of a plane in Folsom Lake, which currently has historically low water levels

Natural gas companies say they are being treated unfairly and are fighting to be absolved from reporting dangerous leaks

Conservationists call for ‘urgent rethink’ after Australian government announces 21 offshore exploration areasOne of Australia’s most-photographed tourist destinations – the limestone stacks known as the Twelve Apostles off the coast of Victoria – is less than five kilometres from new areas announced on Tuesday for offshore oil and and gas exploration.Conservationists said the release of the areas showed “nothing is off limits to the oil and gas industry” and the opening up of new offshore blocks for fossil fuels needed an urgent rethink. Continue reading...

Sharon Lavigne, a retired special ed teacher, led a successful campaign to block construction of a toxic plant in LouisianaA retired special education teacher from Louisiana who led a successful grassroots campaign to stop construction of a toxic plastics plant in America’s Cancer Alley has won the 2021 Goldman prize for environmental defenders.Sharon Lavigne, 68, organised marches, petitions, town hall meetings and media campaigns after elected officials gave the green light to the construction of another polluting factory in St James parish – a majority-Black community already blighted by heavy industry and exorbitant cancer rates. Continue reading...

This year’s winners include a Japanese coal fighter, a Vietnamese protector of pangolins and a Peruvian forest defenderFor more than 20 years, Kimiko Hirata has fought a long and often lonely battle against coal in Japan, but for the first time the climate activist believes the dirtiest fossil fuel is on the run, not just in her country but across the world.Like several other winners of this year’s Goldman environmental prize, the frontline campaigner sees a shift in the political winds that has created a rare – and perhaps final – opportunity to reduce emissions and rebuild the planet’s natural life support systems. Continue reading...

Prime minister reassures industry the Coalition will back it during transition to ‘new energy economy’Scott Morrison says Australia’s oil and gas sector will “always” be a major contributor to Australia’s prosperity and the Coalition will back producers both as exporters and suppliers to the domestic market during the transition to the “new energy economy”.The prime minister, who is currently in London, used a video address to the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association’s conference in Perth to reassure producers the government had a plan for the transition to low emissions as efforts to decarbonise economies have gathered pace in developed economies since the US re-entered the Paris agreement. Continue reading...

Treasurer Cameron Dick says budget, which boasts $2bn fund to develop clean energy, vindicates state’s Covid lockdownsThe Queensland government anticipates its state-owned power generators – mostly coal-fired power stations – will be unable to pay dividends to taxpayers within two years, due to an influx of renewables and lower power prices.One of the most significant measures in the state’s budget, handed down on Tuesday, was a “watershed” $2bn fund that would build renewables and further develop industries linked to clean energy. Continue reading...

To eat an oyster raw is to eat it aliveOn the oyster’s edge, under the sea, on a rock, a tree root, a bamboo pole, a pebble, a tile or another shell, the bivalve’s cilia – from the Latin for eyelash – are waving. Together, they move water over the oyster’s gills – its shell is open, its muscles are relaxed. The oyster has lungs. It has a three-chambered heart. An hour passes; the oyster has filtered five litres of water. The oyster has listened to the breaking waves: it opens and closes according to the tides.One valve is the cupped half of the shell, the other is the flat half. A cargo ship sounds its horn. The oyster shuts in fright. Continue reading...

California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah face extreme heat, worsening drought and raising risk of wildfiresDangerously hot temperatures across the US south-west will continue to climb this week, reaching higher than 120F (49C) in some areas, exacerbating the region’s already-dire drought conditions and increasing the risk of new fire ignitions.Extreme heat will be felt across much of Utah, along with southern and central California, Nevada and Arizona. Continue reading...

While the G7 calls for a ‘green revolution’ to deal with an ‘existential crisis’, it is no clearer if Scott Morrison will formally embrace a net zero targetIn an Australian context, the climate message from the weekend G7 summit is clear: the world’s biggest and richest democracies are acknowledging what the science demands and pledging to act in a way they haven’t before. The contrast with the debate in Canberra is growing.The commitments from the G7 have come later than they should have. Activists are understandably sceptical about whether their actions will rise to meet the leaders’ words, and critical of the failure to announce long-promised climate funding to help developing countries. Caution ahead of the major UN summit in Glasgow in November, known as Cop26, is justified and necessary. Continue reading...

Laurence Tubiana, a key player in 2015 Paris summit, says UK and others must explain how they will achieve climate goalsRich countries must come forward with detailed plans on how they hope to meet their climate targets, and Boris Johnson must forge much closer relationships with developing countries to bring about the breakthrough needed on the climate crisis this year, one of the architects of the Paris agreement has said.The G7 summit, which ended on Sunday in Cornwall, achieved much less than campaigners had hoped, with no significant new cash forthcoming for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable, on the frontlines of climate breakdown. Continue reading...

Biodiversity pledge is part of formal response to landmark review of economic importance of natureThe UK government has committed to leaving the environment in “a better state than we found it” in response to a landmark review of the economic importance of nature.Major transport and energy infrastructure projects in England will need to provide a net-gain for biodiversity, and the government said it would ensure all new bilateral aid spending did not harm the natural world as part of an effort to ensure a “nature-positive” future. Continue reading...

EDF subsidiary reportedly warned of ‘imminent radiological threat’ at Taishan nuclear power plantA French nuclear company has said it is working to resolve a “performance issue” at a plant it part-owns in China’s southern Guangdong province after an earlier report of a potential leak there.Framatome, a subsidiary of the energy giant EDF, told Agence France-Presse news agency that it was “supporting resolution of a performance issue” at the plant. “According to the data available, the plant is operating within the safety parameters,” it said, adding that an extraordinary meeting of the power plant’s board had been called “to present all the data and the necessary decisions”. Continue reading...

As the world moves towards electric cars and renewable grids, demand for lithium is wreaking havoc in northern ChileThe Atacama salt flat is a majestic, high-altitude expanse of gradations of white and grey, peppered with red lagoons and ringed by towering volcanoes. It took me a moment to get my bearings on my first visit, standing on this windswept plateau of 3,000 sq km (1,200 sq miles). A vertiginous drive had taken me and two other researchers through a sandstorm, a rainstorm and the peaks and valleys of this mountainous region of northern Chile. The sun bore down on us intensely – the Atacama desert boasts the Earth’s highest levels of solar radiation, and only parts of Antarctica are drier.I had come to the salt flat to research an emerging environmental dilemma. In order to stave off the worst of the accelerating climate crisis, we need to rapidly reduce carbon emissions. To do so, energy systems around the world must transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Lithium batteries play a key role in this transition: they power electric vehicles and store energy on renewable grids, helping to cut emissions from transportation and energy sectors. Underneath the Atacama salt flat lies most of the world’s lithium reserves; Chile currently supplies almost a quarter of the global market. But extracting lithium from this unique landscape comes at a grave environmental and social cost. Continue reading...

Tony Danker says UK government must publish detailed and concrete guidance on home heating and transport to unlock private resourcesThe head of the UK’s biggest business lobby group has warned that the corporate world is “way off track” in tackling the climate crisis.Tony Danker, the director general of the CBI, called on the government to do more to unlock the resources of the private sector by publishing new guidance on heating and transport. Continue reading...

Underreporting by water companies and failure to hold them to account have resulted in ecological damage, analysis showsWater companies are being allowed to unlawfully discharge raw sewage into rivers at a scale at least 10 times greater than Environment Agency prosecutions indicate, according to analysis to be presented to the government.The number of prosecutions of English water companies for unlawful spills from sewage treatment plants in 10 years are just a tiny fraction of the scale of potentially illegal discharges, the research presented to the environment minister, Rebecca Pow, this week will suggest. Continue reading...

I was promised one would be installed by BP Pulse but can’t get it doneAt the beginning of April, I ordered a new £28,000 Renault Zoe electric car from my local dealer. As part of the deal, a company called BP Pulse was supposed to come and install a charger at my home.I have been trying ever since to get it installed. The dealer has put in the request twice, but nothing has happened. As I need to get this before the car arrives, I took up the battle but am no nearer to getting it done. Continue reading...

PM resists pressure to commit Australia to 2050 climate deadline as he talks up hydrogen, LNG and carbon capture and storageScott Morrison has inked deals with Japan and Germany to develop technology to help reach “a net zero emissions future” – but continues to resist international pressure to formally commit Australia to a firm 2050 deadline.With the climate crisis taking centre stage on the final day of the G7 summit in Cornwall, England, the prime minister stuck to his preferred approach of focusing on technologies such as hydrogen, rather than signing up to more ambitious medium- and long-term emission reduction commitments. Continue reading...

Speaking at G7, president addresses autocracy and democracy, climate crisis and Donald Trump’s legacyJoe Biden agreed on Sunday with Vladimir Putin’s latest assessment that US-Russia relations are at their lowest point in years but insisted that while the two countries may have fundamental disagreements, “we are not looking for conflict”.The US president also addressed the issues of autocracy versus democracy, the climate crisis, future pandemics and problems caused by his predecessor Donald Trump, while holding a press conference to mark the end of the G7 summit in the English county of Cornwall. Continue reading...

Climate finance for developing nations was supposed to reach $100bn a year by 2020, but has fallen far shortThe G7 summit ended with rich nations reaffirming their goal to limit global heating to 1.5C, and agreeing to protect and restore 30% of the natural world by the end of this decade, but failing to provide the funds experts say will be needed to reach such goals.Boris Johnson badly needed a successful G7 deal on climate finance to pave the way for vital UN climate talks, called Cop26, to be held in Glasgow this November. Climate finance is provided by rich countries to developing nations, to help them cut greenhouse gas emissions and cope with the impacts of climate breakdown, and was supposed to reach $100bn a year by 2020, but has fallen far short. Continue reading...

Boaters fear that the Canal and River Trust’s plans to trial ‘water safety zones’ will lead to a big reduction in mooring spaces

WA unveils plan to phase out items such as plastic bags, cutlery and polystyrene containers by the end of 2021 - several years ahead of NSWLightweight plastic bags, disposable plastic straws and cutlery, plastic cotton buds and microbeads will be banned in New South Wales from next year, as part of a state government push to reduce plastic litter by 30% by 2025.Reducing plastic waste is part of a wider $356m five-year plan from the NSW government that will also see a new “green” bin for food and organic waste rolled out to homes across the state by 2030 – something the state’s environment minister Matt Kean says will help reduce emissions in landfill and allow greater extraction of biogas from waste. Continue reading...

Boris Johnson announces £500m for ‘blue planet fund’, but pledge was contained in 2019 Conservative manifesto

Michael Packard, 56, was spat out after half a minute and expert says experience would have been ‘totally freaky’ for the whaleA New England lobsterman has described the moment he realised he was trapped in the mouth of a humpback whale off the coast of Cape Cod.“Oh my God, I’m in a whale’s mouth and he’s trying to swallow me. I thought to myself, ‘Hey, this is it. I’m finally going to die. There’s no getting out of here,’’’ Michael Packard told a local news station in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Continue reading...

World leaders called upon to put the ocean first and respond to the demands of climate change

‘Premature austerity will threaten growth’ as world recovers from Covid-19, says climate economistWealthy nations must ignore calls to rein in public spending as the economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic gathers pace, or risk a fresh crisis, the climate economist Nicholas Stern has warned.Leaders of the G7 industrialised countries are meeting in Cornwall this weekend, to discuss vaccines, the recovery from the pandemic, and the climate crisis. Continue reading...

‘Queen of the Deep’ says it is not too late to reverse human-made damage to oceans and preserve biodiversityThe world has the opportunity in the next 10 years to restore our oceans to health after decades of steep decline – but to achieve that, people must wake up to the problem, join in efforts to protect marine areas and stop eating tuna, according to the oceanographer and deep sea explorer Sylvia Earle.“We are at the most exciting time maybe ever to be a human, because we’re armed with knowledge,” said Earle, also known as the Queen of the Deep and “her Deepness”. Earle has also set numerous records for deep sea diving, and was the first woman to serve as chief scientist of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Continue reading...

Undercover documentary investigates the trafficking of Latin America’s big cat to meet demand in China

Australia, one of four guest countries invited to the summit in Cornwall, is an outlier on climate with G7 nations agreeing to more ambitious targets

Australia’s largest telco will instead focus on pumping power back into the network from the new $120m Crookwell 3 windfarm in NSWThe Telstra CEO, Andy Penn, has said the company is too big to go “off-grid” in its pursuit of using 100% renewable energy, meaning it must invest in returning renewable energy to the grid to achieve its goal.Australia’s largest telecommunications company has towers, exchanges, data centres and a network of 50,000km of fibre running across the country. It accounts for around 1% of all of Australia’s energy production and is the 14th biggest electricity user in Australia. Continue reading...

Opec and allies will face pressure to pump more fossil fuels as economies recover, says IEAThe world’s demand for oil will rebound to pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2022, as recovering economies require oil-producing countries to pump more fossil fuels, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).Members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) and their allies, including Russia, collectively known as Opec+, will need to “open the taps to keep the world oil markets adequately supplied”, the global energy watchdog said in its monthly oil report. Continue reading...

Poll on eve of conference shows support for party has fallen away after fuel price debateThe leaders of Germany’s Greens will resist a push by party activists this weekend to adopt more ambitious climate policies, balancing their ecologist message with care to ensure poorer voters are not left out of pocket after September’s election.The Greens, aiming to win the chancellery for the first time at the 26 September federal election, surged ahead of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) in polls in late April after picking Annalena Baerbock as their candidate to run for chancellor. Continue reading...

Ship cannot sail out of Egyptian waters as authorities detain crew and cargo until owners pay for blockagesLemons, bamboo shoots and tofu sit in the sweltering heat, alongside goods from Lenovo, Ikea, Dixons Carphone and dozens of other brands – including barbecues, sun loungers, swimwear, lawnmowers and camping equipment – that will arrive at their intended destinations long after summer ends.Since the successful operation in late March to dislodge the 220,000-ton Ever Given from the Suez canal, where it was stuck for six days, the cargo ship has been grounded again – this time by a fierce legal battle between the ship’s owners, insurance companies, and the Suez Canal Authority (SCA). Continue reading...

For two weeks in late spring, near dusk, the fireflies at the most-visited national park in the US flash in unison, a ‘one-of-a-kind natural phenomenon’As fireflies in the southern Appalachians search for their mates each year, a crowd of people awaits them, hoping to catch a glimpse of a rare light show known to some as a life-changing experience.For two weeks in late spring, near dusk, the synchronous fireflies at the Great Smoky Mountains national park put on a spectacular display across the landscape, flashing in unison for about five seconds and then stopping, together, like twinkling Christmas lights. Continue reading...

Low water levels and high temperatures mean juvenile Chinook salmon are being given a helping hand to reach the oceanBaby Chinook salmon from California’s Central Valley typically have a long swim downriver to the ocean to survive into the next stage of life. This year, they are getting a helping hand in the form of a fleet of tanker trucks set to carry almost 17 million of the fish to the sea.It’s all part of a flurry of steps across western US states to keep tens of millions of endangered salmon from suffering in a year of historic drought for the region. Continue reading...

Welcome to our monthly roundup of the biggest issues in farming and food production, with must-read reports from around the webMEPs have voted in favour of a resolution calling for a ban on the use of cages across the EU for farmed animals by 2027. They also called on the EU Commission to ban the force-feeding of ducks and geese for the production of foie gras. Campaigners estimate that more than 300 million animals in the EU spend all or part of their lives in cages, pens or stalls.

We must find a way to embrace shipping, the ocean and our place in the world without shackling ourselves to unpayable foreign debtGrowing up in Sri Lanka in the 1990s, it was drilled into me from an early age that my island was destined to be a maritime hub. At school, I was taught that Sri Lanka was once the heart of the maritime Silk Road, a network of trade routes that connected the east and west from 130BC to the mid-1400s.My textbooks were filled with tales about how Sri Lanka’s strategic positioning and rich natural resources were so prized that it was consecutively colonised by the Portuguese, Dutch and British empires for almost four centuries. Continue reading...

With Swytch, you can clamp a wheel, battery and sensor to any model and enjoy a power-assisted rideI’ve been something of a sceptic about technological bike gizmos over the years, add-ons that too often seem to represent a solution in search of a problem, an attempt to reinvent something – the bicycle – that was not far short of perfect anyway.I’m no luddite. New developments make cycling even more enjoyable and useful, not least near-puncture proof tyres and tiny, retina-searing lights. Plus, of course, there’s the amazing world of electric-assist bikes, or e-bikes. Continue reading...