Environment | The Guardian

Veganuary taken up by rising number of people trying plant-based alternatives to meatA record 500,000 people have signed up to the Veganuary challenge to eat only plant-based foods for a month. The milestone is double the number who pledged to go vegan for January in 2019.A quarter of those taking up the challenge – 125,000 – are in the UK, and this year British supermarkets including Tesco have run television and radio adverts promoting Veganuary for the first time. Other supermarkets such as Aldi, Asda and Iceland have produced dedicated pages including information and recipes in 2021, again for the first time. Continue reading...

Sales of drilling rights are the climax to one of the nation’s highest-profile environmental battles

Business secretary should focus on making Glasgow climate summit a success, say experts

Up to 10 million straw-coloured fruit bats descend on Zambia’s Kasanka national park every year, dispersing millions of seeds as they go

Labor says the Coalition is isolated on climate change and needs to commit to net zero emissions by 2050Australia has formally updated its United Nations climate policy without fanfare and without any improvement to its 2030 target to cut emissions, sparking criticism from Labor, the Greens and climate policy experts and campaigners.Repeating language heard frequently in recent months, the document, submitted to the United Nations on New Year’s Eve, says Australia will “meet and beat” its declared 2030 target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 26% to 28% below 2005 levels. Continue reading...

Birders headed to Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park to view brightly coloured painted buntingHundreds of people have flocked to the Washington DC area to catch a glimpse of a new, celebrated arrival who has offered some welcome relief following a bruising year. No, it’s not Joe Biden.Excited birders have crammed into a Maryland park, braving rain and dismally low temperatures, to witness the painted bunting, a brightly coloured bird that usually reserves its elan for the warmer climes of Florida. Continue reading...

‘The whole thing that is great about the teeth of the narwhal is that nothing makes sense’

Head of Energy Security Board calls for ‘agreed national emissions reduction trajectory’ among federal, state and territory governmentsThe Morrison government appears to be inching closer to committing to net zero emissions by 2050 as it comes under growing international pressure over climate policy, a top energy adviser has said.Kerry Schott, head of the government’s Energy Security Board (ESB), called for national unity on energy policy after the body published a new report citing differences among Australian governments as a “challenge” to the national electricity market. Continue reading...

Research says planting trees in urban areas could mitigate rising temperatures

Flash flooding leaves some rural NSW communities isolated as 1,400 houses left without power in QueenslandFast-moving thunderstorms have lashed much of eastern New South Wales including Sydney, felling trees and causing flash flooding that has left some rural communities isolated.By 6.15pm on Monday the State Emergency Service had responded to 281 callouts across the state, the majority for trees down, leaking roofs and requests for sandbags to prevent property inundations. Continue reading...

Tourist drawcards Kuta and Legian beaches are being overwhelmed by up to 60 tonnes of plastic rubbish every dayBali’s famous beaches are being strewn by plastic rubbish in what experts say is becoming an annual event thanks to monsoon weather, poor waste management and a global marine pollution crisis.Authorities are struggling to keep up with the tide of rubbish washing up on beaches at Kuta, Legian and Seminyak, where about 90 tonnes of rubbish was collected on Friday and Saturday. Continue reading...

Environmental activist says she has stopped buying new clothes but will not criticise those who fly or have childrenGreta Thunberg says she has stopped buying new clothes but does not sit in judgment on others whose lifestyle choices are less environmentally friendly than her own, in an interview to mark her 18th birthday.Thunberg, whose solo school strike in 2018 snowballed into a global youth movement, stopped flying several years ago, travelling instead by boat. She is vegan and said she had stopped consuming “things” . Continue reading...

Brexit deal means from 2024 batteries not containing 50% local materials face EU tariffs

Tourist lodges run out of cash to feed and care for the animals on their land and thousands of villagers lose their jobsImpala run through the thorn bush, ibis fly above the lake and lightning forks over the horizon as a storm rolls in from the Drakensberg mountains.The visitors driven across the 10,000 or more hectares of the Nambiti game reserve in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province see what they think is an unchanged, and unchanging natural landscape. Continue reading...

Co-op finally set to launch own brand plastic-free teabags after outcry over microplasticsThe Co-op is to launch a range of own-brand plastic-free teabags nearly three years after it first pledged an eco-friendly version of the nation’s favourite brew.Mass-produced teabags became an unlikely target in the fight against the global plastic binge, after it emerged that the industry-wide sealant that helps hold their shape is made of polypropylene, and not biodegradable. Continue reading...

GPS collars that alert cows when they reach a boundary are helping to improve habitats and boost biodiversityThere is something missing from the bucolic upland scene of shaggy, bracken-coloured cattle grazing between young trees on the Cumbrian hillside: fencing.When the Highland-cross cows reach a certain point, the blue plastic medallion dangling from their necks plays a melody like a mobile phone ringtone. The cow turns around, and the invisible GPS fence has done its job. Continue reading...

The ambition of the North Sea project promises vast quantities of green energy – and many green jobsBeyond the horizon off the coast of North Yorkshire, a quiet revolution is emerging from the waves of the North Sea.More than 80 miles from land, hundreds of the world’s most powerful wind turbines have begun reaching into the air as construction progresses on the biggest windfarm ever built. Almost 200 turbines, each almost as tall as the Eiffel tower, will soon rise above the submerged Doggerland to populate an expanse of sea as large as North Yorkshire itself. Continue reading...

With protesters camped nearby, two giant 170m machines are being assembledIn a decade’s time, passengers on the new high-speed trains hurtling out of London will get just a burst of daylight and a glimpse of the Colne Valley landscape before disappearing back underground through the Chiltern Hills.Today, in that three-mile stretch between future tunnel openings to the north-west of the capital, the £98bn HS2 project’s scale, engineering might and cost are all evident: both at the vast work site scooped out beside the M25 in Buckinghamshire, and in nearby waters and woods where protesters are still encamped to stop machines coming through. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Environment minister releases reasons for denying Kingvale station owner Scott Harris permission to clear nearly 2,000 hectaresA landholder’s controversial plans to clear almost 2,000 hectares of native vegetation on Queensland’s Cape York were denied after he rejected government advice that it would put five threatened species at risk.Kingvale station owner Scott Harris, who wanted to clear the land for cropping, had also refused to pay for ecological surveys before clearing, according to a detailed statement provided to environmental campaigners by the environment minister, Sussan Ley, and seen by the Guardian. Continue reading...

Project aims to make town often described as one of the unhappiest places in UK a top tourism location

Find is chance for species’ survival say scientists as DNA results confirm turtle found in Hanoi district is a Swinhoe’s softshellThe last known male giant Swinhoe’s softshell turtle is no longer alone on the planet after the discovery of a female of his species in Vietnam.The female 86kg (13 stone) turtle was found in Dong Mo lake, in Hanoi’s Son Tay district, and captured for genetic testing in October. Continue reading...

Charity calls for people to use alternative, less polluting heating and cooking options if they canCampaigners and health experts are calling on people who have alternative heating not to use their wood burning stoves this winter amid growing concern about their impact on public health.The Guardian recently reported that wood burners triple the level of harmful particulates inside the home as well as creating dangerous levels of pollution in the surrounding neighbourhood. Continue reading...

British Columbia resigned to a ‘long fight’ after 2020’s efforts to track and kill the invasive insects ended in frustration

Climate scientist says another top 10 year is a ‘no shit, Sherlock’ moment, as temperatures across the country were 1.15C above averageLast year was the fourth warmest on record for Australia, continuing a run of record warm years over the past decade, according to provisional data released by the Bureau of Meteorology.Across the country, temperatures in 2020 were 1.15C higher than average, putting the year behind 2005, 2013 and 2019, which remains the hottest year on record. Continue reading...

In a year like no other, our photographers – and readers – captured images reflecting the beauty and diversity that could all too easily be lost in our fragile world

With plans for satellite launches and investment in space-based solar, can the UK become a space super power?In 1969, a British engineer was invited to the White House to meet President Nixon. His name was Francis Thomas Bacon and he had developed the fuel cells used on Apollo 11. Known now as Bacon fuel cells, these power sources consume hydrogen and oxygen to produce water, heat and, in theory, a continuous supply of electricity.His invention was considered so integral to the success of the Apollo mission that Nixon told him, “Without you Tom, we wouldn’t have gotten to the moon.” Continue reading...

From buying an electric car to starting a secondhand clothes business, attendees talk of the unexpected delights of the first UK citizens’ assemblyAt the start of 2020, Sue Peachey could never have predicted how her life would change over the next 12 months. She was one of 108 people to take part in the UK’s first climate assembly earlier in the year, spending four weekends learning about a range of environmental issues before producing a final report of recommendations.“The first weekend changed me really. I thought, ‘Oh my God, [climate change] is really going to happen,’ she said. “It made me want to learn and to live my life greener.” Continue reading...

Local travel making up for lack of overseas visitors but also causing problems

Stripped of tourism money, keepers in India and Thailand are struggling to keep their elephants alive

The Wildlife Trusts and Sir David Attenborough call on public to help protect marine lifeSir David Attenborough has called for a halt to activities that damage the UK’s seas, as the Wildlife Trusts revealed the highs and lows of marine life around the British Isles during 2020.Highlights included thousands of Atlantic bluefin tuna in a rare run up the Channel from Cornwall to Kent, at some points accompanied by porpoises, minke whale and dolphins in a feeding frenzy, the trusts’ living seas marine review reported. Continue reading...

Research show flood victims in UK nine times more likely to experience long-term mental health issuesWhen Julie Blackburn was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder in 2016 she was told to avoid her triggers, scenarios which cause upsetting flashbacks. “But when your trigger is rain, there is no getting over it,” she said. “My husband and I don’t sleep when it’s raining, we take it in turns to stand at the window watching the rain – it’s just living in constant fear.”Blackburn’s house in Old Coulsdon, Croydon, has been flooded several times, first in 2000 when heavy rain overwhelmed the Victorian sewer system and filled her home with toxic waste. Rapid development and poor infrastructure led the south London borough to be rated the fourth worst area in England and Wales for surface water flooding in 2011. Continue reading...

Ecotourism revenues plummeted around the world as some areas saw poaching and land grabs increase in 2020

More than half of users will walk or cycle instead of taking buses and trains, Co-op survey finds

‘You might get one chance in a decade,’ says Ralf Petgen, who has adapted his Mosel vineyard owing to global heatingOn a recent frosty night, Ralf Petgen made use of the light of a full moon to check every hour on the state of his riesling grapes. The weather forecast over the two previous days had given the winemaker hope that for the first time in years he would fulfil his dream of harvesting his grapes in a frozen state and turn them into Eiswein.“The temperature needs to be -7C, no warmer than that,” he said. “And we hadn’t had it as low as that while the grapes were still in a healthy state, since 2012.” Continue reading...

Researchers report affected animals off the coasts of the US, South America and AustraliaDolphins are increasingly dying slow, painful deaths from skin lesions likened to severe burns as a result of exposure to fresh water, exacerbated by the climate crisis.Researchers in the US and Australia have defined for the first time an emerging “freshwater skin disease” reported in coastal dolphin populations in the US, South America and Australia. Continue reading...

Unclear if iceberg will hit small British territory but researchers more optimistic about threat to ecosystemA giant iceberg, heading for the island of South Georgia, is continuing to fracture into smaller pieces, meaning it poses less of a threat to the island’s wildlife and ecosystem.The Antarctic iceberg, which has been moving towards the island group, has fractured into four parts. Although it is still unclear if the iceberg will collide with the small British territory, researchers are more optimistic about the risk it poses to local wildlife. Continue reading...

Illegal goldminers supported by Bolsonaro bring environmental destruction and coronavirus to Yanomami communities

International convention to stop richer countries exporting contaminated material for recycling could mean a cleaner ocean in five years

On Boxing Day more than half of country’s daily electricity came from wind turbinesMore than half of Great Britain’s daily electricity came from wind turbines for the first time on Boxing Day, as the country headed for its “greenest year on record”, due in part to the coronavirus.As Storm Bella arrived, bringing gusts of up to 100mph, wind provided 50.7% of Great Britain’s electricity according to data charting the power generation mix. Continue reading...

Crisp packets, cup lids and wet wipes among the more mundane objects commonly encountered

Promising new studies suggest the long elusive technology may be capable of producing electricity for the grid by the end of the decadeIf all goes as planned, the US will eliminate all greenhouse gas emissions from its electricity sector by 2035 – an ambitious goal set by President-elect Joe Biden, relying in large part on a sharp increase in wind and solar energy generation. That plan may soon get a boost from nuclear fusion, a powerful technology that until recently had seemed far out of reach.Researchers developing a nuclear fusion reactor that can generate more energy than it consumes have shown in a series of recent papers that their design should work, restoring optimism that this clean, limitless power source will help mitigate the climate crisis. Continue reading...

Covid has made people see how the food system is dominated by large corporations, say campaignersSeeds need to be brought back into public ownership, rather than belonging to a small group of agrochemical companies, say campaigners, after a year in which seed-swapping and saving has reached new heights of popularity.From March onwards, when the pandemic hit the UK, seed producers and seed banks across the country were overwhelmed with demand. Organisations such as the Seed Cooperative, Vital Seeds and Irish Seed Savers saw a sharp surge in orders, 600% in some cases. Continue reading...

In their latest scan of emerging global biological conservation issues, experts assess the 15 most urgent risks society needs to addressIf it did nothing else, the emergence of Covid-19 a year ago underlined for all of us the importance of anticipating and preparing for – and, as appropriate, steering the course of – things that might happen in the future.That is, in a nutshell, the goal of the 2021 horizon scan of emerging global biological conservation issues recently published in the journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution by the Cambridge University conservation biologist William Sutherland and a team of 24 other conservation practitioners and researchers from around the world. Continue reading...

Mounted City of London police receive a surprise order: to help trample in wildflower seeds at the Barbican

National Trust review has warned that the climate emergency is clearly leading to more erratic conditionsIt was a year of extremes as far as the weather was concerned: pounding rain, violent summer storms, some mild winter months and periods of searing sunshine.An annual audit of how this year’s weather has affected flora and fauna in the UK has concluded that it was, to say the least, a challenging 12 months. Continue reading...

The president-elect plans to reduce incentives for fracking, but has stopped short of a banThe result of the US election has cast a long shadow across the US shale heartlands. Joe Biden wants to make the climate crisis his top priority, sparking real hope for global efforts to avert an environmental catastrophe and real concern for shale operators.The president-elect’s climate plans include a return to the Paris climate agreement, $2tn (£1.5tn) of spending on clean energy, and an ambition to create a carbon-neutral US energy system by 2035 through “aggressive emission reductions”. Continue reading...

The 60-year-old congresswoman will be the first Native American cabinet secretary next month when she takes over at interiorDebra Haaland is making American history. Continue reading...

The crisis poses a deadly threat to some sectors and creates opportunities for others. We examine how they will fare in 2021Coronavirus has changed lives and industries across the UK, accelerating fundamental shifts in behaviour and consumption that were already on their way. Debates about home working, preserving local high streets and the ethics of air travel were bubbling away before coronavirus rampaged across the world, but the consequences of the worst pandemic in more than a century have either settled those arguments or boosted the momentum behind certain lifestyle changes. Here we look at how those debates have been changed – or resolved – by Covid-19. Continue reading...