Earth still on course for catastrophic 3.2C of warming by end of century, but green recovery plans could put world back on course for Paris goalsThe direct climate impact of the coronavirus lockdown has lowered 2050 temperature projections by a “negligible” 0.01C, the UN has revealed.A green economic recovery from the pandemic could, however, make a substantial difference, according to the UN Environment Programme (Unep) annual emissions gap report, potentially reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 25% over the next decade and putting the world on track to meeting the Paris agreement’s goal of keeping temperatures within 2C of pre-industrial levels. Continue reading...
Multiple sources say summit organisers have told Australia the PM won’t get to speak on the weekendScott Morrison is unlikely to win a last-minute speaking slot at a global leaders’ climate ambition summit as his government has failed to meet the demands set by the event organisers, a long-time advisor at international talks says.As Guardian Australia revealed on Monday, the prime minister has not yet been confirmed to give a speech at the weekend summit, which is being hosted by Britain, France and the UN in a bid to boost climate commitments ahead of a major conference in Glasgow next year. Continue reading...
I had resigned myself to brief glimpses but he landed, and lingered, nearbyI don’t usually take binoculars on my early-morning bike ride; if I did, I would stop too often to get any benefit. But after a swift circuit around the levels, I picked them up and headed down the lane behind my home to look for a stonechat I’d seen the day before.The stonechat had moved on; possibly because of the presence of a male merlin – the first I’d seen here in Somerset for a decade. I first noticed the bird as he flew away from me, and resigned myself to the usual brief views. But moments later, he landed on top of a tall hedgerow. Continue reading...
Greenpeace report warns against granting licences to ‘deeply destructive’ industry with opaque oversight, and calls for global ocean treatyPrivate mining firms and arms companies are exerting a hidden and unhealthy influence on the fate of the deep-sea bed, according to a new report highlighting the threats facing the world’s biggest intact ecosystem.An investigation by Greenpeace found a handful of corporations in Europe and North America are increasingly dominating exploration contracts, and have at times taken the place of government representatives at meetings of the oversight body, the UN’s International Seabed Authority (ISA). Continue reading...
Analysis shows invertebrates are overlooked in favour of mammals and birds despite vital role in healthy ecosystemsMoney made available for wildlife conservation by the EU is based on a popularity contest, with vertebrates getting nearly 500 times more funding for each species than invertebrates, according to a new report.Brown bears, wolves, bitterns and Eurasian lynxes are the Hollywood stars of European conservation and receive almost the same amount as all invertebrates put together, according to analysis of funding under the EU’s Habitats Directive. This leaves little for less charismatic creatures such as spiders and crustaceans, many of which are crucial to ecosystem health and at greater risk of extinction, the study found. Continue reading...
Leaked report says tax would slow emissions cuts, with South Australia and Victoria warned before they announced plan to introduce chargeAustralian state governments were warned a road user tax on clean cars introduced without other support for the technology could discourage its uptake and impede greenhouse gas cuts. The advice was received before South Australia and Victoria announced plans to introduce a charge on driving electric vehicles (EVs).A leaked report to the Board of Treasurers – a states and territories forum – shows it jointly commissioned advice on how to best introduce road-user charging on zero and low-emissions vehicles after agreeing to “high-level principles” earlier this year. Continue reading...
Flood barriers were not activated after forecasts predicted high tide of only 1.2 metresVenice has been hit by high tides of up to 1.5 metres (5ft) after its flood barrier system was not activated as a result of mistaken forecasts.Weather bulletins had predicted high tide, or acqua alta, rising to 1.2 metres – lower than the 1.3 metres level at which the 78 mobile barriers of the defensive system, called Mose, would usually be activated. Continue reading...
Warmest temperatures since 1900 have all occurred within the past seven years, according to Noaa’s annual Arctic report cardThe Arctic’s rapid transformation into a less frozen, hotter and biologically altered place has been further exacerbated by a year of wildfires, soaring temperatures and loss of ice, US scientists have reported. Continue reading...
RBA says contract with Sunset Power International Pty Ltd, trading as Delta Electricity, is commercial in confidenceThe Greens have issued a please explain to the Reserve Bank of Australia after it entered a $10.9m contract with Trevor St Baker’s power company to provide electricity services for RBA properties.The RBA has declined to comment on the decision to engage Sunset Power International Pty Ltd, trading as Delta Electricity, telling Guardian Australia the contract and tender process are both commercial in confidence. Continue reading...
Ella Kissi-Debrah’s fatal asthma attack coincided with a high air pollution episodeThe hospital admissions of a nine-year-old girl who died after an acute asthma attack almost all took place during autumn and winter months when air pollution levels are at their highest, an inquest heard on Tuesday.Prof Stephen Holgate, a respiratory disease expert, said Ella Kissi-Debrah had been living on a knife-edge, and it would take just a small change to create a dramatic collapse in the child. Continue reading...
Protesters are trying to stop construction at site in Colne Valley nature reserve, west of LondonPolice and eviction squads have gathered in a standoff with HS2 protesters including veteran activist Swampy, who is sitting in a 30ft bamboo structure over a river in an attempt to stop HS2 building a works bridge through the Colne Valley nature reserve.Activists put up the makeshift tower in the River Colne at the weekend to stop workers erecting the bridge and cutting a temporary road through the Denham Country Park woodland. Continue reading...
A five-year campaign for designation has resulted in the Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors parks forming the largest dark-sky area in the UKThe Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors national parks have been named international dark sky reserves, creating the largest dark sky area in the UK and one of the biggest in Europe. Combined, the two parks cover 1,396 sq miles, and achieved the status after a five-year campaign.Dark sky reserve designation is granted by the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA), the foremost authority on light pollution, based in Tucson, Arizona. To be designated, an area must undergo a rigorous process to prove the exceptional quality of its nocturnal environment as well as showing strong community support, encouraging the take-up of dark-sky-friendly lighting and facilitating educational activities. Continue reading...
Countries have settled on 8,848.86m – higher than either’s previous measurementsMount Everest is marginally higher than previously thought, according to a new joint Chinese-Nepalese calculation that settles a long-running conflict over the height of the world’s tallest peak, which straddles the countries’ shared border.Kathmandu and Beijing had differed over its exact height, but after each sent an expedition of surveyors to the summit they have agreed that the official height is 8,848.86 metres (29,032ft), a bit more than their previous calculations. Continue reading...
MPs also urge Scott Morrison to use carryover credits to meet Australia’s 2030 target ahead of weekend global climate summitThe federal energy minister, Angus Taylor, will meet with his New South Wales counterpart, Matt Kean, after Scott Morrison raised concerns with Gladys Berejiklian about her government’s recently legislated commitment to build 12 gigawatts of clean energy as part of a transition road map.For the second week in a row, federal Coalition MPs used their regular party room meeting to raise concerns about the NSW agreement, and to insist the Morrison government use carryover credits from the Kyoto period to meet Australia’s 2030 target rather than meeting the commitment through practical emissions reduction. Continue reading...
by Jillian Ambrose Energy correspondent on (#5BC7T)
Power companies will be allowed to make bigger returns as Ofgem relaxes proposalsThe industry regulator will allow energy networks to plough at least £40bn into the green revolution and make higher returns on their investments, after companies threatened an unprecedented rebellion against its plans to save homes £20 a year on their bills.Ofgem’s plans, set out on Tuesday, will halve the savings energy bill payers can expect over the next five years to £10 a year after softening the crackdown on company profits it proposed over the summer. Continue reading...
The race is on to find a steady source of lithium, a key component in rechargeable electric car batteries. But while the EU focuses on emissions, the lithium gold rush threatens environmental damage on an industrial scale
by Adam Morton, Katharine Murphy and Jessica Elgot on (#5BARN)
Australian PM last week insisted he would address forum to ‘correct mistruths’ about Coalition’s action on emissionsScott Morrison does not yet have a speaker’s spot at a global climate ambition summit this weekend despite telling parliament last week he intended to use an appearance at the event to “correct mistruths” about his government’s heavily criticised record on emissions reduction.A government spokesman on Monday night said Australia had been invited to take part in the 12 December summit “both personally by [British] prime minister Boris Johnson during a phone call with prime minister Morrison, and again in writing by the leaders of hosting nations: the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Chile and also the United Nations”. Continue reading...
Letters sent to the forestry agency advised logging in bushfire-affected areas should apply the ‘precautionary principle’ to consider threatened speciesVictoria’s publicly owned forestry agency has been allowed to restart logging in bushfire-ravaged east Gippsland despite a warning from a regulator there was a risk of “serious and irreversible damage” to the state’s biodiversity.A report released under freedom of information laws show the state’s conservation regulator twice wrote to VicForests during and after last summer’s catastrophic bushfires advising it should apply the “precautionary principle” when logging in the area. Continue reading...
Local wildlife trust says work has devastated Herefordshire river but landowner says EA asked him to do itEnvironment agency officials were under pressure on Monday to explain exactly what consent they gave to carry out extensive work on the banks of a protected river in England.Officials from the EA, Natural England and the Forestry Commission moved in last week to stop the work along the River Lugg outside Kingsland, near Leominster in Herefordshire. Continue reading...
Carmaker’s European boss says future spending is dependent on post-Brexit trading conditionsToyota will not invest in building battery electric cars in Britain at its next round of investment in 2027, dealing a blow to hopes that UK car factories will take a leading role in the move away from fossil fuels.Johan van Zyl, the chief executive of Toyota Motor Europe, said that hybrid cars containing both internal combustion engines and battery-powered motors would be the only option for the next round of investment at the company’s plant in Burnaston, Derbyshire. Continue reading...
Rosamund Kissi-Debrah ‘would have moved house’ if aware of level of pollution threat to her daughterThe mother of a nine-year-old girl who died after an acute asthma attack said she would have moved house immediately had she been told of the link between air pollution and her daughter’s condition.Rosamund Kissi-Debrah told the inner south London coroner that she knew nothing about nitrogen dioxide or air pollution during her daughter’s life. Continue reading...
Discovery of tiny animal fuels hopes for its post-blaze survival but ‘right now they’re at their most vulnerable’A little pygmy possum has been found on Kangaroo Island for the first time since bushfire destroyed most of their habitat in last summer’s devastating blaze.There were fears the pygmy, considered one of the smallest possums in the world, had all but disappeared from the South Australian island. Continue reading...
Climate crisis likely to cause warmer, wetter winters and hotter, drier summers, says Met OfficeSnowball fights and sledging could be at risk because by the end of the century snow will not settle on the ground in much of the UK due to the climate crisis, Met Office analysis has suggested.Detailed projections suggest traditional winter activities such as building snowmen could disappear if global greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced. Continue reading...
by Jillian Ambrose Energy correspondent on (#5BABF)
Clean energy firm Gridserve has plans for more than 100 such sites over next five yearsBritain’s first all-electric car charging forecourt is set to open for business in Braintree, Essex, to charge electric vehicles with 100% renewable energy.From Monday, the super-fast electric forecourt will deliver 350kW of charging power – enough to add 200 miles of driving range in 20 minutes – to up to 36 cars at a time. Continue reading...
A new report says 143 million mammals were affected in the 2019-20 blazes, one of the ‘worst wildlife disasters in modern history’More than 61,000 koalas and almost 143 million other native mammals were likely in the path of the Australian bushfires of late 2019 and early 2020, according to a major assessment of the ecological toll of the “black summer” blazes.The estimate from 10 researchers and scientists, contained in a report commissioned by environmental group WWF-Australia, recounts the devastating losses in habitats across the country. Continue reading...
Film-maker who spent three decades documenting the lives of miners for the National Coal BoardPeter Pickering, who has died aged 96, was once one of Britain’s busiest film-makers. Directing hundreds of shorts between 1942 and 1983, he made more films than perhaps any other director for the National Coal Board (NCB), which was central to the postwar industrial documentary boom. Most of his output epitomises the tradition: humane contributions, unobtrusively finely crafted, to public service and postwar consensus. Hovering elsewhere in his filmography, however, are quirkier films connecting his career to his personal perspectives. His masterpiece, the deceptively simple Miners (1976), a quietly elegiac statement of respect for the working world and social culture of the coalfields in which he and his peers had by then been filming for three decades, happily aligns his corporate commitments to his own.From 1947 onwards, Peter was a member of Data Film Productions, Britain’s first film co-operative, made up of leftwing idealists whose bread and butter was producing Mining Review, a cine-magazine for the NCB (a cornerstone of Labour’s postwar nationalisation programme). Released monthly into cinemas, Mining Review would become the world’s longest-running industrial newsreel. Peter directed innumerable items for it, many technical and filmed underground, others covering community and cultural stories. Memorable examples include his spellbinding record of Paul Robeson’s 1949 visit to a Midlothian colliery, and his 1959 piece on the Ashington Group of miner-artists, a film later praised by Lee Hall, author of The Pitmen Painters. Continue reading...
Britain’s credibility as climate champion rests on bold and urgent action, say campaignersBritain must end all oil and gas extraction in the North Sea as a matter of urgency if it is to maintain its position as a credible climate champion. That was the stark warning issued by green campaigners yesterday in the wake of last week’s decision by Denmark to halt its exploration for new North Sea reserves as part of its commitment to cut carbon emissions and tackle climate change.The Danish decision is an embarrassment for Boris Johnson who announced last week that Britain would take a lead in the battle against global heating by cutting national carbon emissions by 68% by 2030, a rate faster than any other major economy. Continue reading...
Labor leader says Australia needs to pledge to deliver net-zero emissions by 2050Labor and green groups are calling for an overhaul of Australia’s climate policies after reports Scott Morrison is planning for Australia to abandon the use of Kyoto carryover credits to achieve its emissions reduction targets.Nine newspapers reported on Saturday the Australian prime minister will tell world leaders next week that Australia will not use the controversial accounting method to satisfy its 2030 target under the Paris agreement. Continue reading...
In 2015, the ageing Vales Point station seemed destined for the scrapheap – now, it’s making more than $100m a yearIf you are hoping to make your way in the energy business, you could do worse than to find someone who looks at you the way Coalition governments look at businessman Trevor St Baker.In September 2015, the then NSW treasurer, Gladys Berejiklian, sold the Vales Point coal power plant to St Baker’s Sunset Power International for just $1m. Continue reading...
Witness describes damage to mile-long stretch of Lugg as egregious act of ‘ecological vandalism’Police and environment agency staff have moved in to stop further damage being done to a protected river, after what one witness described as one of the most egregious acts of ecological vandalism in 25 years.A mile-long stretch of the River Lugg outside Kingsland, near Leominster in Herefordshire, has been flattened by a bulldozer. Trees have been felled, the river straightened and the river bed damaged. Continue reading...
Advocates and Native tribes, who have fought the proposal for years, have renewed complaints amid a coronavirus surgeAs Covid-19 cases surge in Minnesota, an oil company is bringing in thousands of out-of-state workers to finish building a pipeline from Canada that will stretch hundreds of miles across the state.Environmental advocates and Native American tribes have fought Enbridge Energy’s Line 3 proposal for years, and now medical professionals are joining in to plead with the governor to halt construction amid the pandemic. Continue reading...
by Jillian Ambrose Energy correspondent on (#5B7EQ)
Decision as part of plan to phase out fossil fuel extraction by 2050 will put pressure on UKDenmark has brought an immediate end to new oil and gas exploration in the Danish North Sea as part of a plan to phase out fossil fuel extraction by 2050.On Thursday night the Danish government voted in favour of the plans to cancel the country’s next North Sea oil and gas licensing round, 80 years after it first began exploring its hydrocarbon reserves. Continue reading...
by Damian Carrington Environment editor on (#5B7DP)
It takes thousands of years for soils to form, meaning protection is needed urgently, say scientistsGlobal soils are the source of all life on land but their future looks “bleak” without action to halt degradation, according to the authors of a UN report.A quarter of all the animal species on Earth live beneath our feet and provide the nutrients for all food. Soils also store as much carbon as all plants above ground and are therefore critical in tackling the climate emergency. But there also are major gaps in knowledge, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) report, which is the first on the global state of biodiversity in soils. Continue reading...
by Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent on (#5B6XF)
Boris Johnson promises to go further and faster by setting target of 68% reduction in annual carbon emissionsThe UK will cut greenhouse gas emissions further and faster than any other major economy in the next decade, according to a new carbon target set out by the prime minister.There will be a reduction of 68% in annual carbon emissions by 2030, compared with 1990 levels, a significant increase on the current target of about 57% reductions. The raising of ambition on tackling climate breakdown is intended to galvanise other countries to follow suit, as Boris Johnson prepares to co-host a virtual summit of world leaders on the climate next week. Continue reading...
Proposals cite climate change as most severe threat to US reefs, which may be in danger of disappearing in some placesIn a long-awaited move from the Trump administration, the US has proposed critical habitat protections for twelve coral species in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean. The rules would protect over 6,000 sq miles (nearly 16,000 sq km) of critical coral habitat.The rules cite climate change as the most severe threat to all 12 coral species across their range. Impacts of the climate crisis include ocean acidification, which hinders the ability of corals to grow, and ocean warming, which causes corals to expel the algae living in their tissues in a phenomenon known as coral bleaching. Fishing and land-based pollution have also contributed to the species’ decline. Continue reading...
Could replacing empty shops with wetlands, woodlands and meadows offer a new model for cities?An empty 1970s shopping centre in Nottingham could be transformed into wetlands, pocket woodlands and a wildflower meadow as part of a post-pandemic urban rewilding project.The debate about Broadmarsh shopping centre, considered an eyesore by many, has rumbled on for years. This year it was undergoing a £86m revamp by real estate investment trust Intu when the firm went into administration. Continue reading...
Fossil fuel extraction sell-off in pristine Alaskan wilderness set for 6 January, predating Biden inauguration by daysThe Trump administration has formally announced the go-ahead for the fiercely opposed sale of controversial gas and oil drilling licences in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.The refuge is a pristine wilderness and home to polar bears, caribou and many other wildlife species. Continue reading...
Environment | The Guardian