Environment | The Guardian

Watchdog finds UK is projected to fail to meet targets aimed at achieving climate goal

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...

Mass die-offs of coho salmon just before they are about to spawn have been traced to tire fragments washed into streams by rainPollution from car tires that washes into waterways is helping cause a mass die-off of salmon on the US west coast, researchers have found. Continue reading...

Ambition to cover area more than one and a half times size of India likely to concern country’s neighboursChina is planning a rapid expansion of its weather modification programme to cover an area more than one and a half times the size of India, in a move likely to raise concerns among the country’s neighbours.The decision, announced by the cabinet on Wednesday night, would increase fivefold the world’s biggest cloud-seeding operation, which already employs an estimated 35,000 people. Continue reading...

Report disputing green benefits of EVs attributed to company registered to wife of carmaker’s directorThe boss of Aston Martin has called for an internal investigation after the British carmaker was accused of using a “sockpuppet PR firm” to legitimise a report which used data criticised as misleading to discredit electric vehicles.The new chief executive, Tobias Moers, said Aston Martin’s involvement in the widely discredited report began before he joined the company last August, and that he was not aware of its contents before it was published. Continue reading...

Emails on flood plain harvesting reveal the environment department singled out sympathetic groups and discussed how to sideline criticsJust a week after the New South Wales corruption watchdog concluded that the state’s water bureaucrats had an “entrenched irrigator focus” that made “policy making vulnerable to improper favouritism”, the same division has been caught singling out sympathetic irrigator groups and discussing how to sideline critics.The deliberate strategies were contained in an internal email chain that was inadvertently sent out to a number of stakeholders this week. Continue reading...

Data from 120,000 birdwatchers in 48 countries shows forest birds have expanded their range while area occupied by farmland birds has shrunkEurope’s breeding bird populations have shifted on average one kilometre north every year for the past three decades, likely driven by the climate crisis, according to one of the world’s largest citizen science projects on biodiversity.The European Breeding Bird Atlas (Ebba2) provides the most detailed picture yet of the distribution of the continent’s birds after 120,000 volunteers and fieldworkers surveyed 11m square kilometres, from the Azores in the west to the Russian Urals in the east. Continue reading...

Milestone comes as sales of all plug-in cars, including hybrids, pass 1m in 18 European marketsCarmakers have sold more than 500,000 battery electric cars in Europe during 2020, a milestone in the automotive industry’s move away from fossil fuels.Sales of all plug-in cars, including hybrids, have surpassed 1m during the year in the UK and the largest 17 European markets, according to data collated by Schmidt Automotive Research. Continue reading...

Environment groups say as Cop26 hosts UK should show leadership and set tougher goal of 75% reduction in emissionsGreen campaigners and climate experts are set for disappointment as the UK government prepares to publish its carbon target for 2030.Environmental and development groups have been pushing the prime minister to opt for a stretching target of cutting emissions by 75% by 2030, compared with 1990 levels, which would have put the UK at the forefront of developed countries in fighting the climate crisis. Continue reading...

Letter urges president-elect Joe Biden to offer students in public schools routine lessons on the threats posed by global heatingJoe Biden’s efforts to tackle the climate crisis need to extend to American classrooms with routine lessons on the threats posed by global heating, two former US education secretaries have urged.In a letter to the Democratic president-elect, the former top education officials – John King and Arne Duncan – said the education of more than 50 million children in US public schools provides a “critical opportunity” to prepare them for a world transformed by climate change, as well as the opportunities afforded by renewable energy and other potential solutions to the crisis. Continue reading...

Guardian Australia revealed Josh Frydenberg raised changing the boundaries of significant wetlands after being lobbied by a Liberal donorLabor says revelations that the former environment minister Josh Frydenberg proposed amending the boundaries to an area of internationally significant wetlands after he was lobbied by a developer and major party donor demonstrate why Australia needs an independent environmental regulator.Federal Labor’s environment spokeswoman, Terri Butler, compared the now-treasurer’s past proposal in relation to Toondah Harbour to the Jam Land case, in which Frydenberg’s office sought advice about changing protections to grasslands at the centre of an investigation into illegal clearing on a property part-owned by the energy minister, Angus Taylor, and his relatives. Continue reading...

Huge drop in number of visits during Covid crisis raises concerns polluters are breaking laws with impunityThe Environment Agency has dramatically reduced the frequency that it attends water pollution incidents amid the Covid-19 pandemic, raising concerns the crisis is allowing companies to break environmental regulations with impunity.Between the start of April and the end of August the Environment Agency attended just 292 water pollution incidents, down from 1,726 during the same period in 2019, according to data obtained by the Guardian using freedom of information legislation. Continue reading...

Leaders attending forum are required to make concrete commitments to cut emissionsScott Morrison has confirmed Australia will attend the virtual “climate ambition summit” on 12 December to “correct mistruths” about the government’s heavily criticised record on emissions reduction.Guardian Australia reported last month that Britain and France were leading a group of countries calling on the Australian government to make ambitious new commitments at the December gathering to combat the climate crisis. Continue reading...

Activists have joined Aboriginal traditional owners in voicing opposition to the controversial development that received federal approval last monthHundreds of people in Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane have rallied in support of Aboriginal traditional owners to voice their strong opposition to Santos’s $3.6bn gas project in western New South Wales, which they say will devastate Gamilaraay Gomeroi cultural ties to sacred and significant heritage sites.Last month, the federal environment minister, Sussan Ley, approved the controversial development that could see up to 850 gas wells being drilled in grazing land and the Pilliga forest, which holds great significance for Gamilaraay Gomeroi people. Continue reading...

Environmental groups call for salmon farming to be moved onshore after 130,000 fish escape through tear in netHuon Aquaculture has been savaged after another mass salmon outbreak in Tasmania that could threaten native marine life, with conservationists labelling escape management practices in the state “a circus”.About 130,000 farmed salmon swam to freedom after a tear was found in the netting of a fish pen in Storm Bay on Wednesday. Huon’s chief executive, Peter Bender, said there was a “significant loss of fish”. Continue reading...

The installer told me they couldn’t do the work before the scheme expires and everyone else is fully bookedWe applied for a grant under the government’s Green Homes Grant scheme, 12 days after it started, to replace our gas boiler with an air source heat pump. We’d already signed a contract with a registered installer, CB Heating. That was five weeks ago.When I chased the scheme, I was told that high demand was causing delays. I was then contacted by the installer who told me the scheme had led to a surge in demand and they had no further capacity before it expires at the end of March. Other installers we have contacted are also fully booked. Even if we eventually receive a grant, the scheme only allows us three months to make use of it. Continue reading...

Stations switch to humble earthen kulhads in move to cut down on toxic waste and boost incomes of village pottersA small and humble relic from India’s past is about to stage a major comeback. At all 7,000 railway stations in the country, tea will be served in earthen cups known as kulhads.The kulhads, redolent of a bygone pastoral era, are unpainted, unglazed and have no handles, but are perfectly biodegradable and environment-friendly, which is why the country’s railways minister, Piyush Goyal, has said they will replace plastic cups as part of the government’s goal of making India free of single-use plastic. Continue reading...

With Santos and its gas project on our doorstep, we need to protect an entire forest and the vast amounts of water beneath

When the McCormicks came home on Wednesday, the Christmas tree in their Adelaide house had acquired a new ornamentThe McCormicks went for a silver, pink and blue theme on their Christmas tree. The old plastic leaves were worn but looked beautiful with baubles on each branch and twinkling lights.But this year the family tree included one very unexpected ornament: a wild – and somewhat confused – juvenile koala. Continue reading...

Increase in conflict between species and drought prompt sale of animals that are at risk of extinction due to poachingNamibia has put 170 “high value” wild elephants up for sale due to drought and an increase in elephant numbers, the southern African country’s environmental ministry has saidAn advertisement carried by the state-owned daily New Era said an increase in incidents of human-elephant conflict motivated the sale of the large mammal that is at risk of extinction due to poaching and ecological factors. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Letter obtained under FoI shows Frydenberg wanted to change Ramsar protections but maintain ‘ecological character’The former federal environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, proposed removing protections from an area of internationally significant wetlands after he was lobbied by a developer wanting to build 3,000 apartments at Moreton Bay in Queensland.A letter, obtained by Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws, shows Frydenberg wrote to the Queensland government in 2017 about Walker Corporation’s proposed Toondah Harbour apartment and retail complex to suggest the two governments jointly create a proposal to delist part of the Moreton Bay Ramsar wetland. Continue reading...

Report calls on oil and gas extraction to be phased out and jobs switched to clean energyThe UK’s North Sea oil and gas industry should agree to phase out production through a series of five-year targets to help its 260,00 strong workforce migrate to clean energy sectors, according to a report.The plan would require the UK and Scottish governments to scrap a controversial policy that calls on North Sea companies to extract as much oil and gas as they can from the ageing basin. Continue reading...

Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change calls for green recovery from pandemic

Firm withdraws from Architects Declare after criticism of work on series of airports

Campaign demonstrates butchery skills amid fears glut will go to waste due to smaller gatheringsConsumers are being urged to buy large turkeys – which are suffering a slump in demand due to smaller festive gatherings – in order to avoid a glut of Christmas birds going to waste.Research from the Too Good to Go national food waste app reveals 30% of Britons are planning to buy a smaller turkey than normal, with two-thirds opting for compact and easy-to-carve turkey crowns for their Christmas table. Only 17% of shoppers are planning to buy larger birds, the research found, raising fears that many fresh birds could remain unsold. Continue reading...

Joining China and other big polluters, Biden’s pledge of ‘net zero’ emissions by 2050 brings the Paris agreement goals ‘within reach’This article originally appeared in the Nation and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global consortium of news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story. The Guardian is the lead partner in CCN.“The way we are moving is a suicide,” United Nations secretary general António Guterres said in an interview on Monday, and humanity’s survival will be “impossible” without the United States rejoining the Paris agreement and achieving “net zero” carbon emissions by 2050, as the incoming Biden administration has pledged. Continue reading...

António Guterres lists human-inflicted wounds on natural world in stark message

Production must fall by 6% a year to avoid ‘severe climate disruption’ but Covid-19 funding is supporting increasesThe world’s governments are “doubling down” on fossil fuels despite the urgent need for cuts in carbon emissions to tackle the climate crisis, a report by the UN and partners has found.The researchers say production of coal, oil and gas must fall by 6% a year until 2030 to keep global heating under the 1.5C target agreed in the Paris accord and avoid “severe climate disruption”. But nations are planning production increases of 2% a year and G20 countries are giving 50% more coronavirus recovery funding to fossil fuels than to clean energy. Continue reading...

The outlook for Australian sites including the Blue Mountains and the Gondwana rainforests has deteriorated, report saysThe outlook for five Australian world heritage sites including the Great Barrier Reef, the Blue Mountains and the Gondwana rainforests, has deteriorated, according to a global report that finds climate change is now the number one threat to the planet’s natural world heritage.The International Union for Conservation of Nature, the official advisory body on nature to the Unesco world heritage committee, has found in its world heritage outlook that climate change threatens a third of the world’s natural heritage sites. The outlook has been published every three years since 2014. Continue reading...

Report disputing green benefits of EVs attributed to company registered to wife of carmaker’s directorAston Martin is at the centre of a climate lobbying controversy after a study co-commissioned by the company that cast doubt on the green credentials of electric vehicles was found to have been attributed to a PR company registered to the wife of a director at the luxury carmaker.The study, which has since been widely debunked by experts, was presented as “groundbreaking” third-party research and appeared to show that electric cars would have to travel as far as 50,000 miles before matching the carbon footprint of a petrol model. Continue reading...

Competition regulator says it wants using charge points to be as easy as filling up with fuelThe UK’s competition regulator is investigating electric vehicle charging to work out how to tackle “range anxiety”, one of the key factors holding back the move away from fossil fuel cars by 2030.The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it wanted to build consumer trust in the availability of electric car charging as well as address any competition issues. Continue reading...

With toilets in short supply, ordure can harm streams and wildlife. An entrepreneur has a nifty solutionFor 20 years, Richard Lechleitner had a grueling task at Mt Rainier national park: digging human waste out of backcountry toilets and carrying it down the mountains.Staff at the park in Washington state grappled with an influx of visitors hiking far from roads, along with thousands of climbers attempting to reach the active volcano’s 14,000ft summit each year. People heeded the call of nature on Mt Rainier’s pristine glaciers, as well as in its unvarnished wilderness toilets. Continue reading...

Ancient Forest Alliance’s project underscores the preventions that are needed to protect old-growth trees in areas such as the Caycuse watershedWhen TJ Watt first stood at the base of a towering western red cedar on Canada’s Pacific coast, the ancient giant was surrounded by thick moss and ferns, and the sounds of a vibrant forest ecosystem.When he returned a few months later, all that remained was a massive stump, set against a landscape that was unrecognizable. “To come back and see a place that was so magnificent and complex just completely and utterly destroyed is just gut-wrenching,” he said. Continue reading...

Former Greens leader Bob Brown warns extinction is coming rapidly for the species as he goes to court over forestry agreementsFewer than 300 critically endangered swift parrots could remain in Australia, a new study has revealed, as a court challenge against logging in their Tasmanian habitat was heard in the federal court.The former federal Greens leader Bob Brown has taken state-owned logging group Sustainable Timber Tasmania, and the state and federal governments, to the federal court over forestry agreements his foundation believes are unlawful. Continue reading...

Communities are being asked to bid to host the plant, which a state-backed project plans to build by 2040Communities in the UK are being asked to bid to host a prototype nuclear fusion power plant, which a government-backed programme plans to build by 2040.The site does not need to be near existing nuclear power stations but will need 100 hectares of land and a plentiful water supply. Ministers say the project would bring thousands of skilled jobs and be part of its planned “green industrial revolution” to tackle the climate crisis. Continue reading...

Governments to reduce pollution in oceans and end subsidies that contribute to overfishingGovernments responsible for 40% of the world’s coastlines have pledged to end overfishing, restore dwindling fish populations and stop the flow of plastic pollution into the seas in the next 10 years.The leaders of the 14 countries set out a series of commitments on Wednesday that mark the world’s biggest ocean sustainability initiative, in the absence of a fully fledged UN treaty on marine life. Continue reading...

Jacinda Ardern calls climate change ‘one of the greatest challenges of our time’ and pledges carbon-neutral government by 2025New Zealand has declared a climate change emergency and committed to a carbon-neutral government by 2025, in what the prime minister Jacinda Ardern called “one of the greatest challenges of our time”.A motion tabled in parliament on Wednesday recognised “the devastating impact that volatile and extreme weather will have on New Zealand and the wellbeing of New Zealanders, on our primary industries, water availability, and public health through flooding, sea level rise, and wildfire”. Continue reading...

UK energy minister Alok Sharma urges ‘all of you who have not already done so to join the race’ to net zero emissions by 2050The British president of the next major UN climate change summit has pointedly thanked Australia’s states and territories for backing a goal of net zero emissions by 2050 while urging unnamed others – including the Morrison government – to join them.In a speech to an Australian audience on Wednesday, Alok Sharma, the president-designate of the COP26 summit in Glasgow and a member of Boris Johnson’s Conservative cabinet, said more than 120 countries had announced carbon neutrality or net zero emissions targets and urged others to follow. Continue reading...

Progressive female independents hold three once-safe Liberal seats. Their victories are templates for further change

The high-elevation tree – a key source of food for grizzly bears – is vulnerable to climate crisis, beetles and diseaseClimate crisis, voracious beetles and disease are imperiling the long-term survival of a high-elevation pine tree that’s a key source of food for some grizzly bears across the US west.Whitebark pine trees can live up to 1,000 years and are found at elevations up to 12,000 feet (3,600 meters), conditions too harsh for most trees to survive. The trees grow in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada and western Canada, but have been all but wiped out in some areas. Continue reading...

‘Teach science behind climate change not morality tale,’ says Amanda SpielmanThe chief inspector of schools in England has pushed back against growing calls to make the national curriculum more diverse, warning against making curriculum changes based on a single issue or purpose.Speaking at the launch of Ofsted’s annual report, Amanda Spielman said there were increasing efforts to “commandeer” schools and the curriculum in support of worthy social issues and campaigns, including environmental causes and tackling racism. Continue reading...

Highways England scheme to encourage species-rich grasslands could create hundreds of miles of rare habitats after decades of lossNative wildflower meadows will line the verges of all new large-scale road projects under an initiative by Highways England, the Guardian can reveal.Nodding blue harebells, clusters of yellow kidney vetch and flashes of bird’s-foot-trefoil could soon become the norm on stretches of the road network in England with the infrastructure provider committing to the creation of biodiverse grasslands as standard on all new major schemes. Continue reading...

Boris Johnson’s advisers did not understand how vital UN Cop26 talks were, former minister tells MPsBoris Johnson’s team had a “cavalier attitude” to hosting a vital UN climate summit in the UK, taking the view “they could wing it with a few press releases and that would all be fine” rather than putting serious work into the talks, the sacked former minister originally in charge has said.Claire O’Neill was appointed by Johnson to head the Cop26 summit in September 2019 but was summarily dismissed on the eve of the launch of the UK’s presidency in February this year. Continue reading...

Young people from 140 countries presented policies to UK climate action championYoung people from 140 countries who attended an online “mock Cop26” climate summit have presented a treaty of 18 policies to Nigel Topping, the UK’s high level climate action champion.After two weeks of negotiations, delegates from the international youth-led conference presented their formal treaty to Topping during the event’s closing ceremony on Tuesday, and called on world leaders to prioritise the policies during Cop26, which was postponed for a year because of the pandemic and is now due to be held in Glasgow in November 2021. Continue reading...

New analysis finds 40% was brought in without sourcing checks from Brazil, Argentina and ParaguayMore than 1m tonnes of soya used by UK livestock farmers to produce chicken and other food last year could be linked to deforestation, according to a new analysis.Large areas of forest in Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay are being cleared to produce soya, which is then exported to the UK to be used by farmers, mainly to feed chickens and dairy cows. Continue reading...

A new study has found that affordable housing in New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey and California will be at particular riskThe amount of affordable housing in the US vulnerable to coastal flooding is set to triple over the next 30 years, a new study has found in a further sign of the escalating hardships faced by low-income Americans amid an unraveling climate crisis.Affordable housing in New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey and California is at particular risk of flooding from worsening storms or even high tides pushed on by rising sea levels, according to research conducted by Climate Central, a New Jersey-based science organization. Continue reading...

Wall is going up in four sections in Arizona’s mountain ranges spanning the US-Mexico border where the cats had reappearedBy the 1960s, the North American jaguar had vanished from the southern US borderland after being hunted to extinction.Yet in the mid-1990s, there was a remarkable discovery: the jaguar had reappeared in the Sky Islands of Arizona, a region of rugged linked mountain ranges spanning the US and Mexico border that boasts the highest biodiversity in inland North America. Since then, the large cats have been seen over a dozen times in the region, reviving hopes of a full return of the elusive predators to the US. Continue reading...

An expert questions the state government betting heavily on a coal and gas-fired recovery after the global slump in fossil fuels hits the 2020-21 budgetQueensland’s coal and petroleum royalties income has collapsed, wiping more than $2bn – about half the revenue initially forecast – from the state’s budget bottom line.But while the global slump in the fossil fuel industry has impacted the pandemic-delayed Queensland 2020-21 budget, the state is betting heavily on a coal and gas-fired recovery in the coming years. Continue reading...