Scientist says no evidence to support theory Ella Kissi-Debrah’s condition worsened when air pollution rose

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...

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

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...

Many locals say they’ll support the barefoot climate activist, even though they don’t agree with many of his views

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...

The practice is common among irrigators throughout the state and most do not have the special permits required

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...

Companies accused of “zero progress” on reducing plastic waste, with Coca-Cola ranked No 1 for most littered products

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...

Project allows students, scientists and even fashion designers to create giant models of pollen grains from around the world

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...

Dan Jørgensen has agreed the world’s most ambitious climate goal with a promise to cut 70% of emissions by 2030

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...

The pick of this week’s best flora and fauna images, including a festive robin and a moth trap

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...

Conservation charity videos prompt speculation the brothers are engaged in publicity tug of war

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...

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...

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...

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...

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