Decarbonising the economy by investing in renewable energy, clean buildings, clean transport and manufacturing could help fight the recessionHundreds of thousands of jobs could be created in Australia by hurrying the shift to zero greenhouse gas emissions, a study backed by business and investment leaders has found.The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates 835,000 jobs have been lost since the coronavirus pandemic shutdown began in March. A report by Beyond Zero Emissions, an energy and climate change thinktank, says practical projects to decarbonise the economy could create 1.78m “job years” over the next five years – on average, 355,000 people in work each year – while modernising Australian industry. Continue reading...

Forums speak of hundreds of tonnes of plastic and other waste discarded by public

Governments and carmakers press on with hydrogen fuel cells to power cars, buses, trains and even aircraftMore than 50 years ago hydrogen fuel cells helped put Neil Armstrong on the moon, but mainstream usage of the technology has remained elusive since.Now there are signs that may be changing, with a spate of new investments even amid the coronavirus pandemic. Continue reading...

Environmentalists have welcomed news that the 43-year-old Fessenheim reactor will close, nine years after it was first plannedFrance’s oldest nuclear power plant will shut down on Tuesday after four decades in operation, to the delight of environmental activists who have long warned of contamination risks, but stoking worry for the local economy.The Fessenheim plant, opened in 1977 and already three years over its projected 40-year life span, became a target for anti-nuclear campaigners after the catastrophic meltdown at Fukushima in Japan in 2011. Continue reading...

Climate change campaigner said after UN summit, Angela Merkel queued up for a selfie

Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil will now have a working majority in Irish parliamentIreland’s next government will be formed on Saturday after the Green party voted resoundingly to enter a coalition with two larger rivals.Members of the environmental party decided by a 76% majority to form an administration with Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, a party statement on Friday evening said. Continue reading...

If the ALP loses Eden-Monaro next Saturday, it will be a significant blow to morale and a green light for internal mischiefWe are going to track back to the week’s developments on energy policy, but I want to open this weekend in Eden-Monaro, with voters in the seat heading to the polls next Saturday.The truisms of federal byelections are well known. Governments don’t normally win. Usually, voters use these contests as an opportunity to “send a message to Canberra” – often the message is “up yours”. Continue reading...

Audit of offsets to approve developments suggests usage is worsening impact of endangered species, not reducing itThe Morrison government is being urged to fix the use of environmental offsets to approve developments after an audit found major flaws in a system supposed to help protect threatened species from extinction.Scientists said the scathing audit of how the federal environment department administered national conservation laws suggested the use of offsets was worsening the impact on endangered species, not reducing it. Continue reading...

The pick of the world’s best flora and fauna photos, including a perky grasshopper and a sleepy turtle Continue reading...

For many Americans across the US, water bills are becoming unaffordable. That poses a threat to health, housing and familiesWater is essential to life. Yet running water is becoming unaffordable across the US, in cities large and small. Water bills weigh heavily on many Americans as utilities hike up prices to pay for environmental clean-ups, infrastructure upgrades and climate emergency defenses to deal with floods and droughts. Federal funding for America’s ageing water system has plummeted, and as a result a growing number of households are unable to afford to pay their bills; millions of homes are being disconnected or put into foreclosure every year.As we’ve seen during the coronavirus pandemic, unaffordable water poses a threat to individual and public health, housing and families. It also poses a threat to water quality: if people can’t afford to pay their bills, utility companies can’t raise the money needed for clean-ups. Continue reading...

Wildlife Services kills thousands of animals at ranchers and farmers’ behest. But it operates with little oversight – and critics describe it as out of controlThe call came over Tony Manu’s police radio one March day in 2017: some sort of pipe had exploded in the hills outside Pocatello, Idaho and the son of a well-known local doctor was hurt, or worse.Related: Protests target Spanish colonial statues that 'celebrate genocide' in US west Continue reading...

When Onon the common cuckoo took off from Mongolia last June no one expected him to make a 26,000km round trip to southern AfricaWhen Onon took off above the rolling hills of the Khurkh valley in Mongolia last June, researchers had no idea if they would see him alive again. Along with one oriental cuckoo and three other common cuckoos, each fitted with a tiny tracking device, he was about to embark on an epic journey to southern Africa.Last month, he was the only bird to return safely with his tracker intact. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Guy Abrahams wrote to CBA for clarity on how four recent investment decisions stack up against its own climate policiesActivist shareholders claim the Commonwealth Bank has breached its own climate policies by making a series of recent loans to projects that expand the global gas sector.The bank says its financing of new gas projects – including the massive Permian Highway gas pipeline in the United States – is consistent with its “unequivocal” support for the Paris climate agreement, on the basis that gas is a “transition” fuel that can supplant coal-fired power generation. Continue reading...

Anne Rolfes and Kate McIntosh face up to 15 years in prison after delivering box of plastic pellets found as pollutionEnvironmental activists opposing a plastics manufacturing facility in Louisiana have been booked with a felony for “terrorizing” an oil and gas lobbyist by delivering a box of plastic pellets found as pollution in bays on the Texas coast.Anne Rolfes and Kate McIntosh, with the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, turned themselves into the Baton Rouge police department on Thursday, as first reported by the Times-Picayune. Continue reading...

In a letter to the Japanese company, activists call for rapid transition to products sourced from plantations and recycled fibreMore than 40 environment groups have called on Japan’s Nippon Paper Group to remove timber logged in Victoria’s native forests from its supply chain in the aftermath of bushfires and a landmark judgment that found a government forestry agency repeatedly breached conservation regulations.It comes as a legal injunction halted VicForests’s operations in a further 14 coupes in the state’s central highlands and amid growing pressure for a statutory review of Australia’s national environment laws to reconsider the industry-wide exemption for logging. Continue reading...

Government advisers have set a course through the pandemic to net zero. Is Boris Johnson capable of following it?The colossal challenge facing human civilisation, of ending our reliance on fossil fuels in short order, has almost certainly been made harder by the pandemic. Ever since scientists discovered that the Earth was warming as a result of human activity, it has been a struggle to get people, governments and businesses to do anything about it. Even in those countries least resistant to the evidence of rapidly approaching danger, something else was usually seen as more important. In the past few months, once again, the climate emergency has been knocked off the top of world leaders’ to-do list by the more immediate threat of the virus.Recognising this, the environmental movement came up with the excellent idea of a green recovery. The annual report published on Thursday by the Committee on Climate Change, which provides official advice to the UK government, is a crucial, national component of that global effort. It sets out to tell Boris Johnson, his ministers and the British public how we can embed the lessons of Covid-19 in the next phase of carbon cuts. Continue reading...

The azure pool only appears after heavy rains, but cold, wet weather hasn’t deterred locals from taking a dipOn kunanyi/Mount Wellington, 200mm of rainfall has transformed a rocky patch of forest into a striking pool. It’s freezing cold, but the water is clear and blue.The Disappearing Tarn appears only after a heavy downpour. It’s shrouded in a layer of mystery among visitors and scientists alike: geomorphologist Kevin Kiernan speculates its arresting blue colour may be a result of fine sediments in the water as it pools over depressions in the land. At the bottom of this basin, organic matter rots and occasionally releases bubbles. Continue reading...

Australia’s central bank joins 60 others, including the Bank of England, to warn of climate risk to the economy and financial sectorMore than 60 central banks, including the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Bank of England, have warned that global GDP could fall by 25% by 2100 if the world does not act to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.They suggested if the world acted to limit emissions to net zero by about 2070, giving a 67% chance of limiting global heating to 2C above pre-industrial levels, the impact of the climate crisis on global GDP could be about 4%. Continue reading...

Robin Hood-style shoplifting session at London supermarket ‘because poverty sucks’A new political party was launched in London on Thursday by a group of activists from Extinction Rebellion, who marked the event by shoplifting a haul of supermarket goods to highlight the instability of global food distribution.The stunt involved five members of the nascent Beyond Politics party walking out of Sainsbury’s in Camden with shopping trolleys filled with food but without paying. Continue reading...

‘Substantial increase’ in wind and solar power helped to generate 47% of Britain’s electricityRenewable energy made up almost half of Britain’s electricity generation in the first three months of the year, with a surge in wind power helping to set a new record for clean energy.The government’s official data has revealed that renewable energy made up 47% of the UK’s electricity generation in the first three months of the year, smashing the previous quarterly record of 39% set last year. Continue reading...

Staying home during the pandemic presents a unique opportunity to become better acquainted with wilderness in all its formsIn May, my partner and I had a daily ritual: he would send me a photo of the robin’s nest taking shape above the front door of his parents’ house, where he was sheltering in place. At first, it was more a pile of twigs than a structure, but slowly, it transformed into a woven bowl. Blue eggs appeared, and then chirping baby birds. A robin nested in that same spot the year before, but we were too busy to take such close stock, to notice the changes happening just outside the door.For many people, the outside world has shrunk in the last three months. City dwellers, with their notoriously cramped apartments and negligible backyard space, may feel especially cut-off from nature. But staying home during the first pandemic in over a century presents a unique opportunity to become better acquainted with wilderness in all its forms. Walk around the block, and you can behold scraggly neighborhood trees, birds roosting in apartment balconies, snails thriving in untended plots; under our sustained attention, these signs of life can begin to challenge our collective perception of what counts as nature. Continue reading...

As Covid-19 accelerates the shift towards renewable energy, Jonathan Watts hears how this change risks causing intergenerational injustice in AberdeenLike many young people in Aberdeen, Mike Scotland dreamed of a well-paid job on a rig in the North Sea, in the oil and gas field that has made his home town a boom town for most of the past 40 years.In February the 28-year-old landed the position he had wanted with Shell, and he was due to take a helicopter to the Shearwater platform in July once he had completed training. Continue reading...

Conservation groups call for independent environment regulator after scathing review of national lawsThe government has failed in its duty to protect the environment in its delivery of Australia’s national conservation laws, a scathing review by the national auditor general has found.The Australian National Audit Office found the federal environment department has been ineffective in managing risks to the environment, that its management of assessments and approvals is not effective, and that it is not managing conflicts of interest in the work it undertakes. Continue reading...

The region has made progress in getting people on to bikes, but where’s the ambition?When the mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street, stood on an unlit section of towpath opposite what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse recently and hailed a “big summer for cycling and walking”, it was perhaps worryingly symbolic. That Friday, hours after Street invited us to “come cycle Birmingham’s canals”, at least two women were pushed into Birmingham waterways by a group of young men.The West Midlands is proud of its industrial heritage, but unlit, isolated towpaths are no replacement for a cycle network that safely takes people places they want to be. Continue reading...

Amateur beekeepers and scientists do ‘the whole CSI thing’ to stem the feared onslaughtIt took Moufida and John Holubeshen just a day of tracing alleged sightings and studying map coordinates before the two amateur detectives found their target.“We did the whole CSI thing,” says Moufida. “Plotting points and drawing lines, searching for where the middle of the circle – the nest – would be.” Continue reading...

Bayer’s US settlement over Monsanto’s weedkiller has given hope to litigants in AustraliaAustralia’s agriculture minister insists the common weedkiller Roundup is safe after its manufacturer agreed to pay almost $16bn to settle cancer lawsuits in the US.The pesticides giant Bayer agreed overnight to pay up to US$10.9bn (A$15.8bn) to settle about 95,000 cases claiming Roundup caused cancer. Continue reading...

Australian Energy Council’s support for Paris agreement will increase pressure on federal government to back pledgeAustralia’s major electricity and gas companies, including the owners of all coal-fired power plants in the national grid, have called on the Morrison government to set a target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 in line with the Paris agreement.In a statement on Thursday, the Australian Energy Council said it supported the 2015 Paris deal, and recognised it meant developed countries needed to reach net zero emissions by mid-century. Continue reading...

Conservationists hail decision as a win for environment and threatened wildlifeThe New South Wales government has dropped a plan that could have opened up new areas of the state’s protected old-growth forests to logging.Conservationists have called the decision a win for the state’s environment and threatened wildlife after years of habitat loss and the devastating 2019-20 bushfires. Continue reading...

Report says Boris Johnson’s lack of climate leadership risks missing target and embarrassing UK at Cop26

The government adviser publishes its progress report today. Here are the areas it says require urgent attention

WWF Australia says after new analysis that federal department is failing to enforce environmental lawsMore than a million hectares of threatened species’ habitat was cleared for agriculture in New South Wales and Queensland without referral to the federal environment department for assessment, according to new analysis by WWF Australia.Data for land-clearing in both states suggests the department is failing to ensure developers and farming operations are following environmental laws, according to the analysis. Continue reading...

Small bird can forage more efficiently when Antarctic sea ice is sparse, research findsAdélie penguin populations could boom in coming years, according to research revealing the small birds find it easier to forage when sea ice is sparse around continental Antarctica.While, overall, sea ice extent has increased in the Antarctic over recent decades, in the past few years it has fallen dramatically – a matter of deep concern in the scientific community. Continue reading...

The job losses will be equivalent to the entire local coal industry if the renewable energy target is not replacedUp to 11,000 renewable energy workers are expected to lose their jobs over the next two years under current government policies, according to a university analysis.If correct, the loss of jobs would be equivalent to the abolition of the domestic-focused coal industry, which employs a little more than 10,000 people in mining thermal coal for local use and running Australia’s coal-fired power plants. Continue reading...

If the government plots a green recovery from coronavirus, the benefits are endless. If it doesn’t, we’re screwed

The exemption allows companies to bypass an EPA law meant to address widespread contamination from perflourinated chemicalsFederal regulators are crafting an exemption for polluters releasing harmful perfluorinated chemicals (PFAS) into the environment in a way that environmental advocates say circumvents a new law meant to address widespread contamination.The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a rule Monday adding 172 PFAS chemicals to a list of those that are required to report when they release them into the air or water, or on land. Continue reading...

Native Americans in New Mexico have held protests to demand that effigies glorifying conquistadors be removedAs a national debate swirls around statues of Confederate officials, a new battle is brewing in the western US over the fate of monuments glorifying the brutal Spanish conquest of the Americas.They include effigies of Diego De Vargas, who ordered the execution of 70 Pueblo Indians and the enslavement of hundreds of women and children, and conquistador Juan De Oñate, who is known for ordering the massacre of 800 Acoma people and for the right feet of 24 captive Acoma warriors to be amputated. Continue reading...

Tests by Consumer Reports find toxic metal in Starkey Spring Water, which was previously recalled for exceeding federal limits, and is sold on Amazon

Kenya has lost 70% of its wildlife in 30 years, but conservancy schemes could halt the decline – and benefit local communitiesParsaloi Kupai’s home, situated on the edge of Ol Kinyei conservancy near the Maasai Mara game reserve, is no different from any other Maasai homestead – oval-shaped huts with an almost flat roof and walls plastered with a mixture of water, mud and cow dung. At the centre of the homestead is a cattle boma, an enclosure where his livestock spends the night, safe from the many predators that roam the area.Kupai, 47, and his two wives chose to live here after they surrendered 69 hectares (170 acres) of land to the 7,500-hectare conservancy. He is among 240 landowners who gave up their highly valued grazing land for the project. Continue reading...

Call for volunteers as households brace to discard 67m items of clothing and 22m pairs of shoes

Exclusive: environment groups accuse Queensland authorities of being a ‘toothless tiger’, saying ‘paltry’ fines ‘an insult to communities and farmers’Environmental groups say “paltry” fines handed to a coalmine in Queensland’s Darling Downs show that state authorities are unwilling to take action over even the most serious and repeated environmental breaches by miners.Documents obtained under Queensland freedom of information laws by Guardian Australia show the New Acland coalmine in Queensland’s Darling Downs was caught violating noise limits 34 separate times in 10 weeks and was fined $9,461 by state authorities. Continue reading...

‘Restoring nature needs to be given top priority,’ says Craig Bennett, Wildlife Trusts CEORestoring the natural environment could absorb as much as a third of the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions, making the government’s target of net zero emissions by 2050 much easier to meet, according to green campaigners.Returning degraded peatland and bog to its natural state, cultivating marine meadows of seagrass, restoring salt marshes and wetlands, and taking some grasslands out of cultivation, as well as planting more trees, all contribute to creating carbon sinks, which absorb CO from the atmosphere. Continue reading...

Campaigners say some of the wood is going to companies supplying Ikea, though it and logging firm deny wrongdoing

Labor leader sets out policy pivot in challenge to PM to display genuine bipartisanshipAnthony Albanese has dumped Labor’s former backing of Malcolm Turnbull’s national energy guarantee and opened the door for taxpayer support for carbon capture and storage technologies, in a major overture to Scott Morrison to reach bipartisan agreement on energy policy.The Labor leader will use a speech to the National Press Club on Wednesday to set out his guiding principles for an agreement to end more than a decade of political warfare on climate and energy policy. Continue reading...

Letter signed by 29 organisations, including the Church of England, states financial institutions have a duty to tackle climate changeInvestors managing trillions of dollars in assets have warned Brazil that escalating deforestation and the “dismantling” of policies to protect the environment and indigenous communities are “creating widespread uncertainty about the conditions for investing”.Amazon destruction rose to its highest level in more than a decade last year, Brazil’s first under the leadership of Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right nationalist who has vowed to develop the region and slash environmental protections. Continue reading...

Vehicles could become cheaper as specialist firm leases batteries to bus operatorsOne of Britain’s biggest battery companies has secured a loan to help increase the UK’s electric bus fleet by taking ownership of the batteries inside scores of UK buses.Zenobe Energy has secured a £20m loan from NatWest to finance enough batteries to power about 100 electric buses owned by private transport firms and councils around the UK. Continue reading...

Investigations under way into the reasons behind deaths of 13 men and two women

NSW audit office blasts water conservation efforts and finds Sydney Water was two years too late in responding to recent droughtThe New South Wales government has failed to investigate or implement water conservation measures for greater Sydney, leaving the city’s water supply vulnerable to the effects of population growth, drought and climate change, the state’s auditor has found.The report by the NSW audit office also found Sydney Water was two years too late in increasing funding for water conservation in response to the recent drought. Continue reading...

Guardian US commissioned an analysis of the cost and affordability of water and sewage services in 12 diverse American citiesGuardian US commissioned the economist Roger Colton, an authority on the affordability of utilities, to analyse the cost and affordability of water and sewage services in 12 diverse American cities. The objective was to investigate the extent of water poverty in the US over the past decade, and consider what the future may hold. Continue reading...

Exclusive: analysis of US cities shows emergency on affordability of running water amid Covid-19 pandemic

Guardian US and Consumer Reports are working in partnership to test 120 water systems across the US from small towns to big cities – and we need your helpAccess to safe, clean running water is vital for the health of any community – a fundamental resource that has become even more important after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.While running tap water is often the safest option for residents – and relying instead on bottled water can bring its own problems and potential risks – confidence in US water has been hit in recent years. Continue reading...