Environment | The Guardian

Freedom for Animals calls on government to end ‘vastly cruel’ practice by zoos

A red-eared slider tortoise, wild pigs, and a jaguar cooling off in the heatwave Continue reading...

Trio taken to court by Cuadrilla after taking part in ‘lock-on’ at Blackpool site last yearThree anti-fracking protesters have been found to have breached an injunction designed to stop them demonstrating outside a fracking site in Lancashire, which they say has a “chilling effect on the right to peaceful protest”.The trio were taken to court by Cuadrilla, which last year became the first firm to start large-scale fracking in Britain. The energy firm said it took legal action to prevent “dangerous, disrespectful and illegal activity” at its Preston New Road site near Blackpool. Continue reading...

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A brief look at the causes and effects of high temperatures across the continent

Greenpeace criticises long-awaited operation, saying it risked trauma or death for the animalsRussia’s long-awaited operation to release the first batch of whales held in cramped enclosures in the country’s far-east region was dangerously flawed, environmentalists have said.The animals – 11 orcas and 87 beluga whales – have been held in captivity in a bay near the port city of Nakhodka since last year. They were due to be sold to Chinese oceanariums, before images of the animals languishing in the “whale prison” caused an international outcry. Continue reading...

All England Lawn Tennis Club move means there will be 4,500 fewer plastic bags this yearIt may not quite be a Wimbledon tradition along the lines of the all-white dress code but the sight of players discarding the plastic cover from a freshly strung racket is a familiar one at SW19.However, it will not be seen at this year’s championships, which begin on Monday – or in future Wimbledon tournaments – after a review of the use of plastics, and sustainability in general, by the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC). Continue reading...

Agency wants to remove golf course area from Forevan Links site of special scientific interestThe spectacular sand dunes at Donald Trump’s golf course in Aberdeenshire are expected to be stripped of their special conservation status.Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), a government conservation agency, has recommended that the dunes lose their designation as a site of special scientific interest (SSSI) because they have been “partially destroyed” by the course. Continue reading...

Sister-in-law of Angus Taylor called state office of environment and told them she was an MP and had done nothing wrongBronwyn Taylor, the New South Wales mental health minister, personally lobbied the state Office of Environment and Heritage to drop an investigation into alleged illegal native grassland clearing on a property she owns with her husband.The call was revealed in documents tabled in the NSW upper house on Friday that were requested by the state opposition following a Guardian Australia investigation. Continue reading...

We asked what you wanted to know about toxic exposure and put your questions to Dr Leonardo Trasande

Choice says decision is terrible news for people who care about the environmentAustralia’s consumer watchdog has failed to persuade a judge that Kimberly-Clark Australia misled customers when it said its wipes – moist towelettes – were flushable.The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission claimed the company made false or misleading representations by labelling the moist towelette products as flushable, leading consumers to believe that they had similar characteristics to toilet paper. Continue reading...

Business group says nuclear programme will be key for low carbon economy in UKThe UK should keep building large-scale nuclear plants and “mini-nuke” reactors to help reach a net zero carbon target by 2050, according to Britain’s biggest business group.In a letter to the business secretary, Greg Clark, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) said the UK’s struggling new nuclear programme has “an important role” in a low carbon economy “at the right price”. Continue reading...

Campaigners joined by indigenous people who have led fight against global heatingNearly 2,000 festival-goers have joined climate change campaigners Extinction Rebellion to stage a procession across the Glastonbury site, paying tribute to indigenous people who have led the fight against global heating.Waving flags bearing the extinction symbol, which was seen across central London earlier this year when Extinction Rebellion protests brought the city to a standstill, the crowd marched for about an hour in the scorching afternoon sun on Thursday from the festival’s park stage to its stone circle. Continue reading...

The climate crisis underlines the need for effective global economic leadership. The US president makes this harder, but so do China and several othersEver since the G20 of leading global economies was founded, its summits have mostly been convergent occasions, marked by attempts to find common ground and remembered for nothing more unseemly than a bit of jostling among the heads of government to be on the front row of the group photograph. Japan’s prime minister Shinzō Abe clearly takes this traditional view about the G20 summit which he will host in Osaka on Friday and Saturday. “We want to make it a meeting that focuses on where we can agree and cooperate rather than highlighting differences,” he said recently.But there is a balloon-puncturing problem with Mr Abe’s approach, and it answers to the name of Donald Trump. If there is one issue on which this year’s summit clearly ought to be showing global leadership, it is the climate crisis. The subject is indeed on the Osaka agenda but, in spite of efforts by countries including France, there is no prospect of serious or effective action. That is no surprise from a group of nations which almost tripled the subsidies they gave to coal-fired power plants between 2013 and 2017, with China, India and Japan itself leading the way. But it is Mr Trump’s decision to walk away from climate accords and to back fossil fuels that creates the wider permission for these other terrible derelictions. Continue reading...

Europol says about 15m of the creatures were seized last year in trade worth €3bn annuallyThe number of arrests for the smuggling of eels in Europe has increased by 50% after a concerted effort by enforcement agencies to tackle the problem.Eels are in demand in China and other east Asian countries and about 350m are trafficked out of the European Union each year, in a trade worth about €3bn (£2.7bn) annually. It is the world’s biggest wildlife crime in terms of the number of creatures trafficked. About 15m eels were seized last year and 153 arrests were made, compared with 98 arrests the year before. Continue reading...

Elevenfold rise in funding over 12 months came as support for renewables fell to £700,000Britain increased support for fossil fuel projects overseas to almost £2bn last year, marking an elevenfold increase over the previous 12 months.Backing for oil and gas operations in Oman, Kuwait, Brazil and other countries, amounted to more than a quarter of the total commitment by UK Export Finance (UKEF), the government agency responsible for promoting British exports with credit, guarantees, loans and insurance. Continue reading...

African Americans in the north-east and mid-Atlantic are exposed to 61% more pollution particles from burning gasoline

National Trust says species decline apparent as climate crisis brings more frequent destructive storms in summerSeabirds nesting on the remote Farne Islands have been hit by heavy rain which has killed many of their young, the National Trust said.Arctic terns, puffins, guillemots and shags, all suffered losses as chicks including pufflings, or baby puffins, were battered by nearly 127mm (5in) of rain in 24 hours on 13 June. Continue reading...

Fellow actor backs stance on oil firm, and Greta Thunberg hails Rylance as role modelThe row over fossil fuel sponsorship of the arts continued to escalate as actor Miriam Margolyes joined Mark Rylance in his protest against BP’s sponsorship of the Royal Shakespeare Company.Rylance told the Guardian last week that BP’s sponsorship deal allowed the company to “obscure the destructive reality of its activities” and said he did not wish to be associated with BP any more than with “an arms dealer or a tobacco salesman”. Continue reading...

Seeing retreating ice in mountains inspired PM to push for net zero emissions by 2050Theresa May has said she was won over to the cause of tackling the climate emergency on her Swiss walking holidays.In 2017 the prime minister decided to call what would prove to be a disastrous snap general election while on a walking holiday in Wales. Continue reading...

Long-awaited review says government should consider farming interests before listing threatened speciesThe environment minister should consider farming interests before deciding whether to list threatened species, according to a long-delayed government review of how conservation laws could better serve the agriculture industry.The review, completed in September but not made public until Thursday, also recommends setting up a $1bn trust fund to help farmers to protect the environment and inviting the public to have a say before threatened species are assessed by a government-appointed scientific advisory committee. Continue reading...

Germany imposes speed limits on highways while schools in France remain closedEuropean cities are taking exceptional steps to limit the impact of a historic early summer heatwave as temperatures across the continent approached monthly and, in some places, all-time records.Authorities have warned that temperatures could pass 40C and reach 45C in parts of the continent by Saturday as a plume of hot air moves north from the Sahara, sucked northwards by a stalled storm over the Atlantic and high pressure in central Europe. Continue reading...

Governments have abrogated responsibility with woefully inadequate policies, says letterMore than 1,000 doctors including 40 professors, several eminent public health figures and past presidents of royal colleges are calling for widespread nonviolent civil disobedience in the face of the environmental crisis.In a letter to the Guardian, the doctors say government policies are “woefully inadequate”, and call on politicians and the media to face the facts of the unfolding ecological emergency and take action. Continue reading...

Chlorpyrifos, a chemical used to treat pest infestations, was banned from residential use in 2000 but is still used in agricultureElisa Rivera’s face swelled up, her eyes watered and soon she was struggling to breathe.The 39-year-old first started to feel ill when the smell of pesticides drifted from nearby Fresno county fruit orchards on a recent afternoon: “We experience this all the time … People get used to it.” Continue reading...

Tata-owned Cheshire plant to turn 40,000 tonnes of CO a year into useful productsThe UK’s biggest carbon capture project will soon block thousands of tonnes of factory emissions from contributing to the climate crisis, by using them to help make the chemicals found in antacid, eyedrops and Pot Noodle.Within two years a chemical plant in Cheshire could keep 40,000 tonnes of carbon from the air every year, or the equivalent of removing 22,000 cars from the UK’s roads. Continue reading...

Climate Coalition and Greener UK rally urges MPs to act over critical loss of natureThousands of people, including primary school children and members of the Women’s Institute, have lobbied MPs, calling for urgent action to tackle the climate emergency and critical loss of nature.About 12,000 people gathered in Westminster on Wednesday to put pressure on politicians, according to the organisers the Climate Coalition and Greener UK, whose members include aid agencies, social groups and conservation organisations. Continue reading...

Scotland’s major environment and conservation bodies call for legislation to tackle the climate emergency. Plus letters from Penelope Maclachlan, Charles Young, Dr Joseph Hanlon and Neil BlackshawScotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has acknowledged that our planet faces a climate emergency. Inextricably linked to this is the growing ecological crisis. We must not let Brexit derail us from tackling these global challenges head-on. Whatever the outcome of the political uncertainties, we need robust, binding targets for the recovery of Scotland’s natural environment to safeguard both nature and people. This is why we have come together from across Scottish society to ask the first minister to bring forward a new Scottish environment act.Ensuring our world is rich in nature is the best insurance we have against dangerous climate heating. Protecting, restoring and enhancing Scotland’s natural environment would help limit temperature rises and help us adapt to changes that we cannot avoid. It would also give us so much more. Continue reading...

The spat over VAT on solar batteries shows how Brussels-bashing is taking precedence over urgent social priorities

Residents of Reserve, Louisiana, met with environmental groups and stakeholders in Denka in their campaign for clean airResidents of Reserve, Louisiana, have travelled to Tokyo to confront the executives and shareholders of a Japanese company which runs a chemical plant they say is responsible for a spike in cancers and a litany of other diseases in their home town – the town at the highest risk of cancer due to airborne toxicity anywhere in the US, according to the Environment Protection Agency (EPA).Their trip involved a series of public and private meetings with environmental groups and stakeholders in the chemicals giant Denka, which operates the Pontchartrain Works facility in Reserve. It marks a significant escalation in the residents’ campaign for clean air. Continue reading...

Don’t buy the greenwash. Shell’s initiatives, which have won over many conservation groups, are dwarfed by its investment in oil and gasIt is hard to believe it needs stating, but it does. The oil industry is not your friend. Whatever it might say about its ethical credentials, while it continues to invest in fossil fuels, it accelerates climate breakdown and the death of the habitable planet. You would think this point was obvious to everyone. But over the past few weeks, I have spoken to dozens of environmentalists who appear to believe that Shell is on their side. I’ve come to the bizarre conclusion that there is more awareness of the oil industry’s agenda within the arts than there is among conservation groups.Related: With its links to BP, I can’t stay in the Royal Shakespeare Company | Mark Rylance Continue reading...

UK’s dirty air still ‘a public health emergency’ despite dramatic fall in death rates

Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia, Angola and Namibia call for embargo suspension to allow sale of hugely valuable stockpilesSouthern African leaders have renewed calls for a lifting of the ban on the ivory trade as debate over the “unfair” embargo escalates.At a wildlife economic summit in Zimbabwe, leaders of the five countries that make up the Kavango-Zambezi conservation area – Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia, Angola and Namibia – raised the issue ahead of the August conference of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) in Geneva, Switzerland. Continue reading...

Fund managers call on world leaders to bring in carbon pricing and phase out coal power ahead of G20Superannuation funds and investors representing US$34tn in assets – nearly half of the total under management across the globe – have called on world leaders to bring in carbon pricing and phase out coal power to limit global heating to 1.5C.Released ahead of a G20 leaders meeting in Osaka, Japan, the statement by 477 institutional investors urges world leaders to accelerate their response to the climate crisis to ensure the goals of the 2015 Paris climate deal can be met. Continue reading...

DNC has declined to hold a climate-specific debate even as Democratic voters rank rising temperatures as a top priorityDozens of young climate protesters crowded outside the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington DC on Tuesday, demanding a debate focused on the crisis as presidential candidates prepare to face off this week over two nights in Florida.The DNC has declined to hold a climate-specific debate, even as Democratic voters rank rising temperatures – and the worse disasters and economic instability they bring – as a top priority. Continue reading...

Stark warning comes as UK commits to net zero emissions target for 2050France is falling behind on tackling the climate emergency despite ambitious promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a new report has found, saying Paris is worryingly far from delivering its goals.The stark warning from France’s independent advisory council on climate comes at a key moment, as the eurozone’s second-biggest economy attempts to present itself as a world leader on the climate emergency. Continue reading...

Biffa Waste Services found guilty of exporting unsorted waste to China it said was paperOne of the UK’s biggest waste firms has been convicted of sending used nappies and other contaminated materials to China illegally.Biffa Waste Services Ltd was found guilty of exporting unsorted household waste that it said was paper. The company was prosecuted by the Environment Agency after investigators stopped seven 25-tonne containers from leaving Felixstowe in Suffolk over suspicions about the content. Continue reading...

Company must pay back £123m to customers over ‘shocking’ failures at sewage treatment sitesSouthern Water faces prosecution by the Environment Agency after being handed a record £126m penalty by the water regulator over “shocking” failures at its sewage treatment sites that polluted rivers and beaches in southern England.The package imposed by the regulator, Ofwat, includes compensation of £123m to customers over five years and a £3m fine. The company’s 4.2 million customers will each receive £61 off their bills – £17 in 2020-21 and £11 in each of the following four years. Continue reading...

Angie Zelter, 68, wanted judge to take ‘urgency of the climate emergency’ into accountThe first person to face trial over the Extinction Rebellion protests in April has been found guilty of a minor public order offence for blocking a road in central London.Angie Zelter, 68, was given a conditional discharge at Hendon magistrates court on Tuesday after being arrested for lying in the road near Parliament Square on 17 April. She had been taking part in protests in which thousands of people blocked key sites across the capital over 10 days to highlight the escalating climate emergency. Continue reading...

Secret filming at three Moy Park farms in Lincolnshire shows birds that are lame, struggling to breathe and surrounded by carcassesOne of the UK’s biggest chicken producers has been keeping chickens in cramped conditions on three farms in Lincolnshire, including in enormous “double-decker” multi-storey buildings, where secretly filmed footage shows chickens that are lame, struggling to breathe and surrounded by dead birds.From across their sites in Northern Ireland and England, Moy Park supplies 30% of the British poultry market, including Tesco, Ocado and Sainsbury’s. The supermarkets have told the Guardian they they are now investigating their supply chains after the footage was sent to them. Continue reading...

Ex-US vice-president says only big solutions can offset impact of systemic shifts and avert disasterAl Gore has said the global economy requires a fundamental upgrade to become more sustainable in order for the world to survive an environmental crisis and widening social divides.The environmentalist and former US vice-president said the world was in the early stages of a “sustainability revolution” that had “the magnitude of the Industrial Revolution and the speed of the digital revolution”. Continue reading...

Right to life is likely to be undermined alongside the rule of law, special rapporteur saysThe world is increasingly at risk of “climate apartheid”, where the rich pay to escape heat and hunger caused by the escalating climate crisis while the rest of the world suffers, a report from a UN human rights expert has said.Philip Alston, UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said the impacts of global heating are likely to undermine not only basic rights to life, water, food, and housing for hundreds of millions of people, but also democracy and the rule of law. Continue reading...

Exposure to potentially toxic substances that are part of modern life only adds to the many anxieties of parenting. Here’s what action you can takeFrom strapping zip ties on to cabinets to popping plastic covers into outlets, new parents do what they can to control their newborn’s environment. But beyond the visible, there are more obscure health concerns from additives and contaminants found in unexpected places.Exposure to our environment begins even before birth. Studies have shown that some chemicals, like PFAS and flame retardants, in everyday products can pass from mother to fetus through the umbilical cord, and after birth through breast milk. Socioeconomic status and race also affect lifetime exposure. Minority and low-income individuals are disproportionately affected by pollution and toxic chemicals. Continue reading...

Pop-up store will also sell water in recyclable aluminium cans and refillable bottles at festivalSandwiches in 100% compostable packaging will go on sale at Glastonbury festival which starts on Wednesday, as part of a trial launched by the Co-op.In what it claims is a first for a national food retailer, the convenience chain says all elements of the packaging – from the base card to the transparent film and the label – are compostable. Continue reading...

Open letter calls on the prime minister to block all new coal and gas projects, including AdaniMore than 150 religious leaders have called on Scott Morrison to acknowledge the world faces a climate emergency and block all new coal and gas projects, including Adani’s Carmichael mine.In an open letter headed “no faith in coal”, the leaders say the climate crisis is a profoundly moral problem and Australia’s response will be crucial in addressing it. Continue reading...

Major economies pledged a decade ago to phase out all aid for fossil fuelsG20 countries have almost tripled the subsidies they give to coal-fired power plants in recent years, despite the urgent need to cut the carbon emissions driving the climate crisis.The bloc of major economies pledged a decade ago to phase out all fossil fuel subsidies. Continue reading...

Treasury proposes rise from 5% to 20%, while the tax on coal will stay at lower rateHomes hoping to shrink their carbon footprints by installing a solar-battery system face a steep VAT increase from October under new laws proposed by HMRC.The Treasury put forward legislation on Monday to raise VAT for home solar-battery systems from 5% to 20%, on the same day that MPs are debating the government’s new net zero carbon target for 2050. Continue reading...

John McDonnell says Bank would monitor City firms’ progress on carbon emissions

Greater Manchester’s Bee Network has just £160m of the cash it needs, unlike a junction near BedfordAlmost exactly a year ago, Chris Boardman – the Olympic champion turned walking and cycling commissioner – unveiled a bold vision: Greater Manchester was to turn itself into a Dutch-style cycling paradise by building a 1,000-mile network of walking and biking routes called Beelines, after Manchester’s civic symbol, the worker bee.A year on, the scheme has changed its name to the Bee Network after a rather embarrassing copyright infringement, and has expanded to cover 1,800 miles. Yet so far, work has only begun on one tiny section – a bit of towpath in Wigan known as the “muddy mile” – and the first wodge of money has already gone. Continue reading...

Maarten van der Weijden tackles daunting course not used for skating in 22 yearsAs Europe braces for a heatwave this week, a Dutchman is swimming the route of the country’s most famed ice skating race, which has not been held for two decades as the climate crisis bites.Instead of skating the 121 miles (195km) of the daunting Elfstedentocht (11 cities race), the Olympic gold marathon swimmer Maarten van der Weijden is ploughing his way through its canals. Continue reading...