Investigation uncovers ties between financial institutions and three Brazilian firms connected to environmental destructionBritish-based banks and finance houses have provided more than $2bn (£1.5bn) in financial backing in recent years to Brazilian beef companies which have been linked to Amazon deforestation, according to new research.Thousands of hectares of Amazon are being felled every year to graze cattle and provide meat for world markets. Continue reading...

Nev Power answers Senate inquiry questions about a ‘perceived conflict’ given his corporate interestsThe former Fortescue Metals chief running Scott Morrison’s Covid-19 coordination commission, Nev Power, has distanced himself from a controversial leaked report recommending Australian taxpayers underwrite a massive expansion of the domestic gas industry.Appearing on Thursday before a Senate committee, Power said the report, revealed by Guardian Australia late last month, should not be considered the view of the National Covid-19 Coordination Commission. He intimated the report was a draft from the manufacturing taskforce that had been superseded by later advice. Continue reading...

Analysis by Yale and Columbia universities shows US lagging far behind other industrialized countries in a range of categoriesThe US is far behind other industrialized nations on environmental performance and now ranks 24th in the world, according to a new analysis by Yale and Columbia universities.Related: US lets corporations delay paying environmental fines amid pandemic Continue reading...

Media urged to make public aware of dangers associated with increasingly hot summersThe public is being lulled into a false sense of security about the UK’s increasingly extreme weather patterns by news and weather reports that present long, hot, dry spells as good news, according to scientists and campaigners.Experts say unusually dry and sunny conditions like those experienced in the UK over the past two months are too often framed as something to celebrate, with newspaper and TV reports featuring pictures of people sunbathing, playing in fountains or eating ice creams. Continue reading...

People with asthma and other lung conditions report decrease in symptoms, finds survey

Value of reserves could fall by two-thirds as Covid-19 hastens peak in demand, study shows

President lambasts power plant owner ‘for not reporting earlier’ incident bigger than Kerch spillVladimir Putin has ordered a state of emergency after 20,000 tonnes of diesel fuel spilled into a river inside the Arctic Circle.The spill occurred when a fuel reservoir at a power plant near the city of Norilsk collapsed on Friday. Continue reading...

Prince of Wales unveils a five-point plan to stimulate sustainable economic growth

The judgment against the agency could lead to forestry operations being assessed under national environmental laws for the first time in 20 yearsA landmark court judgment that a government forestry agency repeatedly breached conservation regulations has sparked calls for a review of an industry-wide exemption for logging under national environment laws.Last week the federal court found VicForests, a body owned by Victorian taxpayers, breached a code of practice in a regional forestry agreement (RFA) between the federal and state governments covering the state’s central highlands. Continue reading...

The Western Australian government rules against the oil and gas company over emissions at the Gorgon LNG projectOil and gas company Chevron could be required to pay for offsets worth more than $100m for carbon dioxide emissions released at a delayed carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in northern Western Australia, an analysis suggests.The state government last week ruled against Chevron over an emissions condition that applies to the company’s large Gorgon liquefied natural gas (LNG) development on Barrow Island in the Pilbara. Continue reading...

Hundreds of thousands back farmers’ demands for law to protect food standardsMore than 250,000 people have signed a petition calling for a ban on cheaply produced low-quality food imports in post-Brexit trade deals.The National Farmers Union (NFU) is lobbying the government to ensure that imports from countries such as the US of food produced to lower standards than expected of UK farmers should not be allowed. Continue reading...

Too often, by default, black people are perceived as threats to white people’s physical safety. We need fundamental, consequential and absolute change

Risk is greater in rural areas, according to study of nearly 3 million births over 10 yearsLiving near active oil and gas wells during pregnancy increases the risk of low-birthweight babies, especially in rural areas, according to the largest study of its kind.Researchers analysed the records of nearly 3 million births in California to women living within 6.2 miles (10km) of at least one oil or gas well between 2006 and 2015. It is the first such study to look at birth outcomes in rural and urban areas, and to women living near active and inactive oil and gas sites. Continue reading...

‘We are seeing the end of coal,’ says analyst as energy source with biggest impact on climate crisis falls for sixth year in a rowSolar, wind and other renewable sources have toppled coal in energy generation in the United States for the first time in over 130 years, with the coronavirus pandemic accelerating a decline in coal that has profound implications for the climate crisis.Not since wood was the main source of American energy in the 19th century has a renewable resource been used more heavily than coal, but 2019 saw a historic reversal, according to US government figures. Continue reading...

Growth often doesn’t benefit the people who need it – a green economy could create 1 million jobsThe UK lockdown might be easing, but the path ahead for the economy will be long and difficult. Unemployment this quarter is likely to rise twice as fast as it did following the global financial crisis. Almost half of businesses that have taken up one of the government’s bounce-back loans do not expect to be able to pay it back.It’s tempting in a crisis to want to do whatever it takes to get economic activity – measured by GDP – back to where it was before. But an overwhelming and singular focus on increasing GDP would be a mistake. GDP figures do not tell us who is benefitting from growth. GDP does not tell us whether environmental resources – and nature – are being dangerously depleted, and does not reflect the value of caring, much of which is performed by women. Continue reading...

Cleaner skies were a silver lining of pandemic but data indicates air quality receding as lockdowns eased

Campaign to End Wildlife Trade has launched a campaign calling on Boris Johnson to support a global trade ban for wildlife at the G20 meeting of world leaders in November, to protect wildlife and help prevent future zoonotic pandemics.

Exclusive: lobby wants £1.5bn scheme to jump-start sector despite clean fuel pledgesThe UK automotive industry has been in confidential talks with the government over a possible £1.5bn scrappage scheme or “market stimulus package” that it insists should encourage the purchase of diesel and petrol cars on an equal footing with cleaner vehicles.The plans under consideration by industry and government would take £2,500 off the price of a car and put a further 600,000 new vehicles on the road. Continue reading...

Online shopping, home improvements and international workers going home are blamed for the wasteCouncils around Australia have seen a huge increase in volumes of household rubbish and dumping of waste triggered by a combination of more online shopping, home improvements, international workers returning to their home countries and a clearing out of unwanted possessions during the coronavirus lockdown.Streets across the country have been littered with items discarded by households either unable or willing to dispose of them any other way. Continue reading...

Researchers have found the rock has a self-sealing mechanism that keeps fluids locked awayWe need to find somewhere safe to dispose of high-level nuclear waste; a place where we can be confident it will be isolated and contained for hundreds of thousands of years. And if we want to keep a lid on global warming then we may well need to find a similar place to store carbon dioxide too. But where? Continue reading...

Agriculture department spent $95,000 on campaign for the Australian forestry industry promoting wood as ‘the ultimate renewable’A government promotion for the forestry industry that encourages Australians to “look up at the trees, think about wood” should be taken down after a recent federal court ruling on native forest logging, the Greens say.The department of agriculture paid a production company $94,875 last year to produce a series of videos aimed at promoting Australia’s logging industry as environmentally sustainable. Continue reading...

Coronavirus slump and sunniest spring on record send green energy soaringThe UK’s electricity system recorded its “greenest” ever month in May after running without coal-fired electricity for a full calendar month.The National Grid, the energy system operator, said the country’s sunniest spring on record helped generate enough solar power to reduce the carbon intensity of the grid to its lowest level ever recorded. Continue reading...

Durham-based firm says decision has been made because coal has ‘limited future’ in UKOne of Britain’s last remaining coalmine operators will put an end to all mining operations from next month because it is clear that coal has “a limited future” in the UK.Durham-based Hargreaves Services, one of the largest remaining operators of surface mines in the UK, told investors on Tuesday that it plans to wind down its UK mining operations in line with its long-term strategic plans. Continue reading...

The deaths in Mago National Park are unprecedented, say officialsPoachers have killed at least six elephants in a single day in Ethiopia, wildlife officials said on Tuesday, the largest such slaughter in memory in the east African nation.The elephants died last week, when they ventured out of the Mago National Park in the far south of Ethiopia to drink water, Ganabul Bulmi, the park’s chief warden, told reporters. Continue reading...

About 2,500 people evacuated, amid fears that leaking oil and gas has killed river dolphins and birdsAn oil well in the Indian state of Assam is still leaking gas “uncontrollably” after a blowout a week ago that it is feared has killed endangered river dolphins and birds and forced 2,500 people to evacuate their homes.For days authorities have failed to plug the leak from the well in the village of Baghjan after the incident on 27 May. The blowout – an uncontrolled release of oil and gas due to the failure of pressure control systems – sent a fountain of crude oil into the air, “unleashing a hell”, according to local accounts. Continue reading...

Data suggests that carmakers are making progress towards meeting emissions reductions targets

Companies could save billions, says report, as well as curbing carbon emissionsBuilding new solar power projects would generate cheaper electricity than running most of the world’s existing coal power plants, according to a global renewable energy report.New figures have revealed that more than half of the world’s coal plants could be undercut by the falling cost of new large-scale solar projects, which are now more than 80% cheaper to build than in 2010. Continue reading...

How the trappings of fame are causing problems for the placid mammal that has become a star of internet memes and InstagramNobody seems to know quite how the sloth became the rock star of the animal kingdom. From high in the Latin American rainforest, the absurd mammal is the focus of a frenzied obsession that shows no sign of abating. Sloths are on bank notes, adverts, T-shirts, internet memes and Instagram fan pages.“People are obsessed,” says Costa Rica’s president, Carlos Alvarado Quesada, when asked why people have fallen in love with the creature. “The sloth is quite a unique animal. It’s also very related to the forest. I believe it’s the elegance of the movement.” Continue reading...

Report also warns Australia will experience more extreme fire seasons due to climate crisisThe amount of pristine tropical rainforest lost across the globe increased last year, as the equivalent of a football pitch disappeared every six seconds, a satellite-based analysis has found.Nearly 12m hectares of tree cover was lost across the tropics, including nearly 4m hectares of dense, old rainforest that held significant stores of carbon and had been home to a vast array of wildlife, according to data from the University of Maryland. Continue reading...

Labor’s Joel Fitzgibbon defends his call for ALP to adopt the Coalition’s target of 26-28% emissions reduction by 2030The Nationals senator Matt Canavan has been grilled over his criticism of action against climate change during an episode of Q+A where he was also asked to clarify his family’s links to the coal industry.In an episode that also featured opposition agriculture and resources spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon defending his call for Labor to adopt the government’s target of reducing emissions by 26-28% by 2030, and independent MP Zali Steggall attacking Fitzgibbon for his views on gas extraction, Canavan was pushed by host Hamish Macdonald about his “interests” in the coal industry. Continue reading...

Analysis shows 500 species on brink of extinction – as many as were lost over previous centuryThe sixth mass extinction of wildlife on Earth is accelerating, according to an analysis by scientists who warn it may be a tipping point for the collapse of civilisation.More than 500 species of land animals were found to be on the brink of extinction and likely to be lost within 20 years. In comparison, the same number were lost over the whole of the last century. Without the human destruction of nature, even this rate of loss would have taken thousands of years, the scientists said. Continue reading...

Heathrow, HSBC and National Grid among 200 CEOs calling for a ‘clean, just recovery’Britain’s most powerful business leaders have called on Boris Johnson to set out economic recovery plans that align with the UK’s climate goals to help rebuild a resilient UK economy in the wake of the coronavirus crisis.Almost 200 chief executives – from companies including HSBC, National Grid, and Heathrow airport – signed a letter to the prime minister calling on the government to “deliver a clean, just recovery”. Continue reading...

Europe is going coal-free, but a vast lignite mine is expanding in eastern Germany and coronavirus has delayed new climate lawsThe landscape makes you think of the surface of the moon. As far as the eye can see, deep gashes scar the earth. At the spot where the giant machines stand, ancient layers of bared coal are visible all the way to the base of the pit. Continue reading...

Conservationists warn the species, which was almost extinct 10 years ago, could be under threat if Japanese fishery is MSC certifiedA decade ago, the highly prized “king of fish”, the bluefin tuna, was taken off menus in high-end restaurants and shunned by top chefs, amid warnings by environmentalists that it was being driven to extinction. Recent assessments of eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna, which can grow to the size of a small car and live for up to 40 years, have shown much healthier populations.But now conservationists and scientists are warning that the largest and most valuable tuna species could once again be under threat if a Japanese bluefin fishery in the eastern Atlantic Ocean is awarded an internationally recognised “ecolabel” they claim is based on flawed science. Continue reading...

Agreements for term of mining project regardless of changing economic conditions to be on agenda, Christian Porter saysEnterprise agreements that last for the life of a mining project, regardless of changing economic conditions, are one of the options under consideration as part of the Coalition’s industrial relations changes, Christian Porter has confirmed. .The attorney general has been tasked with bringing business and union leaders in to discuss changes to Australia’s “clunky” industrial relations system beyond the Covid-19 lockdowns, a move which has been greeted with cautious, if sceptical, optimism, from those involved. Continue reading...

Unconventional gas projects use chemicals that are of ‘potentially high concern’ for sensitive region, report findsA federal government scientific report has issued a warning about chemicals used in unconventional gas drilling in the sensitive wild rivers of the Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre basin.As the government weighs up recommendations to expand the gas industry for a post-coronavirus recovery, the western rivers of Queensland loom as a significant test for how authorities will balance economics with the environment. Continue reading...

Scientists and artists take advantage of low noise levels to record birdsong around world

Country also set for driest May for 124 years, with farmers warning of serious impactThe UK has recorded the sunniest spring since records began in 1929, the Met Office has said.It is also set to be the driest May for 124 years, with official figures on rainfall to be published on Monday. Continue reading...

Cross-party group highlights new evidence on how dirty air may worsen infections

The pick of the world’s best flora and fauna photos, including tiny turtles and blossoming poppies. Continue reading...

New figures for 2018 show 2.1% drop on previous year in switch to renewablesGreenhouse gas emissions in the EU continued their fall in 2018, the latest year for which comprehensive data is available, according to a new report from Europe’s environment watchdog.Emissions fell by 2.1% compared with 2017, to a level 23% lower than in 1990, the baseline for the bloc’s emission cuts under the UN’s climate agreements. If the UK is excluded, the decline since 1990 was smaller, standing at 20.7%. Continue reading...

Creature is believed to be a juvenile fin whale, the world’s second largest mammalA dead 12-metre (40ft) whale has washed up on a beach in Essex, and police have advised people to keep away.The creature was swept ashore at Clacton-on-Sea on Friday. Continue reading...

Intensified by climate change, the current 20-year arid period is one of the worst on record, with wide-ranging effectsWhen Ken Pimlott began fighting US wildfires at the age of 17, they seemed to him to be a brutal but manageable natural phenomenon.Related: Dust bowl conditions of 1930s US now more than twice as likely to reoccur Continue reading...

Lancashire Wildlife Trust has brought the species back to peatlands following a local extinction in the 19th centuryLarge heath butterflies are returning to peatlands in greater Manchester 150 years after they went locally extinct.The acidic peat bogs and mosslands around Manchester and Liverpool were home to the country’s biggest colonies of large heath butterflies – known as the “Manchester argus” – but numbers plummeted as land was drained for agricultural land and peat extraction. Continue reading...

Date moved for Covid-19 travel reasons, but fears raised over delay to green recovery plansGlobal talks aimed at staving off the threat of climate breakdown will be delayed by a year to November 2021 because of the coronavirus crisis, the UN has confirmed.The summit, known as Cop26, which 196 nations are expected to attend, will now take place in Glasgow from November 1 to 12 next year, as reports had anticipated, with the UK government acting as host and president. They were originally set to take place from 9 November this year. Continue reading...

Rising temperatures, natural disasters and deforestation taking heavy toll, say scientistsClimate breakdown and the mass felling of trees has made the world’s forests significantly shorter and younger overall, an analysis shows.The trend is expected to continue, scientists say, with worrying consequences for the ability of forests to store carbon and mitigate the climate emergency and for the endangered wildlife that depends on rich, ancient forests. Continue reading...

Ambitious goal requires us to ‘get over the political roadblock’ says Malcolm Turnbull, who backed climate change thinktank’s report

Reduction largely wiped out by a rise in carbon pollution from big industrial sites, particularly liquefied natural gas plantsAustralia’s greenhouse gas emissions fell slightly last year, according to official data released on Friday, as new clean energy plants came online and the drought continued to limit farming output.But the reduction was largely wiped out by an increase in carbon pollution from big industrial sites, particularly liquefied natural gas plants off the country’s northern coast. Continue reading...

Delhi braces for swarm while farmers in badly-hit north play loud music and honk car horns to try to prevent decimation of fieldsResidents of Delhi are bracing themselves for a possible invasion of locusts, which have been ravaging areas in the north of the country.A change in wind direction could save the city, but Dr K L Gurjar, deputy director of the Locust Warning Organisation, has warned residents to be prepared to “make a lot of loud noise so that instead of settling, they keep flying and fly past the city. And don’t panic”. Continue reading...

There is no easy route to a greener global economy. But since coronavirus hit, politics and business are thinking againTiming matters. Early 2020 saw an economic collapse the likes of which have not been seen in living memory. Growth has collapsed, unemployment has soared, poverty has increased.Yet in different circumstances the past few months would have been dominated by calls for countries to do more to cut carbon emissions. As 2019 drew to an end, everybody from the managing director of the International Monetary Fund to the governor of the Bank of England was warning of the threat of global heating. Continue reading...