Environment | The Guardian

Native title applicant says NSW’s change to planning conditions has given Chinese company permission to drill and excavate before a mining lease for Watermark has even been grantedA quiet change to Shenhua’s New South Wales planning conditions for its open-cut Watermark coalmine could desecrate sites of Indigenous cultural significance before the federal environment minister decides whether they should be protected.Gamilaraay man and native title applicant for the Gomeroi people, Raymond Weatherall, has warned successive failures to protect sacred places on the development site in the Liverpool Plains in north-west NSW, could lead to direct conflict between the Gomeroi, the state government and the Chinese state-owned company Shenhua. Continue reading...

A growing number of older protesters are standing up and fighting for the environmentWhen Audrey Cooke first spoke to her family about her retirement plans, they had one condition: “Don’t get arrested.”The 72-year-old retired Melbourne schoolteacher’s husband died of pancreatic cancer nine years ago. She has two young grandchildren. And she is now a full-time climate activist. Continue reading...

Fossil fuels provide nearly 40% of country’s power as tensions rise on phaseout timetableGermany has agreed to end its reliance on polluting coal power stations by 2038, in a long-awaited decision that will have major ramifications for Europe’s attempts to meet its Paris climate change targets.The country is the last major bastion of coal-burning in north-western Europe and the dirtiest of fossil fuels still provides nearly 40% of Germany’s power, compared with 5% in the UK, which plans to phase the fuel out entirely by 2025. Continue reading...

London cafes bring people together while tackling the UK’s food waste problemMothers with toddlers at their ankles sit beside elderly men and women out for a welcome bit of company on a Monday lunchtime. Plates are piled with steaming pasta, couscous salad and warm bread rolls as the chefs wipe sweat from their foreheads in a galley kitchen next door.This is a bustling local restaurant in an affluent area of south-west London, but there is one big difference from the many fashionable cafes that line the streets of this London “village”. The food has all been saved from the bin. Continue reading...

There are tire marks etched into delicate playas and plains that can take centuries to recoverDelicate desert ecosystems in Death Valley have been damaged by off-roaders, another dismaying impact of the US government shutdown on national parks.“People come here to this pristine desert landscape,” said Laura Cunningham, who heads Western Watersheds Project, a not-for-profit conservation organization. She and her husband, a retired Death Valley park ranger, live close to the park and headed out to the desert last week to assess new damage. “There are so few places where we have a beautiful natural vista. And now people are off-roading on it.” Continue reading...

It’s true that many young people stare at screens instead of being out in the wild – but others use technology to form a global community of conservationistsSix years ago, I wrote with a certain amount of sadness a rather gloomy report for the National Trust entitled Natural Childhood. It highlighted the barriers standing in the way of engaging young people with nature: primarily dangers from traffic, parental fears of “stranger danger”, and a growing aversion to exposing children to any form of risk. I concluded that we faced the very real danger of a “lost generation”, who might never engage with the natural world.Young people were, and still are, we’re told, disconnected from nature, staring at screens when they should be out in the wild. But what I hadn’t predicted back then is that it is these screens that are now enabling our children to join forces to save the natural world. The rise of new technology – especially social media – has allowed a new generation to connect with those who share their interests in a way that I never could have believed possible when I wrote Natural Childhood. As one young ornithologist recently told me: “I thought I was the only birder at my school, but on Facebook I found half a dozen others in my local area.” Continue reading...

Climate campaigners stage one-hour peaceful sit-in protest in debating chamberAround 40 climate activists have staged a peaceful occupation of the Scottish parliament’s debating chamber, urging MSPs to introduce much tougher climate targets.Campaigners with the recently formed direct action group Extinction Rebellion posed as tourists on a visit to Holyrood before staging an hour-long sit-in in the chamber. Continue reading...

The Islabikes founder’s new range of bikes for those aged 65-plus shows how different people can often have very different cycling needsOn the Bike Blog we do wang on quite a lot about the vital importance of safe infrastructure to get more people cycling, and with very good reason. But there’s another aspect also worth considering: having people on a suitable bike.Why did this occur to me? Because of a chat with Isla Rowntree, the eponymous founder, head and design supremo for Islabikes, who has spent 13 years thinking about how bikes can be made easier and more fun for children to ride, and is now branching into intended bikes for older people. Continue reading...

Swedish school strike activist demands economists tackle runaway global warming. Read her Davos speech hereOur house is on fire. I am here to say, our house is on fire.According to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), we are less than 12 years away from not being able to undo our mistakes. In that time, unprecedented changes in all aspects of society need to have taken place, including a reduction of our CO2 emissions by at least 50%. Continue reading...

Barents Sea is key source of UK cod imports and could see temperature rises of over 6CFish fingers and cod and chips are under a far greater threat from carbon emissions than previously thought, according to a recent study that has grave implications for food security.The North Atlantic cod stock in the Barents Sea is likely to first rise and then crash, possibly to almost zero before the end of the century if climate change isn’t addressed, says the scientific paper, published by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme. Continue reading...

Tiger poachers, goldfinches and playful baby elephants feature in this week’s gallery Continue reading...

Productivity Commission review finds authority’s dual roles are often in conflictThe agency in charge of Australia’s most important and complex river system should be broken up as part of a major overhaul to protect the Murray-Darling basin and save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, the Productivity Commission says.The government released the Productivity Commission’s five-year review of the management of the Murray-Darling basin late on Friday afternoon. The report warned of serious risks in Australia’s long-term $13bn plan for the basin, which is designed to reset the balance between the environment and consumptive uses through to mid-2024. Continue reading...

Cases confirmed in Dorset and Essex with public urged to report sick or dead animalsThe first cases of rabbit virus have been confirmed in hares in the UK, highlighting a major new threat to the UK’s rapidly dwindling brown hare population.Two cases of the deadly rabbit haemorrhagic disease type 2 have been confirmed in Dorset and one in Essex, so it may already be taking hold in the wild, but more testing will be needed to determine its spread. Continue reading...

World’s biggest wildlife citizen survey maps changing fortunes of Britain’s bird populationsThe garden of 1979 was filled with glossy gangs of starlings, the atonal chirp of sparrows and the tap-tap of song thrushes breaking open snail shells.In 2019, you’re more likely to hear the screech of a ring-necked parakeet, the “coo” of a collared dove or the “woo” of a woodpigeon. Continue reading...

Cottesloe took out metropolitan category and also gained the most votes overall but Hyams and Wineglass Bay were close behindThe results are in for the Guardian Australia’s best beaches poll.There were 19,533 votes cast in the survey to find Australia’s best regional, remote and metropolitan beaches. Continue reading...

Levels of the climate-warming gas are set to rise by near-record amounts, Met Office predictsThe level of climate-warming carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere is forecast to rise by a near-record amount in 2019, according to the Met Office.The increase is being fuelled by the continued burning of fossil fuels and the destruction of forests, and will be particularly high in 2019 due to an expected return towards El Niño-like conditions. This natural climate variation causes warm and dry conditions in the tropics, meaning the plant growth that removes CO2 from the air is restricted. Continue reading...

NAO report reveals cost of removing hundreds of North Sea wells, rigs and pipelinesBritish taxpayers face a £24bn bill for tax relief awarded to oil and gas companies removing hundreds of North Sea wells, rigs and pipelines, the UK public spending watchdog has said.The National Audit Office (NAO) said the figure would climb if companies collapse and are unable to pay for cleaning up their operations, leaving the government to pick up the tab. Continue reading...

US will become increasingly reliant on natural gas and could become a net energy exporter by next yearThe US could become a net energy exporter by next year as oil and gas production expands, according to new projections from the Energy Information Administration.America is becoming increasingly reliant on natural gas – a fossil fuel that contributes to climate change but less so than coal. Solar power will grow rapidly too. Both will replace nuclear and coal power plants that are more expensive. Continue reading...

Joan Walley says it’s time the government admitted that the fossil fuel industry gets a lot more help from UK taxpayers than appears on the balance sheetFurther evidence that Britain leads the EU in giving subsidies to fossil fuels (Report, 24 January) highlights yet again the urgency of rebalancing UK energy subsidies.Back in 2013-14 the environmental audit select committee found that “energy subsidies in the UK are running at about £12bn a year, much directed at fossil fuels”. It concluded that “the absence of any internationally agreed definition of what constitutes energy subsidy has provided a way for the government to reject – erroneously in our view – the proposition in some areas that it provides energy subsidies”. Continue reading...

Warning that ‘We are like passengers on the Titanic, ignoring the iceberg ahead’ in face of nuclear arms and climate change threatsThe risk to global civilisation from nuclear weapons and climate change remains at an all-time high, according to a group of prominent US scientists and former officials, who said the world’s predicament had become the “new abnormal”.The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced that its symbolic “doomsday clock”, unveiled every year, was stuck at two minutes to midnight, the same as last January. The only other time the Bulletin has judged the world as being this close to catastrophe was 1953, in the early volatile stages of the cold war. Continue reading...

Victoria says Trevor St Baker’s $6bn plan for two new coal power plants proof scheme designed to boost fossil fuelsA mix of coal power plants, pumped hydro and gas-fired power have been presented to the federal government as options for its program to underwrite new electricity generation.But an ambitious $6bn plan by power baron Trevor St Baker for two new coal power plants has been criticised by the Victorian energy and environment minister, Lily D’Ambrosio, who said the bid proved the scheme was designed to boost fossil fuels. Continue reading...

The aviation industry is run on multinational lines. UK wing production could easily take off and land somewhere elseThere is one complaint about Tom Enders’ latest warning about Brexit. The chief executive of Airbus would do himself a favour if he sounded vaguely grateful for the huge subsidies his company has received from the UK government, and thus British taxpayers, over the decades. The corporate sense of entitlement is one reason why we’re in the current mess.But let’s save that one for another day. When Enders warns that a no-deal Brexit could force “potentially very harmful decisions” for Airbus’s operations in the UK, it’s time we listened to him and ignored what he called “the Brexiteers’ madness”. This is about the politics and economics of aircraft production and three points are important. Continue reading...

Protest by 16-year-old Greta Thunberg snowballs to last day of World Economic ForumThe 16-year-old activist behind the fast-growing School Strikes 4 Climate Action has taken her campaign to the streets of Davos, to confront world leaders and business chiefs about the global emissions crisis.Greta Thunberg, whose solo protest outside Sweden’s parliament has snowballed across the globe, will join a strike by Swiss schoolchildren in the ski resort on Friday – the final day of the World Economic Forum. Continue reading...

From New Orleans to the Florida panhandle, many have built up psychological resilience after living through years of extreme weatherI’ve long felt America, particularly the south, where I grew up, is in the “denial” stage of grief when it comes to our psychological response to climate change.The sixth mass extinction has begun, our oceans are warming 40% faster than scientists anticipated, and the US’s carbon dioxide emissions rose 3.4% in 2018. How, I wonder, is everyone so calm? So business-as-usual? Continue reading...

As ice melts and shipping lanes open up, geopolitical tensions are growing and old cold war bases are being reopenedThe climate crisis is intensifying a new military buildup in the Arctic, diplomats and analysts said this week, as regional powers attempt to secure northern borders that were until recently reinforced by a continental-sized division of ice.That so-called unpaid sentry is now literally melting away, opening up shipping lanes and geo-security challenges, said delegates at the Arctic Frontiers conference, the polar circle’s biggest talking shop, who debated a series of recent escalations. Continue reading...

Ultra-high definition cameras and AI technology to help human controllers land more planes in poor visibilityTechnology being trialled by air traffic controllers at Heathrow could mean the third runway is built without a new control tower, the airport said.A £2.5m “digital tower laboratory”, which uses a suite of ultra high definition cameras and artificial intelligence to monitor aircraft, has been built in the base of Heathrow’s existing tower. Continue reading...

Police investigating discovery of animal’s remains warn of organised crime threat to Thailand’s tiger populationThai authorities investigating the discovery of the remains of a wild tiger in a taxi have warned that organised crime gangs are behind the capture and slaughter of Thailand’s endangered tiger population.Police, acting on a tip-off from a cab driver, arrested two men suspected of being members of a Vietnam-based syndicate involved in the trafficking of animal parts. The tiger was found in their luggage along with mobile phones containing photographs of the animal being killed. Continue reading...

NSW report says a temperature plunge from 46C to 28C contributed to the ‘unprecedented’ death of ‘hundreds of thousands of fish’Little or no flow in the Darling River and a plunge from high temperatures are likely to have led to conditions that caused a catastrophic drop in oxygen levels prior to extensive fish kills at Menindee.An interim investigation by the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries found the fish deaths were likely to have been caused by “several related and compounding factors resulting in low oxygen in the river”. Continue reading...

Letter to Shinzō Abe signed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Fry attacks decision to leave IWCCelebrities and environmentalists are demanding Japan reverse its decision to resume whaling, condemning the “cruel and archaic practice which has no place in the 21st century”.An open letter to the Japanese prime minister, Shinzō Abe, criticises Tokyo’s decision to leave the International Whaling Commission (IWC), as campaigners plan a peaceful protest march on the Japanese embassy in London on Saturday. Continue reading...

Ancient species lives at depths of 200 to 800 metres, where key commercial fishing species are foundSpecies as old as the dinosaurs are swimming around in tropical waters at depths accessed by commercial fishermen, according to a world-first study conducted by Australian researchers.The study, published in the journal Nature on Thursday, examined data on brittle sea stars pulled from 1,500 research voyages in the southern hemisphere from the equator to Antarctica. Continue reading...

Ron DeSantis has broken with fellow Republican Rick Scott in seeking to oust officials who authorised controversial land dealBarely a week after positioning himself as the new champion of Florida’s polluted waterways and beaches, the new Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, is facing an early test of the environmental credentials that have put him at odds with his predecessor, Rick Scott.DeSantis has called for the mass resignation of Scott’s hand-picked team of water policy managers, after they defied his request to delay awarding an eight-year land lease extension to the sugar industry giant Florida Crystals in the fragile Everglades wetlands. The land, south of Lake Okeechobee, is earmarked for a $1.6bn clean-water storage reservoir that DeSantis wants completed within four years, to hasten restoration of the state’s famous River of Grass. Continue reading...

Experts say some members of ‘enormously important’ myrtle family could be extinct within five years, with others to followAustralia must roll out an emergency national response to an invasive plant disease that is rapidly pushing at least four plant species to imminent extinction, experts have told Guardian Australia.A draft emergency action plan for the fungal disease myrtle rust proposes that a rapid collection of seeds and plant material needs to be mobilised before several species disappear altogether. Continue reading...

Activists want 5% of transport spending to go on active travel, as happens in ScotlandIt is possible a million or more people have cycled past the Houses of Parliament in the past 12 months, but you could be forgiven for thinking this has gone unnoticed by those on the other side of the black railings.On Wednesday, as the cycle superhighway through Parliament Square whisked commuters to work, inside, the transport select committee heard the government would miss its cycling target. It is predicted to achieve just a third of the 800m hoped-for extra cycling trips by 2025, with much of that predicted growth restricted to London. Continue reading...

Five mayors warn their towns could run out of water within weeks and call for their needs to be prioritised over irrigatorsThe mayors of several western New South Wales councils have warned their townships face major water crises within weeks and have urged the state government to impose a one-month embargo on irrigators pumping from the upper part of the Darling River system. Continue reading...

Deaths of about 40 horses discovered near Santa Teresa blamed on extreme weather conditionsForty wild horses have been found dead at a dry waterhole in central Australia in what is believed to be a mass death caused by extreme weather.Shocking pictures have been published of the animals, which were discovered by rangers near the remote community of Santa Teresa last week. Continue reading...

Subsidies for coal, oil and gas are not falling despite EU pledges to tackle climate change

State government investigating why thousands of fish found dead almost 900km away from Darling River at Menindee, where up to a million fish diedThe mass fish kill crisis in New South Wales is now affecting the state’s north with thousands of carcasses found on the banks of Lake Inverell.The federal government has launched a review into why up to a million fish died along the Darling River at Menindee, in the state’s west, earlier this month. Continue reading...

Thinktank says not enough is being done to cut coal burning and end fossil fuel subsidiesRemoving coal from the global energy mix is taking too long, too many forests are still being destroyed, and fossil fuel subsidies are ongoing despite their distorting effect on the market, a study has found.There has also been insufficient progress in agriculture to stop harmful practices that increase carbon dioxide production, and heavy industry is not doing enough to use energy more efficiently, according to analysis carried out by the World Resources Institute thinktank. Continue reading...

Total of 72% polled now say global warming is personally important to them, Yale said, as 73% accept it is happeningAmericans’ concerns about climate change have surged to record levels, new polling shows, following a year marked by devastating storms, wildfires and increasingly dire warnings from scientists.Related: Greenland's ice melting faster than scientists previously thought – study Continue reading...

New Brazilian president highlights need to grow economy in Davos appearanceBrazil’s new rightwing president Jair Bolsonaro has prompted fresh alarm among environmentalists after stressing that protecting his country’s unique ecosystem has to be consistent with growing the economy.In remarks that did little to assuage fears of the risks that a go-for-growth strategy would pose to the Amazon region, Bolsonaro used his first overseas trip since taking control at the start of the year to outline a strongly pro-business agenda. Continue reading...

Politicians face repeated calls to reduce emissions and stop land clearing, but there isn’t much public pressure for better biosecurityIn November 2018 the owners of the huge Ocean Monarch oil rig, towed into Hobart waters for maintenance, refused to let the Tasmanian Environment Protection Authority (EPA) inspect the hull for marine pests. One of the EPA’s concerns was a foreign sea squirt that had appeared in Western Australia in 2010, invading seagrass meadows in Perth’s Swan River.In January the rig’s owners, Diamond Offshore, said they would inspect the rig themselves and submit their findings. The EPA’s impotence in this incident prompted calls for reform of biosecurity laws. Continue reading...

With neighbouring Yanga national park and government-owned Gayini-Nimmie Caira, more than 200,000 hectares are under protectionA record $55m has been spent by the Nature Conservancy to buy two cattle stations along the Murrumbidgee River near Balranald in New South Wales to preserve valuable wetlands, known as the Great Cumbung Swamp, that are a major breeding ground for birds.The properties, which adjoin the NSW-government owned property, Gayini-Nimmie Caira and the Yanga national park, near Balranald, have been bought through a partnership with an agricultural investment company, Tiverton. Continue reading...

Lorries, demonstrators and police drive up air pollution in Kirby Misperton, study findsA shale gas company’s lorries, police vehicles and protesters’ wood fires have combined to drive up air pollution levels near a gas well in the north of England, despite fracking failing to get started at the site.Operations at the Kirby Misperton well in North Yorkshire have been delayed after the operator Third Energy ran into financial problems, but the project’s local pollution impact has been revealed by government-backed research. Continue reading...

Experts predict up to 1,500 individual private flights in and out of airfields serving Swiss ski resort for World Economic ForumDavid Attenborough might have urged world leaders at Davos to take urgent action on climate change, but it appears no one was listening. As he spoke, experts predicted up to 1,500 individual private jets will fly to and from airfields serving the Swiss ski resort this week.Political and business leaders and lobbyists are opting for bigger, more expensive aircrafts, according to analysis by the Air Charter Service, which found the number of private jet flights grew by 11% last year. Continue reading...

Labor would allocate $1bn from Clean Energy Finance Corporation and invest up to $90m from ArenaA $1.1bn plan announced by Labor to build up Australia’s hydrogen industry has been welcomed by environmental groups, so long as it is backed by renewable power.Labor said on Tuesday its national hydrogen plan would “supercharge” Australia’s renewable energy industry and create thousands of regional blue-collar jobs, particularly in Queensland. Continue reading...

Berejiklian government may install desalination system for town’s bore water supplyThe state government says it is considering options to help resolve the water crisis in the western New South Wales town of Walgett, including installing a desalination system for the town’s bore water supply.Walgett has been forced to survive on bore water for almost 18 months as the Barwon and Namoi rivers are both dry. One expert said the levels of sodium in the bore water was “concerning”, while locals say it smells and tastes bad. Continue reading...

Program holding ants at bay in wet tropics suffers from lack of government funding commitmentFunding to keep a voracious invasive ant from establishing super colonies in Australia’s wet tropics world heritage area has less than six months of funding left, risking its future, Guardian Australia has been told.The Wet Tropics Management Authority (WTMA), which manages the vast world heritage area in north Queensland, is asking state and federal governments for a $6m a year package for the next seven years – enough, the authority says, for it to finish the job of eradicating the yellow crazy ant. Continue reading...

Ecologists say Adani’s plan for endangered bird’s conservation area amounts to ‘a plan to manage a cow paddock’About 2,000 hectares of proposed habitat offsets for the endangered black-throated finch were removed from Adani’s conservation plans last year, mostly on land earmarked for the nearby China Stone coalmine.The Indian mining company also intends to allow cattle to graze on the remaining conservation areas surrounding its Carmichael mine. Continue reading...

European NGO says firms are likely to be at centre of global boom in plastic productionThe founding companies behind a self-styled alliance to end plastic waste are among the world’s biggest investors in new plastic productions plants, according to a European NGO.A majority of the firms which announced this week they were collaborating to try to help tackle plastic pollution are likely to be at the heart of a global boom in plastic production over the next 10 years. Continue reading...

The foundation’s first project after controversial $443m grant is for a survey of remote parts of reef by the Australian Institute of Marine ScienceThe not-for-profit foundation that was awarded a controversial $443.3m grant for the Great Barrier Reef has funded its first project – a research survey that will be carried out by a government agency.The Great Barrier Reef Foundation will announce on Monday that a 25-day health survey of remote parts of the reef by the Australian Institute of Marine Science is the first venture awarded money through the Reef Trust partnership set up by the government last year. Continue reading...