Help has been slow to arrive to White Swan after severe flooding compounded long-standing social and economic inequalities

Agri-park high in the Andes preserves the expertise to breed strains fit for a changing climate

Students in Australia gathered in Sydney, Melbourne and other capitals as part of the global 29 November climate protestsA teenager whose family home burned down in the New South Wales bushfires has delivered a message to Scott Morrison at a climate emergency protest outside the Liberal party headquarters, saying: “your thoughts and prayers are not enough”.Shiann Broderick, from Nymboida, said government inaction on the climate crisis had “supercharged bushfires”. Continue reading...

Boris Johnson replaced by melting ice sculpture in debate on Channel 4 discussing climate crisis

Conservatives say they could review channel’s broadcasting remit if they win election

Labour says failure to share document raises doubts about Tories’ promise to halt frackingThe Cabinet Office has defied a court order to release a secret government report on the UK’s fracking industry.Officials were expected to hand over the report on Monday, days before Britain’s first general election leaders’ debate on the climate crisis, after the information tribunal ruled it was in the public interest to disclose its findings in full. Continue reading...

Jeremy Corbyn is proposing to double the requirement in place to tackle the climate crisisJeremy Corbyn has promised to plant 2 billion trees by 2040 to help arrest the climate crisis. Continue reading...

Conservationists say climate change threat must be addressed to avoid reef’s inclusion on ‘in-danger’ listConservationists say an official government report to the UN’s world heritage committee to be released next week must show Australia has fresh plans to attack the Great Barrier Reef’s two key threats – climate change and water quality.At a forum earlier this month environment ministers signed-off on the “state of conservation” report for the reef,which was then sent to Unesco’s world heritage committee. Continue reading...

Through careful planning, a commitment to energy-efficient design and sometimes necessity, these Australians have embraced life off the gridKathy Menzel says she used to be completely oblivious to power bills, “just running along in the hamster wheel like everybody else, you know, busy, busy, busy, spend, spend, spend”. She and her husband Bob, both IT professionals, did have an inkling they wanted something different though, yearning for a serene country lifestyle with no neighbours.When they finally found their dream block in the Adelaide Hills, reality hit home. “We’d been looking for five years for this great piece of land in the middle of nowhere but still easy to commute to the city,” she says. “But it was going to cost $450,000 to get on to the grid.” The cost of connecting was far more than the $238,000 for the 10 acre block, which was only 1.5km from a main road. Continue reading...

Staff at Mossgiel farm hope to promote a more sustainable model of dairy farming, including delivering milk in reusable glass bottlesLying in a field of grass among his herd of dairy cows, Ayrshire farmer Bryce Cunningham picks up and pretends to throw away a plastic carton of milk. This is what we want to get rid of on our farm, he says in a promotional video, as he explains his quest to become the UK’s first single-use plastic-free milk producer.

With more than a thousand mice per acre, an ecosystem is under threat. But poison could make things even worseThe Farallon Islands of northern California are one of the world’s great biodiversity hotspots. These stark granite outcrops, which sit 30 miles (48km) off the coast of San Francisco, are home to 300,000 breeding seabirds, five species of seals and sea lions, and a type of cricket found nowhere else in the world.Scientists studying shark behavior or bird migration patterns flock here annually, but the islands have hosted other visitors for even longer: mice, tens of thousands of them. Continue reading...

One in three people in Cleveland and surrounds live in a food desert. But the desperation for healthy food has kicked off one of the biggest urban farming movements in the US

Genetic modification, banned in Europe, could have ‘great potential promise’Gene-modifying techniques could reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from livestock, helping to feed the world while combating the climate emergency, scientists have said.“Conventional [genetic] selection is extremely powerful,” said Mike Coffey, a professor of livestock informatics at Scotland’s Rural College. “At this point in time, GM [genetic modification] is not allowed in Europe, but some of these technologies could have great potential promise.” Continue reading...

Calls for ban or higher prices as sales jump to 1.5bn, equivalent to 54 bags per householdPlastic “bags for life” should be banned or raised in price, campaigners say, as new figures reveal a surge in the bags is fuelling a rise in the plastic packaging footprint of leading supermarkets.Despite high profile promises by the country’s best known supermarkets to tackle the amount of plastic waste they create, their plastic footprint continues to rise, according to research from the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Greenpeace. Continue reading...

Information not routinely displayed on labels of food and gardening items, report findsMany UK supermarkets are not being transparent with shoppers about the use of potentially harmful pesticides in their global supply chains, according to a report.In an analysis rating the top 10 retailers, Pesticide Action Network UK (PAN UK) says some are not doing enough to protect human health and the environment from hazardous pesticides in food and gardening products. Continue reading...

Charity says findings underline need for deposit return scheme for plastic and glass bottlesFindings from a national beach cleanup underline the urgent need for a comprehensive deposit return scheme to stem the tide of plastic and glass bottles and cans littering the UK’s coastlines, a marine charity has said.During four days of beach cleaning in September, volunteers logged more than 16,000 drinks containers of various kinds, the Marine Conservation Society said. Continue reading...

Plants will close during coldest months in a bid to reduce high levels of fine dust particlesSouth Korea will temporarily shut down up to a quarter of its coal-fired power plants next month in an attempt to combat dangerously high levels of fine dust pollution.The country’s energy ministry said 14 plants would be idled between December and February, and as many as 27 in March, but added that the closures would not affect energy supplies during the coldest months of the year. Continue reading...

Party also pledges to create 10 new national parks and fund restoration of habitatsLabour has announced plan to plant 2bn trees over the next 20 years and create 10 new national parks, as part of a rewilding policy intended to tackle the climate emergency and help natural habitats.The proposals also include an investment of £1.2bn to restore habitats such as woodlands and peat bogs in England, and extra funding for national park authorities. Continue reading...

Queensland government is taking Wangan and Jagalingou people to court to dispute their native title claimAboriginal traditional owners opposed to the Adani Carmichael coalmine say they are being punished for their resistance by the Queensland government, which is now disputing the legitimacy of their native title claim in the federal court.The court case, set to begin on Monday, comes after almost 15 years of negotiation about the claim. Continue reading...

Results chime with earlier review indicating almost every cell in the body may be affected by dirty airThe number of health problems linked to air pollution could be far higher than previously thought, according to research suggesting hospital admissions for conditions ranging from heart failure to urinary tract infections increase as air becomes dirtier.Air pollution has already been associated with a number of conditions, from strokes to brain cancer, miscarriage and mental health problems. Continue reading...

Decision may prompt those detained in October protests to sue for wrongful arrestMore than 100 Extinction Rebellion protesters have had charges against them dropped after the ban forbidding protest in London last month was ruled unlawful.The Crown Prosecution Service decision will affect about 105 cases immediately, mostly those involving defendants facing trial for allegedly breaching section 14 of the 1986 Public Order Act. Continue reading...

Group says it will phase out investments, and underwriting of companies that back coalThe insurer Axa has promised to sever ties with the coal industry as part of a climate strategy to phase out the group’s multibillion pound investments and insurance underwriting of companies that back the fossil fuel.Axa said it intended to exit the coal industry by 2030 in Europe and other members states of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and by 2040 in the rest of the world. Continue reading...

Hugo Clément’s Sur le Front des Océans details interference from police, including arrest and preventing crew from hiring a boat to film coal terminalThe French journalists arrested while filming an anti-Adani protest this year have claimed in a documentary the Queensland police had them “under surveillance” and sought to repeatedly block filming near Adani’s Abbot Point coal terminal.In the documentary Sur le Front des Océans, which aired on public television network France 2 this week, journalist Hugo Clément detailed how police acted to prevent the crew hiring a boat to obtain footage of Abbot Point from the sea. Continue reading...

Crabbers are postponing their harvest to avoid entangling whales, as the climate crisis fuels new dangersHis boat, Stacey Jo, is loaded up, crab pots stacked high, with lines and buoys coiled neatly inside cylindrical metal traps. But Tim Obert and his crew are not motoring out any time soon.Commercial crabbers in San Francisco, Bodega Bay and Half Moon Bay have agreed to postpone the already delayed Dungeness crab harvest till 15 December, to avoid entangling endangered humpback and blue whales in their equipment. Continue reading...

Met Office predicts further heavy rainfall with warnings in place for south-west England, south Wales and YorkshireMore than half a month’s worth of rain fell in one day across parts of the UK, with further heavy downpours forecast across the country in the next 24 hours.A total of 32.2mm (1.27in) of rain fell on the parish of Wattisham near Stowmarket in Suffolk in the 24 hours to 6am on Wednesday, the Met Office said – the highest volume of rainfall anywhere in the UK during that time. Continue reading...

WaterNSW briefing to New South Wales cabinet said Sydney’s storages could be at ‘emergency levels’ by next MayThe New South Wales government was advised six months ago that Sydney’s water storage levels could be at “emergency levels” by May next year unless it started planning immediately.A cabinet-in-confidence document prepared by state-owned agency WaterNSW warns that storage levels could fall to 40% by Christmas and were likely to reach what are considered emergency levels – about 35% and declining – by mid-next year if the coming summer is hot and dry. Continue reading...

Furniture giant to invest in green energy plus reforestation and carbon storage projectsIkea’s parent company is to invest an additional €200m (£171m) in green energy and forest planting as part of a plan by the world’s largest furniture retailer to become carbon neutral by 2030.The investment is being made by Inter Ikea Group, the owner of the Ikea brand which is operated by a string of franchise businesses, the largest of which is Ingka Group. Continue reading...

Raid and arrests of four volunteer firefighters were a politically-motivated attack, indigenous associations and campaigners say

Habitat of creature, sometimes known as Scotch halibut or woof in chip shops, has been depleted by trawlingIn the north of England, Atlantic wolffish, Anarhichas lupus, is offered as fillets in fish and chip shops where it might be called Scotch halibut, Scarborough woof or simply woof. You are unlikely to have seen it whole since the fish has large teeth and an off-putting ferocious appearance that accounts for its common name. It can grow 1.5 metres (5ft) long. Its powerful jaws are used for crunching up shellfish, sea urchins and starfish. Despite the fearsome appearance wolffish are shy and will hide if approached by divers.Unusually for fish, both male and female are conscientious parents, spending months guarding the patch of seabed containing their eggs against predators. Continue reading...

State’s planning commission scathing in its decision rejecting application to rezone 3,000 hectares of land for construction of sprawling complex

Students stage week-long occupation in protest against university’s £12m investmentThe University of Manchester has said it will review its £12m investment in fossil fuel firms after a seven-day protest by students who threatened to go on hunger strike.Students from the protest group People and Planet had occupied one of the university’s buildings for the past week in a demonstration against its multimillion-pound investment in fossil fuel companies. Continue reading...

Hans-Werner Sinn’s opinion piece on whether electric cars are as climate friendly as they seem generated a good deal of controversy. William Todts, executive director of Transport & Environment, gives his responseHans-Werner Sinn is quite the character. This German economics professor’s writings range from the Greek crisis to migration, to German energy policy.Recently he has discovered a new passion: electric vehicles. Back in April Sinn published a paper claiming electric cars were worse than diesel. The study was roundly criticised for being misleading. Even Germany’s largest carmaker VW felt compelled to publicly contradict the report days after its publication, giving a rare glimpse of its own lifecycle analysis based on company-specific data that shows Volkswagen EVs are better than their diesels. Continue reading...

Global emissions must fall by 7.6% a year for next decade to avoid crisis, report saysCountries must make an unprecedented effort to cut their levels of greenhouse gases in the next decade to avoid climate chaos, the UN has warned, as it emerged that emissions hit a new high last year.Carbon dioxide emissions in 2018, also accounting for deforestation, rose to more than 55 gigatonnes, and have risen on average by 1.5% a year for the past decade, according to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) annual emissions gap report. Continue reading...

Judges give state governments six weeks to explain why they should not be held accountable for pollution failuresThe Indian supreme court has declared that state governments will have to pay their citizens compensation if they fail to provide clean air and water.The judges, who have been vocal in their condemnation of state governments who have repeatedly failed to address the issue, said people had the constitutional right to live free of pollution. Continue reading...

Scott Morrison says no action is required after speaking to the NSW police commissioner. This blog is now closed• PM stands by Angus Taylor despite NSW police investigation into doctored document• Lower pay rises are the ‘new normal’, Reserve Bank says• A timeline of Angus Taylor’s mystery document controversy6.57am GMTSo with parliament right back to where it started – talking ensuring integrity – we are going to wrap up the blog for the night.Stay tuned for the news stories and analysis on yet another extraordinary day in the Australian parliament which will be coming your way.6.49am GMTAnd around and around we go:We want the #EnsuringIntegrity Laws because for 75 years, the Liberal Party has always backed workers and the middle classes. Labor stands for vested interests - they just do what unions say on super, trade and industrial relations Continue reading...

Maximum penalties in the tens of thousands of dollars apply for using routes that are closed to contain dieback diseaseA hiker in New Zealand has become the first to be charged with walking on closed tracks in the Waitakere ranges, violating a ban put in place to stop the devastating spread of a fungal disease called kauri dieback.Potential fines of tens of thousands of dollars apply for repeatedly using the tracks, which are closed to the public to let the forest recover from a disease that kills the majority of kauri trees it infects. Continue reading...

Sixty per cent of respondents want to see more action – compared with 51% in MarchAn increasing proportion of voters worry Australia is not doing enough to reduce the risks of climate change, and more people see a direct link between warming and bushfires, according to the latest Guardian Essential poll.Ominously for the Morrison government, which bristles at regular public criticism it is not doing enough to reduce the risks of the climate crisis, 60% of the sample of 1,083 voters believes Australia should be doing more. This is up from 51% in March. Continue reading...

Environmentalists say a Victorian government plan to preserve old growth forest may instead open up currently protected areasEnvironment groups have raised doubts about the Victorian government’s promise to protect 90,000 hectares of old growth forest, just weeks after the Andrews government announced a major transition plan for Victoria’s timber industry.Six organisations, including The Wilderness Society, Friends of the Earth and Environment Victoria, have expressed fears that the government will open up some areas currently mapped as old growth to logging. Continue reading...

Footage appears to show corpses floating around the capsized vessel, which is likely to have been bound for Saudi ArabiaAttempts to save some of the 14,000 sheep trapped in a half-sunken boat in the Romanian port of Midia have been resumed, say activists at the scene, after sounds emerged from the ship indicating that some were still alive.Campaigners are calling again for a ban on live exports from Europe to non-EU countries, after the Queen Hind capsized on Sunday, shortly after sailing out of port. Conflicting reports of the ship’s destination mean that at one point it was believed to have been headed to Libya, but the authorities have now confirmed that it was intended for Saudi Arabia. Continue reading...

Four decades of near-uninterrupted growth stoked global climate crisisThe world’s use of coal-fired electricity is on track for its biggest annual fall on record this year after more than four decades of near-uninterrupted growth that has stoked the global climate crisis.Data shows that coal-fired electricity is expected to fall by 3% in 2019, or more than the combined coal generation in Germany, Spain and the UK last year and could help stall the world’s rising carbon emissions this year. Continue reading...

Revealed: records show law enforcement has called demonstrators possible ‘domestic terrorism’ threatsUS law enforcement officials preparing for fresh Keystone XL pipeline protests have privately discussed tactics to stop activists “by any means” and have labeled demonstrators potential “domestic terrorism” threats, records reveal.Internal government documents seen by the Guardian show that police and local authorities in Montana and the surrounding region have been preparing a coordinated response in the event of a new wave of protests opposing the controversial Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, which would carry crude oil from Canada to Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska. Continue reading...

Head of World Meteorological Organization says ‘no sign of a slowdown, let alone a decline’The concentration of climate-heating greenhouse gases has hit a record high, according to a report from the UN’s World Meteorological Organization.The jumps in the key gases measured in 2018 were all above the average for the last decade, showing action on the climate emergency to date is having no effect in the atmosphere. The WMO said the gap between targets and reality were both “glaring and growing”. Continue reading...

British-backed plantation firm vows to address claims that underpaid palm oil workers have been exposed to toxic chemicalsThe UK development bank has been accused of failing to protect workers from exposure to dangerous pesticides and paying “extreme poverty” wages on palm oil plantations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.Human Rights Watch said the CDC group, along with three other European development banks, had failed to properly oversee its investments in Feronia, one of Africa’s largest palm oil companies. Continue reading...

Research reveals that living in proximity of traffic increases risk of lung cancer by 10%Living near a busy road stunts lung growth in children and increases the risk of lung cancer, research has revealed.The analysis by King’s College London is the first to examine a wide range of health conditions linked to living near areas of air pollution from traffic. It compared 13 different health conditions, including heart disease, stroke and bronchitis, across 13 cities in the UK and Poland. Continue reading...

EVs produce more CO than say diesel – it’s just they emit via the power plant not the exhaust pipe

Demonstrators chant ‘Venice resist’ amid anger over waves caused by ocean liners and flawed flood-proofing projectThousands of Venetians have taken to the streets to protest over frequent flooding and the impact of giant cruise ships.In heavy rain between 2,000 and 3,000 people answered the call of environmental groups and a collective opposed to the ships. Critics say the waves cruise ships create are eroding Venice’s foundations. Continue reading...

Emergency services search for missing people as Europe hit by mudslides and floodsAt least two people were killed in France and a landslide collapsed a stretch of elevated highway in Italy, leaving cars perched on a precipice, as heavy rains pounded the region over the weekend, trapping travellers, downing trees and triggering mudslides and floods in parts of both countries.A 30-metre (100ft) section of highway along a viaduct near the flooded coastal city of Savona collapsed on Sunday. In an aerial video taken by firefighters, cars and one truck could be seen stopped perilously close to the point where the raised part of the A6 highway plunged on to a wooded area of the Liguria region. Continue reading...

Renewable energy giant says it expects Tories to reverse their block on onshore generationScottishPower has begun plans for a major expansion of onshore windfarm projects across Scotland in anticipation of a government U-turn on support for wind power projects.The renewable energy arm of the big six power supplier has already considered almost 100 sites for a new generation of windfarm, using a smaller number of more powerful wind turbines to generate clean electricity. Most of the sites are in Scotland, but the company is also considering plots in Ireland. Continue reading...

As protest and environmental alarm escalate, a new breed of business is prioritising values other than money and growthIn a volatile world jolted by protest, revolt and environmental alarm, capitalism is showing signs of twitchiness.