Richard Middleton, Robin Russell-Jones, Judith Wright, Tom Fyans, Richard Aldwinckle, John Nissen, and Mayer Hillman respond to the latest dire warnings from scientists and policymakers on biodiversity and climate changeEduardo Brondizio’s observation – “We have been displacing our impact around the planet from frontier to frontier. But we are running out of frontiers” – is crucial (Humanity facing ‘urgent threat’ from loss of Earth’s natural life, 7 May). This frontier-based structure of thought, in which there is always a beyond, an outside, a domain of otherness, underpins the dichotomies of class and hence of economics (capital and labour); of race, religion and migration; of gender and sexuality; as well as that of ecology. In every sphere, the uncivilised, untamed, more “natural” partner is positioned for exploitation and subordination. This is the basic structure underlying capitalism, but probably goes back much further to the beginnings of agriculture, when the land was first “tamed”.Its time is up. We have reached the final frontier and there is no longer any outside. The very concept of “nature” is misleading, since it positions human beings over and against something different called the natural world, and which therefore can be conceptualised as providing us with “services”. The concept should be junked.

Cutting passenger duty incompatible with new pledge to cut carbon emissions to net zero by 2045The Scottish government has dropped controversial plans to cut its taxes on aviation after Nicola Sturgeon declared last week the world faces a climate emergency.Roseanna Cunningham, the Scottish environment secretary, said cutting air passenger duty would be incompatible with its new pledge to cut Scotland’s carbon emissions to net zero by 2045. Continue reading...

Analysts blame Brexit uncertainty as April data shows 10% fewer private sales than last yearNew car sales fell more than 4% in the UK last month, the second-lowest April since 2012, with analysts blaming consumer reluctance to make significant purchases while Brexit uncertainty persists.Just over 160,000 new cars were sold, with 10.3% fewer registrations by private motorists than a year ago. Diesel sales continued to decline, and now account for just 29% of the market for new cars, compared to 50% in the year before the VW emissions scandal of 2015. Continue reading...

Labour group Momentum joins activists to target branches in Germany, US and CanadaA UK-based campaign to pressure Barclays to stop its multibillion pound funding of fossil fuel corporations is spreading to countries around the world.In the civil disobedience protests, organised by the grassroots Labour group Momentum and activists from People and Planet, campaigners disrupted business at 40 Barclays branches across the UK in March. Continue reading...

Ex-archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams welcomes plans for fully costed proposalsThe former archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has welcomed an “urgent change” by Cambridge University, after it agreed to provide fully costed plans setting out how it could divest multibillion-pound endowments from fossil fuel corporations.The university’s management accepted a motion, known as a grace, which urged Cambridge to “set out fully the advantages and disadvantages, including the social and political ones”, of divestment from global coal, oil and gas companies. Continue reading...

From native species to Indigenous land management and water efficiency: Australia’s role in the extinction crisisA devastating new UN report shows the planet is in serious danger from the accelerating decline of the Earth’s natural life-support systems. Here we look at 10 of the key points from the report – and their relevance for Australia. Continue reading...

Two contenders for PM have very different messages about how to address environmental emergencyAs political leaders travel across Australia to deliver their election talking points in farms, factories and sports fields, they are criss-crossing a country in the grip of a rolling climate emergency.In the year leading up to the election on 18 May, huge swathes of eastern Australia have endured their worst droughts in a century. There have been apocalyptic scenes along the Murray Darling river system in which up to 1 million fish have died. In Queensland, floods have wiped out half a million cattle and bushfires have burned close to pristine rainforests. In the usually cool southern state of Tasmania more bushfires have raged across 190,000 hectares of land and devastated old-growth forests. Continue reading...

Prime minister praises Liberal MP and expresses caution about ripping up the basin planScott Morrison has swung to the defence of Liberal MP Sussan Ley, who is under pressure in the regional seat of Farrer despite holding it with a 20% margin, but says unravelling the Murray-Darling Basin plan would carry “significant consequences”.Morrison campaigned in Farrer on Tuesday, despite its nominal safe-seat status, and was egged by a protestor in Albury. At his press conference on the hustings in the neighbouring seat of Indi – a seat the government is hopeful of taking back from an independent after the retirement of Cathy McGowan – the Liberal leader was at pains to praise Ley as “one of the most articulate and passionate spokespeople for rural and regional life in this country”. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Company pursues approvals based on original plans for 60m-tonne megamineAdani has refused to commit to the size of its “scaled-down” Carmichael coal project and is still pursuing final approvals based on plans for a 60m-tonne megamine in central Queensland.The Queensland government has confirmed that while Adani announced last year it intended to build a much smaller mine, the Indian company has filed no formal plans on that basis. Continue reading...

Department store says milestone has been achieved nine months ahead of targetSelfridges has become the first major UK retailer to make its own-brand foods completely free of palm oil, nine months ahead of its original target and as part of its long-term sustainable strategy.The upmarket department store is poised to announce that the nearly 300 products in its Selfridges Selection range on sale in its food halls – including chocolates and biscuits – are free of palm oil, along with its own-label cakes and mince pies for Christmas this year. Continue reading...

Just six of the 76 giant vessels worldwide are banned from operating in country’s watersAustralia’s ban on super-sized industrial fishing boats is far too narrow and places local fisheries under threat, environmentalists have said.A report released on Tuesday by the Australian Marine Conservation Society and Save Our Marine Life says just six of the 76 super trawlers worldwide are banned from operating in Australian waters. Continue reading...

Labor leader leaves open option of boosting wages for aged care workersBill Shorten has left open the option of boosting wages for aged care workers, saying the fact that Labor is supporting early childhood educators in this election “does not mean that we won’t work to help aged care work force in the future”.In a solo appearance on Q&A on Monday night, the Labor leader was asked why he was making a special case for subsidising the salaries of childcare workers, but not aged care workers. Continue reading...

After 20 years of arguments, the eradication plan that has split families and divided neighbours will finally go aheadFor the past few weeks little plastic boxes have been popping up on Lord Howe Island. By mid-May the boxes will be filled with poison-laced grain pellets as part of an ambitious attempt to eradicate rats and mice from the world heritage-listed island.They cover the island like a net, 2,400 points laid out at 10-metre intervals throughout the accessible, human-occupied areas and running along waterways. Continue reading...

Biggest cost of tree disease will be loss of benefits such as clean air and water, study findsAn invasive fungal disease killing ash trees will cost the British economy nearly £15bn, a study has found.Ash dieback, which is lethal to European ash trees, originated in Asia and is thought to have been brought to the UK on imported ash trees some years before it was first identified in Britain in 2012. Continue reading...

Ministers announce report on economic case for biodiversity, but activists insist actions, not studies, are neededThe British government has commissioned Sir Partha Dasgupta, a professor at Cambridge University, to write a report on the economic case for biodiversity as policymakers across the planet are urged to step up efforts to reverse the alarming decline of the natural world.Senior United Nations officials praised the announcement, which was made at the G7 environment ministers’ meeting at the weekend, and expressed hope it will lead to a biodiversity study that is as influential as the Stern review on the economics of climate change. Continue reading...

Environmentalists say Australia should be at the forefront of a global deal to save natureAustralia’s major political parties are facing calls to explain what role they will play in securing a global deal to save nature and the human populations reliant on it after a major scientific report warned a million species across the world face extinction.The first-of-its-kind assessment by an international scientific panel convened by the United Nations, known as the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, warns species are declining at a rate unprecedented in human history, with three-quarters of land-based environments and two-thirds of the marine environment significantly altered. Continue reading...

In the area closest to the local chemicals factory, residents face a cancer risk of 50 times the national average. So what’s in the air?St John the Baptist parish sits about 20 miles from New Orleans in southern Louisiana. Home to about 45,000 people, this predominantly black parish contains the US neighborhoods most at risk of cancer due to air toxicity, according to government science. The parish sits at the heart of a region sometimes described as “Cancer Alley” because of the pollution from a high concentration of petrochemical plants.Throughout the year, the Guardian will be reporting from St John and other places nearby. Here’s a rundown of the common questions on the science behind the health hazards in this corner of Louisiana. Continue reading...

Residents of the town on the banks of the Mississippi River have watched as family members and neighbors have been lost to cancer. Official figures show the risk of cancer from toxic air is 50 times higher in Reserve than the national average. Feeling neglected by politicians, they are fighting back against the chemical plant has been emitting chloroprene into the air for half a century Continue reading...

A small town, a chemical plant and the residents’ desperate fight for clean air Continue reading...

Long before Reserve, Louisiana was home to a chemical plant and riddled with cancer, it had suffered the violent deprivations of enslavementAt night the Pontchartrain Works lights up the horizon. During the day the tall scaffolding and plumes of emissions soar into the sky.The chemical plant has caused misery here for years. But the land on which it is built holds older and even darker secrets. It is a history, say some residents of Saint John the Baptist parish, which helps explain the pervasive racial and environmental inequality that persists to this day. Continue reading...

Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane have seen water levels hit near-decade lows after a hot summer and dry autumnSydney, Darwin, Brisbane and Melbourne are all facing the prospect of dams below 50% capacity after low rainfall and high temperatures across the country.In Sydney, inflows are at their lowest since 1940. Greater Sydney’s 11 dams were at a combined 55% capacity on Sunday – compared to 73% at the same time last year. Continue reading...

Photographer Matthew Newton travelled alongside the 5,000-strong protest against Adani’s proposed Carmichael coalmine, which left Hobart on 17 April before making its way to Clermont in central Queensland and on to Canberra, where it ended on 5 May. The former Greens leader Bob Brown lead the charge Continue reading...

Motorised traffic will be banned during Open Streets event on first Sunday of each monthRoads in the centre of Edinburgh were closed to traffic for the first time on Sunday as the city joined the Open Streets movement to reduce air pollution.Related: Amsterdam to ban petrol and diesel cars and motorbikes by 2030 Continue reading...

Centre Alliance says water resources ‘must be managed in the national interest’The Centre Alliance, which could hold or share the balance of power in the Senate after the election, has announced it will push for a referendum to give the commonwealth power over the Murray-Darling River system, in the wake of multiple scandals over enforcement and questions over spending of the $13bn allocated to the plan.Rex Patrick, who led a push by the Senate in the last parliament to make the Murray-Darling Basin plan more effective, says giving the federal government a clear mandate to make laws for rivers that flow through more than one state is now essential. Continue reading...

New teams and sponsors take heart as number of spectators more than doubles in a yearFormula E, the electric-powered racing series, has revealed that its pretax loss widened by 26.7% to £22.6m last year, giving it combined losses of £142.2m since it held its first race in 2014.Formula E Operations is based in London and its biggest shareholder is Virgin Media-owner Liberty Global which has a 23.9% stake. The series features cars that are powered by a 250kW motor giving them a top speed of 280kph (174mph). They are 25% slower than Formula One cars but, unlike their bigger siblings, they produce little noise and no emissions. Continue reading...

Structure of county’s hedges mean they do not get same protection as those elsewhereThe Cornish hedge – teeming with flora and fauna and one of the most beloved features of the landscape in the far south-west of Britain – is under threat from developers, conservationists are warning.Some Cornish hedges are believed to be more than 4,000 years old, making them among the oldest human-built structures in Britain. Continue reading...

Parents claim lack of pollution regulation at a new brownfield development in Southall is putting children’s health at risk

Experts warn numbers are collapsing as 300,000 are killed for sport every yearThe nation’s deep affection for the hare, once a common sight in fields, is recorded in prose, pub names and poetry. Writers including Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll and Ted Hughes have paid tribute to the UK’s fastest land mammal, while any English county will boast at least one pub with the word hare in its name. But now a failure to revive numbers after a century of decline from an estimated four million to under 800,000 has triggered moves to protect hares during their breeding season.Former agriculture minister George Eustice is introducing a private member’s bill that would make it illegal to shoot hares from February to September. “England and Wales are among the few remaining European countries that do not have a modern close season on shooting hares during their breeding season, which is a terrible oversight,” Eustice said. Continue reading...

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young says most South Australians do not want oil drilling in Great Australian BightHundreds of people have gathered on an Adelaide beach to protest against Norwegian energy giant Equinor’s plans to drill in the Great Australian Bight.Attending the Hands Across the Sand protest, Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young says the majority of South Australians don’t want any oil drilling in the Great Australian Bight. Continue reading...

Leader has been under pressure to make an election commitment to an overhaul flagged at Labor conferenceLabor will promise to overhaul environmental protection law and establish a National Environment Protection Authority, as Bill Shorten and Scott Morrison resume campaigning after the second leaders’ debate in Brisbane on Friday night.Green groups and the internal Labor environmental action group Lean have been pressing Labor to make a specific election commitment on the regulatory overhaul, which was first flagged by Shorten at last year’s national conference. Continue reading...

A running hare, fighting ponies and a cat that adopted orphan squirrels Continue reading...

‘We are in trouble if we don’t act,’ say experts, with up to 1m species at risk of annihilation

As Hinkley Point C, Britain’s biggest nuclear power plant, rises next door, Sam, 11, dreams of protecting the fish he identifies with. He believes the only way is to go a private school – but his parents can’t afford the offer. As a last resort, they turn to the power company for funding, forcing Sam to decide what kind of person he wants to be. Continue reading...

Diesel cars older than 15 years will be barred next year as first part of anti-pollution driveCars and motorbikes running on petrol or diesel will be banned from driving in Amsterdam from 2030.The city’s council plans to phase in the change as part of a drive to clean up air pollution, which the authorities blame for shortening the life expectancy of Amsterdammers by a year. Continue reading...

Report finds more than half of all sushi samples to be wrongly labelled as well as one-third of fresh fish and sashimiFraudulent mislabelling of seafood is rampant in South Korea, where one-third of samples in a comprehensive DNA study were found to be mis-sold.More than half of all sushi samples (53.9%) proved to be wrongly labelled, as did over one-third of fresh fish (38.9%) and sashimi (33.6%) samples, according to a report published this week by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF). Continue reading...

Ruling should clarify impact on environment of chemicals plants backed by Jim RatcliffeBritain’s richest man, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, and his chemicals company Ineos are facing a backlash over plans to build two chemical plants in Antwerp after a Flanders transparency watchdog ruled that key documents may have to be disclosed.The Brexit-backing billionaire announced in January that Ineos would invest €3bn (£2.6bn) in two plants at the port of Antwerp. Ratcliffe, the founder and chief executive of the petrochemicals company, said the investment was “the largest of its kind in Europe in more than a generation”. Continue reading...

California program will add an optional 1% surcharge to diners’ checks to help fight climate changeDining out isn’t the most eco-friendly activity, thanks to the carbon footprint of food brought in and the waste inherent in running a restaurant. Now, an effort by California restaurants wants diners to help fight climate change – by paying more.Concerned eateries can join the Restore California Renewable Restaurant Program and add an optional 1% surcharge to diners’ checks. The money will go towards a public fund to help farmers reduce carbon in their food production practices. Continue reading...

Environmental groups oppose loosening Obama-era regulations as Trump pushes to expand offshore drillingThe Trump administration on Thursday moved to ease safety regulations adopted after the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon blowout, the worst offshore oil disaster in US history that killed nearly a dozen people and caused massive pollution.David Bernhardt, the interior secretary, said in a statement the administration was acting to eliminate “unnecessary regulatory burdens while maintaining safety and environmental protection offshore”. Continue reading...

Only a few Republicans crossed party lines to vote for the measure, which Mitch McConnell said will ‘go nowhere’Democrats on Thursday passed their first significant climate change legislation since gaining control of the House of Representatives this year, directing Donald Trump to remain in the landmark international agreement to limit the pollution that is heating the world.The measure would not directly reduce the greenhouse gases causing worse heatwaves, droughts, wildfires and storms. It falls far short of the action scientists say is needed and the vision outlined by progressives and supported by many Democrat presidential candidates in the Green New Deal. Continue reading...

As experts fear for its survival, Tufjord residents told not to feed beluga so that it can learn to forageA beluga whale that may – or may not – have been trained to spy for Russia appears to have defected to Norway, refusing to stray more than a few miles from the small northern harbour where it was found on Monday and entertaining locals with tricks.“He’s so comfortable with people that when you call him he comes right up to you,” Linn Sæther, a resident of Tufjord on the Arctic island of Rolvsøya, told Norwegian public broadcaster NRK, which has launched a poll to find a name for the mammal. Continue reading...

Government advisers have explained how to erase the nation’s carbon footprint. Science dictates that we do it as fast as we canBy the end of this year we should expect UK law to mandate net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Thursday’s report by the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), which advises the government, sets out not only why this new target is needed, but how it can be achieved. Last year the UN warned of greatly increased dangers if countries do not stick to the lower end of the 1.5-2C of global warming mandated by the Paris agreement. Experts highlighted sea level rises and risks to insect and coral species among problems likely to be seriously exacerbated by an additional 0.5C rise.This is the reason for governments to set new, tougher targets in advance of upcoming UN climate talks, at which they will be held to account and forced to decide what happens next. At the same time, dramatic falls in the cost of renewable energy and battery storage mean that cutting emissions has become cheaper. The CCC believes it is possible to eliminate the UK’s carbon footprint altogether without investing more than already planned: that is, between 1% and 2% of GDP. So there is some good news, along with the bad. Continue reading...

Cycling team Ineos face vocal anti-fracking protesters at start of Tour de YorkshireAcross the Channel, the riders of Team Sky had become used to abuse – they were spat on, lashed out at and even forced to dodge the odd bottle of urine. After winning six out of the last seven editions of the Tour de France amid a series of (never proven) doping allegations, they won over few French fans.But on home turf, Team Sky were usually guaranteed a warm reception – particularly at the Tour de Yorkshire, the brutal four-day stage race that grew out of 2014’s wildly successful Yorkshire Grand Départ. Continue reading...

Nicola Sturgeon signals willingness to step up efforts to reduce carbon emissionsNicola Sturgeon has confirmed the Scottish government will rethink plans to cut air travel taxes after agreeing to reduce carbon emissions to zero by 2045.The first minister said Scotland needed to dramatically step up its efforts after she accepted a target from the UK Committee on Climate Change (CCC) to set a tougher goal of net-zero emissions over the next 25 years. Continue reading...

Mark Carney is giving a press conference after leaving UK interest rates on hold, as protesters urge action on climate change

It is our duty as a generation to push against the limits of the possible and protect as many lives as we can from disasters that can be preventedWhen Beto O’Rourke launched his presidential campaign, I was impressed. On multiple occasions, including as recently as April, O’Rourke backed calls to effectively zero out all domestic emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause climate change by 2030, and said we’re screwed if we aim for anything less.On Monday, he shifted the goalposts back. He released a detailed climate plan, his first policy proposal of his campaign. There’s a lot to like. He pledged to make climate action a day one priority and included an expansion of resources for climate resiliency and adaptation. But he also pushed back the timeline to achieve net-zero emissions to 2050. Our movement was sad to see him let up on his ambition as he rolled out the specifics, before we even give it a try. Continue reading...

New development minister mounts staunch defence of 0.7% commitment and says DfID will keep spending on climate changeRory Stewart, the new secretary of state for international development, has reiterated his support for the government’s commitment to spend 0.7% of national income on overseas aid.Stewart, the former prisons minister, who was appointed to his new role on Wednesday night after Penny Mordaunt replaced the sacked Gavin Williamson as defence minister, also pledged to put climate change at the heart of his work. Continue reading...

No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference is being published in June, with a family memoir due to come later in 2019The collected speeches of 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, who began the worldwide school strike for the environment in 2018, will be released as a book next month.Penguin, which is also rushing out a handbook from Extinction Rebellion, will publish No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference, a selection of 11 of Thunberg’s key speeches, all written by her. It will be published on 6 June as a £2.99 paperback. The first speech in the book was given three weeks after Thunberg’s first climate strike in August 2018, the most recent in the UK parliament last month. Continue reading...

Nine-year-old from London died after asthma attack possibly linked to pollutionThe high court has granted a fresh inquest into the death of a schoolgirl who died of an asthma attack linked to illegal levels of air pollution near her south London home.The mother of Ella Kissi-Debrah has been fighting for a new hearing to consider whether and how air pollution contributed to the nine-year-old’s death. Continue reading...

Former PM engages in lively exchange of views with his independent rival for the seat of Warringah. This blog has now closed

Emission of greenhouse gases has fallen, but environmental issues are still ‘an emergency’• ‘Do it now’: UK told to set zero-carbon target for 2050