Worldwide commission aims to end energy poverty in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia by driving investment in new technologyElectricity could be delivered to more than a billion people currently living without it within a decade by linking up small-scale projects into a giant, environmentally-friendly network.According to a new global commission, advances in micro energy grids and renewable energy technologies could “dramatically accelerate change” and transform lives in rural areas of sub-Saharan African and south Asia. Continue reading...

Exclusive: independent review will add to disagreements between Liberals and Nationals over environmental issuesA highly secret government-commissioned review into skyrocketing rates of clearing of native vegetation for farming in New South Wales has been completed and is likely to add to simmering tensions between the Liberals and Nationals within cabinet.The review, which was triggered when land clearing exceeded 20,000 hectares in less than a year, has been undertaken by the NSW Natural Resources Commission, an independent body, and is soon to be considered by cabinet. Continue reading...

Telethon asking viewers to give £2.4m for forests project to help tackle climate crisisPeople in Denmark will be able to “plant trees” from the comfort of their sofa in what is believed to be the world’s first TV fundraiser for forests.On Saturday the national broadcaster TV2 will air Denmark Plants Trees, a two-and-a-half hour live benefit event which will ask viewers to donate funds to plant 1m trees across the country. Continue reading...

Paul Thomas Anderson’s tragic parable of society’s addiction to oil, fuelled by a zealous Daniel Day-Lewis, is a burning indictment of male aggression and an apocalyptic warningThe title is a prophecy, a warning, or a vengeful supernatural pronouncement. Paul Thomas Anderson’s strange masterpiece, freely adapted by him from Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel Oil!, is a tragic parable of man’s dependence on this commodity: formerly the lubricant of commercial triumph and technological innovation, and now the dwindling lifeblood of our material prosperity, the unacknowledged driving force of our military conflicts, and even the cause of a coming ecological catastrophe. That dark title threatens a calamity now visible on the horizon: destruction of the Earth itself. And it is all inscribed in the story of the movie’s leading character, a man with the Bunyanesque name of Daniel Plainview.Related: 'An account of how insane we once were' – Paul Thomas Anderson on There Will Be Blood Continue reading...

Numbers of top five species up on last year while small tortoiseshell moves northIt has been a painted lady summer. Nearly half a million of the migratory creatures were counted in British parks and gardens as part of the biggest butterfly survey in the world.The painted lady topped the charts of the annual Big Butterfly Count with 420,841 recorded during high summer after their first big influx on British shores in a decade. Continue reading...

Wall will traverse the entirety of the southern edge of the Organ Pipe Cactus national monument, one of the most biologically diverse regions in the USConstruction of a 30ft-high section of Donald Trump’s border barrier has begun in the Organ Pipe Cactus national monument in southern Arizona, a federally protected wilderness area and Unesco-recognized international biosphere reserve.In the face of protests by environmental groups, the wall will traverse the entirety of the southern edge of the monument. It is part of the 175 miles of barrier expansion along the US-Mexico border being funded by the controversial diversion of $3.6bn from military construction projects. Continue reading...

The Bureau of Land Management will offer leases to the 1.6m-acre coastal plain which is home to threatened polar bearsThe Trump administration is finalizing plans to allow oil and gas drilling in a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that has been protected for decades.The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will offer leases on essentially the entire 1.6m-acre coastal plain, which includes places where threatened polar bears have dens and porcupine caribou visit for calving. Drilling operations are expected to be problematic for Indigenous populations, many of which rely on subsistence hunting and fishing. Continue reading...

Environmental advocates say millions will be left with less safe drinking water as activists plan court challengeThe Trump administration has revoked an Obama-era regulation that shielded many US wetlands and streams from pollution but was opposed by developers and farmers who said it hurt economic development and infringed on property rights.Environmental groups criticized the administration’s action on Thursday, the latest in a series of moves to roll back environmental protections put into place when Barack Obama was president. Continue reading...

High levels of mercury and banned industrial fluids, found in blubber and skin, can impact reproductionBottlenose dolphins in the Channel have been found to carry a “toxic cocktail” of chemicals in their bodies, some of which have been banned for decades and which may be harming the marine mammals’ health, scientists have said.Belgian and French scientists said they detected high accumulations of industrial fluids and mercury in the blubber and skin of dolphins in the waters off the north-west coast of France. Continue reading...

The planet has gone too far, says CEO Marco Bizzarri, as he outlines greener strategyAs the fashion industry continues to address its role in the climate crisis, Italy’s most valuable luxury brand has said it has become an entirely carbon neutral company.Gucci outlined its strategy on Thursday, which stretches from its supply chain to its fashion shows and comprises a mixture of reduction, elimination and offsetting what it calls “unavoidable emissions”. Continue reading...

West Africa and Congo basin are hotspots for forest loss but receive lower global attention

Chance of ending deforestation by 2030 seems lower than when pledge was made five years ago

Government agrees to examine impact of shooting industry’s release of 50m non-native birdsThe annual release of more than 50 million non-native game birds into the countryside with no environmental assessment is to be reviewed by the government after campaigners announced a legal challenge.Chris Packham, Mark Avery and Ruth Tingay, of the campaign group Wild Justice, argued that the massive and unregulated increase in the number of pheasants and red-legged partridges put into the British countryside for shooting each year – up from 4 million in the early 1970s – contravened the EU habitats directive. Continue reading...

David Littleproud’s comments to parliament entirely at odds with earlier statement to Guardian AustraliaAustralia’s minister responsible for drought and natural disasters, David Littleproud, now says he accepts the science on manmade climate change, and “[I] always have”.Littleproud’s comments to the House of Representatives on Thursday were entirely at odds with a written statement he made to Guardian Australia on Tuesday. In response to questions, Littleproud said: “I don’t know if climate change is man-made.” Continue reading...

Clean Up Britain patron criticises ‘utterly useless’ ministers and ‘even more useless’ Keep Britain TidyBritain is a nation of litter louts and government efforts to tackle “the soul-destroying problem” are “utterly useless”, according to Jeremy Paxman, patron of the Clean Up Britain group.Polluters, such as the makers of chewing gum and cigarettes, should be made to pay for a national campaign to change peoples’ behaviour, he will tell the UK’s largest waste and recycling conference on Thursday. The aim is to make littering as unacceptable as drunk driving, he says. Continue reading...

Shinjiro Koizumi says: ‘We will be doomed if we allow another accident to occur’Japan’s new environment minister has called for the country’s nuclear reactors to be scrapped to prevent a repeat of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.Shinjiro Koizumi’s comments, made hours after he became Japan’s third-youngest cabinet minister since the war, could set him on a collision course with Japan’s pro-nuclear prime minister, Shinzo Abe. Continue reading...

Committee says UK should reduce use of plastics rather than replace it with other materialsCompostable and biodegradable plastics could add to marine pollution because there is no infrastructure in place to make sure they break down correctly, a committee of MPs has warned.The use of alternatives to plastic are being adopted by many food and drink companies, takeaway coffee venues, cafes and retailers. But experts giving evidence to MPs on the environment, food and rural affairs committee said the infrastructure required to deal with the new packaging was not in place and there was a lack of consumer understanding about these alternatives. Continue reading...

Indonesia environment minister says smog is also from fires in Malaysia and VietnamIndonesia has shot back at claims the country is solely responsible for the fires that have created a thick haze across parts of Malaysia this week and forced the closure of hundreds of schools.“The Indonesian government has been systematically trying to resolve this to the best of its ability. Not all smog is from Indonesia,” said Indonesia’s environment minister, Siti Nurbaya Bakar, in a statement on Wednesday, in a rebuke of its neighbour. Continue reading...

Calls for world-class recycling systems to replace current one, which makes just $4m a year due to contamination in co-mingled recycling binsIf Australia treated recycling waste like iron ore or coal the nation could be $300m better off each year, a report has found.Instead, Australia makes just $4m a year from recycling due to high levels of contamination in co-mingled recycling bins. Continue reading...

Finding could have implications for farming - as worms are vital part of farmland ecosystemWorms fail to thrive in earth containing microplastics, new research has shown, adding to the growing body of evidence of impacts from the increasingly widespread contaminants on the natural world.The rosy-tipped earthworm, Aporrectodea rosea, is one of the most common found in farmland in temperate regions. Scientists found that worms placed in soil loaded with high density polyethylene (HDPE) – a common plastic used for bags and bottles – for 30 days lost about 3% of their body weight, compared with a control sample of similar worms placed in similar soil without HDPE, which put on 5% in body weight over the same period. Continue reading...

Exclusive: PM has signalled Australia isn’t making any new emissions reduction targets, at least at this pointScott Morrison will not attend the UN climate action summit despite him being in America to visit the Trump administration at the time – deploying the foreign minister, Marise Payne, and the Australian ambassador for the environment, Patrick Suckling, instead.Guardian Australia understands speaking slots at the event in New York on 23 September were reserved for countries announcing new emissions reduction targets or financial commitments to the UN Green Climate Fund – and Morrison has been signalling Australia won’t be going further, at least at this point, than commitments previously announced. Continue reading...

Labor tells clean energy sector it should celebrate reaching 33,000 GWh target despite ‘full frontal assault’ by CoalitionAngus Taylor has defended the government’s record on renewable energy as Labor and the Greens ambushed the minister over a sudden drop in investment in clean energy.Labor’s climate spokesman, Mark Butler, told a Clean Energy Council gathering in Canberra the sector had withstood a “full frontal assault” from the Coalition and “some in the media”, while the Greens leader, Richard Di Natale, said the current investment cliff was “no accident” but a deliberate policy of the government. Continue reading...

Azincourt | Geoffrey Boycott | Strawberries | Steam trains | Coffee ordersI think Prof Valentine Cunningham might be wrong about Agincourt being a medieval trooper’s mishearing of Azincourt (Letters, 7 September). I believe it was actually a spelling error; some medieval scribe mistook the letter Z for the letter yogh (a version of G). The opposite occurs in the name McKenzie, which is really McKengie, similar to Menzies, pronounced “Mingies”.

Ministers approve culling in 11 new areas, with 64,000 animals likely to be killed this autumnThe controversial badger cull in England has been expanded to an “unimaginable scale”, according to a leading expert who warned the government is paying far too little attention to the transmission of tuberculosis between cattle when they are traded.Ministers approved culling in 11 new areas on Wednesday, taking the total to 43. Up to 64,000 animals are likely to be killed this autumn, up from a maximum of 42,000 last year. Continue reading...

Commander says pre-emptive action may be taken against group to prevent flight delaysThe police commander in charge of policing drone protests intended to shut down Heathrow airport has said his officers will take any opportunity to pre-emptively stop activists from causing disruption to flights.Activists from Heathrow Pause, a splinter of the environmental protest group Extinction Rebellion, have vowed to shut down the London airport on Friday morning by flying small drones within the 5km exclusion zone. Continue reading...

WWF conservationists say marine wildlife sanctuaries are failing to protect the seasEurope’s marine wildlife sanctuaries are no more than “paper parks” that are failing to protect the seas, a report from conservationists has said.European seas, from the North East Atlantic ocean to the Adriatic, are in a “poor condition”, with coastal states failing to meet targets to protect marine wildlife, a report by WWF has concluded. Continue reading...

Anthony Albanese grills PM on wages growth being lower than forecast. Plus John Hewson says Liberals have ‘lost their roots’ on climate9.00am BSTWith Wednesday having delivered the visual of the deputy prime minister throwing his John Deere out of the cot, we are going to call it a night and await, feverishly, what Thursday will deliver.Will Michael McCormack remain spicy, or return to a more stale ham sandwich sort of vibe?8.51am BSTJust a quick note on the Coalition’s proposed integrity commission.The shadow attorney-general, Mark Dreyfus, today criticised the government for its lack of progress on establishing a federal integrity commission, something it promised to do in late 2018. Continue reading...

Liz Truss made women and equalities minister and Zac Goldsmith handed cabinet seat

Motions going forward to this month’s party conference include a four-day week and the abolition of private schools

Exclusive: An investigation is under way after cattle were allegedly sold illegally outside supply chainThe Department of Agriculture is investigating a live export company after it received footage showing Australian cattle being pulled to the ground with ropes and slaughtered without being stunned in a carpark underneath an Indonesian mosque.International Livestock Exports has suspended all supply to one of its Indonesian abattoirs over the breach, which was reported to the department by Animals Australia. Continue reading...

Unions give backing to 20 September day of action while NGO asks head teachers to back global protestsThe Trades Union Congress (TUC) has urged members to support student climate strikers on 20 September as Amnesty International called on head teachers worldwide to back their global protests.At the their annual conference in Brighton, a proposal by the University and College Union (UCU) originally asked the TUC to call for millions of workers to stop work for half an hour, aimed at shifting government complacency over the climate crisis. Continue reading...

COP26 meeting in Glasgow in 2020 will determine future course of efforts to avert crisis

Before the meeting an official asked about the Taylor company being investigated for alleged illegal land clearingDepartment of the environment officials were acutely sensitive about meeting Angus Taylor over critically endangered grasslands while his family’s company was being investigated for alleged illegal land clearing in New South Wales, according to internal emails.The information is revealed in correspondence that had previously been partially redacted from documents obtained by Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws in June this year. Continue reading...

The former Liberal leader is championing crossbench bill and argues ‘it was an emergency 30 years ago’The former Liberal leader John Hewson has called on Scott Morrison to grant government MPs a conscience vote on a new parliamentary motion declaring a climate emergency.Hewson, who will join MPs on Wednesday to champion the new parliamentary motion which is being pursued by the Greens and is supported by most of the lower house crossbench, told Guardian Australia there was no controversy associated with declaring a climate emergency in 2019, “because my view is it was an emergency 30 years ago”. Continue reading...

Emissions rose 20-30% in Paris when temperatures topped 30C, raising urgent questions as the climate gets hotterEmissions from diesel cars – even newer and supposedly cleaner models – increase on hot days, a new study has found, raising questions over how cities suffering from air pollution can deal with urban heat islands and the climate crisis.Research in Paris by The Real Urban Emissions (True) initiative found that diesel car emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) rose by 20% to 30% when temperatures topped 30C – a common event this summer. Continue reading...

Report predicts radical scheme could cut air pollution by a quarter as other cities including Seattle prepare to follow suitBarcelona could save hundreds of lives and cut air pollution by a quarter if it fully implements its radical superblocks scheme to reduce traffic, a new report claims.A study carried out by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health calculates that the city could prevent 667 premature deaths every year if it created all 503 superblocks envisaged in its initial plan – up from the current six schemes. Continue reading...

Environmental activists demonstrate outside Cuadrilla’s Preston New Road siteExtinction Rebellion has blocked the entrance to the UK’s only active fracking site in a demonstration against what it called the “burgeoning catastrophe” of global warming.Protesters from the environmental group gathered outside the shale gas site on Preston New Road, near Blackpool, on Tuesday morning alongside a yellow boat bearing the words: “Planet before profit”. Continue reading...

Letetia Anne Ware imported garlic bulbs that were potential carriers of devastating plant pathogenA Tasmanian farmer has been given an 11-month jail sentence for illegally importing garlic bulbs that could have put Australia’s agricultural sector at risk.The farmer and former chair of the Australian Garlic Industry Association Letetia Anne Ware, 53, imported almost 2,200 garlic bulbs from the US and Canada. Continue reading...

More than a million tonnes of contaminated water lies in storage but power company says it will run out of space by 2022The operator of the ruined Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant will have to dump huge quantities of contaminated water from the site directly into the Pacific Ocean, Japan’s environment minister has said – a move that would enrage local fishermen.More than 1 million tonnes of contaminated water has accumulated at the plant since it was struck by a tsunami in March 2011, triggering a triple meltdown that forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of residents. Continue reading...

Study finds breakdown in annual spawning synchrony in Red Sea, threatening some species with extinctionIt has been described by scientists as “the greatest orgy in the world”; an annual gamete-fest, where entire colonies of coral reefs release their sperm and eggs simultaneously in a slick on the ocean surface that has been seen from space. But now scientists fear the climate crisis may be disrupting the ability of corals to synchronise this marine phenomenon, threatening them with extinction.A Tel Aviv university study, published in Science, has found the release of eggs and sperm in certain reef-building corals in the Gulf of Eilat in the Red Sea have changed over time and have lost their synchronicity. For a coral, reliant on a chance encounter, timing is everything. But researchers have found some are spawning “out of tune” with normal patterns, with the result that fewer baby corals are forming. Continue reading...

Minister tells Guardian he is unsure of causes of crisis, saying he wants farmers to have tools to adapt to changeAustralia’s minister responsible for drought and natural disasters, David Littleproud, has said that he doesn’t “know if climate change is manmade”.Clarifying earlier comments that the question is “irrelevant” when considering the Coalition government’s response to intensifying bushfires, he told Guardian Australia he was unsure about the causes of the climate crisis but wanted to give the country the tools to adapt. Continue reading...

NFU says growing fuel for power stations and capturing CO can slash emissions

Trillions of dollars needed to avoid ‘climate apartheid’ but this is less than cost of inactionThe world’s readiness for the inevitable effects of the climate crisis is “gravely insufficient”, according to a report from global leaders.This lack of preparedness will result in poverty, water shortages and levels of migration soaring, with an “irrefutable toll on human life”, the report warns. Continue reading...

Operators ask government for national strategy to encourage more people to use busesBus operators have pledged to buy only ultra-low or zero-emission vehicles from 2025 as they called on the government to outline a national strategy to encourage more people to use buses.The Confederation of Passenger Transport, which represents most bus operators in the UK including the big five firms – Arriva, FirstGroup, Go Ahead, National Express and Stagecoach – said it wanted lower fares for jobseekers and apprentices, smart ticketing and innovative, sustainable solutions for rural areas, where bus services have been hit particularly hard. Continue reading...

Two trees infected with subspecies of Xylella fastidiosa that killed 1m trees in ItalyA deadly disease estimated to have killed a million olive trees in Italy has spread to France.The French agriculture ministry announced the discovery of the bacterium Xylella fastidiosa, known as olive tree leprosy, on two trees in the south of the country and said the infected trees would be destroyed to stop it spreading. Continue reading...

A 2,000km road and river odyssey in Brazil reveals consensus from all sides: Bolsonaro has ushered in a new age of wreckingFrom afar, it resembles a tornado: an immense grey column shooting thousands of feet upwards from the forest canopy into the Amazonian skies.Up close it is an inferno: a raging conflagration obliterating yet another stretch of the world’s greatest rainforest as a herd of Nelore cattle looks on in bewilderment. Continue reading...

There are doubts the Noah’s Ark plan for the Lower Darling will be enough to prevent more mass fish killsFaced with a looming ferocious summer with little rain forecast, the New South Wales government has embarked on a Noah’s Ark type operation to move native fish from the Lower Darling – part of Australia’s most significant river system – to safe havens before high temperatures return to the already stressed river basin.Researchers have warned of other alarming ecological signs that the Lower Darling River – part of the giant Murray-Darling Basin – is in a dire state, following last summer’s mass fish kills. Continue reading...