Environment | The Guardian

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...

A tech revolution – and an abundance of wind and waves – mean that the people of Orkney now produce more electricity than they can useIt seems the stuff of fantasy. Giant ships sail the seas burning fuel that has been extracted from water using energy provided by the winds, waves and tides. A dramatic but implausible notion, surely. Yet this grand green vision could soon be realised thanks to a remarkable technological transformation that is now under way in Orkney.Perched 10 miles beyond the northern edge of the British mainland, this archipelago of around 20 populated islands – as well as a smattering of uninhabited reefs and islets – has become the centre of a revolution in the way electricity is generated. Orkney was once utterly dependent on power that was produced by burning coal and gas on the Scottish mainland and then transmitted through an undersea cable. Today the islands are so festooned with wind turbines, they cannot find enough uses for the emission-free power they create on their own. Continue reading...

Projects from gravitational wave detection to viewing the Milky Way and generating thermonuclear power march aheadCern has announced plans for a Future Circular Collider. The £17.8bn machine would smash particles together inside a 62-mile tunnel – four times the size of the Large Hadron Collider. If funding can be secured, scientists hope the machine would be operational by the 2050s. Continue reading...

Ministers must act quickly to make up for the firm’s decision to axe its Wylfa nuclear power plantBy any standards, last week’s decision by Hitachi to end construction of its £20bn nuclear power plant at Wylfa in Wales was a major blow to Britain’s prospects of creating an effective energy policy for the 21st century. The move follows a withdrawal by Toshiba from the construction of a similar project in Cumbria last year and leaves Britain struggling to find ways to generate electricity for a low-carbon future.Together, these nuclear plants would have generated 15% of Britain’s electricity – without emitting carbon dioxide. Now the government faces serious questions about how its electricity pricing policies scuppered these two key pieces of UK infrastructure. More importantly, the nation needs to know, very quickly, how ministers intend to make up for this lost capacity. Given the tepid nature of previous plans and continual changes made to energy policies, success is not guaranteed. Continue reading...

Scientists say a drastic cut in meat consumption is needed, but this requires political willIt has been known for a while that the amount of animal products being eaten is bad for both the welfare of animals and the environment. People cannot consume 12.9bn eggs in the UK each year without breaking a few.But the extent of the damage, and the amount by which people need to cut back, is now becoming clearer. On Wednesday, the Lancet medical journal published a study that calls for dramatic changes to food production and the human diet, in order to avoid “catastrophic damage to the planet”. Continue reading...

Satellite images show glaciers in US and Canada, excluding Alaska, are shrinking four times faster than in previous decade

Ocean Ramsey, a shark researcher, came face-to-face with what could be one of the largest great whites ever recordedTwo shark researchers who came face to face with what could be one of the largest great whites ever recorded are using their encounter as an opportunity to push for legislation that would protect sharks in Hawaii.Ocean Ramsey, a shark researcher and conservationist, told the Associated Press that she encountered the 20ft (6-metre) shark on Tuesday near a dead sperm whale off Oahu. The event was documented and shared on social media by her fiance and business partner, Juan Oliphant. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Australia Institute calls for inquiry similar to royal commission and greater MDBA transparencyThe crisis on the Lower Darling, which has seen up to 1 million fish die, is largely due to the decisions by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority on instructions from the New South Wales government, a report by the Australia Institute finds.It says the reasons for those decisions appear to be about building the case for the new Broken Hill pipeline and the Menindee Lakes project, which will see the lakes shrink and “save” water by reducing evaporation. Continue reading...

Puerto Rican parrots, a tufted duck and a giant panda feature in this week’s gallery Continue reading...

Firms say 800 renewable projects ready to plug gap left after Wylfa nuclear plant scrappedMinisters have been urged to drop their block on subsidies for onshore windfarms, as industry figures showed that nearly 800 renewable projects are ready to plug much of the power gap left by the abandonment of the Wylfa nuclear project.Related: Hitachi scraps £16bn nuclear power station in Wales Continue reading...

Readers respond to news that Hitachi has pulled out of the proposed Wylva nuclear power plant in AngleseyThe pulling out of Hitachi from the proposed Wylva nuclear power plant is a good thing for energy policy – not a serious blow as said in the article (Hitachi scraps £16bn nuclear power station in Wales, 18 January). Nuclear power is now one of the most expensive form of electricity there is. But beyond the economics, it no longer fits with the digitalising world that we live in. The global energy system is undergoing change similar to that in telecoms and computers over the last few decades. The energy system is becoming smarter and more flexible and it is on the path to being operated in a completely different way than hitherto because of that.Nuclear – with its huge, inflexible output – is the equivalent of a giant boulder in the middle of a motorway. We, the energy customers of Britain, would have ended up paying way over the odds for Wylva, which would have also undermined the UK’s move to a smart and flexible system – which really is the future. We are already going to do that for Hinkley Point C. Continue reading...

Two missing Humboldts were found this week in Strelley Village after a tipoffTwo penguins have been found by police officers two months after they were stolen.The pair of Humboldt penguins were taken in November last year from a zoo in Nottinghamshire. Continue reading...

Products withdrawn because of serious contamination are on the rise, report findsThe number of meat and poultry products recalled in the US for potentially life-threatening health hazards has nearly doubled since 2013, according to a report by a consumer watchdog group.The US Department of Agriculture logged 97 meat recalls for serious health hazards in 2018, ranging from 12 million pounds of raw beef that made close to 250 people ill with salmonella to the withdrawal of 174,000 pounds of chicken wraps for possible contamination with listeria. Continue reading...

Vedanta Resources in fresh appeal to have water contamination claim brought by 1,800 people heard in ZambiaA British mining company has appealed to the supreme court to prevent 1,800 Zambian villagers bringing a pollution case involving its subsidiary from being tried in the UK.Lawyers for Vedanta Resources told Britain’s highest court that the case – brought by villagers who allege that their land and livelihoods were destroyed by water contamination from Vedanta-owned Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) – should be heard in Zambia instead. Continue reading...