Nation is a leader in capturing tidal and wave energy, but companies are starting to leave due to lack of government supportBritain is throwing away its opportunity to rule the global wave and tidal energy sector due to lack of government support, a series of leading developers have told the Guardian.

James Hansen, who gave a climate warning in 1988 Senate testimony, says real hoax is by leaders claiming to take actionThirty years after a former Nasa scientist sounded the alarm for the general public about climate change and human activity, the expert issued a fresh warning that the world is failing “miserably” to deal with the worsening dangers.While Donald Trump and many conservatives like to argue that climate change is a hoax, James Hansen, the 77-year-old former Nasa climate scientist, said in an interview at his home in New York that the relevant hoax today is perpetrated by those leaders claiming to be addressing the problem. Continue reading...

Claxton, Norfolk: Two plants make completely separate responses to the sun and draw an array of flying insectsAt this time of year I love to watch the sun-oriented movement of my garden. By this I mean the way in which our oxeye daisies and cat’s-ear flowers turn in relation to the same source.In what you might call their dormant state, at about 8am – when the day is bright but temperature neutral – the flowers of both, as well as most of my yellow rattle blooms, are all pretty much oriented north-east. Then, as the day fires up, the daisies and cat’s-ears drop their heads and tilt due east the better to catch the light. Continue reading...

Western ground parrot needs millions spent on it, but volunteers say Coalition is trying to shift costs to not-for-profitsThe Turnbull government helped broker a $200,000 agreement for a German not-for-profit to fund conservation work for a critically endangered Australian parrot, bolstering criticism it is shifting the cost of protecting threatened species to community and philanthropic organisations.The western ground parrot is one of only three ground nesting parrots found in Australia and is one of 20 birds the government has committed to helping as part of its threatened species strategy. Continue reading...

Short answer: maybe

Government directive means trustees will be able to push harder for green investmentsManagers of the £1.5tn invested in Britain’sworkplace pension schemes are to be given new powers to dump shares in oil, gas and coal companies in favour of long-term investment in green and “social impact” opportunities.

Climate change study predicts ‘staggering impact’ of swelling oceans on coastal communities within next 30 yearsSea level rise driven by climate change is set to pose an existential crisis to many US coastal communities, with new research finding that as many as 311,000 homes face being flooded every two weeks within the next 30 years.The swelling oceans are forecast repeatedly to soak coastal residences collectively worth $120bn by 2045 if greenhouse gas emissions are not severely curtailed, experts warn. This will potentially inflict a huge financial and emotional toll on the half a million Americans who live in the properties at risk of having their basements, backyards, garages or living rooms inundated every other week. Continue reading...

Retailer offers incentive to send back worn and unwanted items instead of binning themJohn Lewis is to buy back worn and unwanted clothing from its customers – including underwear and old socks – in a UK industry first that aims to reduce the 300,000 tonnes of fashion waste going into landfill each year.Customers can arrange through an app to have any unwanted clothing that they bought from John Lewis collected from their home, and they will be paid for each item regardless of its condition.

Chanonry Point, Moray Firth: These cetaceans kill their porpoise cousins. Do they see them as competition for food? Or are they just killing for sport?There are occasions when nature shatters our cosy assumptions. Last week we were watching the bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) on the Moray Firth, much loved by tourists because they come so close to shore. They flip and leap, roll and dive, singly or in pods of a dozen or more, only a few yards from camera-clicking visitors thronging the shingle spit.The dolphins gather in the Chanonry narrows to feast on salmon migrating upstream to spawn. We often see salmon being flung high in the air and swallowed whole. A feeding spectacle. We know dolphins eat fish and we are comfortable with it. But what we witnessed in front of our lenses that day spun us into shock. Forget film-star Flipper, forget frolicking Fungie in Dingle Bay, forget chummy Sebastian in Disney’s Shark Tale – these Moray Firth dolphins are killers. Continue reading...

Sir David Attenborough to tour new premises that showcase the extinct moa bird’s feathersWhen Sir David Attenborough opens the University of Cambridge’s zoology museum this week, the proud curators will show him their fabulous discovery.It’s fair to say the casual visitor might wonder why they are so excited by the scruffy frame containing a few cobwebby grey-brown wisps, discovered during a £4.1m redevelopment of the museum. Continue reading...

The NT government has lifted its fracking moratorium despite fierce opposition, reflecting the war of attrition being waged by gas companies• An unconventional gas boom: the rise of CSG in AustraliaWhen the Northern Territory government announced a moratorium on fracking in 2016, it was a victory for those fighting the expansion of the unconventional gas industry.

New report says Australian companies lag behind international organisationsAustralian companies are not doing enough work to model the risks of climate change and how it will affect their profitability, a new report by a thinktank says.Progressive thinktank the Centre for Policy Development says that while most companies have committed to considering what climate change and the Paris climate agreement means for their business strategy, too few have begun using scenario analysis techniques to model what its impacts could be and how to respond to it. Continue reading...

In two decades coal seam gas has come to account for 30% of gas production. Here’s how the picture varies state to state• ‘Not safe, not wanted’: is the end of NT fracking ban a taste of things to come? Australia’s production of coal seam gas has risen exponentially since 1995, going from zero to 30% of the country’s overall gas production in 2015-16. Continue reading...

Firm hopes to better conventional batteries to store renewably generated powerA chemical compound commonly used to boost crop yields could be the answer to helping the world increase its consumption of renewable energy.In a world first, Siemens is opening a £1.5m pilot project in Oxfordshire employing ammonia as a new form of energy storage. Continue reading...

In nearly 30 years, a bunch of surfers concerned about pollution have become a serious marine conservation force. An unexpected royal patronage has given them more funding and greater reach than ever to fight plastic pollutionDespite its eye-catching name, Surfers Against Sewage probably owes its existence to plastic. “The advent of panty-liners meant you could really see sewage slicks. Condoms, panty-liners and other plastic refuse made for a visceral, and visual, reminder of pollution,” Chris Hines, surfer and co-founder of this small charity in Cornwall, recalled in Alex Wade’s book, Surf Nation.Sick of ear, throat and gastric infections, he and others called a meeting in St Agnes village hall. A who’s who of the most committed, passionate surfers in Cornwall – and just about the whole village – turned out. It was 1990 and Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) was born. Continue reading...

There is a crisis in the countryside – and a massive decline in insect numbers could have significant consequences for the environmentWhen Simon Leather was a student in the 1970s, he took a summer job as a postman and delivered mail to the villages of Kirk Hammerton and Green Hammerton in North Yorkshire. He recalls his early morning walks through its lanes, past the porches of houses on his round. At virtually every home, he saw the same picture: windows plastered with tiger moths that had been attracted by lights the previous night and were still clinging to the glass. “It was quite a sight,” says Leather, who is now a professor of entomology at Harper Adams University in Shropshire.But it is not a vision that he has experienced in recent years. Those tiger moths have almost disappeared. “You hardly see any, although there used to be thousands in summer and that was just a couple of villages.” Continue reading...

With the base rate in the eurozone still at 0%, funds are flowing back to the US using a myriad of financial instrumentsWhile governments around the world contemplate the fallout from Donald Trump’s trade war with China, banks are wrestling with central bank moves that are likely to have a much more fundamental impact on the global economy.On Wednesday the US Federal Reserve pressed ahead with its policy of raising interest rates, adding a seventh quarter-point rise since 2015 to leave the base rate at 1.75-2%. The Fed also pledged to continue selling back to the private markets loans it bought as part of a vast $4.5 trillion quantitative easing programme. Continue reading...

A new report argues we’d all benefit if the government started taking the cycle industry seriouslyIf a country wants to make things, it needs a domestic steel industry. Our government considers this industry to be one of national strategic importance. But you would think it was also important to keep people moving, to make sure the air they breathe is clean and to look after their health.It just so happens that cycling is one of the ways to unsnarl traffic congestion, reduce pollution and make folks hale and hearty. People who cycle to work even have fewer days off sick. Continue reading...

EuropaCity development on capital’s outskirts would feature ski slopes, waterpark, hotels and shopsTending her rows of courgettes, leeks and potatoes, Cécile Coquel, a telecoms worker and guerilla gardener, stood firm despite local authorities’ recent warning that everything must be ripped up and the field vacated.“These are the vegetables of the resistance!” she proclaimed. “We’ll fight to save this land.”

Stamford, Lincolnshire: A dead starling chick appears on the ground outside, almost fledged. I’m upset to see itScratchings rattle above an upstairs lintel in early April and I think little of it. That nest that’s been occupied for four consecutive years is being renovated, that’s all. The shadows of birds firing from gable to gable over the street, air alive with busy chatter. “But the nest has gone,” my wife says. “Those builders, last year.”I stand over the street and watch with binoculars. A sharp-edged bird swoops in, then disappears beneath my roofline through what I see now is a hole. Starlings. Brash, boisterous, bully-birds – and colonising our loft.

Government faces criticism from its own advisors over failure to mention emissions targets as campaigners enter second week of hunger strikeThe government is coming under growing pressure from environmentalists and its own advisers over its support for a new runway at Heathrow.The Committee on Climate Change [CCC] has expressed its “surprise” that there was no mention of the government’s legal obligations to reduce greenhouse gases when it announced it was backing Heathrow expansion plans earlier this month.

The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox Continue reading...

The secretive mammals are fast disappearing from the Highlands but last-ditch efforts to save them are fraught with challengesSet deep in mixed woodland of Scots pine and birch, near the banks of the river Beauly in Inverness-shire, several huge, concealed pens contain two breeding pairs of Scottish wildcat.Wildcats mate from January to March, and their high, anguished breeding calls through the dark winter nights are thought to have inspired tales of the Cat Sith, a spectral feline of Celtic legend that was believed to haunt the Highlands. Continue reading...

Rachel Saunders went missing with her husband in February while looking for rare seedsPolice in South Africa have identified the body of a British botanist who disappeared earlier this year while searching for rare seeds in a remote nature reserve.Rachel and Rodney Saunders are thought to have been looking for rare plant seeds near the oNgoye Forest in KwaZulu-Natal province when they were last confirmed alive in mid-February. Continue reading...

A colourful sand lizard, a giant baobab tree and a racoon with a head for heights are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...

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Despite high-profile protests some indigenous Canadians believe only way to mitigate environmental impacts is through ownership

Environment minister says he won’t back-end load target as some in his party demandJosh Frydenberg has told his state and territory counterparts the emissions reduction trajectory in the national energy guarantee will be steady over 10 years, not back-end loaded as some of his conservative party room opponents have demanded.Frydenberg, the federal energy minister, was clear during a phone hook-up on Friday that Canberra wanted least-cost abatement in the electricity sector, and that meant implementing a linear emissions reduction trajectory between 2020 and 2030, according to sources familiar with the conversation. Continue reading...

Photographer Josué Rivas spent seven months documenting the Native American community that came together to protest against the controversial Dakota pipeline. The work has been published in the book Standing Strong, which has won the 2018 FotoEvidence Book award with World Press Photo. Continue reading...

Company fails to meet annual target of fitting smart meters in customers’ homes

You can’t make money from letting cows run wild, right? When Patrick Barkham got access to the sums at a pioneering Sussex farm, he was in for a surprise.

Hermitage Stream, Langstone, Hampshire: One agitated moorhen was corralling four skittish chicks on the far bank, while the other frantically zigzagged after a fifth

IPCC says ‘rapid and far-reaching’ measures required to combat climate changeThe world is on track to exceed 1.5C of warming unless countries rapidly implement “far-reaching” actions to reduce carbon emissions, according to a draft UN report leaked to Reuters.The final draft report from the UN’s intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) was due for publication in October. It is the guiding scientific document for what countries must do to combat climate change. Continue reading...

Burdekin, Fitzroy, Tully and Daintree rivers in Queensland pose greatest risk, researchers findFour rivers are most responsible for polluting the Great Barrier Reef, according to research that scientists hope will help governments better target efforts to reduce damage to the reef from land use.The Burdekin, Fitzroy, Tully and Daintree rivers in Queensland posed the greatest risk to the reef, the study led by The Nature Conservancy and the University of Queensland found. Continue reading...

The Australian Environment Foundation has secured a former prime minister to speak. But what does it actually do?Securing a former prime minister to speak at your organisation is no doubt a coup for many groups.Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy recently got Kevin Rudd. Australia’s Nelson Mandela Day committee has snaffled Julia Gillard for their next annual lecture. Continue reading...

Skype founder increases his investment, saying firm is using technology for goodThe online ethical grocer Farmdrop has raised £10m from investors, including the founder of Skype, to take its home delivery service to the north of England.The London-based company, launched by an ex-city broker, Ben Pugh, in 2014, wants to open a warehouse in Manchester after expanding to Bristol and Bath late last year. Continue reading...

Readers respond to Chris Packham’s recent observations on environmental destruction, and to the suggestion that one positive step would be for us to give up our petsIf we’ve normalised the ecological damage we are doing to our country, as Chris Packham suggests, it’s only because as individuals we feel helpless (Packham: ‘We are presiding over ecological apocalypse’, 11 June). As it is, the signs are extraordinary, and not just the absence of iconic species like butterflies, bees, frogs and hedgehogs. I have noticed a decline in the number (and size) of ticks, for example, and houseflies and greenflies – even dung flies – are actually rare this summer.If we do not mourn their decline we are foolish – no flies means no maggots, which means no cleaning up of the dead badgers Packham mentions; no greenflies and ticks means less food for some species up the food chain, which is presumably why there are no birds on our feeders these days. It really does feel like an apocalypse, and yet the government still drags its feet over the poisons which have almost certainly caused it.

Enbridge wants to build a new tar sands pipeline

UK called for 30% as green groups say increase does not go far enoughThe EU is raising its target for the amount of energy it consumes from renewable sources, in a deal lauded by the bloc’s climate chief as a hard-won victory for the switch to clean energy.Energy ministers agreed a binding renewable energy target of 32% by 2030, up from the previous goal of 27%, but fell short of the hopes of some countries and green groups for a more ambitious share. Continue reading...

At a gathering of fossil fuel executives at the Vatican, Pope Francis spoke much-needed common sense about climate changeYou kind of expect popes to talk about spiritual stuff, kind of the way you expect chefs to discuss spices or tree surgeons to make small talk about overhanging limbs.Which is why it was so interesting this week to hear Pope Francis break down the climate debate in very practical and very canny terms, displaying far more mathematical insight than your average world leader and far more strategic canniness than your average journalist. In fact, with a few deft sentences, he laid bare the hypocrisy that dominates much of the climate debate. Continue reading...

Circular economy could recycle more plastic and meet industry demand for raw materials, finds Green Alliance researchPlastic recycled in the UK could supply nearly three-quarters of domestic demand for products and packaging if the government took action to build the industry, a new report said on Thursday.The UK consumes 3.3m tonnes of plastic annually, the report says, but exports two-thirds to be recycled. It is only able to recycle 9% domestically. Continue reading...

Experts say almost 30 species of pyralid moths have flown in or been transported via the horticultural trade Continue reading...

Sandy, Bedfordshire: The smaller birds lunged and jabbed with mute jibes that might have said: ‘Egg thief! Chick killer! Get out of our territory!’All through the spring, mewling cries of raptors have scolded out of thin air. On clear-sky days such as this the buzzard is complainer-in-chief, condemned by nature to speak only in a minor key. Even in the exaltation of soaring, the uplift of raised wings is accompanied by a downbeat of dissatisfaction. Nevertheless, the buzzard demonstrates moments of great expressiveness, when its peevish tones are transformed into genuine distress.Such a mayday came just as I was sauntering down the long slope from Sheerhatch Wood. The call had me swivelling round to scan over the trees, only to be turned again by a pained cry that seemed to be coming from the opposite direction. The buzzard was flying overhead, assaulted front, back and sides by a pair of crows. The smaller birds were intent on ruffling a few feathers, lunging and jabbing with mute jibes that might have said: “Egg thief! Chick killer! Get out of our territory!” The hapless buzzard, their sworn-at enemy, flapped in loud desperation, unable to rid itself of its turbulent assailants. Continue reading...

Report finds life expectancy in region reduced by average of six months due to pollutionDangerous levels of air pollution are having a devastating impact on the health of people living in Greater Manchester and costing the regional economy £1bn every year, according to a new study.The report found that toxic air is reducing life expectancy in the region by an average six months and, over the next century, estimates “1.6 million life years” will be lost unless action is taken. Continue reading...

A ‘glacial lake outburst flood’ killed 44 people and many animals in 1818 in SwitzerlandIn June 1818, ice falling from the tongue of the Giétro glacier had in effect blocked the valley of Mauvoisin in Switzerland. Water was building up behind this ice dam to dangerous levels, and engineers were called in to release it gradually. They drilled a hole through the ice, but it did not relieve the water pressure quickly enough. On 16 June at 4.30pm the ice dam burst, disintegrating and releasing all the water at once.The result was a catastrophic “glacial lake outburst flood”, a phenomenon characterised by extremely high rates of water flow. Warnings did not travel as fast as the sudden rush of 20m cubic metres (4.4bn gallons) of water, which swept away bridges and buildings in its path, killing 44 people and many animals. Continue reading...

Rate of melt has accelerated threefold in last five years and could contribute 25cm to sea-level rises without urgent actionIce in the Antarctic is melting at a record-breaking rate and the subsequent sea rises could have catastrophic consequences for cities around the world, according to two new studies.A report led by scientists in the UK and US found the rate of melting from the Antarctic ice sheet has accelerated threefold in the last five years and is now vanishing faster than at any previously recorded time. Continue reading...

Fictional Leros | Tidal power in the 18th century | Feast | AA salute | Interpreters v translatorsFurther to your travel feature on the Greek island of Leros (9 June), may I recommend to your readers Four’s Destiny: A Wartime Greek Tragedy by Michael Powell, a fictionalised account centring on Leros. Powell weaves a clever, powerful story around some fascinating wartime history. We follow four young men, one each from England, Germany, Italy and Greece, as the second world war changes their lives and destinies.

The right-wing triumph in Ontario shows the left needs a new populism – backed by street protest and a bold NDPThe guardians of respectable opinion forecast that Doug Ford would never become Ontario’s Premier. Now that he has, they are suggesting his reign might be orderly and painless.

In a weekend scouring the Salcombe estuary, we found everything from bottles to a toy dolphin. The pollution in our waters is ubiquitous – and devastatingOne My Little Pony, two crabbing buckets, five balloons, six balls, seven straws, nine shoes, a dozen coffee cups, 20 carrier bags, 205 plastic bottles and lids, polystyrene and a huge amount of rope. That is just a fraction of what my six-year-old daughter, Ella, and I collected over the course of two days last weekend, as we paddleboarded around the Salcombe-Kingsbridge estuary in south Devon, scouring the foreshores of every creek and cove for 22 miles.Within seconds of setting off from South Sands beach by the mouth of the estuary, we spotted a clear plastic carrier bag floating in the shallows. Marine wildlife could easily have mistaken it for a jellyfish. Ella grabbed it with a litter picker as we paddled past. Continue reading...

Coal rebound and slowing efficiency gains in 2017 suggest Paris goals may be missed, says oil firmThe renewed upward march of global carbon emissions is worrying and a big step backwards in the fight against climate change, according to BP.Emissions rose 1.6% in 2017 after flatlining for the previous three years, which the British oil firm said was a reminder the world was not on track to hit the goals of the Paris climate deal. Continue reading...