Environment | The Guardian

As a UN panel prepares a report on 1.5C global warming, researchers warn of the risks of ignoring ‘feedback’ effectsThis week, hundreds of scientists and government officials from more than 190 countries have been buzzing around a convention centre in the South Korean city of Incheon.They are trying to agree on the first official release of a report – the bit called the Summary for Policymakers – that pulls together all of what’s known about how the world might be affected once global warming gets to 1.5C. Continue reading...

Waste is split into four categories – infectious, sharp, anatomical and medical – and transportation rules are stringentThe Environment Agency has launched a criminal investigation into how a major NHS supplier failed to dispose of body parts, including amputated limbs and waste from cancer treatment. What rules must UK hospitals follow to remain within the law?What sort of waste comes out of hospitals? Continue reading...

Manufacturer to collect and repurpose packaging after campaign against firm’s wasteWalkers has agreed to offer a free national recycling scheme to stop millions of empty crisp packets ending up in landfill in the UK every year after consumers heaped pressure on it to change its plastic packaging.A social media campaign asking crisp manufacturers to make their packaging recyclable led to Royal Mail issuing a plea to members of the public last week to put empty crisp packets in an envelope before posting them back to the company. Continue reading...

Waste management firm is first choice to replace supplier that allowed body parts to pile upThe NHS is in talks with Mitie about the outsourcing company taking over the disposal of body parts and hazardous waste after the existing contractor allowed huge stockpiles to build up, triggering health concerns.NHS chiefs fear the current contractor Healthcare Environmental Services (HES) could collapse and are urgently trying to find a replacement firm to undertake some or all of the work done by the company. Continue reading...

A Malaysian sun bear, lion cubs and a fruit bat in flight are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...

Three activists were first people to receive jail terms for anti-fracking protests in UK

Paulatuk, Kugluktuk and Cambridge Bay were unable to receive shipments of food, fuel and lumberAuthorities in Canada’s Arctic north are scrambling to transport critical supplies to three isolated communities after the early arrival of sea ice prevented delivery barges from reaching in the region.Paulatuk, Kugluktuk and Cambridge Bay, which have a combined population of nearly 3,000 people, have been unable to receive shipments of food, fuel and lumber after ice moving from the high Arctic sealed off the Amundsen Gulf. Continue reading...

Two forthcoming major climate talks offer governments an opportunity to respond to this year’s extreme weather with decisive actionThe warning signals of climate change that have hit people around the world in the last few months must be heeded by national governments at key meetings later this year, political leaders and policy experts are urging, as the disruption from record-breaking weather continues in many regions.Extreme weather events have struck around the world – from the drought and record temperatures in northern Europe, to forest fires in the US, to heatwaves and drought in China, to an unusually strong monsoon that has devastated large areas of southern India. Continue reading...

The western US has long been characterized by balmy weather and fresh starts, but some are weary of the unhealthy air and worry about a water shortageMaricela Ruelas is a manager at a vineyard in Medford, Oregon. She trims, harvests – whatever needs doing. This year, she has done much of that work in a face mask.Wildfire smoke has plagued her and her fellow workers nearly continuously for “a couple of months”, she said through a translator, leading to pounding headaches. “It was horrible, horrible this year.” Continue reading...

Shale gas giant to restart controversial drilling after years of delays and protestsThe UK shale industry’s long-delayed fracking drive will begin again next week, after the leading company Cuadrilla confirmed it will start working on a well in Lancashire within days.The well at Preston New Road, between Blackpool and Preston, will be the first to be fracked in the UK since 2011, after years of hold-ups due to a moratorium, regulatory changes and planning battles. Continue reading...

Healthcare Environmental Services exceeded waste limits at five sites in EnglandA criminal investigation has been launched into how a major NHS supplier employed by dozens of hospital trusts retained body parts including amputated limbs and waste from cancer treatment.The Environment Agency said Healthcare Environmental Services (HES) had breached its permits at five sites in England that deal with clinical waste. Continue reading...

Organisers said the flood of votes traced back to Australia was ‘potentially someone’s idea of a joke’

New global policies such as carbon pricing are needed if we are to avoid an apocalyptic increase in temperatureWe are following a path that will ultimately take us to a 4C-warmer world. A hot state where it is unlikely that we can generate food, water and shelter for all citizens, where sea level rise will ultimately exceed 10 metres, and where social insecurity and widespread disease will very likely be universal.Along the way we will reach several critical tipping points. One such is at 2C – a scenario that may prompt the Earth system to shift from self-cooling by means of buffering emissions to self-warming, thereby putting us on a path to a “hothouse Earth”. At 3C we reach a point where extreme floods and droughts will force people to leave their homes; more powerful hurricanes will destroy urban infrastructure. Continue reading...

Beijing’s crackdown on foreign waste prompts redirection of US recycling to developing countries in south-east AsiaExports of plastic waste from the US to developing countries have surged following China’s crackdown on foreign waste imports, new research has shown.Nearly half of plastic waste exported from the US for recycling in the first six months of 2018 was shipped to Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam, according to analysis of US census bureau data by Unearthed, Greenpeace’s investigative arm. The previous year, the US sent more than 70% to China and Hong Kong. Continue reading...

Threat to major population centres is increasing as planners fail to prepare for impacts of global warming, report saysLondon, Jakarta, Shanghai and Houston and other global cities that are already sinking will become increasingly vulnerable to storms and flooding as a result of global warming, campaigners have warned ahead of a landmark new report on climate science.The threat to cities from sea level rises is increasing because city planners are failing to prepare, the charity Christian Aid said in the report. Some big cities are already subsiding – the ground beneath Shanghai, for instance, is being pressed down by the sheer weight of the buildings above – and rising sea levels resulting from global warming will make the effects worse. Continue reading...

Shetlanders with chronic and debilitating illnesses could be given ‘nature prescriptions’Doctors in Shetland are to start prescribing birdwatching, rambling and beach walks in the Atlantic winds to help treat chronic and debilitating illnesses for the first time.From Friday, doctors working in the 10 GP surgeries on the islands will be authorised by the archipelago’s health board, NHS Shetland, to issue “nature prescriptions” to patients to help treat mental illness, diabetes, heart disease, stress and other conditions. Continue reading...

Removal of annual $588 fee among measures proposed to cut red tape affecting deer huntersVictoria has proposed deregulating the taxidermied deer industry as part of a draft management strategy to control the increasing feral deer population.Deer are protected under Victorian wildlife laws along with other introduced species like pheasants and European quails and partridges, meaning they cannot be hunted without a licence. Continue reading...

80% say they would pay up to $10 per week for better servicesTwo-thirds of Australians believe their household recycling is sent to landfill and 72% said they would recycle more if they knew that their household waste was reliably recycled, a survey has found.But despite the desire for better recycling, the survey, released on Friday by the University of New South Wales, also found that only half of the respondents were prepared to pay more for better recycling services. Continue reading...

New car registrations drop 20% in September amid Brexit uncertainty, new testing rules, and diesel declineUK sales of new cars plunged by a fifth in September as new emissions tests caused delivery backlogs, while waning appetite for diesel cars and weaker consumer confidence weighed on demand.A total of 338,834 new cars were sold last month, according to figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), down 20.5% compared with the same month last year. Continue reading...

Schools could be closed for up to three weeks while non-deadly spiders are dealt withFour schools in east London have been closed because of infestations of false widow spiders.The creatures, which have a body length of between 8.5mm and 11mm and resemble the far more dangerous black widow, have been found at two primary and two secondary schools in Newham. Continue reading...

Some towns receive more rain in 24 hours than in the whole year combinedSome parched New South Wales towns have received more rain in 24 hours than they have all year but it’s not enough to break the drought that’s gripped the state for months.Western regions received significant falls on Wednesday night generated by a trough that was set to cross central NSW before moving into the Hunter Valley, the Bureau of Meteorology said. Continue reading...

National and conservation leaders say the annihilation of nature is a dangerous ‘blight on humanity’, ahead of major summit• Dominic Jermey: This corrupt, illegal war on wildlife makes losers of us allHumanity is waging a war of terror on wildlife across the globe, according to the head of a world-leading research institute who was previously a counter-terrorism expert for the UK government.Dominic Jermey, director general of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), also spent years in Afghanistan supporting the fight against terror, until leaving his post of UK ambassador in 2017. “Coming to ZSL, I have a front-row seat on a different kind of war: the war on wildlife,” he said in an article for the Guardian. “[It is] a war with catastrophic impacts on people and animals.” Continue reading...

ACCC chairman Rod Sims says energy policy can still be made without political agreement on emissionsThe chairman of Australia’s competition watchdog, Rod Sims, has warned it is foolish to wait for political agreement on emissions reduction before formulating an energy policy, because Australia’s political parties have now demonstrated they have irreconcilable differences.In remarks referencing the tortuous debate over the national energy guarantee and the preceding decade, the ACCC chairman told a conference on Thursday the only way to get progress was to separate the objectives of emissions reduction, reliability and affordability. Continue reading...

Pat Conroy says Australia can replace thermal coal exports with renewable energy and also develop hydrogen economyAustralia is in a position to replace thermal coal exports with the export of renewable energy technologies if the parliament can settle an energy policy and end a decade of policy chaos, the Labor frontbencher Pat Conroy says.The shadow assistant minister for climate change and energy will use an appearance at a renewable energy conference on Thursday to argue that Australia can remain an energy export “superpower” during the transition to low-emissions energy – “it just won’t be fossilised carbon, instead it will be wind and solar power”. Continue reading...

Clearing of forests in reef catchment zone show Australia a global deforestation hotspot, campaigners sayNew official data shows clearing of forests near and along the Great Barrier Reef continued despite Australian government pledges to protect the natural wonder, with at least 152,000 hectares felled in 2016-17 alone.Forests covering 770,000ha – an area about three times the size of the Australian Capital Territory – in the reef catchment zone have been bulldozed over the past five years. The area cleared last year was larger in size than that covered by new re-growth. Continue reading...

International agreement will protect vast areas of sea that have opened up as the ice meltsCommercial fishing will be banned across much of the Arctic under a new agreement signed on Wednesday in Greenland, closing down access to a vast area of sea that is newly opening up under climate change.The moratorium on Arctic fishing will safeguard an area about the size of the Mediterranean for at least the next 16 years, as warming temperatures allow summer navigation across what was previously ice. Continue reading...

Virgin Atlantic flight from Orlando to Gatwick powered by blend of jet fuel and ethanolThe first commercial flight to use jet fuel partly made from recycled industrial waste has landed at Gatwick.The Virgin Atlantic plane, travelling from Orlando to London, was powered by a new blend of normal jet fuel and ethanol produced from waste gases, which the airline says could significantly lower aviation’s carbon footprint. Continue reading...

Cases occurred after confirmed reports of invasive species feared as threat to honeybeeA British wildlife charity has warned that a spate of bad news stories about the invasive Asian hornet is leading to the persecution of its home-grown equivalent.Devon Wildlife Trust said it has across cases of people exterminating the European hornet (Vespa crabro) thinking it was the troublesome Asian hornet (Vespa velutina). Continue reading...

The administration’s lengthy slate of rollbacks will slow progress on reducing air pollution and greenhouse gases that warm the planet, health experts sayDonald Trump’s administration is racing against the clock to rescind or rewrite every major pro-environment policy enduring from Barack Obama’s presidency – but the government will probably not be able to usher those changes through the courts before the next presidential election.Green-minded states and advocates cannot sue until regulations are final, and it could take years for the courts to rule. In the interim, the lengthy slate of rollbacks will slow progress on reducing air pollution and greenhouse gases that warm the planet, health experts say. Continue reading...

Visitors flocked to Maya Bay on Ko Phi Phi Leh island after it was in Leonardo DiCaprio filmOne of the world’s most popular beaches, made famous by the 2000 film The Beach, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, is to be closed indefinitely to allow it to recover from the damage caused by millions of tourists.The golden sands and crystal blue water of Maya Bay, ringed by cliffs on Ko Phi Phi Leh island, has become one of Thailand’s most-visited tourist destinations since it shot to fame as the movie’s location. Continue reading...

New eco-designs for products such as TVs and fridges are also crucial to Europe meeting its climate targets, say expertsNew energy efficient eco-designs for 15 products including fridges, TVs and dishwashers have been delayed, EU diplomats say, even though experts consider them “crucial” to meeting Europe’s Paris climate pledge. The delays are also expected to mean consumers will miss out on lower energy bills.The design revamps would have saved 62m tonnes of CO2 emissions – as much as Sweden’s annual primary energy consumption – but now look set to be dealt with by the next commission, in which far right parties may be more influential. Continue reading...

Trump’s team used last week to sneak in disastrous, linked policies on climate change and child refugee camps

Scheme will send supercooled gas to Asia as countries switch over from coalShell has approved a $12bn (£9.3bn) investment in a mega energy project to send supercooled gas from Canada to China and other Asian countries as they turn from coal to gas.The scheme will be Canada’s biggest ever infrastructure project and is the world’s first major liquefied natural gas project to be given the go-ahead in five years. Shell has a 40% stake in the $31bn Canada LNG joint venture, along with Malaysian, Chinese, Japanese and South Korean energy firms. Continue reading...

‘Last Straw’ installation aims to raise awareness of plastic waste as the firm bans single-use straws from UK and Irish storesIkea today symbolically unveiled its last single-use plastic straw in a display at London’s Design Museum, after it stopped serving or selling the items in any of its UK and Ireland stores, restaurants and bistros this week.The so-called Last Straw installation will be on show to the public until Saturday and aims to inspire consumers to collectively take small steps that will have a positive environmental impact. Continue reading...

To mark today’s 50th anniversary of the US national trails system, six hikers and outdoor writers pick their favourite routes across the American wildernessLength: 3,700 miles

In this historically precarious moment, we need something more fundamental than climate strategies built on shame and castigationThere was a barely stifled schadenfreudian glee echoing across the liberal press through this burning hot summer. Environmentalists could scarcely disguise their we-told-you-so smirks as one suffocating heatwave after another rolled over the globe, wildfires savaged landscapes from Siberia to California and broken temperature records kept piling up.But yearning for catastrophe is an ugly desire, and it is exactly the wrong way to think about global warming. Disasters always hit marginalised people first and worst, and as tempting as it might be to hope the calamities of 2018 bring new kinds of change, that desire only betrays how badly environmentalism needs to be overhauled. Continue reading...

Letter from 20 scientists and ex-ministers, including Peter Garrett, condemns plan to raise dam wallA group of prominent scientists, former environment ministers and conservationists have written to the New South Wales premier condemning legislation to raise the Warragamba Dam wall.The $670m plan to raise the dam wall by 14 metres was announced by the NSW government in 2016 as a strategy to prevent catastrophic flooding in outer-western Sydney. Continue reading...

Green Energy Markets predicts more than 6,000 annual jobs will be created but urges federal policy interventionThe renewable energy construction boom in Victoria is on track to create more than 6,000 annual jobs, according to a new analysis.As of August 2018, large-scale wind and solar projects under construction in Victoria had created 5,169 job years of employment – meaning one person working full time for one year – overtaking Queensland with 5,156, according to an analysis by Green Energy Markets released by GetUp on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Court says extraction ban is among cases it refuses to review, in victory for environmental groups and Native American communitiesThe ban on new uranium mining near the Grand Canyon implemented by the Obama administration was effectively upheld on Monday when the US supreme court declined to hear a challenge from the industry.Environmental groups and Native American communities declared victory when, on the first day of its fall season, the bench announced that the uranium extraction ban was among cases it refuses to review. Continue reading...

Thomas Bareiß says use of polluting fuel at RWE plant is needed to keep the lights onControversial plans to chop down a German forest to build a vast coal mine should proceed because Germany needs the polluting fuel to keep the lights on, according to the chief of the country’s state secretary for energy.Dozens of treehouses built and occupied by campaigners for years have been recently cleared by police to make way for plans by energy firm RWE, which owns Hambach forest near Cologne, to expand its nearby opencast coal mine. Continue reading...

As a wealthy, warm country, the US would benefit from implementing a carbon tax to slow global warming

PM says he and Mathias Cormann were responsible for awarding the money to foundation in one yearScott Morrison has said he and the finance minister, Mathias Cormann, were responsible for the government’s decision to give $444m to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation in one year.At a doorstop in Perth on Monday the prime minister said that the pair, as the Coalition’s economic team before the 2018 budget, had worked out “the best way to do [the grant] financially”, and argued it was the right decision because it helped the reef without “blowing the budget”. Continue reading...

With sows producing 23 piglets a year on average, intensive farming is called into question over rise in animals suffering prolapseDeath rates for female pigs in the US are rising fast, sending alarm bells ringing throughout the farming industry.The mortality rate rose from 5.8% to 10.2% on farms owning more than 125 sows between 2013-2016, according to one organisation that collects data across 800 companies. Continue reading...

Campaigners say sediment has not been tested properly and may do ‘irreversible harm’

Study concludes considerable likelihood waste from coal seam gas operations could contaminate Stockyard Creek in headwaters of Murray-Darling BasinPlans to dump up to 15m tonnes of salt and other waste near a creek in drought-stricken Queensland carry a “considerable” risk of water contamination, a new study has found.Approved plans to expand a dump near the town of Chinchilla allow salt waste from coal seam gas operations to be stored fewer than 100 metres from Stockyard Creek, in the headwaters of the Murray-Darling Basin. Continue reading...

Australia Institute report find communities, graziers, small irrigators and native title holders are being left behindA new report looking at how the $13bn for the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is being spent has found that big agribusiness is being compensated for giving up access to water while communities, graziers, small irrigators and native title holders are having to wear the often harsh effects of the plan.The report, Trickle Out Effect, by the Australia Institute, looks at the Lower Darling and the Menindee region, and finds wildly different treatment of stakeholders. Continue reading...

News that governments are not meeting targets is alarming, but the actions of activists are a reason to hopeThe world is failing to combat the threat of climate change. Global carbon dioxide emissions from coal, oil and gas increased by 1.6% in 2017, after three years when they rose little or not at all. Demand for oil is increasing by around 1.5% a year. Last week one of the authors of a key United Nations climate report warned that governments are “nowhere near on track” to meeting their commitment, made in Paris three years ago, to avoid global warming of more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.When it is unveiled next week, the report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will give a clearer idea of the probable consequences of this failure. One recent study suggested the impact of a temperature rise of 2C could be more severe than previously thought, and include sea level rises of six metres by 2100. The relationship between climate change and specific weather events is complex, but modelling suggests global warming made this summer’s European heatwave twice as likely. The increased frequency and severity of tropical storms fit with longstanding predictions that warmer oceans will bring more chaotic weather. Continue reading...

Ministers under pressure to fund new generation of small-scale nuclear power stationsBackers of mini nuclear power stations have asked for billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to build their first UK projects, according to an official document.Advocates for small modular reactors (SMRs) argue they are more affordable and less risky than conventional large-scale nuclear plants, and therefore able to compete with the falling costs of windfarms and solar power. Continue reading...