Carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are far above pre-industrial levelsThe main greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change have all reached record levels, the UN’s meteorology experts have reported.Carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are now far above pre-industrial levels, with no sign of a reversal of the upward trend, a World Meteorological Organization report says. Continue reading...

Scott Morrison and his offsiders are competing for the title of biggest numpty as Labor offers sensible solutionsOn climate and energy policy, Labor never learns from its mistakes, Scott Morrison told us on Thursday, apparently limbering up for another heart-warming election season of who can be the biggest numpty.The prime minister is wrong about that. The evidence tells us Labor does learn from its mistakes, and in climate and energy the ALP have become shape shifters in order to keep doggedly pursuing policies reducing emissions in an environment when that activity is construed, ever more bizarrely in reactionary circles, as some kind of hostile action. Continue reading...

Trade deal would open door to meat containing banned growth promoters, from pigs kept in conditions banned in UK, industry leaders warn

Up to 32,000 tonnes of microplastics enter British waterways each year, says Friends of the EarthVehicle tyres and synthetic clothing are the two leading contributors to microplastic pollution from UK households, according to a new report from Friends of the Earth.The report estimates that between 9,000 and 32,000 tonnes of microplastic pollution enter British waterways each year from just four sources. The two leading sources are tyre abrasion, with between 7,000 and 19,000 tonnes entering surface waters each year, and clothing. Continue reading...

City’s skyline changes colour as line of dust more than 500km long sweeps eastA thick line of dust that has smothered much of New South Wales and Sydney has caused air quality to reach a “hazardous” level with another wave of dust set to come, leading to a spike in calls for help from people with breathing difficulties.Strong winds from a low pressure system have whipped up masses of dirt across the drought-stricken state, which headed towards the coast on Thursday. Continue reading...

Filmmaker takes new ‘people’s seat’ and will form speech with input from social mediaSir David Attenborough is to address the UN’s climate change summit in Poland in December, taking up a newly established “people’s seat” at the negotiations.The people’s seat initiative, which launched on Wednesday, will give citizens around the world the opportunity to send their messages to leaders via social media, using the hashtag #TakeYourSeat. These views and information from opinion polling will then form the basis of Attenborough’s speech to leaders. Continue reading...

Disruption could continue until Saturday as Extinction Rebellion continues climate change protestClimate activists have caused serious disruption to rush-hour traffic in London with a series of “swarming” roadblocks at several different locations around the capital as police warned motorists that more protests were expected.From 8am on Wednesday groups of protesters coordinated by the group Extinction Rebellion walked on to roads in Westminster, Tower Bridge, Elephant and Castle, and Earl’s Court, blocking traffic for several minutes at a time in a plan to bring gridlock to the city. Continue reading...

World’s biggest protected area would stretch across borders from Andes to AtlanticIndigenous groups in the Amazon have proposed the creation of the world’s biggest protected area, a 200m-hectare sanctuary for people, wildlife and climate stability that would stretch across borders from the Andes to the Atlantic.The plan, presented to the UN Conference on Biodiversity in Egypt on Wednesday, puts the alliance of Amazon communities in the middle of one of the world’s most important environmental and political disputes. Continue reading...

From speeding and light jumping to parking in bike lanes and passing too close, driver behaviour is one of the main deterrents to widespread cyclingWhat prevents significantly more people in the UK from riding bikes for everyday transport? The primary answer is simple: a lack of safe infrastructure.If cyclists are expected to share the roads with a tonne or so of speeding metal then, global experience shows, you won’t get more than a certain, small percentage of the population doing it, predominantly the young and gung ho. Continue reading...

Shadow cabinet keeps Turnbull policy with a higher target, and formulates a plan B for renewablesLabor has resolved to keep the Coalition’s national energy guarantee with a higher emissions reduction target, and will propose a detailed plan B for renewables in the event it can’t be legislated.The shadow cabinet on Wednesday took the decision to stick with the Neg developed by Malcolm Turnbull and Josh Frydenberg, with an emissions reduction target for electricity of 45% by 2030, in an attempt to see whether the Liberals could be persuaded to vote for their own mechanism post-election. Continue reading...

Rough seas prevented crews from assessing damage to vulnerable wildlife caused by province’s largest-ever spillBiologists are attempting to assess damage to vulnerable wildlife caused by Newfoundland’s largest-ever oil spill, amid fears that the full scale of devastation may never be known.Intense storms battered offshore oil production areas late last week, with waves cresting as high as 28ft. On Friday, the SeaRose tanker attempted to restart production, but a faulty connection line pumped an estimated 250,000 litres of oil into the ocean. Continue reading...

UK government called on to impose fee on new plastic packaging and offer rebate for recycled productsThe government should introduce a new tax on virgin packaging to revolutionise the recycling system in the UK and tackle the plastics crisis, according to a new report.The study, presented to MPs and industry figures at Westminster on Tuesday evening, calls on ministers to impose a fee on packaging materials and offer a rebate for those products that use more recycled material. Continue reading...

Erik Solheim quits after Guardian reveals excess travel and rule breaking which led to withholding of funds

Campaigners say move by Norway’s Equinor is an excuse to keep drilling for fossil fuelsOne of the world’s biggest oil companies is set to join the fight against deforestation in the tropics as part of its climate change efforts – but the the move has been branded a “greenwash” by campaigners.State-owned Norwegian firm Equinor has written to the UN’s climate chief to tell her it wants to invest in the protection of tropical forests. Continue reading...

Sperm whale washed up in Sulawesi had flip-flops, bottles, bags and 115 drinking cups in its stomachA dead whale that washed ashore in eastern Indonesia had a large lump of plastic waste in its stomach, including flip-flops and 115 drinking cups, a park official has said, causing concern among environmentalists and government officials in one of the world’s largest plastic polluting countries.Related: 'Sad surprise': Amazon fish contaminated by plastic particles Continue reading...

As thrill seekers and Instagrammers swarm public lands, reporting from eight sites across America shows the scale of the threatJust before sunset near Page, Arizona, a parade of humanity marched up the sandy, half-mile trail toward Horseshoe Bend. They had come from all over the world. Some carried boxes of McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets, others cradled chihuahuas and a few men hid engagement rings in their pockets. But just about everyone had one thing at the ready: a cellphone to snap a picture.Horseshoe Bend is one of the American west’s most celebrated overlooks. From a sheer sandstone precipice just a few miles outside Grand Canyon national park, visitors get a bird’s-eye view of the emerald Colorado river as it makes a U-turn 800ft below. Hundreds of miles from any large city, and nestled in the heart of south-west canyon country, Horseshoe Bend was once as lonely as it was beautiful. Continue reading...

Reserves cover more than five times area of US, says report, but enforcement is often poorA record surge in the creation of marine protected areas has taken the international community close to its goal of creating nature refuges on 17% of the world’s land and 10% of seas by 2020, according to a new UN report.Protected regions now cover more than five times the territory of the US, but the authors said this good news was often undermined by poor enforcement. Some reserves are little more than “paper parks” with little value to nature conservation. At least one has been turned into an industrial zone. Continue reading...

Wildlife documentary experts defend crew’s decision to help trapped birdsLeading wildlife camera operators and film-makers have defended the film crew on David Attenborough’s latest BBC series over their decision to break with convention and intervene to save a group of penguins that had become trapped in a ravine.Nature film-makers are discouraged from intervening in the events they are attempting to capture on film. While the general principle is to avoid interfering with the natural course of events, the crew on the Dynasties series stepped in when they saw the birds’ predicament. Continue reading...

Energy company says importing LNG will firm up renewable energy projects but critics say gas is already more expensive than clean alternativesControversial plans to import liquefied natural gas into Australia to fill a shortfall as domestic gas is exported to Asia would significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions, AGL has conceded.Energy companies have proposed four LNG import terminals for the east coast to ensure gas supply and ease high prices. The imported natural gas would effectively replace the two-thirds of gas sold overseas from export plants in Queensland. Continue reading...

Norwegian company to fuel liners with biogas made from leftovers of fish processingWaste fish parts will be used to power ships in a new initiative to use green energy for polluting cruise liners.The leftovers of fish processed for food and mixed with other organic waste will be used to generate biogas, which will then be liquefied and used in place of fossil fuels by the expedition cruise line Hurtigruten. Continue reading...

Resources to save manatee and other sea life nearing limit a year after toxic red tide bloom outbreakAt the peak of Florida’s red tide crisis this summer, Jon Peterson had to dig deep into Sea World’s storage warehouses to find enough portable pools to accommodate the dozens of sick manatees arriving at a rate of two or three a week.The Orlando theme park’s manager for animal rescues even found himself forking out for air fares to send some of his younger manatee patients off to zoos in Ohio to free enough space in the rehabilitation centre for the newest victims of the toxic algae phenomenon that has killed thousands of fish and marine mammals. Continue reading...

Clearcast says it had to shut Facebook page after it rejected film for being politicalThe body responsible for rejecting Iceland’s Christmas ad had to remove staff pictures from its website, shut the company Facebook page and close its switchboard due to the level of abuse following the controversial decision.As part of its festive campaign Iceland struck a deal with Greenpeace to rebadge an animated short film featuring an orangutan and the destruction of its rainforest habitat at the hands of palm oil growers. Continue reading...

Energy firm plans to build 2,000 homes powered by solar panels on the Staffordshire siteAn old coal power station is set to be transformed into a “sustainable village” of 2,000 homes powered by solar panels, in the biggest redevelopment yet of a former UK power plant.French firm Engie said it had decided against selling off the Rugeley site in Staffordshire and would instead build super efficient houses on the 139-hectare site as part of its bid to “move beyond energy”. Continue reading...

Animals to be removed from Stourhead estate after complaints from ‘intimidated’ visitorsThe National Trust has been criticised for planning to cull wild boar at its Stourhead estate in Wiltshire.Related: Wild boar gives British ambassador to Austria a scare Continue reading...

A haul of fresh pelts and rotting remains marks the end of a five-year probe into an international crime ring. Authorities fear it points to a wider problem in EuropeThe first thing that hit the inspectors was the smell. It was a sweltering midsummer day in Prague, and they had just opened an unplugged freezer filled with the rotting remains of tigers, lions and cougars. Pavla Rihova, the lead environmental inspector on the scene, said she had never seen anything like it.“I have been working for the inspectorate 25 years … but the situation there was really horrible. If you can imagine: an old freezer, without electricity, full of meat and dead bodies, in the garden for two years. Absolutely incredible.” Continue reading...

Energy firms set to miss government deadline for rolloutEnergy suppliers need to triple smart meter installation rates to complete a national rollout by 2020, according to the consumer champion Which?Large suppliers would have to install 30 meters every minute, every day, for the next two years, to meet the government deadline. Continue reading...

Exclusive: investments in oil, gas and mining companies held indirectly via portfolio fundThe National Trust has invested tens of millions of pounds in oil, gas and mining firms – despite the conservation charity pledging to cut down its own use of fossil fuels and warning about the impact of climate change.An investigation by the Guardian has found that the trust – which aims to “nurse the environment back to health” – has more than £30m of investments in oil, gas and mining companies, including BP and Shell, held indirectly via a portfolio fund. Continue reading...

Labor says plan is a ‘thought bubble’ and attacks Coalition’s record on building damsMichael McCormack has announced an extra $500m for water infrastructure projects, including dams, a near doubling of capital spending in the Coalition’s water infrastructure fund.The acting prime minister and Nationals leader gave few details on Monday about which projects would benefit except that the funding would be used “to identify and co-fund the construction of new water infrastructure projects across regional Australia” with state and territory governments. Continue reading...

Major parties want ‘sustainable logging’ in native forests, but experts warn of ‘endgame’ for endangered species and drinking waterTo understand the campaign to save Victoria’s old growth forests, ecologist David Lindenmayer says, you just need to turn on a tap in Melbourne.Forget about the critically endangered Leadbeater’s possum, a species in which Lindenmayer is a global expert, or the vulnerable greater glider. Forget, too, about the carbon value of the mountain ash forests of the Victorian central highlands, which are among the most carbon-dense forests in the world. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Party members vow to step up push for national environment protection authority at ALP conferenceLabor’s Environment Action Network (Lean) has warned the ALP it will not give up on securing a significant overhaul of federal environment laws in the first term of a Shorten government, and a national environment protection authority to police the framework, despite an embarrassing process stuff-up with the draft policy platform.A draft policy platform signed off by the ALP national executive and circulated to conference delegates last month suggested both policy commitments and a national environment commission would be adopted by the party’s national conference in December – but the shadow environment minister, Tony Burke, has now put the brakes on. Continue reading...

Turk held for obstructing public highway and has no regrets in taking part in mass civil disobedienceThe British artist Gavin Turk has said every member of the public will feel the impact of the climate emergency sooner rather than later, after he was arrested during mass civil disobedience in central London.Turk, who was among 82 people arrested during a coordinated occupation of five bridges in the capital, said the pressure to force governments to act to reduce climate change was “the new future”. Continue reading...

Participants at biodiversity convention say Amazon protections are under threatJair Bolsonaro’s rise to power in Brazil has cast a shadow over the first global environment conference since the ultra-nationalist was elected to lead the most biodiverse nation on Earth.Participants at the the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, which opened in Sharm el-Sheikh on Saturday, expressed concerns that the former army captain would disrupt international efforts to prevent the collapse of natural life support systems in the same way that Donald Trump is undermining cooperation to stabilise the climate. Continue reading...

As the public turns against plastic, celebrities and designers are making reusable bottles a fashion statementWhat does your water bottle say about you? An awful lot judging by the £5.5bn industry that has sprung up to convince us that a designer reusable bottle is a fashion statement and status symbol that comes with added environmental kudos.Arguably, it all began with celebrity endorsements: actress Julia Roberts photographed with a S’well bottle (£45); model Gisele Bündchen seen leaving a gym clutching a BKR (£30); actor Jonah Hill lugging a 64oz Hydroflask (£45). Continue reading...

With demand for electricity set to rocket, the UK cannot rely on renewables aloneYour business leader misses the bigger picture, as indeed do other supporters of renewable energy, such as Greenpeace (“Moorside’s atomic dream was an illusion. Renewables are the way to a clean future”).The bigger picture is that we can expect to see a substantial and sustained increase in electricity demand over the next 20-30 years due to the electrification of transport and heat. Heat alone, by the most conservative estimates, will add 300GW of peak thermal demand, which would add 100GW to the grid, dwarfing the current 65GW or so of peak UK demand. Yes, renewables backed up with energy storage and smart control can make an impact but a significant baseload method will still be needed. As pointed out in the late David Mackay’s excellent book Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air, the least bad option of meeting this is likely to be nuclear fission.

As diesel emission fears mount, a growing number of parents now consider clean air the main factor when choosing a schoolAn increasing number of parents are shunning good schools because of the local air quality while some are even looking to move out of cities altogether, as fears over the effects of diesel emissions on health mount.Last week a major study published in the Lancet found that pollution from diesel vehicles was stunting the growth of children’s lungs, leaving them damaged for life. Continue reading...

Death at ‘gilet jaunes’ demonstration caused by panicking driver as anti-fuel tax blockade grips countryOne protester has died and more than a hundred were injured after a nationwide wave of peaceful protests aimed at French president Emmanuel Macron turned to tragedy.Demonstrators from the gilets jaunes – yellow vests – movement had called for people to turn out and gridlock France’s road network to show their anger at increases in fuel taxes. Continue reading...

A female protester has died after being hit by a motorist as demonstrators angry at fuel tax hikes gridlocked parts of France on Saturday. Police said 47 other protesters had also been injured, three critically, as France's newest people's movement, the "gilets jaunes" (yellow vests), staged a day of action

Biodiversity experts say mass extinction of wildlife is as big a danger as climate changeAs a UN conference convenes to work out a new deal for protecting the planet’s biodiversity, the focus falls on the nations that are not attending.Amid the worst loss of life on Earth since the demise of the dinosaurs, the agenda at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh could hardly be more important, but the spirit of international collaboration appears to be as much at risk of extinction as the world’s endangered wildlife. The United States has never signed up and Brazil is among a growing group of countries where new nationalist leaders are shifting away from global cooperation. Continue reading...

‘I remember the horror,’ says Baillie Gifford non-fiction prize-winner, who lived through the 1986 nuclear disasterSerhii Plokhy, who on Wednesday won the Baillie Gifford non-fiction prize for Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy, always intended to write about the world’s worst nuclear disaster, not least because he lived through it. “I was there at the time,” he says of his days as a young university lecturer living 500km downstream from the explosion at the Ukrainian nuclear plant in 1986 that contaminated vast swaths of Europe, worrying if the waters of the Dnieper River had been contaminated. “I remember the horror.”Former classmates were directly affected by the radiation released by the explosion, and he suffered from an inflamed thyroid he believes may have been the result of exposure. Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union in 1986, and the disaster had such an impact on the country that the 61-year-old Plokhy, now professor of Ukrainian history at Harvard, felt he should tell its story. But he was almost too close to it; the testimonies of survivors were too emotional, too powerful. As a historian, he felt he lacked critical distance. Continue reading...

Cuadrilla won’t say if it has halted Preston New Road exploration, at cost of £94,000 a dayThe shale gas firm Cuadrilla has refused to confirm whether it has halted fracking after triggering a series of minor earthquakes near Blackpool, raising questions over the operation’s future prospects.Dozens of small tremors have been registered near the company’s Preston New Road site, after it started pumping high volumes of water underground in October to explore for gas. Continue reading...

Exelon lobbies against proposals and says weakening emissions rule would kill jobs and waste billions in investmentsA leading US energy company is lobbying against the Trump administration’s move to roll back a major Obama-era environmental regulation, arguing that weakening a rule on mercury emissions would potentially kill jobs across the south and waste billions of dollars of investment.Exelon, one of the largest producers of electricity in the US, has also argued to the Environmental Protection Agency that compliance with the existing mercury rule, a 2012 regulation that limits how much of the toxic pollutant can be emitted from coal-fired power plants, has had “substantial” health and environmental benefits and has cost a small fraction of what was originally anticipated. Continue reading...

Starlings over Rome and the ‘smiling angel’ of the Yangtze are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...

Wool-shearing footage, filmed by campaigners on 49 farms, appears to show animals being kicked, slapped and beaten with metal clippersFootage that appears to show sheep being kicked, beaten and abused during wool-shearing on English and Scottish farms has been released by animal rights activists.Peta Asia carried out an undercover investigation over the summer in the British sheep shearing industry. The 18 minutes of footage released yesterday is part of a wider investigation, in which Peta documented alleged abuse on 25 farms in Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Suffolk, Essex, and Northumberland counties. In Scotland they have collected evidence from 24 farms in West Lothian, Fife, the Borders, Dumfries and Galloway, East Lothian, Midlothian and South Lanarkshire. Continue reading...

Exclusive: failure to enforce ban on preventive use on farms would ‘pose risk to human health’

Hunter and Latrobe valleys lead the list of polluted postcodes in survey by Australian Conservation FoundationAlmost all of Australia’s most polluting industries are located in low-income areas, according to new research by the Australian Conservation Foundation.The report looks at pollution from emitters including coal-fired power stations as well as mining, refineries and manufacturing and finds the country’s five most polluted areas are the Hunter Valley in NSW, the Latrobe Valley in Victoria, Mount Isa in Queensland and Newman and Collie in WA. Continue reading...

Thursday saw air pollution levels climb to unhealthy levels, making San Francisco’s air worst in the worldSchools in the San Francisco Bay Area have been cancelled for Friday and residents warned to stay inside as smoke descends from wildfires hundreds of miles away, producing air quality levels worse than notoriously polluted cities in India and China.“The Camp fire in Butte county generated a tremendous amount of smoke,” said Kristine Roselius, a spokeswoman for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. “That smoke is just pouring into the Bay Area right now.” Continue reading...

Ai Group expresses significant concern with the Morrison government’s controversial plan to underwrite new power generationA leading business group has expressed significant concern with the Morrison government’s controversial plan to underwrite new power generation, noting it could leave taxpayers exposed to liabilities “with a net present value of billions of dollars”.The Ai Group has used its submission to flag major problems with the proposal, ranging from its “extremely aggressive” administrative timetable, with projects being drummed up before the next federal election; a lack of obvious “strong independent governance” arrangements, and the lack of an overarching climate and energy policy. Continue reading...

UK’s largest retailer falls short of removing palm oil from own-brand foods in sustainability driveTesco and WWF have announced they are to collaborate on a long-running sustainable food effort, pledging to halve the environmental impact of the average UK shopping basket within 12 months.The four-year partnership between the UK’s largest retailer and one of the world’s leading environmental organisations is believed to be the first of its kind. They hope its scale will help drive the industry to eliminate food waste and packaging waste and encourage customers to eat more sustainably. Continue reading...

Ernesto Araújo has called climate science ‘dogma’ and bemoaned the ‘criminalisation’ of red meat, oil and heterosexual sexBrazil’s president-elect Jair Bolsonaro has chosen a new foreign minister who believes climate change is part of a plot by “cultural Marxists” to stifle western economies and promote the growth of China.Ernesto Araújo – until recently a mid-ranking official who blogs about the “criminalisation” of red meat, oil and heterosexual sex – will become the top diplomat of South America’s biggest nation, representing 200 million people and the greatest and most biodiverse forest on Earth, the Amazon. Continue reading...