Environmental law group submits objection over proposed 3.6GW Drax plantPlans to build a huge new UK gas power station are facing a challenge from an environmental law group that argues the project would breach the government’s recommendations on climate change.ClientEarth, which has repeatedly defeated the government in court over its air pollution strategy, has submitted an objection to the planning inspectorate over Drax Group’s proposed 3.6GW plant in North Yorkshire. Continue reading...

Exclusive: ministers seeking to make firms pay more towards recycling their own wasteSupermarkets, retailers and major drinks brands are set to pay tens of millions of pounds more towards recycling their used packaging under the government’s new waste strategy expected to be published this month, the Guardian understands.Supermarkets and other major producers of packaging waste currently pay a small fraction of the cost of collecting and recycling the 11m tonnes of packaging waste produced in the UK. Continue reading...

The collapse of Toshiba’s project underlines the fact that new nuclear is a more unreliable proposition than wind and solarToshiba’s decision to pull out of building a nuclear power station in Cumbria last week will cause shockwaves far beyond the north-west of England.The outcome is a disaster for the surrounding area, which is heavily reliant on the nuclear industry for jobs and prosperity. Local politicians admit it is a blow and a disappointment for Cumbrians hoping for roles at the proposed Moorside plant. They say they genuinely believe a new buyer for the site will come forward. But that looks like wishful thinking. Continue reading...

Shortage of sheep and goats in Cyprus coupled with growing taste for grilled cheese in China ‘threatens global supplies’It’s on restaurant menus from London to New York and has become a barbecue favourite far and wide.But, on the Mediterranean island where it has been made since medieval times, halloumi’s unprecedented global popularity has also begun to cause concern. Fears are being voiced that local dairy farmers soon won’t be able to keep up with demand. Continue reading...

Starlings, a goldfinch, flamingos and winners of wildlife photography awards are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...

District court judge Brian Morris rules Trump administration did not consider environmental consequences before pushing aheadA federal judge has ordered a temporary halt to construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, ruling that the Trump administration didn’t properly consider the environmental consequences before pushing ahead with the enormous oil project.Related: 'Treating protest as terrorism': US plans crackdown on Keystone XL activists Continue reading...

Vehicle discovers school of blackmouth catsharks around thousands of egg casesThe largest shark nursery to have been found in Irish waters has been discovered among cold-water coral reefs 200 miles west of Ireland.A remotely operated vehicle surveying the deep ocean floor revealed thousands of egg cases, popularly known as “mermaid’s purses”, deposited on coral skeletons at depths of up to 750 metres (2,500ft). Continue reading...

Herds of cows provide meat and dairy for influential purveyors, but environmentalists say they despoil the landscapeAn hour north of San Francisco lie two-dozen dairy and meat farms that have produced some of the most beloved artisanal brands in northern California – along with a farm-fresh, locally sourced foodie ethos that has become globally influential.All the dairies in Point Reyes are organic, and the beef is grass-fed. They are models of sustainable farming, providing the raw ingredients for cheesemaker Cowgirl Creamery, the Straus Family Creamery, and Marin Sun Farms meats, to name a few. Continue reading...

Supermarket’s Greenpeace film on palm oil’s impact on orangutan deemed rule breachIceland’s Christmas campaign has been banned from TV because it has been deemed to breach political advertising rules.As part of its festive campaign the discount supermarket 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...

Fossil fuels make us ‘safe from’ climate change, says MP who is working with Tony Abbott to move Liberals to the rightCoral bleaching has been happening for centuries, threats of rising sea levels to countries such as the Maldives and Tuvalu are greatly exaggerated and temperature gains have been grossly exaggerated by scientists.These are the assessments of the member for Hughes, Craig Kelly, who is part of a Tony Abbott-led speaking campaign to pull the Liberal party back from the centre. Continue reading...

Center for Biological Diversity says new program bypasses findings and leaves decisions to employees who are not expertsEnvironmental advocates are suing Donald Trump’s interior department for using what they call a secretive process that ignores science in refusing protections for at-risk species.Related: Hawaiian conservationists vow to fight telescope plans despite court approval Continue reading...

As Cumbria reactor plan stalls, it is clear that huge resources are needed for such projectsIf the government was keen to boost Britain’s nuclear industry, it was always clear that the private market would struggle to deliver.The decision by Toshiba to close down its UK operations is a case in point. After the deal to build new reactors at Hinkley Point with the French firm EDF, Toshiba was favoured by ministers to design and construct a smaller power station on the Cumbrian coast. Continue reading...

Broadcaster synonymous with BBC documentaries will record voiceover for eight-part seriesSir David Attenborough will front a new natural history documentary for Netflix, in the latest example of the streaming company muscling in on the BBC’s territory.The 92-year-old broadcaster has been synonymous with the BBC’s natural history output for decades but will now provide the voiceover for Netflix’s eight-part series Our Planet, which will be released in April. Continue reading...

Observers have crowded Central Park in the hopes of seeing the ‘hot duck’ since it first appeared on 10 October – but no one knows where it came from

Vitol, Glencore and Trafigura feature in report by campaign group Global WitnessThree global oil trading companies with strong ties to the UK face being dragged into Brazil’s “Car Wash” investigation, after a report raised questions about their connections to businessmen named in the vast corruption scandal.Vitol, Glencore and Trafigura, which boast combined annual revenues of more than half a trillion dollars, feature in a report by campaign groups Global Witness and Public Eye that uncovers links to men accused or convicted of involvement in the bribery scandal. Continue reading...

Kilometre-long aerial runway to be erected on remote mountain pass to dismay of conservationistsA kilometre-long zip wire will be erected in the Lake District following a seven-year planning battle.Conservationists have long opposed the plan by Honister slate mine to erect the aerial runway on the remote mountain pass between Borrowdale and Buttermere. Continue reading...

Firm’s nuclear arm to wind up next year and scrap Cumbria plant leaving big hole in UK energy plansPlans for a new nuclear power station in Cumbria have been scrapped after the Japanese conglomerate Toshiba announced it was winding up the UK unit behind the project.Toshiba said it would take a 18.8bn Japanese yen (£125m) hit from closing its NuGeneration subsidiary, which had already been cut to a skeleton staff, after it failed to find a buyer for the scheme. Continue reading...

Pacific Explorer cruise ship spilled liquid food waste into reef’s protected watersCarnival Australia has been compelled to provide a “$2.1m undertaking” after spilling 28,000 litres of liquid food waste into the Great Barrier Reef’s protected waters.The Australian Maritime Safety Authority detained the Pacific Explorer cruise ship on its way back to Sydney in early September until it paid the amount, which was equal to the maximum fine available, an AMSA spokesman said on Thursday. Continue reading...

Density of fine pollutants was nearly 1,665 in one part of the city – the safe limit is 25Pollution in the Indian capital Delhi exceeded the safe limit by 66 times on Thursday, shrouding the city in toxic fumes the morning after millions of firecrackers were burst for the Hindu festival Diwali.Delhi government monitors showed the density of fine pollutants — small enough to evade the body’s natural defences and breach the blood-brain barrier — reached 1,665 in Anand Vihar, a central neighbourhood. The World Health Organisation’s safe limit for pollutants that size is 25. Continue reading...

Redeployment of 400 staff jeopardises vital work protecting wildlife and overseeing recycling, pollution and flood preventionHundreds of staff who protect biodiversity and enforce environmental regulations in the UK have been redeployed to work on Brexit.The raid on staff from the Environment Agency, which is responsible for enforcing rules on recycling, air pollution and protecting the country from flooding, and Natural England, which protects habitats and species, has been condemned by MPs. Continue reading...

Berejiklian government urged to acknowledge ‘the extensive, serious and potentially irreparable damage’ the horses are causingDozens of Australia’s top scientists are demanding the New South Wales government repeal legislation that abandoned the culling of feral horses in the Kosciuszko national park.In Canberra on Thursday 145 scientists met to hear evidence of the damage feral horses are causing to the park, the worst of which includes the destruction of nesting habitat of critically endangered corroboree frogs. Continue reading...

Measure known as Initiative 1631 would have put a $15 fee on each ton of carbon dioxide emitted in the state

Offer of comparison rate for consumers falls short of call for lower prices by 1 JanuaryPower retailers have advanced a proposal to standardise comparison rates for all customers but have given no undertakings they will lower prices by January, during a roundtable with the energy minister, Angus Taylor.Taylor has claimed Wednesday’s Sydney talks as a win because retailers had proposed voluntary action during “constructive discussions” by offering up a standardised rate, making it easier for consumers to “compare apples with apples” when they shop around between retailers for the best deal. Continue reading...

Hundreds say they will skip school, urging politicians to treat climate change as an emergencyHundreds of students around the country are preparing to strike from school because of what they say is a failure by politicians to recognise climate change as an emergency.They’ve been inspired by 15-year-old Greta Thunberg, a Swedish student who has been sitting outside the parliament in central Stockholm to draw attention to the fears younger generations hold about the global climate crisis and the failure of countries to take urgent action. Continue reading...

Use of deadly 1080 bait has led to New Zealand government staff being abused, locked in national parks and harassed onlineThe New Zealand prime minister has been the subject of a death threat from environmental campaigners who have intensified their opposition to the government’s use of the poison 1080 to tackle invasive wildlife.Jacinda Ardern told a local television station on Tuesday that she had received a number of threats from anti-1080 protesters, including at least one against her life, but said she was more concerned about increasing levels of harassment and violence to conservation staff. Continue reading...

Collins Dictionary picks term referring to products made to be used once and thrown away as word of the year after rise in environmental awarenessSingle-use, a term referring to products – often made of plastic –that are made to be used once and thrown away, has been named Collins Dictionary’s word of the year for 2018.Backstop Continue reading...

Action launched in Liverpool against Anglo-Australian mining company after 2015 tragedy that killed 19 peopleThe worst environmental disaster in Brazil’s history has triggered one of the biggest legal claims ever filed in a British court.The Anglo-Australian mining company BHP Billiton is being sued for about £5bn by Brazilian victims of the Samarco dam collapse in Mariana three years ago. Continue reading...

The cost of bacon and sausages would double if the harm they cause to people’s health was taken into accountTaxing red meat would save many lives and raise billions to pay for healthcare, according to new research. It found the cost of processed meat such as bacon and sausages would double if the harm they cause to people’s health was taken into account.Governments already tax harmful products to reduce their consumption, such as sugar, alcohol and tobacco. With growing evidence of the health and environmental damage resulting from red meat, some experts now believe a “sin tax” on beef, lamb and pork is inevitable in the longer term. Continue reading...

The presence of wind turbines can reduce the number of birds and lizards in an area, a new study has found. Should we start tearing the farms down?Name: wind turbines.Age: Early examples date to the 7th century. Continue reading...

Boreholes near Redruth would be UK’s deepest and could kickstart zero-carbon power source across countryA trailblazing energy project has started drilling the UK’s deepest ever borehole in Cornwall in a bid to use heat from hot rocks as a zero-carbon source of electricity.The team behind the £18m scheme hopes to create the UK’s first deep geothermal power station and ignite a renewed interest in the technology’s wider potential. Continue reading...

Plans for a road through wildlife-rich areas break EU laws and send a worrying message ahead of Brexit, say MEPsGovernment plans to build an Oxford-Cambridge motorway over some of the UK’s most biodiverse nature reserves break EU laws and should be put on hold, according to a cross-party group of MEPs.Up to a million homes could be built in the planned conurbation link-up which would carve across some of the UK’s richest floodplain habitats such as the Otmoor Basin and Bernwood forest. Continue reading...

The world has two years to secure a deal for nature to halt a ‘silent killer’ as dangerous as climate change, says biodiversity chiefThe world must thrash out a new deal for nature in the next two years or humanity could be the first species to document our own extinction, warns the United Nation’s biodiversity chief.Ahead of a key international conference to discuss the collapse of ecosystems, Cristiana Pașca Palmer said people in all countries need to put pressure on their governments to draw up ambitious global targets by 2020 to protect the insects, birds, plants and mammals that are vital for global food production, clean water and carbon sequestration. Continue reading...

Renewable capacity has tripled in past five years, even faster growth than the ‘dash for gas’ of the 1990sThe capacity of renewable energy has overtaken that of fossil fuels in the UK for the first time, in a milestone that experts said would have been unthinkable a few years ago.In the past five years, the amount of renewable capacity has tripled while fossil fuels’ has fallen by one-third, as power stations reached the end of their life or became uneconomic. Continue reading...

The 33-year-old was bitten in Cid Harbour in the same waters where two tourists were mauled in SeptemberA man who was attacked by a shark in Cid Harbour in the Whitsundays has died in hospital.The 33-year-old Victorian had been on a charter boat with friends on Monday and had gone paddle boarding, police said, before he was bitten about 5.30pm. Continue reading...

Upper layer above northern hemisphere should be completely repaired in 2030sThe ozone layer is showing signs of continuing recovery from man-made damage and is likely to heal fully by 2060, new evidence shows.The measures taken to repair the damage will also have an important beneficial effect on climate change, as some of the gases that caused the ozone layer to thin and in places disappear also contribute to warming the atmosphere. Phasing them out could avoid as much as 0.5C (0.9F) of warming this century. Continue reading...

Rare sighting in the Canadian Arctic as a growing number of species expand their range into warming watersA rare sighting of sperm whales in the Canadian Arctic is the latest sign of a quickly changing ecosystem, say scientists, as a growing number of species expand their range into warming Arctic waters.Brandon Laforest, a marine biologist with the World Wildlife Fund, and guide Titus Allooloo were working on a project monitoring the effect of marine traffic on the region’s narwhal population when they spotted the pair of large whales just outside Pond Inlet, a community at the northern tip of Baffin Island in September. Continue reading...

Nine who died in Sicily may be latest of thousands of victims of unauthorised constructionThe villa in the Sicilian town of Casteldaccia where a family of nine died during floods last Saturday could have been demolished two years ago.The property was built too close to the Milicia River, in an area of high hydrological risk, but the owners appealed against a demolition order and it was never carried out. Continue reading...

New research reveals that cryptocurrencies require far more electricity per-dollar than it takes to mine most real metalsThe amount of energy required to “mine” one dollar’s worth of bitcoin is more than twice that required to mine the same value of copper, gold or platinum, according to a new paper, suggesting that the virtual work that underpins bitcoin, ethereum and similar projects is more similar to real mining than anyone intended.One dollar’s worth of bitcoin takes about 17 megajoules of energy to mine, according to researchers from the Oak Ridge Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio, compared with four, five and seven megajoules for copper, gold and platinum. Continue reading...

Four states across America are on the eve of introducing new cannabis legislation Continue reading...

Leaked memo shows managers were given 24 hours to name 75 staff to be redeployed to work on a no-deal scenarioThe environment department has been accused of “panic” over Brexit after a leaked document revealed the emergency redeployment of staff to prepare for a no-deal scenario.Managers at the Environment Agency (EA) were given just 24 hours to name 75 staff to be sent to the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). In September, the National Audit Office said Michael Gove’s department will not be ready for a no-deal Brexit, with meat and dairy and chemicals exports especially threatened. Continue reading...

Fair trade retailer was facing closure after poor sales compounded by weaker poundPioneering fair trade retailer Traidcraft, which had warned it was facing closure, has launched a turnaround plan that involves targeting younger ethical consumers.The faith-based group has traditionally relied on thousands of volunteers selling its coffee and tea at church hall stalls and school fairs. But in September the company warned it would cease trading unless it could come up with a profitable model after poor sales were compounded by the Brexit shock to the pound. Continue reading...

Research suggests first year ‘critical window’ in which toxic air can increase weight gainEarly exposure to air pollution from vehicles increases the risk of children becoming obese, new research has found.High levels of nitrogen dioxide, which is emitted by diesel engines, in the first year of life led to significantly faster weight gain later, the scientists found. Other pollutants produced by road traffic have also been linked to obesity in children by recent studies. Continue reading...

Opponents say revised definition of fracking will allow energy firms to bypass planning rulesThe government is facing a fresh legal challenge to its proposals to fast-track new fracking sites by loosening planning regulations.Ministers said this summer they would drop the requirement for shale gas wells to obtain planning permission by designating fracking sites as national infrastructure projects. Continue reading...

Veteran broadcaster says Dynasties, his new BBC wildlife series, will be gripping, truthful and entertaining but not overtly campaigningSir David Attenborough, the world’s most famous wildlife storyteller, believes repeated warnings about human destruction of the natural world can be a “turn-off” for viewers – a comment that is likely to reignite the debate about whether the veteran broadcaster’s primary duty is to entertain or educate.Ahead of the launch of Dynasties, a new five-part BBC documentary series, the presenter of Blue Planet II and Planet Earth II said the impact of habitat loss, climate change and pollution were evident everywhere, but sounding the alarm too often could be counterproductive. Continue reading...

Tiger known to hunters as T1 and as Avni to wildlife lovers had killed more than a dozen in two yearsA man-eating tiger that claimed more than a dozen victims in two years has been shot dead in India, officials say.One of India’s most high-profile tiger hunts in decades ended on Friday night when the mother of two 10-month-old cubs – known to hunters as T1 but Avni to wildlife lovers – was shot dead in the jungles of Maharashtra state. Continue reading...

The Horseshoe crab outlived the dinosaurs but is no match for medicine’s hunger for its bloodFew people in the world are aware their wellbeing may one day depend on a blue-blooded crab that looks like a cross between the facehugger from Alien and a gigantic louse. Fewer still realise this ancient creature now faces its greatest threat in more than 450m years.The American horseshoe crab outlived the dinosaurs and has survived four previous mass extinctions, but is now menaced by the pharmaceutical industry, fishing communities, habitat loss, climate change and, most recently, choking tides of red algae off the east coast of the United States. Continue reading...

Introducing the Guardian’s new series The Age of Extinction, the renowned primatologist describes the dramatic vanishing of wildlife she has witnessed in her lifetime – and how we can all play a vital role in halting its destructionDuring my years studying chimpanzees in Gombe national park in Tanzania I experienced the magic of the rainforest. I learned how all life is interconnected, how each species, no matter how insignificant it may seem, has a role to play in the rich tapestry of life – known today as biodiversity. Even the loss of one thread can have a ripple effect and result in major damage to the whole.I left Gombe in 1986 when I realised how fast chimpanzee habitat was being destroyed and how their numbers were declining. I visited six chimpanzee range states and learned a great deal about the rate of deforestation as a result of foreign corporations (timber, oil and mining) and population growth in communities in and around chimpanzee habitat, so that more land was needed for expanding villages, agriculture and grazing livestock. Continue reading...

More than 10,000 Instagram fans followed Meenakshi Moorthy and Vishnu Viswanath’s travels. But their mysterious death raises concerns about selfie cultureFrom the Grand Canyon to the California coast, Meenakshi Moorthy and Vishnu Viswanath documented a life of travel and and natural beauty in their adopted homeland for more than 10,000 Instagram followers.The pair had immigrated to Silicon Valley from India. Moorthy described herself as the “high-spirited storyteller” who penned their social-media entries. Viswanath, she said, was the “head photographer of our most pretty pics”. Posting online was about more than just receiving “likes”, she often remarked. And she warned about the dangers of scaling high places just for photographs. Continue reading...

Exclusive: slimmed-down Carmichael plan calls into question eligibility to delay royalties payment

Environmental groups say Russia, China and Norway played part in rejecting planA plan to turn a huge tract of pristine Antarctic ocean into the world’s biggest sanctuary has been rejected, throwing the future of one of the Earth’s most important ecosystems into doubt.Environmental groups said Russia, China and Norway had played a part in blocking the proposal, with the other 22 members of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, the organisation set up to protect Antarctic waters, backing the proposal. Continue reading...