Environment | The Guardian

In 1975 two conservationists discovered a gorgeous salamander in the rainforests of Guatemala. No one ever saw it again – and Jackson’s climbing salamander was feared extinct – until last month when local forest guard, Ramos León-Tomás, sat down in the forest for lunch.

Robots could also reduce food waste and help harvest crops, but they may not be commercially available for some years to come, say expertsMiniature robot farmers may be the answer to concerns over chemical use on farms and cutting down on food waste, as well as easing labour shortages, academic farming experts have said.The drawback is that the machines in question, while developed in laboratories to an advanced stage, are not yet commercially available in the UK. In an optimistic scenario, they could become available in as little as three years, but that would be likely to take large investment and a high degree of entrepreneurialism in the private sector, the experts said on Monday. Continue reading...

The case, led by Greenpeace, claims Norwegian government has violated constitutional right to a healthy environment and contravenes Paris agreementThe Norwegian government is being sued by climate activists over a decision to open up areas of the Arctic Ocean for oil exploration, a move they say endangers the lives of existing and future generations.The plaintiffs, led by environmental organisations Greenpeace and Youth and Nature, will on Tuesday claim that the Norwegian government has violated a constitutional environmental law which guarantees citizens’ rights to a healthy environment. Continue reading...

A new assessment of cycling in UK cities shows people are far more supportive of bold plans than political decision makers often thinkIt may not be clear from the persistent bikelash in many sections of the media, but in fact there is huge public support for increased government investment in cycling and especially for building segregated bike routes.

The Paradise Papers have exposed the hypocrisy of universities that teach sustainability while financing climate destruction offshore. We’re calling on them to come cleanStudents at Oxford and Cambridge are taught about the dangers of economic inequality, climate change, and the limits of burnable carbon. But the Paradise Papers have revealed that behind the scenes, the universities are investing tens of millions in projects that systematically exacerbate inequality and climate disaster.The scandal is not simply tax avoidance. It is the hypocrisy of universities that espouse their commitment to sustainability while financing environmental destruction offshore. Continue reading...

Most hunts happen in the early morning or just before dusk – except in winter during the short days

Saul Luciano Lliuya wants damages from RWE to protect hometown of Huaraz from a swollen glacier lake at risk of overflowing from melting snow and iceA Peruvian farmer won a small but significant legal victory on Monday when a German court said his appeal against energy giant RWE, which he accuses of contributing to climate change that is threatening his Andean home, had merit.

International Energy Agency says US oil production between 2010 and 2025 will grow at a rate unparalleled in historyThe shale revolution in north America means the US is destined to become a net oil exporter within 10 years, for the first time since the 1950s.The International Energy Agency said it expected that American oil production between 2010 and 2025 would grow at a rate unparalleled by any country in history, with far-reaching consequences for the US and the world. Continue reading...

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell to say ‘overwhelming challenge of climate change’ must be addressed from very centre of governmentThe risk posed by climate change would be factored into projections from the government’s independent economic forecaster if Labour took office, the shadow chancellor will announce on Tuesday.

Jim Ratcliffe, founder of chemicals and fracking giant Ineos, recently tried to get government subsidies to build successor to Land Rover DefenderIneos, the petrochemicals company founded by billionaire Brexit backer Jim Ratcliffe, has announced plans to buy a Swiss football club, the latest in a spree of seemingly unconnected acquisitions.The privately owned firm said it was buying FC Lausanne-Sport, which plays in Switzerland’s top football league, to build on existing links it had forged with teams near its offices in Lausanne and the Swiss canton of Vaud. Continue reading...

America is deeply divided, but climate-denying Republicans are losing their grip on power

With a growing number of UK food and drink outlets ditching drinking straws and plastic bottles, we’d like to hear your tips for reducing plastic consumption

Number of natural world heritage sites at serious risk from global warming has doubled in three years, says the IUCN, including the Great Barrier Reef and spectacular karst caves in EuropeFrom the Everglades in the US to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, climate change is destroying the many of the greatest wonders of the natural world.

The rise would end three years of flat carbon emissions – a ‘huge leap backward’ say some scientists, while others say the longer term trend is more hopefulThe burning of fossil fuels around the world is set to hit a record high in 2017, climate scientists have warned, following three years of flat growth that raised hopes that a peak in global emissions had been reached.

Local authorities invest £16bn in fossil fuel companies. In Southwark, we will no longer do thisData released on 9 November shows that the UK’s local authorities invest more than £16bn into companies that extract oil, gas and coal. Collectively, the country’s local government pension funds have nearly £3,000 invested in fossil fuels for every pension fund member. Southwark has decided we will no longer do this.In December 2016, Southwark council pension fund made a landmark commitment. Following more than a year of consultation, deliberation and work with community groups we announced a decision to divest the £1.2bn fund from fossil fuels. Continue reading...

St Mary’s Island, Northumberland Children with fluorescent nets peer into plastic buckets; their cries of excitement echoed by the piping of seabirdsHeading south on the coastal path, we leave Old Hartley village, drawn magnetically by St Mary’s Island with its tall white lighthouse. The sea is a muted grey, with two vast container ships at rest near its meeting with a paler sky.The footpath skirts a tufty hillock where a kestrel hovers over rough grass, fenced off from the path by chestnut paling. I catch the medicinal scent of mugwort, its glaucous leaves curling and turning winter brown. The scrubby clifftops are a tangle of rose briars and brambles, safe thickets for stonechat and wren. Amongst the windblown tussocks are seedheads of wild carrot, yarrow and knapweed, with late flowers of red clover. Continue reading...

Australia’s largest private health insurer says it ‘acknowledges the science of climate change and the impacts on human health’Australia’s largest private health insurer, Medibank, will shed tens of millions of dollars in fossil-fuel investments because of the effects of climate change on human health.In a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange before its annual general meeting in Melbourne on Monday, its chair, Elizabeth Alexander, said the company would move to low-carbon investments “in line with our commitment to the health and wellbeing of our customers”. Continue reading...

Notification of planned clearing is up 30% in the past year compared with the previous three-year averageA dramatic land-clearing surge in Queensland could turn into a “tsunami” in the coming year, say conservationists, the rate of notifications of planned clearing rising 30% in the past year compared with the previous three-year average. Continue reading...

Many feared what the MP would do when he became environment secretary this year – but he has pleasantly surprised his criticsMichael Gove has transformed from a “shy green” into a “full-throated environmentalist”, according to close allies who have said the Conservative MP has been heavily affected by his latest ministerial brief.Howls of protest made by green groups, commentators and political opponents when Theresa May decided, in June this year, to elevate the high-profile Brexiter to environment secretary were slowly being proven wrong, they claim. Continue reading...

Ancient peatlands that store huge amounts of carbon are under threat from loggingStumbling on submerged roots, attacked by bees and wading waist-deep through leech-infested water, the three researchers and their Pygmy guides progress at just 100 metres an hour through the largest and least-explored tropical bog in the world.The group halt and unpack what looks like a spear, which is plunged over and over again into the waterlogged forest floor. Each time it brings up a metre-long core of rich, black peat made up of partly decomposed leaves and ancient plantlife. The deepest the steel blade reaches before meeting the underlying clay is 3.7 metres. Continue reading...

The new must-have accessory for cruise liners and luxury yachts is a bubble-shaped submersibleThe unknowable expanse of the oceans has become a little more familiar after Blue Planet II. Now it is set to become more familiar still to tourists with enough cash to spare.The BBC series is the most-watched show of 2017, with 14.1 million viewers tuning in for unseen wonders like cannibalistic Humboldt squid, methane belching from the ocean floor and an underwater lake of brine. Scenes like these are beyond the view of anyone except TV crews, scientists and explorers – but not for much longer. Submarine tourism is riding a wave of interest that is likely to swell as the series continues. Continue reading...

The America’s Pledge group claims to represent US majority opinion on carbon emissions, despite Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris agreementThe United Nations should give a “seat at the table” to a powerful group of US states, cities, tribes and businesses that are committed to taking action on climate change, Michael Bloomberg has urged.In an apparent bid to circumvent US president Donald Trump’s moves to withdraw from the Paris accord, the billionaire philanthropist also said the world body should accept an alternative set of US climate commitments alongside national pledges to reduce carbon emissions. Continue reading...

US states, cities and businesses signed up to ‘America’s pledge’ to combat global warning have a combined economic power equal to the world’s third-biggest economyThe US states, cities and businesses that have signed up to reduce greenhouse gas emissions despite president Donald Trump’s threats to withdraw from the Paris agreement would, if put together, have the clout of the world’s third biggest economy, after the US and China.To date, 20 US states and more than 50 of its largest cities, along with more than 60 of the biggest businesses in the US, have committed to emissions reduction goals. Continue reading...

As 400,000 people in coastal communities await emergency assistance after first deadly cyclone, aid workers warn Typhoon Kaikui will inflict further miseryAlmost 400,000 people are in need of humanitarian assistance following a typhoon that has devastated some of the poorest communities in Vietnam, pummelling homes and destroying water supplies.Typhoon Damrey made landfall on 4 November in the country’s south-central coastal region, with winds of 135km an hour. At least 100 people have died, according to Vietnam’s disaster management authority. Continue reading...

At first I resented the way they blocked the view. But now the towers look like part of a brighter futureOver the last few months I have been watching with mixed feelings as the Rampion wind farm emerges like a great monster from the sea off Brighton beach. It has happened so quickly: one morning in the early summer a few small grey stumps appeared on the previously flat horizon. Only weeks later, the first turbines were up, instantly giving the familiar sea view a new, industrial edge. Since then more and more have appeared, row upon row of them. Though they are eight miles offshore, they dominate the view from the beach now, and create strange optical illusions; in some weathers they look close, and in others very far away. Occasionally, on a seemingly clear day, they inexplicably disappear from view.Over the summer I mourned the glorious, uninterrupted horizons that used to beckon Continue reading...

Switch to an ethical bank account and invest in renewable energy, not fossil fuelsGiving to charity, while highly recommended, does not make you an activist. It makes you a charity donor. Great in its own right, but move your bank account and then you’re edging into activist territory. As motivation, read a new report from Christian Aid that unpicks the global banking industry, zeroing in on the Big Four, which hold almost all of our money. What emerges is a picture of a system rife with dysfunction.Despite the falling costs for renewables and their increasingly swift take-up, your money, via private banks, still primarily bankrolls fossil fuels. If this continues, by 2050 the global economy will have invested $23tn into fossil fuels, sinking the targets of the globally agreed Paris Agreement, our best hope of avoiding catastrophic climate change. Continue reading...

At UN climate talks in Bonn, Gore is heading an unofficial group trying to stop climate change – in the face of scepticism from Trump administration officialsAl Gore has accused Donald Trump of surrounding himself “with the absolute worst of climate deniers” and said he has given up attempting to persuade the president to reverse his dismantling of policies combatting global warming.However, both Gore, the former US vice-president, and Jerry Brown, governor of California, told the Guardian they were confident the US will regain its leadership position on climate change if Trump is defeated in the next presidential election. Continue reading...

Emissions trading benefits big polluters, say Maxime Combes et al. And the UK Treasury continues to subsidise certain highly polluting diesel engines, say Matthew Farrow et alWhile the EU is extolling its “climate leadership” at the UN climate talks in Bonn, in Brussels it has just agreed to prolong its emissions trading system – providing big polluters with billions of euros in subsidies.Some EU member states could use a sizable chunk of these funds to carry on burning fossil fuels, with Poland, for instance, looking to prolong the lifespan of its ageing coal infrastructure. Using emissions trading revenues to extend the life of coal-fired power plants is extremely irresponsible and works directly against efforts to halt catastrophic climate change. Continue reading...

One of US’s only public events, originally billed as promoting clean energy, has since been changed to favour coal and nuclear powerThe US has changed the focus of one of its few public events at the Bonn climate talks to emphasise coal and nuclear power, in a sign of the Trump administration’s goals at the talks.An event next Monday, opening the second week of the ongoing UN negotiations, was originally billed as promoting clean energy. However, it has since been changed to emphasise coal and nuclear power. Continue reading...

Pintail ducks, an elephant seal pup and an osprey in action are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...

Abbas Allawi is sentenced to 14 months for trying to sell on Instagram endangered animal parts worth up to £2mA would-be trader in endangered animal parts has been jailed after rhino horns, elephant tusks and hippo teeth worth up to £2m were discovered by specially trained search dogs in a police raid.Abbas Allawi, 52, was arrested when officers from the Metropolitan police’s wildlife crime unit searched his home in Gisburne Way, Watford, on 19 October last year. Continue reading...

French institute says pollution suggests release of nuclear material in Russia or Kazakhstan in SeptemberA cloud of radioactive pollution over Europe in recent weeks indicates that an accident happened in a nuclear facility in Russia or Kazakhstan in the last week of September, the French nuclear safety institute IRSN has said.

Paul Bodnar believes US president has ability to hamper progress towards a lower carbon economy – but that market forces will ultimately stop himDonald Trump could slow down US progress towards a lower carbon economy, but he will be unable to halt it because businesses and local governments have committed to a low-carbon path, a former climate negotiator for the US has said.Through measures such as slapping import tariffs on solar products, scrapping incentives to renewable energy and promoting coal power, the US president could try to alter the economics of pursuing low-carbon energy. Continue reading...

Researcher in remote Chagos Islands says he saw crabs, previously thought to be scavengers, hunting and killing seabirdA large, land-dwelling crustacean known as a coconut or robber crab has been seen hunting and killing a seabird, the first time such behaviour has been observed in the species.The phenomenon was witnessed by a researcher, Mark Laidre of Dartmouth College, while he was studying the giant crabs in the remote Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean, New Scientist reported. Continue reading...

With political agreement making slow progress and direct action becoming more dangerous, we must find alternativesIn the medieval legend made famous by the brothers Grimm, the German town of Hamelin is besieged by a plague of rats, until the mysterious pied piper appears and agrees, for a fee, to rid them of the infestation. The mayor then reneges on payment and the piper exacts a savage revenge on the town’s ingrates by luring away their children, who are never seen again.The tale could also be an allegory for today’s grim intergenerational smash-and-grab – the global economy. As environmentalist Paul Hawken put it: “We have an economy where we steal the future, sell it in the present, and call it GDP.” Continue reading...

Waltham Forest’s new zero-emissions delivery service aims to replace polluting trucks for local deliveries of food, online purchases and moreEach morning Oscar Godoy unlocks a door in a railway arch in north London, organises the day’s deliveries, and assigns jobs to his cargo bike riders. They manoeuvre the hefty bikes from the narrow lane out on to the road, past assorted vehicles from the MOT garage, the car wash and vehicle repair outfits at either end.In the afternoons Godoy does the deliveries himself. Two weeks after the scheme’s launch he heads out, on an electric trike with a large white metal box across its rear axle, filled with the day’s first consignment from a local organic vegetable box scheme. Continue reading...

Australian Museum teams up with IBM to monitor the country’s native frog population by having their calls recordedThe Australian Museum has teamed up with IBM to count the country’s native frog population via a world-first app that records their calls and sends them to experts for identification.App FrogID will give the public the chance to carry out Australia’s first such national count, which begins on Friday and is intended to support researchers’ efforts to save endangered native species. Australia has 240 named native species of frog, but the museum wants to identify what it believes are dozens more still ribbiting under the radar. Continue reading...

Marsupial’s body found on Hopkins Point Road at Warrnambool in Victoria’s south-west on MondayA koala has been found dead with its ears cut off in Victoria’s south-west as police investigate a spate of animal mutilations in the area.The koala’s body was found about two kilometres east of Hopkins bridge on Hopkins Point Road at Warrnambool on Monday by an SES worker. Continue reading...

At COP 23 talks in Bonn, Fiji has called on developed nations to help the world’s most vulnerable build resilience to climate changeTo prepare for the rising temperatures, strengthening storms and higher sea levels in the coming decades, Fiji must spend an amount equivalent to its entire yearly gross domestic product over the next 10 years, according to the first comprehensive assessment of the small island nation’s vulnerability to climate change, compiled by its government with the assistance of the World Bank.Released half-way through the COP23 in Bonn, which Fiji is presiding over, the report highlights five major interventions and 125 further actions that it says are necessary to achieve Fiji’s development objectives, while facing the potentially devastating impacts of climate change. Combined those actions would cost about US$4.5bn over the next decade. Continue reading...

David Carpenter and Ralph Hanna point out that the 1217 Charter of the Forest wasn’t a great emancipation for ordinary people, while Kevin May sings the praises of modern-day Kielder Forest in NorthumberlandFelicity Lawrence (For a fairer share of our resources, turn to the 13th century, 8 November) states that the 1217 Charter of the Forest “asserted the rights of ordinary people to access from ‘the commons’ the means for a livelihood and shelter”. It thus “represented an early constitutional victory for ordinary people over a wealthy elite”. Alas, this view needs considerable qualification. The key concessions in the charter were granted to “free men”, and thus deliberately excluded the unfree, who formed a large proportion of the population. Far from being a victory of the ordinary people over a wealthy elite, the charter was, in some ways, exactly the reverse.

London’s proposed ultra-low emissions zone will do nothing to address the capital’s problem with polluting vehicles, writes Felix LeachThe mayor of London’s proposed ultra-low emission zone, to come into effect from 8 April 2019 (Report, 24 October), risks perpetuating the problem. The discourse currently focuses on NOx emissions, specifically those from diesel engines, but this is hardly the only pollutant. By insisting on Euro 4 (2005) standards for petrol cars and the significantly cleaner Euro 6 (2014) standards for diesel, petrol cars in London will be able to emit double the carbon monoxide of diesels and particulate emissions from petrol vehicles will still be unregulated (whereas diesel will have strict limits). Given that PM2.5 levels are more than double the WHO limit in London (Report, 5 October), allowing petrol cars to continue to emit unlimited levels of particulates in London is mad.Perverse government incentives, such as when there was a focus on CO at the expense of other emissions from vehicles in the 2000s, are exactly what caused today’s situation. All vehicles, even electric ones, emit something – until we have legislation that applies to them all equally, we will just push the problem around. A start would be to insist on Euro 6 for all vehicles in London from 2019.

The nation’s bees welcomed the news that Britain backing a Europe-wide ban on insect-harming pesticides

Donald Trump has pulled the US out of the Paris accord – but other Americans are standing with the world to help fight the ‘existential crisis’ of global warmingDeep schisms in the US over climate change are on show at the UN climate talks in Bonn – where two sharply different visions of America’s role in addressing dangerous global warming have been put forward to the world.Donald Trump’s decision to pull the US out of the Paris climate agreement has created a vacuum into which dozens of state, city and business leaders have leapt, with the aim of convincing other countries at the international summit that the administration is out of kilter with the American people. Continue reading...

Subsidy-free plant would cover 900 acres of farmland near Great Expectations marshes at Faversham, dwarfing output of UK’s current largest solar siteAn enormous solar power station is planned for the north Kent coast that would be the UK’s biggest and dwarf existing solar farms, providing a significant boost to an industry that has stalled since ministers halted subsidies 18 months ago.Cleve Hill, a mile from the historic town of Faversham, would have five times the capacity of the UK’s current largest solar farm and provide enough power for around 110,000 households if it comes online in 2020 as proposed. Continue reading...

Michael Gove, the environment secretary, has said the UK will ban insect-harming pesticides, so we want to see your photos of bees

Ecologists expect Aberdeenshire sand dunes to lose conservation protection because of president’s golf courseThe spectacular dunes habitat in Aberdeenshire used by Donald Trump for his £1bn golf resort is likely to lose its legal protection because his golf course has ruined the site, conservationists say.Expert ecologists, including one who backed the US president’s original plans for the course of 10 years ago, believe the sand dunes will be stripped of their status as a site of special scientific interest (SSSI) by the government’s conservation agency, Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH). Continue reading...

From snakes to spiders, wasps to scorpions, the Natural History Museum’s new Venom exhibition promises to unnerve and entice, as it explores one of nature’s deadliest forces and its power to both kill and cure Continue reading...

Exclusive: Billionaire’s campaign has seen half of US coal plants close in six years. Now he is targeting Europe and beyond to fight climate change and air pollutionThe battle to end coal-burning, backed by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, is expanding out of the US and around the world in its bid to reduce the global warming threat posed by the most polluting fossil fuel.

Exclusive: Research leads environment secretary to overturn government’s previous opposition, making total EU ban much more likelyThe UK will back a total ban on insect-harming pesticides in fields across Europe, the environment secretary, Michael Gove, has revealed.The decision reverses the government’s previous position and is justified by recent new evidence showing neonicotinoids have contaminated the whole landscape and cause damage to colonies of bees. It also follows the revelation that 75% of all flying insects have disappeared in Germany and probably much further afield, a discovery Gove said had shocked him. Continue reading...

With more and more evidence emerging that these pesticides harm bees and other insects, it would be irresponsible not to restrict their use, writes the environment secretary, Michael GoveTwo principles guide this government’s approach to the natural world. We want not just to protect but to enhance the environment. And we want our decisions to be informed at all times by rigorous scientific evidence.Which is why when the science shows that our environment is in increasing danger we have to act. Like many others, I was deeply concerned by a recently published German study into the health of some insect populations. The Guardian covered the report in depth, not least because the statistics were so stark. Data gathered over 25 years appeared to indicate a 75% fall in the numbers of flying insects within those sites. Continue reading...