Environment | The Guardian

LNP leader Tim Nicholls says the advertising plan is to ‘overcome misleading green activist scare campaigns’A Liberal National party plan to spend $4m on a Great Barrier Reef marketing campaign if it takes power in Queensland has drawn fire as an attempt at “greenwashing” in a void of climate policy.The LNP leader, Tim Nicholls, said the advertising was to “overcome the misleading green activist scare campaigns which have talked down our greatest natural wonder”. Continue reading...

Booming of male bitterns reveals presence of at least 164 of the heron-like waders living in British wetlands, says charityPopulations of the bittern, a wetland bird that was facing extinction in the UK in the late 1990s, are at a record high, conservationists report.Resident numbers of “Britain’s loudest bird” increased in 2017, and experts – using the foghorn-like booming call of the males to survey the species – have counted at least 164 birds at 71 sites. Continue reading...

Dolphin first spotted nine days ago was undernourished and probably relatively aged, tests showA two-metre-long dolphin believed to have been spotted nine days ago in London after swimming its way up the river Thames has died.

Decline in seasons | Closure of Seer Green post office | Boris Johnson journalism fund | Government by dirty old menI’ve not seen any wasps either, now that you mention it (Letters, 4 November). What I have seen are the first daffodils of the spring – in November, when autumn hasn’t properly happened yet. Oaks and ashes are still holding their green leaves. I expect winter-flowering cherry, winter camellias, winter iris and daffs “January” and “February Gold” to make early appearances (and to be reported on the letters page as prodigious), but along the grass verges of the North Circular Road, seeded with spring bulbs, dainty, yellow and orange narcissi bobbed in the slipstream of the traffic on 3 November. Is there now a worrying decline in seasons?

Funds invested in by the universities include a joint venture to develop oil exploration and deep-sea drillingThe universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and nearly half of all Oxbridge colleges, have secretly invested tens of millions of pounds in offshore funds, including in a joint venture to develop oil exploration and deep-sea drilling, leaked documents from the Paradise Papers reveal.The files show that both universities have committed significant funds to multibillion-dollar private equity partnerships based in the Cayman Islands, a tax haven popular with American and British hedge funds. Continue reading...

Payment to owner of Loy Yang B – one of country’s dirtiest plants – was compensation for short-lived carbon taxThe owner of one of Australia’s dirtiest coal-fired power plants quietly moved $1bn offshore within days of pocketing $117m from taxpayers in compensation for Labor’s now-defunct carbon tax.The revelation, contained in the Paradise Papers, has prompted renewed criticism of the “chronic failure” of Australian climate policy and warnings against future cash handouts to multinational polluters.

New proposals to limit CO2 from passenger cars and vans by 2030 would meet climate goals, but campaigners say regulations fall shortThe European commission has unveiled new proposals for limits on carbon dioxide emissions from passenger cars and vans, which would compel manufacturers to cut emissions from their vehicles by nearly a third from 2030.But the proposals will not require manufacturers to make a fixed quota of their fleet run on electricity, as some campaigners had hoped. Continue reading...

Angus Emmott calls for Annastacia Palaszczuk to cancel the free water licence given to Adani’s Carmichael coalmineA Queensland farmer has raised enough money to air an advertisement during prime-time television in the state’s regional areas calling on the government to cancel the free and unlimited water licence given to Adani’s proposed Carmichael coalmine for 60 years.Angus Emmott, who previously attracted almost 100,000 signatures to a petition fighting the same cause, has raised just over $25,000, allowing his group Farmers for Climate Action to buy ad space on television. Continue reading...

The world’s nations are meeting in Bonn, Germany, for the 23rd annual “conference of the parties” (COP) under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which aims to prevent dangerous global warming. This year, Fiji plays president and meeting the Paris climate goals are top of the agenda

We are binning nearly half of the fresh spuds we buy. But stashing some in the freezer can save time and make for extra-crunchy roasties

Not far from the UN climate talks taking place in Bonn, activists frustrated with slow progress by governments are turning up the heat at the Hambach opencast mine, highlighting Germany’s failure to live up to its green pledgesA giant black mark on Germany’s environmental record is scarred on the land an hour’s drive from the venue of this year’s UN climate talks in Bonn.Stretching 85 kilometres wide and 400 metres deep, the opencast coalmine near Hambach forest is the biggest hole in Europe and one of the biggest single sources of carbon on the continent. Continue reading...

Irreplaceable cultural resources in New Mexico are among those areas targeted for expedited drilling – and conservationists say it’s ‘like losing pages and chapters of that history book’In Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, it is still possible to wander the maze of rooms of an ancestral Puebloan village erected roughly 1,000 years ago.Visitors use the same staircases and duck through the same T-shaped doorways as residents did at the time. A jigsaw puzzle of rocks form walls that stand several feet thick and multiple stories tall. Where rooftops are gone, windows now let in glimpses of sky. It’s a simultaneous experience of vast space and marvelous connection. Continue reading...

Darmstadt police detained 19-year-old after a drunken row with another man and said they saw ‘significant bulge in his trousers’A man detained by police during a drunken argument in Germany may have violated animal welfare laws after being found to be carrying a baby python in his pants.Police in Darmstadt, in the west of the country, said he was held on Tuesday night after a loud row with another man disturbed residents. They said he was searched and officers noticed “a significant bulge in his trousers”. Continue reading...

Decision to drop key issues welcomed by other negotiating parties but criticised by some supportersGermany’s Green party has agreed to compromise on key environmental issues in talks between parties hoping to form a coalition government by the end of the year.

Until recently the battle to avert catastrophic climate change – floods, droughts, famine, mass migrations – seemed to be lost. But with the tipping point just years away, the tide is finally turning, thanks to innovations ranging from cheap renewables to lab-grown meat and electric airplanes‘Everybody gets paralysed by bad news because they feel helpless,” says Christiana Figueres, the former UN climate chief who delivered the landmark Paris climate change agreement. “It is so in our personal lives, in our national lives and in our planetary life.”But it is becoming increasingly clear that it does not need to be all bad news: a series of fast-moving global megatrends, spurred by trillion-dollar investments, indicates that humanity might be able to avert the worst impacts of global warming. From trends already at full steam, including renewable energy, to those just now hitting the big time, such as mass-market electric cars, to those just emerging, such as plant-based alternatives to meat, these trends show that greenhouse gas emissions can be halted. Continue reading...

Expert says analysis shows need for more orderly transition from fossil fuels, with more notice of closure of coal plantsSouth Australia’s renewables-heavy electricity market has been turned upside down, moving from importing power to exporting it, and from having some the most expensive wholesale prices in the country to having some of the cheapest.

Figures show nearly 3 million potatoes a day are wasted, at a cost of £230m a yearNearly half of the edible fresh potatoes bought by UK householders each day are thrown away - nearly 2.7 million of them per day, and at a “staggering” annual cost of £230m, figures show.The humble spud is the second most wasted food in the UK, behind bread, according to new official figures released on Wednesday. The new research was offered in support of a government campaign to encourage consumers to reduce their domestic food waste. Continue reading...

Wenlock Edge, Shropshire This gently rotting place, soggy with last night’s rain and morning fog, muddies itself into winterA pair of doves settles on the stones, white as pacifist poppies. Perhaps they escaped from a loft or dovecote; perhaps they turned up separately and found the strangeness of each other in a place full of jackdaws. They have been around for a couple of years pecking crumbs outside the market, cooing from precarious roosts inside the bed-of-nails pigeon guards on roof eaves, displaying randy shenanigans on the church tower.Shameless and symbolic, these birds are reclaiming territory on the artificial cliffs of buildings left when rock doves were changed into pigeons. There are those who see them as pests and maybe that’s because those people find something a bit unsettling about the whiteness of doves, as if it’s a gap in the reality of the world that could be filled with something else, something subversive. Continue reading...

Plans by the governments of Ghana and Ivory Coast drawn up after Guardian investigation revealed links between the cocoa industry and rainforest lossThe governments of Ghana and the Ivory Coast are formulating plans to immediately put a stop to all new deforestation after a Guardian investigation found that the cocoa industry was destroying their rainforests.

Monthly rate of fixes of vehicles with defeat devices has fallen to 2% from a previous high of 10% earlier in the yearA third of cars manufactured by Volkswagen with devices to cheat emissions tests remain unfixed, two years after the scandal erupted.In what was coined the “diesel dupe”, VW equipped their vehicles with defeat devices designed to realise when they were being tested so they could appear to be much less polluting than in reality. Continue reading...

Warmer and more acid seas cause huge blooms of jellyfish, but scientists are working on ways to convert them into something usefulThe combination of climate change and overfishing is causing a population explosion in jellyfish. Since there are fewer fish to eat them, they appear off the British coast in vast swarms. This is a threat to nuclear power stations – because they can block the intake of cooling water – and to fish farms, where thousands get caught in the netting, sometimes killing hundreds of salmon by depriving them of oxygen.Some species are poisonous, and so caution is required when jellyfish float next to you in the sea or are stranded on beaches. Their sting can be powerful. Continue reading...

Ministers accused of ‘stubborn failure’ to tackle widespread and illegal levels of air pollution, which cause 40,000 early deaths every yearThe UK government is being sued for a third time over the widespread illegal levels of air pollution, which cause 40,000 early deaths every year.Environmental lawyers ClientEarth have already defeated ministers twice in court, forcing a new pollution plan to be drawn up in July. But ClientEarth believes even the latest strategy does not meet the legal requirement of banishing toxic air in the “shortest possible time”, as EU law requires. Continue reading...

Syria’s decision means America will be the only country outside the landmark deal if it follows through with Donald Trump’s vow to leaveSyria has decided to sign the Paris agreement on climate change, the world’s final functioning state to do so. The surprise decision, taken amid a brutal civil war in the country, will leave the US as the only country outside the agreement if it follows through on President Donald Trump’s vow to leave.Syria’s decision brings to 197 the number of nations signed up to the landmark 2015 pact on global warming, the first in more than 20 years of UN negotiations to bind both developed and developing countries to a clear limit on temperature rises. Continue reading...

Photograph taken in eastern India, titled ‘Hell is here’, shows crowd hurling flaming tar balls at animalsAn arresting image showing an adult elephant and its calf fleeing a mob attack has won a top Asian wildlife photography prize.It shows the two animals running among a crowd that has hurled flaming tar balls and crackers at them, reportedly to ward the elephants away from human settlements.

Exclusive: Miner separates itself from call for environmental groups to be restricted to using 10% of funding for advocacyBHP has said it will not support the Minerals Council’s bid to strip environmental groups of their ability to advocate for policy change.The surprising move comes amid increasing pressure on Australia’s biggest miner to distance itself from the Minerals Council, which has taken a hardline position against any form of credible action on climate change. The government will soon table a bill aimed at limiting the ability of any charity to use donations raised from overseas on advocacy in Australia. Continue reading...

Overuse of antibiotics in animals is contributing to growing drug resistance in humans with serious health implications, says global health bodyFarmers must be prevented from using powerful antibiotics on animals reared for food, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned, because of the serious risks to human health that result.New guidelines from the global body suggest farmers should stop using any antibiotics routinely to promote growth and prevent disease in animals that are otherwise healthy, a common practice in some parts of the world, including Asia and the US. Such routine use is banned in Europe, though campaigners fear the rules are sometimes flouted. Continue reading...

Donald Trump is presiding over the most withering, devastating, and trenchant attack on the American administrative state this nation has ever knownThere is no shortage of adjectives to describe the Trump presidency. Venal. Shameless. Bigoted. Impulsive. Feckless. Amid the never-ending stream of scandals and outrages, it is easy to lose sight of just what this administration is doing well – and where it is proving to be spectacularly disciplined, calculating and effective.Donald Trump is presiding over the most withering, devastating, and trenchant attack on the American administrative state this nation has ever known. Continue reading...

Levels of airborne pollutants are off the scale in parts of India’s capital with effects likened to smoking 50 cigarettes a dayA public health emergency has been declared by doctors in Delhi as air quality in the world’s most polluted capital city plunged to levels likened to smoking at least 50 cigarettes in a single day.Slow winds and colder temperatures have been blamed for a surge in airborne pollutants beyond what instruments in the city could measure with some recording an Air Quality Index (AQI) maximum of 999. Continue reading...

Plans to pedestrianise one of the capital’s busiest cycling roads send the troubling message that cyclists and pedestrians can’t co-exist in an 80ft-wide streetSadiq Khan’s proposal to ban cyclists from Oxford Street, published on Monday, is an unqualified disaster for cycling in London, perhaps the single biggest blow it has suffered in years. And he’s sending an even more dangerous signal to the rest of the country.More than 2,000 cyclists a day, according to Department for Transport figures, use the first section proposed for pedestrianisation next year, between Selfridges and Oxford Circus. More than 5,000 a day use the section between Oxford Circus and Tottenham Court Road, which is proposed to be pedestrianised in 2019.

Daniel Trim’s airport-roosting pied wagtail has won the 2017 competition, which celebrates the work of amateur and professional photographers and the beauty and diversity of British wildlife. Winning images are chosen from thousands of entries, including film and junior categories.More than 100 images are on show at the Mall Galleries in London, before touring nationally, and a book of the images is also available Continue reading...

Anglican clergy, including five bishops, broadcaster Richard Coles and Olivia Graham, call on the church to support the aims of the Paris climate agreement by divesting from fossil fuel companiesAs Church of England clergy, we have a strong interest in the ethics of investments made by the Church Commissioners and the Church of England Pensions Board on our behalf.This week, governments from around the world will meet in Bonn for the next round of UN climate talks. The Paris climate change agreement, which was signed by 195 countries in December 2015, included a commitment to hold the increase in the global average temperature to “well below 2C … and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels”. Continue reading...

Group says church should show ‘moral leadership’ in light of claims that the oil giant misled the public over the risks of global warmingThe Church of England should “show moral leadership” and immediately sell its investments in the oil giant ExxonMobil, according to a group of bishops and other clergy.

Governments have been underestimating methane emissions from gas and must phase out the fossil fuel, along with coal and oil, by 2035 to keep within Paris climate targets, a major study showsGovernments have drastically underestimated methane emissions from natural gas and will miss the Paris agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to 2C unless they urgently scale down its use, a major new study has found. Continue reading...

Rockland St Mary, Norfolk The fisherman rewarded the well-fed and fearless heron – a regular at the angling spot – with a small perch

Shale gas firm Cuadrilla says 29 Lancashire households will get payments – but one says they will refuse ‘blood money’A group of residents in Lancashire will soon receive £2,070 each for living near a fracking site, in the first payments made direct to British householders by a shale gas company.Cuadrilla said that 29 households within a 1km radius of the site would get the payment as part of a £100,000 community benefit fund for the second well it is drilling at a site between Blackpool and Preston that has attracted ongoing anti-fracking protests. Continue reading...

Radical proposal to pedestrianise area west of Oxford Circus is aimed at improving air quality and tackling congestionA large section of London’s Oxford Street could be traffic-free by next December under a proposal unveiled by the mayor on Monday to improve the area for shoppers.A public consultation has opened into banning all forms of transport between Oxford Circus and Orchard Street to coincide with the launch of the new Elizabeth line at the end of 2018. Continue reading...

The lawyer’s main qualification for leading the world’s most powerful central bank seems to be his lack of strong viewsJerome Powell was Wall Street’s choice to run the Federal Reserve. Given Donald Trump’s record on doing the unexpected, there was always the chance the president would pick another candidate, but for once he did not make waves.Powell was the business-as-usual candidate. Nothing he has said or done since he first joined the Fed’s board five years ago suggests he intends to make life difficult for Trump or rattle the financial markets. Well, not deliberately at least, for while Powell is the boring choice, he may not necessarily prove to be the safe choice. Continue reading...

Data so far this year points to 2017 continuing a long-term trend of record breaking temperatures around the world, says World Meteorological Organization2017 is set to be one of the hottest three years on record, provisional data suggests, confirming yet again a warming trend that scientists say bears the fingerprints of human actions.The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said temperatures in the first nine months of this year were unlikely to have been higher than 2016, when there was a strong El Niño weather system, but higher than anything before 2015. Continue reading...

Republican climate science denial reared its ugly head at Bridenstine’s congressional hearingUnlike past Nasa administrators, Trump nominee Jim Bridenstine doesn’t have a scientific background. He’s a Republican Congressman from Oklahoma and former Navy pilot. He also has a history of denying basic climate science. That’s concerning because Nasa does some of the world’s best climate science research, and Bridenstine previously introduced legislation that would eliminate Earth science from Nasa’s mission statement.At his Senate hearing last week, Bridenstine tried to remake his image. He said that his previous science-denying, politically polarizing comments came with the job of being a Republican congressman, and that as Nasa administrator he would be apolitical. A kinder, gentler Bridenstine. But while he softened his climate science denial, his proclaimed new views remain in line with the rest of the harshly anti-science Trump administration. That’s very troubling. Continue reading...

Drop for seventh month in a row driven by 30% plunge in diesel vehicle sales amid growing confusion over government’s road fuel policyNew car sales have declined for the seventh month in a row, falling more than 12% in October as worsening confidence among consumers and businesses continues to dampen the market.The figures show that the car market is on course for its first annual decline since 2011 and will continue to fall next year before stabilising in 2019, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).

India’s population and emissions are rising fast, and its ability to tackle poverty without massive fossil fuel use will decide the fate of the planet“It’s a lucky charm,” says Rajesh, pointing to the solar-powered battery in his window that he has smeared with turmeric as a blessing. “It has changed our life.”

Babies in Nigeria at double the risk of dying before they reach a month old if mothers lived near the scene of an oil spill before conceiving, study showsBabies in Nigeria are twice as likely to die in the first month of life if their mothers were living near an oil spill before falling pregnant, researchers have found.

A pending decision on Monsanto’s ubiquitous weedkiller is a crucial opportunity to protect our children from the toxic cocktail of pesticides polluting their food, water and play areasOur children are growing up exposed to a toxic cocktail of weedkillers, insecticides, and fungicides. It’s on their food and in their water, and it’s even doused over their parks and playgrounds. Many governments insist that our standards of protection from these pesticides are strong enough. But as a scientist and a lawyer who specialises in chemicals and their potential impact on people’s fundamental rights, I beg to differ.Last month it was revealed that in recommending that glyphosate – the world’s most widely-used pesticide – was safe, the EU’s food safety watchdog copied and pasted pages of a report directly from Monsanto, the pesticide’s manufacturer. Revelations like these are simply shocking. Continue reading...

Hosts Fiji will be aiming to build transparency and constructive dialogue – and this will be crucial to successfully ratcheting up the tough climate targets sidestepped at ParisTalanoa is a Fijian term for discussions aimed at building consensus, airing differences constructively, and finding ways to overcome difficulties or embark on new projects. It is one of the building blocks of Fijian society, used for centuries to foster greater understanding among a people distributed over many small islands, and carry them through a tough existence.

Kirkham Priory, Malton, North Yorkshire The skeleton of a building offers respite from a biting wind and a final home for the last of the summer’s waspsIt is one of those season-hinge days when the slightest atmospheric whim might swing it either way. There is some warmth in the intermittent sunshine and autumn’s colours are still bright, but the wind is pure north and it carries smatters of cold rain. The river is swollen, with violet reflections in oxtail-brown water – an ominous palette of decay.This stretch of the Derwent was once used to transport stone a mile from the ancient Whitwell Quarry to Kirkham, where in 1122 a local nobleman founded an Augustinian priory as a memorial to his son, who died falling from his horse on the hill above. For 400 years, monks went about their practical and spiritual business here. Orchards spread on to the surrounding slopes, fishponds were excavated on the flood meadow. Continue reading...

New population naturally expanded since reintroduction to north-west Scotland in 2016Red squirrels, a species previously lost from their native woodlands, have been successfully returned to the Highlands, early results of a reintroduction project show.

Paradise Papers reveal use of cross-currency interest rate swaps, which are under investigation by the tax officeThe Australian arm of the global mining giant Glencore has been involved in cross-currency swaps of up to $25bn of a type under specific investigation by the Australian tax office, the Paradise Papers reveal.Glencore, the world’s largest mining company by revenue, has attracted significant controversy since its entry into the Australian market in the mid-1990s over its tax strategies, degradation of sacred Indigenous lands, and black lung and lead blood poisoning among its workforce and their families. Continue reading...

Testing by Third Energy expected to get go-ahead soon at Kirby Misperton, the first in UK since 2011For the past year, Leigh Coghill has devoted her life to one thing – trying to stop the gas exploration company Third Energy from fracking on the outskirts of a tiny village in North Yorkshire. The 26-year-old from Wolverhampton, who “married into Yorkshire”, quit her job working for York council in November last year, deciding to devote herself to the cause.Since September, when Third Energy started preparing the site at Kirby Misperton for fracking, she has been one of a group of around forty Ryedale locals to have spent almost every day protesting next to the gates to the well, holding banners and placards, and watching in dismay as lorries trundle in. Continue reading...

Halting dangerous global warming means putting the landmark Paris agreement into practice – without the US – and tackling the divisive issue of compensationThe world’s nations are meeting for the 23rd annual “conference of the parties” (COP) under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which aims to “prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”, ie halt global warming. It is taking place in Bonn, Germany from 6-17 November. Continue reading...

Is it good news or bad when environment-friendly brands are bought out by major industry players?At a recent event held by the outdoor clothing brand Patagonia I detected a sheepish air. Nothing to do with eco wool, but rumours that the company was about to surpass a $1bn turnover.I'd rather market share went to Patagonia than to brands without discernible values Continue reading...