UK insurer accused of undermining international efforts to fight climate changeUK insurer Aviva is the second-biggest investor in the Polish coal industry, the most polluting in Europe, according to a report that looks at insurance firms’ involvement in the sector.Aviva is among a number of major European insurers that are backing the expansion of Poland’s coal industry, undermining international efforts to battle climate change, according to research from Unfriend Coal, a global network of organisations including Greenpeace Switzerland, 350.org and the UK Tar Sands Network. Continue reading...

Sandy, Bedfordshire: It should have been hibernating, but there it was, bashing its head against a cold window. Something had to be doneIt is a curious fact that the most beautiful parts of a butterfly are also the least palatable. When I lifted a log from the woodpile, the eye of a peacock in an insect wing beneath looked back. It was a sail without a ship, a cover without a book. The wing was still fired with fresh colours, as lustrous as a birthday balloon and just as nutritious. The thick body that had been provisioned with sweetness to sit out the winter in darkness had gone.The day before, another peacock, inadvertently transported indoors in the log basket, was hours away from cremation when it woke into living room summer. I did not see it fly up to the sunlit window but heard a loud thrumming from behind the blind. There it was, improbably animated out of season, bashing its head incessantly against a cold window. How could it understand that the golden orb beyond was a false god, offering only frost and ice? Continue reading...

Concerns raised over weakened regulations on imports in potential post-Brexit trade dealsLivestock raised for food in the US are dosed with five times as much antibiotic medicine as farm animals in the UK, new data has shown, raising questions about rules on meat imports under post-Brexit trade deals.The difference in rates of dosage rises to at least nine times as much in the case of cattle raised for beef, and may be as high as 16 times the rate of dosage per cow in the UK. There is currently a ban on imports of American beef throughout Europe, owing mainly to the free use of growth hormones in the US. Continue reading...

Activist group surveys members about role they want it to play in Melbourne contestGetUp is yet to decide whether or not it will be active on the ground in the looming Batman byelection, and is waiting on a signal from Labor about its position on the controversial Adani project.

EPA administrator says ‘There are assumptions made that because the climate is warming that necessarily is a bad thing’Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, has suggested that global warming may be beneficial to humans, in his latest departure from mainstream climate science.Pruitt, who has previously erred by denying that carbon dioxide is a key driver of climate change, has again caused consternation among scientists by suggesting that warming temperatures could benefit civilization. Continue reading...

The most recent Countryside Survey revealed a loss of 91,000 miles of managed hedgerow between 1984 and 2007 in Britain, writes Emma MarringtonYour report (7 February) highlights the shocking decline in hedgehog populations – as high as 97% since the 1950s, particularly in rural areas. It can’t just be coincidence that our countryside hedgerows, the favourite bolthole of the discerning hedgehog, have seen a similar decline over that period.Aerial photographs from 1940 show an almost complete network of hedges across much of the country. But between 1950 and 1975, the loss of hedges became the most familiar and visible damage to the countryside. The most recent Countryside Survey revealed a loss of 91,000 miles of managed hedgerow between 1984 and 2007 in Britain. Continue reading...

Slash CEO income, bring more women on board and go low carbon, Church Investors Group tells companiesThe Church Investors Group has warned some of Britain’s biggest companies it intends to take a hard line over failings on executive pay, gender diversity and climate change in the forthcoming annual meeting season.The group, which represents church organisations with combined investment assets of about £17bn, has told companies listed on the FTSE 350 index it will refuse to re-elect directors at firms failing to make sufficient progress in key areas.

Beaches, wildlife, the Great Barrier Reef, unspoilt natural wilderness and national parks all considered threatenedTourism is Australia’s most vulnerable and least prepared industry to deal with climate change despite the fact it is already feeling its effects, according to an advocacy group report.The report by the Climate Council, based on 200 source documents and articles, says while tourism is growing at an extraordinary pace – an 8% jump in visitors last financial year – not enough is being done to prepare for damage to the country’s greatest drawcards. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Documents show Katrina Hodgkinson changed plan to allow irrigators to extract up to 32% more after lobbyingA water-sharing plan for the Barwon-Darling was altered by the former New South Wales minister for primary industries, Katrina Hodgkinson, even though public consultations on the draft plan had ended and her bureaucrats had already submitted a draft for her to sign.

Marbled crayfish have developed the ability to self-clone – and now a million-strong crustacean army exists in waters stretching from Europe to JapanName: Marbled crayfish. Marmorkrebs in German.Age: Potentially infinite. Continue reading...

Train operator also pledges to reduce food waste as part of new environmental targetsEurostar has unveiled a new 10-point plan to cut carbon emissions and reduce waste over the next three years, highlighting the reduced carbon footprint of high-speed rail for short-haul journeys.

Genome study finds the invasive clonal freshwater crayfish is descended from a single female and reproduces without malesA voracious pest that mutated in a German aquarium and is marching around the world without the need for sexual reproduction may sound like science fiction, but a genetic study has revealed that a rapidly spreading all-female army of crayfish is descended from a single female and reproduces without any males.The clonal freshwater crayfish is regarded as an invasive species which threatens endemic wild species, but its success may help scientists better understand how cancer spreads. Continue reading...

Indonesian authorities say male orangutan was found with 130 airgun pellets and machete wounds in the second known killing this yearThe body of a Borneo orangutan has been found riddled with some 130 airgun pellets, Indonesian authorities have said, the second known killing this year.

Uganda’s first ever Critical Mass is missing the air of protest normally found in Europe or the US. This may be for the best in a country where dissent is often quashed with rubber bullets and tear gas“Do you know what is going on here today?” I ask Annette, the banana seller I’m buying a quick breakfast from. She doesn’t, so I explain that people are gathering here to ride bicycles together. We’re standing on Luwum street in central Kampala, looking out at a completely alien scene. With the usual sea of cars, minibus taxis and boda bodas (the city’s famous motorbike taxis) absent, the whole road is visible and looks 10 times more spacious than usual. It has been adorned with colourful paintings – including green cycle lanes – and we can see people walking, talking and cycling, while children run around playing.

In a sixth year of consecutive growth, organic sales rose by 6% to a record £2.2bn, driven largely by independent outlets and home deliveriesSales of organic food and drink in the UK rose by 6% last year to a record £2.2bn, fuelled by strong growth through independent outlets and home delivery which outpaced sales in rival supermarkets.Almost 30% of all organic sales now take place online or on the high street, according to a new report from Soil Association, the trade body which licenses organic products and promotes organic farming. Continue reading...

Longterm decline is blamed on loss of hedgerows and insect prey but urban hedgehogs may offer a glimmer of hope, says a new reportThe number of hedgehogs living in the British countryside has plummeted by more than half since 2000, according to a new report.The popular but prickly character topped a vote in 2013 to nominate a national species for Britain, but it has suffered as hedgerows are lost and the invertebrates it feasts on diminish. However, the survey offers a glimmer of hope as losses in towns and cities appear to have slowed and the numbers patrolling nighttime gardens may be increasing. Continue reading...

Photographer Sean Gallagher has set up a new Instagram feed called Everyday Extinction. Featuring work from 25 wildlife photographers, photojournalists and scientists, the project aims to highlight species extinction and celebrate biodiversity

Wenlock Edge, Shropshire: Planted to enhance the landscape around a medieval monastery, this tree has been saved from natural disintegration through pruning and loppingThe big old horse chestnut at Wenlock Priory has been pruned. I expect it’s to do with reducing the great limbs of its crown to prevent the tree falling apart in gales. The amputations have an odd symmetry and, although the idea is for new growth to reshape the tree, it looks now like a ruin among the ruins of the medieval monastery. There may be five centuries between the destruction of the priory following its dissolution in 1540 and the pruning of the tree this winter but they seem so similar, as if made of the same strange fabric.Timber and masonry are, as Rose Macaulay said in Pleasure of Ruins (1953), “part of the ruin-drama staged perpetually in the human imagination”. It’s divided in two, she says: a desire to build them up and then knock them down. There is a sense that the lopped tree in the priory grounds now joins the remains of the past to be preserved as heritage. The horse chestnut was planted to enhance the landscape around the ruins, but it could not be allowed to disintegrate naturally through wind and rain and snowfall. A veneration of age extends to old trees: it behoves us to maintain it as a version of itself, if not its natural self. Continue reading...

Case brought by group from Hunter Valley town, which it says has been devastated by Peabody Energy’s Wilpinjong mineIn what is described as a landmark case, a New South Wales court will be asked to overturn a decision to extend the life of a coalmine on the grounds the state government failed to properly consider the impact on the climate.

Hoang Duc Binh had posted footage on Facebook of fishermen protesting following a huge chemical spill from a steel plantA court in central Vietnam has sentenced an activist to 14 years in jail for livestreaming fishermen marching to file a lawsuit against a Taiwan-owned steel plant’s spill of toxins into the ocean.Hoang Duc Binh, 34, was convicted of abusing democratic freedoms to infringe on the interests of the state, organisation and people, and opposing officers on duty, following a trial on Tuesday by the people’s court in Nghe An province, lawyer Ha Huy Son said. Continue reading...

Boss says his industry is changing but ‘the world is going to need oil and gas for decades’BP has declared it is looking to acquire more green energy firms, as the British oil giant pledged to set carbon targets for its operations.However, while the chief executive, Bob Dudley, said the industry was in a period of major change, he made clear that hydrocarbons would remain the core of BP’s business. Continue reading...

Move makes it the largest university fund in the UK to ditch all coal, oil and gas holdings, following a long student campaignThe University of Edinburgh is dumping all its fossil fuel investments, making it the largest UK university endowment fund to be completely free of all coal, oil and gas holdings.

A new paper shows that climate myths consistently fail critical thinking testsClimate myths are often contradictory – it’s not warming, though it’s warming because of the sun, and really it’s all just an ocean cycle – but they all seem to share one thing in common: logical fallacies and reasoning errors.John Cook, Peter Ellerton, and David Kinkead have just published a paper in Environmental Research Letters in which they examined 42 common climate myths and found that every single one demonstrates fallacious reasoning. For example, the authors made a video breaking down the logical flaws in the myth ‘climate changed naturally in the past so current climate change is natural.’

Capacity is growing fast and turbines getting bigger – some almost as large as the ShardBritain accounted for more than half of the new offshore wind power capacity built in Europe last year, as the sector broke installation records across the continent.The windfarms out in the North Sea and other shallow European waters are getting bigger in every sense. Soon turbines will almost be as large as the Shard, Europe’s tallest building. Continue reading...

Three men in their early 20s were trapped during the night by rising floodwatersThree English backpackers have been saved from rising floodwaters in Australia after their campervan was submerged in a crocodile warning area.

Helen Pidd was cycling through stationary traffic when a passenger opened his door into her pathAs soon as the van door hit me I thought: finally. After cycling regularly for 15 years it always seemed something of a miracle that I had never been knocked off.My second instinct was to feel sheepish. Was it my fault? Continue reading...

While the hole over Antarctica has been closing, the protective ozone is thinning at the lower latitudes, where the sunlight is stronger and billions of people liveThe ozone layer that protects people from the sun’s ultraviolet radiation is not recovering over most highly populated regions, scientists warned on Tuesday.The greatest losses in ozone occurred over Antarctica but the hole there has been closing since the chemicals causing the problem were banned by the Montreal protocol. But the ozone layer wraps the entire Earth and new research has revealed it is thinning in the lower stratosphere over the non-polar areas. Continue reading...

Public should be given a greater say on development plans, experts sayEnvironmental lawyers and academics have called for a comprehensive rethink on how Australia’s natural landscapes are protected, warning that short-term politics is infecting decision-making and suggesting that the public be given a greater say on development plans.The Australian Panel of Experts on Environmental Law has launched a blueprint for a new generation of environment laws and the creation of independent agencies with the power and authority to ensure they are enforced. The panel of 14 senior legal figures says this is motivated by the need to systematically address ecological challenges including falling biodiversity, the degradation of productive rural land, the intensification of coastal and city development and the threat of climate change. Continue reading...

Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility needs 100 shareholders to co-file resolution at AGMInvestors in the mining giant Rio Tinto are being recruited to demand the company quit the Minerals Council of Australia.The Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility (ACCR) has urged shareholders to co-file a resolution at Rio Tinto’s upcoming annual general meeting. In 2017 the centre successfully filed a similar motion at BHP’s AGMs, leading the company to review its membership of trade associations. Continue reading...

Series of measures includes reducing plastic in its own-brand packaging by 10% – but does not go as far as cutting it out altogetherAsda has become the latest supermarket to join the war against plastic by pledging to reduce it “wherever” it can, including slashing the amount in its own-brand packaging by 10% in the next 12 months.

Decades ago, the late writer and critic Naomi Lewis spent hours on the streets rescuing birds tangled in nylon thread. She should have been a warning sign of the horrors to comeNot knowing what to do with myself and my bad temper in my 30s, I went to a creative writing class at City Lit, a London-based adult-education college. The teacher looked odd – about 70, she was always dressed in black, her hair was grey and a little wild and she seemed to have dusted her face in flour, some of which speckled her black clothes.But there was something magical about Naomi Lewis. She was full of enthusiasm, thrilled by the efforts of her class. She would sit at the end of our square of tables, always cheery, and call out excitedly: “So good! So much of interest!” Continue reading...

Esmond Bradley Martin, whose groundbreaking investigations helped the fight against elephant poaching, died after being stabbed at home in NairobiA well-known American ivory-trade investigator, who pioneered efforts to combat elephant and rhino poaching, has been killed in his home in Nairobi, prompting an outpouring of shock and revulsion across the conservation world.Esmond Bradley Martin, 75, died after being stabbed in his house in the Nairobi suburb of Langata on Sunday. His wife, Chryssee Martin, found his body. Bradley Martin had led global investigations into illegal wildlife trading since the 1970s and was a charismatic and familiar sight at conservation conferences. Continue reading...

City’s four main hospitals hand out bedpans and bottled water due to water supply problemsOperations have been cancelled at Manchester’s four main hospitals after a mains leak cut the water supply.Only cancer-related and urgent operations were taking place on Monday morning, and patients were asked not to flush toilets and to wash their hands using antiseptic gel. Bedpans have been handed out and bottled water was available to drink. Continue reading...

Plastic is destroying our oceans, yet big corporations are still being given money to produce cheap plastic. It’s time for polluters to pay for the damage they causeA six-year-old boy, Harrison Forsyth, provided us with a much needed wake-up call last week. He called on the boss of Aldi to protect our oceans:“Dear boss of Aldi, I have watched this programme called Blue Planet 2 and I have seen that the plastic in the sea is making the animals sick and die. Continue reading...

Coalition pressures Queensland government to back Aurizon proposal to build rail linkLabor has inched closer to resolving its stance on the controversial Adani coalmine as the federal resources minister, Matt Canavan, declared he was looking at alternatives to open up the Queensland coal basin and “get these jobs going”.

Peers use evidence-free anecdotes and cabbie hearsay to claim cycle lanes cause congestion – shouldn’t we demand a higher standard?

5 February 1918 The sap is running, forcing on new life. In the withy bed the hares in couples, weeks before their proverbial date for madness, dodge round the clumps, while a ‘joyous clamour’ rises from the mereThe gay cock chaffinch, in smart, nuptial garments, rattles out repeated challenges to a distant rival, who strives to answer in as sprightly terms; it began to sing here three days ago at least. The blackbird this morning pipes airs and variations with such skill and finish that we can hardly realise that he has only just begun to sing.The spring-like weather, which has brought out the semi-wild snowdrops in a Cheshire wood, has dotted the yellow crocuses about our gardens, awakened the sleepy bees and sent them to the winter aconites, has stirred their blood. Continue reading...

Ilkley, West Yorkshire: The Cow and the Calf have become monuments to our longing to anchor ourselves in the world

Scientists and economists condemn squandering of $4bn on projects that have failed to improve the river’s healthA group of prominent scientists and economists have issued a stark warning to the nation’s politicians: the Murray-Darling basin plan is failing to achieve environmental goals and is a “gross waste” of money.The group of seven economists and five scientists with deep expertise in the river are meeting on Monday morning in Adelaide to issue what they are calling the Murray-Darling declaration.

Energy giants hope Scottish court will permit development of 36 turbines on moorlandHundreds of crofters are fighting an attempt by the energy giants EDF and Wood Group to build a windfarm on the island of Lewis.

It’s a simple idea: strip CO2 from the air and use it to produce carbon-neutral fuel. But can it work on an industrial scale?It’s nothing much to look at, but the tangle of pipes, pumps, tanks, reactors, chimneys and ducts on a messy industrial estate outside the logging town of Squamish in western Canada could just provide the fix to stop the world tipping into runaway climate change and substitute dwindling supplies of conventional fuel.It could also make Harvard superstar physicist David Keith, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and oil sands magnate Norman Murray Edwards more money than they could ever dream of. Continue reading...

‘Virtual’ power plant will cut bills, premier says, as Turnbull attacks renewable policy at Liberal campaign launchA network of at least 50,000 home solar systems backed up by battery storage will create the world’s largest “virtual” power plant to cut energy bills, Jay Weatherill has said.The South Australian premier said a trial was already under way to install solar panels and Tesla batteries on 1,100 Housing Trust homes. The cost would be financed by the sale of electricity. The power generated by the solar panels and the batteries would not be owned directly by the households. Continue reading...

Concessional $900m loan cannot proceed without Queensland government approval, Karen Andrews saysThe Adani Carmichael coalmine will not receive federal funding from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility for a vital rail line, a Turnbull government minister has said.The announcement by Karen Andrews on Sunday is a major blow to Adani, which has sought a $900m concessional loan for rail to link the Carmichael mine to port – and could spell the end of the project entirely if it can’t secure private finance. Continue reading...

In 10 weeks engineers will turn off water for a million homes as this South African city reacts to one-in-384-year drought. The rich are digging boreholes, more are panic-buying bottled water, and the army is on standbyInteractive explainer: how Cape Town is running dryThe head of Cape Town’s disaster operations centre is drawing up a plan he hopes he never has to implement as this South African city on the frontline of climate change prepares to be the first in the world to turn off the water taps.

Boduan, Pwllheli: A woodland burial reminds us that nature is the mirror and foundation for every resurrection mythMy dear old friend loved birds. They brought her joy. I’d spent many peaceful hours in her garden room, keeping her company, watching the nuthatches, woodpeckers, goldfinches and siskins at her bird table during these recent years of illness patiently borne. She died in the last minutes of the old year, at the age of 88. A woodland burial was arranged at Boduan Sanctuary. Waxy-white clumps of snowdrops reflected in the hearse’s paintwork as she left her home for the last time.

Eggborough’s failure to get capacity market contract proved final straw for power stationA major coal power station in Yorkshire will close at the end of September after it failed to secure a government subsidy to provide backup power next winter. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Leaked paper from group representing Tory MEPs says it will be impossible to ensure current standards are kept in Britain or EUThe European Conservative and Reformist group which represents Conservative MEPs has has said Brexit will make it “impossible” to guarantee that current environmental standards can be maintained in Britain or the EU.A leaked document seen by the Guardian also calls for “the closest possible working relationship” between the EU and UK after Brexit, and for a “no regression clause” in future British trade deals. Continue reading...

Golden monkeys, whooper swans and a giant tortoise are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...