Amount of electricity demanded by homes and businesses one afternoon was lower than it was during night for first time everLast weekend’s sunny weather was not only good for beers, barbecues and bees, but also drove solar power to break a new UK record.For the first time ever, the amount of electricity demanded by homes and businesses in the afternoon on Saturday was lower than it was in the night, because solar panels on rooftops and in fields cut demand so much. Continue reading...

Takahama reactors to restart within a month despite Greenpeace saying they have serious unresolved safety issuesJapan’s struggling nuclear power industry has won a victory against a landmark legal injunction that halted the running of two reactors.

Trump’s climate blitzkrieg is unlikely to herald the end of civilization, but it risks US geopolitical dominance and could help ‘make China great again’Is Donald Trump’s determination to send US climate change policy back into the dark ages an “existential threat to the entire planet”, as the architect of many of Barack Obama’s green measures warns? Or is global momentum towards a cleaner, safer future “unstoppable”, as the UN’s climate chief said recently?Related: Trump begins tearing up Obama's years of progress on tackling climate change Continue reading...

UK ranks fifth in table assessing EU actions to cut carbon emissions by 40%, with most countries gaining wiggle room via loopholesSweden, Germany and France are the only European countries pursuing environmental policies in line with promises made at the Paris climate conference, according to a new ranking study.

The death of activist Sikhosiphi Rhadebe in the Eastern Cape has not stopped local communities opposing plans for a titanium mine that threatens important lands and a way of life, reports Yale Environment 360Environmentalists at risk: read parts one and two in this seriesThey called him “Bazooka” after his favourite soccer star. But Sikhosiphi Rhadebe’s real love was the magnificent coastal lands of South Africa’s Eastern Cape, where he chaired a community organisation campaigning to prevent an Australian mining company from strip-mining their sand dunes for titanium, one of the world’s most commercially valuable metals.One evening last March, a Volkswagen Polo pulled up at his home and two men posing as police dragged Bazooka outside. When he resisted, they shot him eight times in front of his 17-year-old son, then sped away. “Bazooka” was dead. Nearly a year later, there have been no arrests, and no apparent progress in the investigation into his murder. I had come to find out why. Continue reading...

Fossil fuels to the fore as president signs orders to review clean power plan, lift ban on coal leases and discard expert thinking on true cost of carbon emissionsDonald Trump will launch a major assault on Barack Obama’s climate change legacy on Tuesday with a series of orders that undermine America’s commitment to the Paris agreement.Asked by the Guardian if Trump accepted the science of manmade climate change, a senior White House official replied: “Sure, yes, I guess, I think the president understands the disagreement over the policy response and you’ll see that in the order … We’re taking a different path.” Continue reading...

Petrochemicals are still king in Norway, but the country has a growing renewables sectorØyvind Christian Rohn spent more than two decades in the oil and gas industry. But the 50-year-old from Skedsmo, near Oslo in Norway, has just set out on a new fossil-free career path: developing offshore solar power technology.His alternative energy startup, Ocean Sun has developed technology that will mean solar farms can float on the ocean surface, with their power transmitted back to land. Since physical space is limited in population centres, especially in areas of high growth such as South East Asia, Rohn’s idea is to use the ocean’s surface around the world. Continue reading...

The B6305 Allendale road, Northumberland Colours and sights shift across the seasons, all seen from this one roadIt’s late morning and I’m driving from Allendale to Hexham along the straight road known as the Paise dyke. Cars bowl along here at speed, but to do that is to miss the far views and the birds. There’s always something to catch the eye. Ahead, on this warm March morning, starlings swarm like bees across the fields, a rushing wind as I drive under them, about 3,000 birds. The flock is so regularly spaced that I feel a vast net has been cast over me before they settle on a field pocked by mole hills and rich in worms.There’s a farm and a wood called the Paise but the road’s name is not on the Ordnance Survey map. In his book published in 1970, Goodwife Hot and Others: Northumberland’s Past as Shown in Its Place Names, the historian and farmer Geoffrey Watson thought the name referred to land where peas were grown. Though these are upland fields, he believed they would have been adequate for growing this staple diet. The dyke might refer to a stone wall or a causeway over the boggy moorland. Continue reading...

‘Environmental vandalism’ proposal would put vulnerable species, including Leadbeater’s possum and Sooty owl, at risk of extinctionA proposal to release areas of protected Victorian old-growth forest for logging is “environmental vandalism crossed with bad economics” that would put a number of vulnerable species at risk of extinction, a leading Leadbeater’s possum expert has said.Professor David Lindenmayer, from the Australian National University, is recognised as the world expert in the critically endangered Leadbeater’s possum. Continue reading...

Eyewitness accounts of large, dog-like animals in state’s far north spur scientific hunt for thylacines, thought to have died out in 1936“Plausible” possible sightings of a Tasmanian tiger in north Queensland have prompted scientists to undertake a search for the species thought to have died out more than 80 years ago.The last thylacine is thought to have died in Hobart zoo in 1936, and it is widely believed to have become extinct on mainland Australia at least 2,000 years ago. Continue reading...

Gay Alcorn meets the people of the Latrobe Valley facing an uncertain future as the power station that has sustained their community closes after 52 years

The Victorian plant will close down this week after half a century of electricity generation. The brown coal-powered station supplies more than 5% of Australia’s total energy demand – but is the country’s dirtiest and least efficient power plant, producing 3% of Australia’s total greenhouse gas emissions. It will shut down entirely on 31 March after its owner, the power company Engie, decided it was uneconomical and unsafe to continue running the plant without major upgrades• Gay Alcorn: Gloom in the valley as Hazelwood fades to black Continue reading...

Australia is about to become the biggest exporter of liquified natural gas in the world, but domestically it is the only country where the price of gas is rising. Bruce Robertson from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis tells Guardian Australia’s Katharine Murphy and Gabrielle Chan the government is running out of time to fix this problem: the market has failed and more industries will leave Australia due to the high price of gas. The only solution, he says, is regulation to increase transparency and ensure domestic supply at a fair price• Guardian Essential poll finds most Australians support a gas reservation policySubscribe and review this podcast via iTunes, Acast, or Audioboom and join the discussion on Facebook and Twitter Continue reading...

City trees are under increased threat but research tools show that looking after them will lower temperatures, prevent flooding and reduce pollutionStanding proud at the intersection of Queen and Little Bourke streets in Melbourne’s central business district is one of the city’s beloved London plane trees. It’s in declining health and will probably need to be replaced in a decade or so. I know this not as an arborist, or even as a keen observer, but because the City of Melbourne has assiduously assessed, mapped and put online all of its more than 70,000 street and parkland trees.

Green groups say $130bn merger signals lack of choice for farmers who need more seed diversity to adapt to changing climateThe EU has approved a $130bn mega-merger between Dow and DuPont, heralding a new round of agribusiness takeovers that environmentalists fear will endanger the future of sustainable food production.Brussels is widely expected to clear another hookup between Syngenta and ChemChina in the next two weeks, with notification of a marriage between Monsanto and Bayer expected later in the year. Continue reading...

Despite its Sunshine State moniker, Florida is barely harnessing its bountiful rays for energy, with the number of households getting solar panels not projected to squeak past 100 a year until 2021. Meanwhile, there’s a solar boom occurring in north-east states such as New York and out west in California

Since Burmese pythons found their way into the wild in the 80s, they have decimated native wildlife. Now 150,000 could be lurking in the state’s waterwaysBill Booth struggles to recall the last time he saw a raccoon, a fox or a rabbit on one of his frequent hunting excursions deep into the swamps of the Florida Everglades. An outdoorsman all his life, he knows as well as anyone how the native wildlife once abundant across the vast wilderness has been all but wiped out by an invasion of a deadly species he is trying his hardest to remove: the Burmese python.By some estimates, up to 150,000 of the unwelcome intruders are swimming through the state’s 1.5m acres (600,000 hectares) of waterways, reproducing uncontrollably and consuming almost every living creature in their path, sometimes taking on even the previously undisputed king of the Everglades, the American alligator. Continue reading...

During a record-breaking hot presidential election year, American news networks failed to report on climate change

Business secretary orders inquiry into flawed tendering process for dismantling old reactors at 12 sites as US firms get paid for out of court settlement

Matt Canavan says new station could be built within three years but Josh Frydenberg says any ‘clean coal’ initiative is ‘a long way off’Senior Turnbull government ministers are publicly at odds over the timing of new investment in coal-fired power – with the resources minister suggesting Asian and domestic investors “are very interested” and could build a plant within three years, and the energy minister arguing any investment would be “a long way off.”

Despite its natural advantages, disincentives mean Florida has few solar panels but the Empire state’s policies have boosted installed solar capacity by 800%If you were to fly a camera-laden drone several hundred feet above Pani Herath’s house in south Miami, Florida, it would become clear his rooftop is an oddity compared with virtually all of his neighbors. Despite living in a part of the world that bakes in the sun throughout the year, just a few thousand people across Florida, such as Herath, have installed solar panels.“Unfortunately, not many people know about solar. That’s why nobody around here has solar at all,” said Herath. He has become an object of curiosity in his tidy neighborhood, where watering the manicured lawn and scooping debris from the pool is of greater concern. Continue reading...

The founder and chief executive of Murray Energy supports Donald Trump’s move to roll back Obama’s clean power plan but cautions the president to go easy on talk of a jobs revivalAmerica’s biggest coal boss is hopeful that his industry will soon be freed of “fraudulent” green legislation that has hampered his industry, but warned Donald Trump to “temper” expectations about a boom in mining jobs.

As geoengineer advocates enter Trump administration, plans advance to spray sun-reflecting chemicals into atmosphereHarvard engineers who launched the world’s biggest solar geoengineering research program may get a dangerous boost from Donald Trump, environmental organizations are warning.

Senator criticises Coalition for abandoning intensity scheme for electricity once championed by Malcolm TurnbullThe key crossbench senator Nick Xenophon has signalled publicly to the Turnbull government he will look at cutting tax for big companies if the government guarantees it will implement a bipartisan emissions intensity trading scheme in the electricity sector.The NXT leader has been saying for months he is not inclined to support tax cuts for business with annual turnover of more than $10m but, on Monday, suggested he would come to the table if the government made a concrete offer on energy policy. Continue reading...

Marshwood Vale, Dorset It’s gentle at first, a fine drizzle of notes, and then the volume swells and they warble full-throatedlyMid-afternoon on a still, overcast day that feels as if the air will thicken into rain. Clusters of slim, pale, wild daffodils light the under-storey of the roadside hedge, still bare and broken from its winter flailing. In the Victorian language of flowers, they represented hope, folly and unrequited love. Lower down, the bank is patched with early dog violets, their tiny, scentless blooms scrunched into frowns of concentration. Both sides of the lane are splashed yellow with primroses and shiny celandines. Continue reading...

Deputy prime minister calls for critically endangered status to be downgraded to try to save Victorian logging jobsBarnaby Joyce is pushing for the conservation status of the critically endangered Leadbeater’s possum to be downgraded to open up areas of protected forests in Victoria for logging, in an effort to save 250 jobs at the Heyfield sawmill.Joyce wrote to Victorian premier Daniel Andrews on Sunday criticising the decision to reduce the sawlog quota offered to Heyfield mill operators Australian Sustainable Hardwood from 155,000 cubic metres a year to 80,000 cubic metres in 2017-18 and 60,000 cubic metres in 2018-19 and 2019-20, in order to protect habitat used by the possum. Continue reading...

Residents and greens groups demand action to stop plan to plunder natural resources by companies that pay next to nothing to remove waterA plan to extract millions of litres of water out of a Unesco world heritage site, send it by pipe to the coast and ship it to foreign markets for bottling has ignited a campaign over water resources in New Zealand.An export company is proposing to collect 800m litres a month of the “untapped” glacial waters of Lake Greaney and Lake Minim Mere, mountainous dams that are fed by rainfall on the Southern Alps.

Governments are using the confected gas crisis to push destructive projects like the Pilliga gas project on communities that don’t want themIt’s ludicrous to say there is a gas crisis in Australia when we are set to overtake Qatar to become the world’s biggest gas producer. Australia has plenty of gas to meet our needs and the world has three times as much fossil fuel reserves that can be used to keep global temperature rises below 2C.We have so much gas that we export most of it. The gas companies are shipping off huge amounts of it because they can reap greater profits overseas, leaving Australian households and businesses to squabble over what’s left at inflated prices. Continue reading...

Australian Automobile Association finds fuel use on average 25% higher than claimed on consumption label displayed on new carsNew cars are using vastly more fuel on the road than in laboratory tests, raising further questions about the veracity of car manufacturers’ claims in the wake of the Volkswagen emissions scandal.The Australian Automobile Association-commissioned research found fuel use was on average 25% higher than claimed on the government-mandated fuel consumption label displayed on all new cars. Continue reading...

Greens leader Richard Di Natale says funding will mean ‘healthier communities’ and ‘more Indigenous ranger jobs for families to stay on country’A $100m funding package to Landcare will include $15m for new Indigenous protected areas, raising hopes of further federal support for the environmental policy and its related Indigenous ranger program.The funding, secured by the Greens last year in a deal with the government over the backpacker tax, has been undetailed until now, and will also support Landcare projects, the work of Landcare Australia and the National Landcare Network, and a small grants program for sustainable agriculture. Continue reading...

Ofgem considering further steps to protect billpayers as a result of suppliers’ failure to cut back-bills’ limit from 12 to six monthsBritain’s leading energy providers are under fire again after missing a deadline to help households with smart meters avoid being hit with unexpected bills.Electricity and gas suppliers, including the big six and smaller providers, had pledged that by the end of 2016 they would cut back on sending backdated or catchup bills to customers whose smart meters inaccurately measured their energy usage. However, not one of the big six or dozens of smaller suppliers have met the self-imposed target of cutting the limit for back-bills from 12 months to six months. Continue reading...

The Arctic sea ice hosts algae, which sustain a food chain up to the beluga whale. But the ice is decreasing – and in summers, it may be gone entirely by 2050The beluga whale is one of the most extraordinary species of marine creature known to science. It is a gregarious, pure white Arctic dweller that emits strange, high-pitched twitters that have given it its nickname: the sea canary. Belugas are on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s “near threatened” list, because of past whaling and the impact of water contamination.Now scientists have discovered that Delphinapterus leucas is facing a new global threat. Like many other species that live in the far north, their lives are being disrupted by global warming, according to Thomas Brown of the Scottish Association for Marine Science (Sams), who has been studying belugas for several years. Continue reading...

It’s desperately important that we redouble our efforts to combat pollution and wasteRecycling is a bit like fitness. The moment you stop putting in the effort, you lose your muscle.This was on my mind as I watched microwavable black plastic containers whizzing up a conveyer belt at a recycling depot in Kent. This is progress. Innovation in plastic chemistry means these trays can now be recycled. Continue reading...

In the mid-2000s, in a room at Kew Royal Botanical Gardens, Professor Julian Bayliss used Google Earth to discover a hidden rainforest in Northern Mozambique which is home to dozens of new species of flora and fauna. Professor Bayliss and Alliance Earth Director Jeffrey Barbee ventured with a team into the heart of the forest.To find out more about the expedition click here Continue reading...

A South Korean firm is just the latest to be lured by Britain’s atomic amibitions as safety concerns and cost stalk the industryNuclear energy faces an uncertain future globally as concerns over safety and cost dog the industry. But in the UK, foreign investors are queueing up to back projects. The latest is South Korea. Its biggest power company is in talks to join the consortium backing a nuclear power station in Cumbria, in a sign of the continuing allure of Britain’s atomic ambitions to international companies. Kepco said last week it was interested in taking a stake in NuGen, which is 60% owned by Japan’s Toshiba and 40% by France’s Engie, confirming what had been an open secret in the industry for months.Kepco’s president, Cho Hwan-eik, said that once the terms of a potential deal were ironed out, “we will be the first to jump into the race”. Continue reading...

Dent Fell, west Cumbria Runners in the Jarrett’s Jaunt race have little time to appreciate the fell’s panoramic views of the Solway FirthBy hump-backed Wath Brow bridge, weary fell runners step gingerly down slippery banking into the icy waters of the river Ehen, swollen by overnight rain. Ah, the blessed relief as they rub and knead their calves with fingers and thumbs, jabbing deep into the muscles, soothing aches caused by scaling fellsides so steep they sometimes needed hands to help.Related: Cumbria’s iron man Continue reading...

The state government’s determination to open up protected land for logging is a saga that moves from ridiculous to absurdI thought I’d seen the turbid depths of policy driven by ideology and perceived political self-interest, but then I turned my attention back to the Tasmanian forest “wars”.I first started reporting on this issue in 1988 when Bob Hawke and his environment minister Graham Richardson appointed a former judge, the late Michael Helsham, to investigate whether parts of the Tasmanian forest were worthy of world heritage listing. That resulted in the first of many agreements over the decades (in 1989, 1997, 2005 and 2013) in which federal and state governments paid hundreds of millions of dollars to “end the forest wars once and for all” by restructuring the industry and determining which forests should be protected and which should be open to logging.

Evidence of doctored paperwork found at Areva-owned forge, which has made parts for Hinkley PointAn international team of inspectors has found evidence of doctored paperwork and other failings at a forge in France that makes parts for nuclear power stations around the world.The UK nuclear regulator said the safety culture at the site, which has produced forgings for British plants including Sizewell B and the planned new reactors at Hinkley Point, fell short of expectations. Continue reading...

Campaigners will occupy work sites, chain themselves to machinery and clog phone lines, Galilee Blockade saysA group of activists say the mining contractor Downer Group is the “prime target” of a civil disruption campaign to force it to walk away from a $2bn deal to build and run Adani’s proposed Queensland coalmine.Galilee Blockade organisers warn members of their network will occupy work sites, chain themselves to machinery and clog phone lines, among other actions that will cost Downer money until it exits a non-binding contract over the contentious Carmichael site . Continue reading...

Sarah Mukherjee accuses the EU proposal to ban neonicotinoids from fields of being “political” (Europe poised for total ban on bee-harming pesticides, March 24). Damn right. If she means supporting the long-term interests of people over the short-term blinkered interests of a few businesses, I can hardly think of a better definition of the word.From DDT to lead in petrol, businesses have fought tooth and nail against legal restrictions, until they came and the predicted disasters never happened. But why stop at fields and neonics? Our parks and gardens have become vital havens for all kinds of wildlife and yet our garden centres are filled with wildlife-unfriendly herbicides and pesticides, ironically shelved alongside the “bee and butterfly friendly” plants. At least farmers can argue, whether or not you agree, that their livelihoods and our food is at stake. Little is at stake if we ban all poisons from our parks and gardens, beyond a few weeds on our paths and some greenfly. Future generations will be astounded that we took so long.

Malaysian activist Bill Kayong fought to save forest lands from logging and oil palm development. Like a troubling number of environmental campaigners around the world, he paid the highest price, reports Yale Environment 360

Octogenarian couple Charles and Lois O’Brien have this week announced they would donate their home collection of more than a million insects to Arizona State University. The collection was gathered over almost six decades and is worth an estimated $10m (£8m). It will help be a resource for scientists who study natural controls on the environment

The expansion, which was originally proposed in 2008 and faced strong protest from environmental advocates, secures permit to start building from Trump

Cactus flowers, a former circus bear and a baby elephant are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...

President ushers in ‘new era of American energy policy’ Friday as environmental activists denounce revived oil pipeline as a ‘disaster for the planet’

Stoke Wood, Northamptonshire Hazel, as boles, can provide a rich hunting ground and my first unusual find is a pill millipedeThe rolling limestone landscape exhibits the first signs of spring. Hawthorn buds burst with fresh green leaves and huge queen bumblebees career between blossoming sallow shrubs. Rockingham Forest once spanned these valleys and hills, and Stoke Wood is a salvaged fragment of that vast forest.The wood has a rich ground flora; bluebell leaves push through in many areas, while elsewhere there are ankle-high seas of proud and pointed-leaved dog’s mercury, the plants already waving their unassuming tassels of green flowers. Continue reading...

‘High quality units’ could lower cost of obligations, discussion paper says, despite previous opposition from Tony AbbottThe Turnbull government has left open the prospect of using international carbon credits to help meet Australia’s emissions reduction targets at lowest cost, a practice Tony Abbott ruled out when he was prime minister.

A claim like this takes lashings of chutzpah, blinkers the size of Trump’s hairspray bill and more hubris than you can shake a branch of dead coral atIt takes a very special person to label the photographed, documented, filmed and studied phenomenon of mass coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef “fake news”.You need lashings of chutzpah, blinkers the size of Donald Trump’s hairspray bill and more hubris than you can shake a branch of dead coral at. Continue reading...

Extreme heat endangers cricketers yet the bank is Australia’s most significant private investor in climate-change-inducing fossil fuelsContrary to most expectations, the Australia-India Test series is proving to be an absolute cracker, with the teams locked together 1-1 going into the decider that begins on Saturday in Dharamsala.Australian commercial sponsors of sport must always be delighted when the results are close, wherever they are played. Excitement means more viewers, leading to greater brand recognition for the “proud sponsor”. One of only two “platinum partners” of Cricket Australia, the Commonwealth Banksponsors the national game at all levels. Continue reading...

This is the environmental issue of our times and the Great Barrier Reef is at stake. But people standing up for what they believe in has unbeatable powerWhen I rafted the Franklin in the 1970s, I knew the campaign to save that spectacular river, despite local support for damming it, would become one to test that generation. In 2017, stopping the Adani coal mine is a campaign to test this generation of Australians.In 40 years time people will be talking about the campaign to stop Adani like they now talk about the Franklin. “Where were you and what did you do?” they will ask. Continue reading...