Environment | The Guardian

Campaigners write to chancellor to urge him to end tax breaks and bring in scheme to encourage switch to greener carsMinisters are coming under growing pressure to remove tax incentives for diesel cars and offer compensation to motorists so they can swap to more environmentally friendly vehicles.A group of medical professionals, environmental campaigners and lawyers has written to the chancellor ahead of the budget to demand a change to the vehicle excise duty that they say subsidises diesel cars. Continue reading...

A cottage industry is growing around new technology for solar power developers to design, build and operate solar farms to help compete with fossil fuel power

South Yorkshire police and crime commissioner is urged to investigate ‘repressive’ arrests as CPS drops chargesSouth Yorkshire’s police and crime commissioner has been urged to investigate the “repressive” arrests of campaigners in the battle against tree-felling in Sheffield.The call came after prosecutors dropped charges against two protesters who were arrested while trying to save a 100-year-old tree in November. Continue reading...

Complaints about ‘green crap’ have been a convenient excuse for governments unable or unwilling to intervene and cap suppliers’ pricesLast week, photographs of wind turbines were once again juxtaposed with headlines about rising energy prices. The cause on this occasion was no less pre-eminent a body than a Lords committee, comprising former chancellor Norman Lamont and other heavyweight peers.“To reduce carbon emissions, governments have subsidised renewables, passing on the cost to consumers in their electricity bills. The average domestic electricity bill was 58% higher in 2016 than it was in 2003,” the economic affairs committee said in its report on energy policy. Continue reading...

The salad shortage focused attention on the failures of our 24/7 dietary culture. But it also provides a chance to rethink the way we eat fresh fruit, veg and green leavesI’m afraid the lettuce shortage was just the tip of the iceberg. We may have run low on salad leaves but, more worryingly, we were low on empathy for poor southern Spain where flash floods followed by snow wrecked the crop. Our relentless consumer-rights focus meant that the emphasis was clearly on “weather-related supply challenges”, supermarket speak for “My God, we are running out of salad!” Sustaining a dietary culture of 24/7 access to all fresh fruit and veg in all seasons was never going to be easy.A packed salad uses at least 10 times more energy than a local lettuce Continue reading...

Fuel and the future – how coal can compete with oil There have been reports of late of increased activity in the coal trade. Those qualified to judge have rightly warned the public against facile optimism. The Continental orders are the result of the abnormal weather. They are not a sign that the old trade is coming back. It will never come back, because the conditions which created it have ceased to exist.But the last few days have also brought two items of news really suggestive of a turn of the tide. If coal is to compete with oil it must do one or both of two things. It must alter its form so that it may rival oil in convenience of handling, or it must alter its substance so as to yield up the oil which it contains. Both aims have been assiduously pursued by experiment, and the results are at last beginning to admit of commercial exploitation. Continue reading...

Head of the EPA told the conservative audience they would be ‘justified’ in believing the environmental regulator should be completely disbanded

Scientists at Vatican conference are searching for a solution to the manmade ‘major extinction event’One in five species on Earth now faces extinction, and that will rise to 50% by the end of the century unless urgent action is taken. That is the stark view of the world’s leading biologists, ecologists and economists who will gather on Monday to determine the social and economic changes needed to save the planet’s biosphere.“The living fabric of the world is slipping through our fingers without our showing much sign of caring,” say the organisers of the Biological Extinction conference held at the Vatican this week. Continue reading...

When Common Agricultural Policy payments come to an end, what will they be replaced with? And what should that be spent on?Compared to most industries subject to the ups and downs of global markets, farming is a cottage industry. Where mining has a few operators dominating the scene, agriculture involves thousands of producers in each country.That simple fact works against the high levels of investment agriculture minister Andrea Leadsom would like to see in the run-up to a hard Brexit. Continue reading...

Achvaneran, Highlands The tracks went straight down the garden, through the fence and over the burn with one leap. It knew where it was goingThe previous night’s snowfall had been just right for tracking: about 4cm at dusk, then no more until after light. So I was out early and picked up the first tracks under the beech tree at the bottom of the garden, a stoat. It had been quartering the ground, hunting, but did not make a kill until it reached the large pond. There the tracks suddenly veered; a leap sideways and a few specks of blood on the snow revealed where it had taken its prey, probably a mouse or vole.Related: Daylight encounter hungry pine marten Continue reading...

Transport secretary recommends low-emission cars after it emerges that thousands of children breathing toxic airDrivers should “think long and hard” before buying a diesel car and instead consider purchasing a low-emission vehicle, the transport secretary has said, as the government considers a strategy to tackle air pollution.Chris Grayling’s intervention took place as the Guardian revealed that tens of thousands of London’s children were attending schools in areas with levels of toxic air in breach of EU legal limits. The minister also said the government had a legal duty to cut emissions of nitrogen oxide from diesel cars, which account for four in 10 vehicles on British roads, after a high court ruling in November ordered the authorities to reduce levels of the toxic fume in the “shortest possible time”. Continue reading...

Treasury confirms companies would be able to claim tax deduction for expenses incurred from cleaning up pollutionAustralian taxpayers will be forced to subsidise the clean-up costs of oil spills in the Great Australian Bight thanks to the terms of the controversial petroleum resource rent tax.

Squirrel cull | Housebuilding | PPE and LSE | More leftovers | La La LandThe easiest way to protect the red squirrel (Report, 24 February) is for us to eat the grey ones. The latter are too plentiful and should be easy to trap. Many of us have no problem eating rabbits, so the greys could be a cheap addition to our diet. The bird population would also benefit from a cull of these pests. So, Delia, could we please have a recipe for écureuil à la bourguignonne?

A jaguar killing an anteater, a green tree python and the winner of the underwater photographer of the year are among this week’s images from the natural world Continue reading...

Exclusive: 802 schools, nurseries and colleges are in areas where levels of nitrogen dioxide breach EU legal limitsTens of thousands of children at more than 800 schools, nurseries and colleges in London are being exposed to illegal levels of air pollution that risk causing lifelong health problems, the Guardian can disclose.A study identifies 802 educational institutions where pupils as young as three are being exposed to levels of nitrogen dioxide that breach EU legal limits and which the government accepts are harmful to health. Continue reading...

Shortly before the close of voting the Brimmon oak, for which a bypass was relocated, is close behind a Polish oak and a Czech lime treeIt is old, squat, and bent a bypass. Now an ancient oak saved from being destroyed by a new road has become the first British tree with a cracking chance of winning the European Tree of the Year competition.The Brimmon oak led the contest in the early stages, polling more than 10,000 votes. Three days before the end of the voting period, the Welsh tree was in third place, just behind the hot favourite, an oak tree from Poland, and a lime tree in the Czech Republic. Continue reading...

Committee urges new energy commission that would prioritise low energy bills and security rather than low carbon emissionsMinisters should establish a new energy commission to spur on construction of power stations because successive governments have failed to encourage enough fresh power capacity in the UK, according to a House of Lords report.Subsidy-backed growth in renewable energy projects, such as windfarms, has deterred the construction of new conventional power plants, the economic affairs committee claimed. Continue reading...

The Oceans Melting Greenland project is taking important measurements to determine how fast sea levels will rise

National Employment Savings Trust to move investments into new climate change fund and scale back shares in firms such as Shell and ExxonMobil

Liberal MP calls for RET to be frozen and immigration to be explicitly linked to issue of housing affordabilityThe chairman of the Turnbull government’s backbench environment and energy committee has backed Tony Abbott’s call to wind back the renewable energy target, and cut the immigration rate to boost housing affordability.

Wildlife Trusts’ biggest-ever recruitment drive will see volunteers monitor populations, educate children – and bludgeon grey squirrels to deathAn army of 5,000 volunteers is being sought to save the red squirrel from extinction by monitoring populations, educating children – and bludgeoning grey squirrels to death.The Wildlife Trusts’ biggest-ever recruitment drive is focused on areas of northern England, north Wales and Northern Ireland where invasive grey squirrels first introduced by the Victorians are driving the retreating red squirrel population to extinction. Continue reading...

NSW central coast schoolboy, aged 10, was given 12 vials of antivenom after he was bitten by a male spider hiding in a shoeA 10-year-old NSW central coast boy is lucky to be alive after a deadly funnel web spider bite necessitated what is believed to be the largest dose of antivenom administered in Australian history.Matthew Mitchell was rushed to Gosford hospital after he was bitten on the finger by the male funnel web, which was hiding inside a shoe, on Monday. Continue reading...

New report to UN world heritage committee criticises Australia’s lack of planning in dealing with effects of climate changeThe Great Barrier Reef faces an “elevated and imminent risk” of more widespread coral bleaching this year, the reef authority has warned the Queensland government.An alert from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority says more of the reef is showing built-up heat stress than this time last year, just before its worst-ever bleaching event killed off a quarter of all coral. Continue reading...

The small island’s energy makeover took less than a decade and was spurred on by local commitment, providing a template for how regional Australia could transition to renewablesAnyone doubting the potential of renewable energy need look no further than the Danish island of Samsø. The 4,000-inhabitant island nestled in the Kattegat Sea has been energy-positive for the past decade, producing more energy from wind and biomass than it consumes.

Armed occupation brought an anticlimactic and forlorn end to the camp, which had been home to thousands of activists opposing the Dakota Access pipeline

Union tells Senate inquiry there must be plans in place to attract jobs before mines or power stations closeThe manufacturing union has called for governments to hand over land and tax concessions to industry to provide the support to save the sector in the transition from coal.Steve McCartney, the state secretary of the Australian Manufacturers Workers Union in Western Australia, called on the Senate environment and communications references committee to ensure governments have a plan for alternative industries.

UK academics say introduction of herpes virus could also cause ‘catastrophic ecosystem crashes’ in AustraliaScientists in Britain have raised concerns about Australia’s $15m plan to release a herpes virus in the nation’s largest river system to eradicate carp, saying it poses a serious risk to global food security, could cause “catastrophic ecosystem crashes” in Australia, and is unlikely to control carp numbers long term.In a letter published in the Nature Ecology and Evolution journal this week, University of East Anglia researchers Dr Jackie Lighten and Prof Cock van Oosterhout say the “irreversible high-risk proposal” could have “serious ecological, environmental, and economic ramifications.” Continue reading...

It’s worth asking who exactly would benefit from Andrea Leadsom’s suggestion that farmers should replace workers with robots (Farmers deliver stark warning over access to EU seasonal workers, 22 February; Letters, 23 February). Not the farmers, who would lose the freedom to exploit their workers while any cost savings associated with the robots would be swallowed up by competition and the supermarkets’ hold over the supply chains. Not the workers, who would lose their jobs, with nothing similar to go to. Not consumers, who would remain at the mercy of the supermarkets’ cynical “price wars”. Ah, I’ve got it: it must be the bankers, who have lent the farmers the money to buy the robots. The secretary of state for the environment, food and rural affairs used to work in banking, I believe.

Bumblebees can learn how to manoeuvre a ball by watching others carry out the task, researchers from Queen Mary University of London have discovered. Bees have already been shown to be able to learn how to pull on strings, push caps and even rotate a lever to access food. The Queen Mary study shows that bees are better at problem-solving than was previously thought Continue reading...

Macquarie insists it is committed to renewable energy – but critics say it could invest in fossil fuels if its bid succeedsThe Australian investment bank on the verge of buying the UK’s publicly owned Green Investment Bank has launched a Westminster charm offensive after parliamentarians of all parties told Theresa May to halt the £2bn sale.Green party co-leader Caroline Lucas, the Lib Dems’ Vince Cable and former Tory minister Gregory Barker last month warned that a sale to Macquarie would put the bank’s green purpose at risk and its most valuable assets, such as large windfarms, could be sold off. Continue reading...

New study reveals negative impact of climate change, human activity, acidification and deoxygenation on ocean and its creaturesThe deep ocean and the creatures that live there are facing a desperate future due to food shortages and changing temperatures, according to research exploring the impact of climate change and human activity on the world’s seas.The deep ocean plays a critical role in sustaining our fishing and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, as well as being home to a huge array of creatures. But the new study reveals that food supplies at the seafloor in the deepest regions of the ocean could fall by up to 55% by 2100, starving the animals and microbes that exist there, while changes in temperature, pH and oxygen levels are also predicted to take their toll on fragile ecosystems. Continue reading...

Sandy Bedfordshire In an aerial tussle one raptor attacked from above until its opponent dropped so low it was groundedBy lunchtime the skies over rural Bedfordshire had become an arrivals and departures board. Thin white slashes criss-crossing the blue trailed over the horizon towards Barcelona, Rome and Salzburg. The 11.25 to Katowice had dissipated into a wispy smudge. Then, an intense arrowhead, like a cursor on a computer screen, might have been the 12.20 from Barcelona entering our airspace.Birds of prey do not arrive; they simply appear in the sky, as if they had been lowered from heaven. So it was that three red kites came into view out of nowhere. Continue reading...

Market regulator urgently requested aluminium smelter reduce electricity use as demand surged alongside temperaturesGas-fired power plants failed during this month’s New South Wales heatwave, forcing authorities to urgently cut demand from the Tomago aluminium smelter to prevent outages.The record-breaking heat put enormous strain on NSW’s electricity supply on Friday, 10 February, when demand peaked at 4.30pm at 14,181MW.

MPs say ministers are not doing enough to demonstrate how third runway would meet obligations on noise and air qualityThe government is set to “water down” limits on aviation emissions and is shifting targets to meet its pledge to mitigate the environmental impact of expanding Heathrow, MPs have said.The cross-party environmental audit committee said ministers were not doing enough to demonstrate a third Heathrow runway could be built without breaching laws on air quality and carbon emissions. Continue reading...

Pilot program will allow homeowners to tap into a network of ‘virtual’ power stations made up of smart grids of rooftop solar and batteriesAustralian homeowners with solar panels and batteries could soon trade their electricity in a digital marketplace developed by a consortium of electricity providers, energy tech startups, energy retailers and energy agencies.The Distributed Energy Exchange – or deX – was launched on Thursday with the promise to “change the way energy is produced, traded and consumed at a local level in Australia”. Continue reading...

Rafael Behr (The ‘left behind’ cliche is an excuse for political failure, 22 February) needs to go beyond castigating the complacency of the major parties with regard to their “safe” constituencies and voters. Yes, we do need to listen – but to which voices? There is a cacophony of reasons why people voted Brexit: poor job opportunities, ever weakening health provision, unaffordable housing, loss of sovereignty; no single cluster of these represents “the” reason why Brexit received a narrow plus vote last June. However, the main cause of these issues – as well as of many misplaced concerns about immigration – is the overly commercial/economic approach to globalisation that has driven financial growth above social benefit. Since the 2008 financial crisis, absolute standards of living for many people around the world have declined, and the disparity of reward between ordinary working people and those at the top of the economic tree has grown exponentially; and this was a key factor why voters in the referendum did not play according to the “rules” of politics.But globalisation need not be solely about trade and profit for the few. The cultural benefits are vast and rarely spelt out: travel and a growth in knowledge about different parts of the world; intercultural communication and thus increased international understanding; access to new and stimulating ideas, beliefs, and practices; rapid movement of innovations. And above all, simply coming to know people from around the world, making more and more of the globe a source of friends rather than competition. Listening on its own is not enough – we need to make our global society more human-focused.

Opposition leader to dig in behind ETS and goal of sourcing 50% of electricity from renewables by 2030The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, will dig in behind his party’s goal of sourcing 50% of Australia’s electricity from renewables by 2030 and the party’s proposed emissions trading scheme, arguing they are vehicles to drive new investment in clean energy.Shorten will use a speech at Bloomberg in Sydney on Thursday to hit back against the prime minister’s recent intensification of the energy debate, declaring Malcolm Turnbull, through his partisan attacks, is generating renewed investment uncertainty in the electricity sector and, as a consequence, undermining jobs. Continue reading...

Several fires were lit at the Dakota Access pipeline protest campsite in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, early Wednesday ahead of a deadline from authorities to abandon the area. For months, hundreds of Native Americans and environmental activists have occupied the site as they protest the pipeline’s construction, but Donald Trump has signed an executive order clearing the way for construction to move ahead

Researchers will have to deal with attacks from a range of powerful foes in the coming years – and for many, it has already startedA little less than seven years ago, the climate scientist Michael Mann ambled into his office at Penn State University with a wedge of mail tucked under his arm. As he tore into one of the envelopes, which was hand-addressed to him, white powder tumbled from the folds of the letter. Mann recoiled from the grainy plume and rushed to the bathroom to scrub his hands.

Documents suggest former Oklahoma AG followed lobby group’s guidance on challenging environmental regulations, and put letterhead to oil firm complaints more than onceThe close relationship between Scott Pruitt, the new administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and fossil fuel interests including the billionaire Koch brothers has been highlighted in more than 7,500 emails and other records released by the Oklahoma attorney general’s office on Wednesday.

A new group of companies is innovating on the problem of plastics recycling by tackling everything from styrofoam to Ziploc bagsThe world recycles just 14% of the plastic packaging it uses. Even worse: 8m tons of plastic, much of it packaging, ends up in the oceans each year, where sea life and birds die from eating it or getting entangled in it. Some of the plastics will also bind with industrial chemicals that have polluted oceans for decades, raising concerns that toxins can make their way into our food chain.Recycling the remaining 86% of used plastics could create $80bn-$120bn in revenues, says a recent report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. But those revenues will never be fully achieved without designing new ways to breakdown and reuse 30% (by weight) of the plastic packaging that isn’t recycled because the material is contaminated or too small for easy collection, has very low economic value or contains multiple materials that cannot be easily separated. Think of candy wrappers, take-out containers, single-serving coffee capsules and foil-lined boxes for soup and soymilk. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Leaked documents indicate that the European Union is now preparing a full ban of raw ivoryThe EU is set to ban raw ivory exports from 1 July as it struggles to deal with what was almost certainly another record year of ivory seizures across the continent in 2016.Europe sells more raw and carved ivory to the world than anywhere else, feeding a seemingly insatiable appetite for elephant tusks in China and east Asia.

Environmentalists hail ‘landmark moment’ as world’s biggest soft drinks company agrees to set up pilot scheme in ScotlandCoca-Cola has announced it supports testing a deposit return service for drinks cans and bottles, in a major coup for environment and anti-waste campaigners.Executives told an event in Edinburgh on Tuesday evening they agreed with campaigners who were pressing the Scottish government to set up a bottle-return pilot scheme to cut waste and pollution and boost recycling. Continue reading...

A sacred Tibetan lake, a crack in the Antarctic ice shelf and deforestation in Cambodia are among images captured by Nasa and the ESA this monthYamzho Yumco (Sacred Swan) Lake is one of the three largest sacred lakes in Tibet. It is surrounded by snow-capped mountains and is highly crenellated with many bays and inlets. The lake is home to the Samding monastery which is headed by a female reincarnation, Samding Dorje Phagmo. The image covers an area of 49.8km by 60km. Aster images map and monitor the changing surface of our planet, such as glacial advances and retreats; potentially active volcanoes; crop stress; cloud morphology and physical properties; wetlands evaluation; thermal pollution monitoring; coral reef degradation; surface temperature mapping of soils and geology; and measuring surface heat balance. Continue reading...

Donald Trump is a deal maker, and there’s a great deal to be made on climate change

From New York to Frankfurt, readers shared their experiences of renewable energy projects in cities around the world

A complex range of factors is shaping how and why cities adopt renewable energy, from costs to the need for stable power supplies

The president could spring a surprise with a carbon price, making renewables cheaper, US Republican warnsFossil fuel industries in Australia could be left behind by improvements in renewables and the possibility Donald Trump changes tack on a carbon tax, a former US Republican congressman has warned.In a speech to the National Press Club on Wednesday, Bob Inglis, a conservative advocate for private sector action on climate change, called for the United States to take unilateral action by imposing a carbon tax with an import levy on goods made in countries without a carbon price.

Wenlock Edge In anonymous hedges and woods, snowdrops have become a kind of spontaneous festival all over the countrySnowdrops and mild weather – is this spring? Something disturbed a crow in the darkness. The bird flew from trees behind the abbey ruins, skirting copse and hedge down the lane to the edge of town with its going-to-work traffic and lights switching on under rooftops. The crow called out before first light, before even the robins stirred, intent on raising the alarm by itself. Caw, caw, caw.All right, crow, I’m awake. Now what? Snowdrops. Along the route, as the crow flies, the snowdrops are in full bloom, drifting along verges, tucked into corners of hedge banks, materialising from the mossy remains of walls in the wood. They are the footprints of old Welsh goddesses, the spilt milk no one cries over. They are something, at last, to cheer about. Every year they pop up from nowhere, grey-green leaf blades and little white lantern flowers glowing in gloom. Continue reading...

The activist film-makers behind Our Power and The Bentley Effect struggled for funding but hope to unite communitiesIt looks like something out of a Hollywood disaster movie. A blanket of smouldering fire stretches across hundreds of hectares, the landscape burning red and blood orange, showering acrid ash and smoke onto surrounding towns. This is what happens when a bushfire combines with a coal mine.