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...

A plan to halve carbon emissions every decade, while green energy continues to double every five years, provides a simple but rigorous roadmap to tackle climate change, scientists sayA new “carbon law”, modelled on Moore’s law in computing, has been proposed as a roadmap for beating climate change. It sees carbon emissions halving every decade, while green energy continues to double every five years.The carbon law’s proponents are senior climate-change scientists and they argue it provides a simple, broad but quantitative plan that could drive governments and businesses to make urgently needed carbon cuts, particularly at a time when global warming is falling off the global political agenda. Continue reading...

Former prime minister joins debate as Australian Industry Group says it is not confident the risks to the country’s energy grid are being managedTony Abbott has supported calls to keep the Hazelwood power plant open to avoid power shortages.“If we are serious about tackling Australia’s looming energy crisis, the last thing we should be doing is closing 20% plus of Victoria’s (and 5% of Australia’s) base load power supply,” the former prime minister wrote in the Herald Sun on Friday.

Exclusive: Draft regulations seen by the Guardian reveal the European commission wants to prohibit the insecticides that cause ‘acute risks to bees’The world’s most widely used insecticides would be banned from all fields across Europe under draft regulations from the European commission, seen by the Guardian.

The energy secretary weighed in on the election at his alma mater in an opinion piece this week, implying voters were intimidated by ‘quest for diversity’During his time as Texas governor, Rick Perry sought to crack down on electoral misconduct despite scant evidence it was a problem.Now in Washington as Donald Trump’s energy secretary, the former Republican presidential candidate is keeping up his interest in the topic. He has written an article casting doubt on the process that saw Texas A&M University elect its first openly gay student body president amid a controversy over glow sticks. Continue reading...

As the International Cloud Atlas adds 11 “new” formations, including wave-like clouds known as asperitas, we’d like to see your pictures from around the world

Scientists hope experiment, which can generate temperatures of around 3,500C, will help to develop carbon-neutral fuelGerman scientists are switching on “the world’s largest artificial sun” in the hope that intense light sources can be used to generate climate-friendly fuel.The Synlight experiment in Jülich, about 19 miles west of Cologne, consists 149 souped-up film projector spotlights and produces light about 10,000 times the intensity of natural sunlight on Earth.

Rirratjingu Aboriginal Corporation vows to continue fight against the Northern Land Council after another legal setbackA long-running court battle involving two powerful Indigenous clans and the Northern Land Council is set to continue after the federal court again rejected an appeal by one group seeking a better split of mining royalties.The Rirratjingu Aboriginal Corporation, of north-east Arnhem Land, has vowed to continue its fight after the setback. It first launched legal action against the Northern Land Council (NLC) in 2014 after a dispute between RAC and the rival Gumatj clan over royalties from the Gove bauxite mine and refinery failed to reach a resolution. Continue reading...

John Quiggin and Danny Price resign over Coalition’s ‘rightwing anti-science activists’ and climate change political point-scoringTwo members of the Climate Change Authority have resigned, with one accusing the government of being beholden to rightwing, anti-science “extremists” in its own party and in the media.John Quiggin told Guardian Australia he informed the federal minister for environment and energy, Josh Frydenberg, of his resignation on Thursday. It follows the resignation of fellow climate change authority member, Danny Price, who quit on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Birdwatchers ‘elated’ after snapping photo of the endangered species in state’s arid interior in discovery that could significantly impact on mining developmentsA night parrot has been photographed in Western Australia, adding another twist to the mysterious history of the species that was presumed extinct until it was rediscovered in Queensland four years ago.It is the first verified sighting of the bird in WA for almost 100 years and follows a history of unverified sightings, disbelieved reports and futile ecological surveys that rivals the hunt for the (presumably still) extinct Thylacine in Tasmania. Continue reading...

Sandy, Bedfordshire Tiny spears pierce my trousers and the skin of my knee, releasing toxins that tingle with fiery heatUnder a hawthorn hedge and all along the bank grows one of Britain’s most feared and reviled plants. I kneel down before it and feel its power. Its hairs, just a few millimetres long and looking like icicle spears, have pierced both my trousers and the skin of my knee, releasing toxins that tingle with fiery heat.Even so, I reach out to grasp one of these plants between thumb and forefinger. I have come not to curse nettles, but to pick them, for their stinging hairs have no answer to gardening gloves, and their ferocious leaves can be tamed in a saucepan. Continue reading...

Almost three-quarters of the 35 victims were male, and 20% were bitten while trying to pick up or kill snakeMore than half of the deaths caused by snake bites in Australia since 2000 have occurred in or around the victim’s home, a nationwide review has found.The coronial-based retrospective study of fatalities from January 2000 to December 2016 found that, of the 35 deaths recorded by the National Coronial Information Service, 16 were a direct result of the bite.

State representative introduced a bill that would limit the state attorney general’s ability to investigate or prosecute people based on their political speechMaine laws protect people from discrimination based on factors such as race, disabilities and sexual orientation, and a Republican lawmaker wants to add a person’s beliefs about climate change to that list.State representative Larry Lockman has introduced a bill that would limit the state attorney general’s ability to investigate or prosecute people based on their political speech, including their views on climate change. It would also prohibit the state from making decisions on buying goods or services or awarding grants or contracts based on a person’s “climate change policy preferences”. Continue reading...

Extent of ice over North pole has fallen to a new wintertime low, for the third year in a row, as climate change drives freakish weatherThe extent of Arctic ice has fallen to a new wintertime low, as climate change drives freakishly high temperatures in the polar regions.The ice cap grows during the winter months and usually reaches its maximum in early March. But the 2017 maximum was 14.4m sq km, lower than any year in the 38-year satellite record, according to researchers at the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) and Nasa. Continue reading...

Massive fine reflects change in sentencing as previously low penalties failed to deter water firms from polluting England’s rivers and beachesThames Water has been hit with a record fine of £20.3m after huge leaks of untreated sewage into the Thames and its tributaries and on to land, including the popular Thames path. The prolonged leaks led to serious impacts on residents, farmers, and wildlife, killing birds and fish.The fine imposed on Wednesday was for numerous offences in 2013 and 2014 at sewage treatment works at Aylesbury, Didcot, Henley and Little Marlow, and a large sewage pumping station at Littlemore. Continue reading...

In the first in a series, Yale Environment 360 reports from Honduras where Berta Cáceres fought to protect native lands and paid for it with her life – one of hundreds of victims in this disturbing global trendThey came for her late one evening last March, as Berta Cáceres prepared for bed. A heavy boot broke the back door of the safe house she had just moved into. Her colleague and family friend, Gustavo Castro, heard her shout, “Who’s there?” Then came a series of shots. He survived. But the most famous and fearless social and environmental activist in Honduras died instantly. She was 44 years old. It was a cold-blooded political assassination.Berta Cáceres knew she was likely to be killed. Everybody knew. She had told her daughter Laura to prepare for life without her. The citation for her prestigious Goldman Environmental prize, awarded in the US less than a year before, noted the continued death threats, before adding: “Her murder would not surprise her colleagues, who keep a eulogy – but hope to never have to use it.” Continue reading...

China is home to 21% of the world’s population but just 7% of its freshwater. One NGO teaches young people to make tackling water scarcity a priorityIn Beijing’s Tongzhou Number Six school, around 100 impeccably-behaved middle school students are being lectured about water.The visiting teacher tells them that, among other things, they should take shorter showers, buy less clothes, eat less meat and drink tea rather than coffee, to help alleviate China’s water scarcity problems. Continue reading...

Protesters detained for trying to stop contractors from chopping down trees to challenge legality of their arrestFourteen campaigners arrested in a dispute over tree-felling in Sheffield are to take legal action against South Yorkshire police.The protesters, who include a Green party councillor and university academics, were detained under trade union legislation for preventing council contractors from chopping down roadside trees. Continue reading...