Conservationists say the proposed Trans Mountain Expansion project poses the greatest risk yet to a killer whale population on the edge of extinctionOn one shore there are snow-capped mountains. On the other side loom towering skyscrapers. These churning waters off the coast of Vancouver are marked by a constant flow of ferries and containers ships – but they are also home to 80 or so orcas.Known as the southern resident killer whales the group has long had a fraught relationship with the urban sprawl they live alongside, leaving them on the knife’s edge of extinction. Continue reading...

Consortium of groups propose new swath of national parks be designated and put into the care of native title holdersFive million hectares of unmanaged pastoral leases in outback Western Australia would become national park land under a proposal being put before the Barnett government to expand the Indigenous ranger program and create more than 200 jobs.The 66 leases are dotted throughout the Pilbara, midwest, and Gascoyne regions, spanning a 1,000km range from Geraldton to Port Hedland and stretching inland about 6ookm to East Murchison in the south and Roy Hill in the north. Continue reading...

Trainers in Odessa say sessions can help veterans, as well as children with learning difficulties, but there are concerns about the animals’ welfareIvan Golubev was a hyperactive child until his school in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine was attacked by gunfire. The trauma left him unable to to speak.A few months later he was on holiday in Odessa and his mother, Anna, decided to try dolphin therapy. “By the end of the first session he started talking again, and I just couldn’t stop crying,” she says, as her son splashes round in the pool as part of his follow-up treatment. Continue reading...

Former Australian prime minister says the election of climate denier Donald Trump will help put the issue into perspectiveTony Abbott says the “moral panic” about climate change has been completely over the top and that he never thought it was the most serious issue faced by Australia.He said the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States was encouraging because the Republican – who has said that he believes global warming is a scam – would put climate change in better perspective. Continue reading...

International Energy Agency chief says current government pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions are inadequateThe Paris agreement on climate change risks failure unless countries come forward with more ambitious and detailed plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the world’s energy watchdog has warned.The agreement, reached almost a year ago, is only a “framework”, said the International Energy Agency on Wednesday, and requires sweeping policy changes among governments around the world to put its aims into force. Continue reading...

From next year, one of the world’s longest artificial ski slopes will run from the roof of the city’s new ultra-green waste-to-energy power plantDenmark may be famous for many innovations – Lego, hygge, Noma restaurant – but skiing is not one of the things that springs to mind when you think of this fairly flat and not particularly snowy country.There is one short natural slope – at Roskilde, west of Copenhagen – that sometimes has enough snow for skiing – but from next year locals and visitors will be able to get their downhill kicks closer to the capital. Continue reading...

There’s nothing sinister in all of this. Fossil fuel charity organisations are always at climate change talks – they’re just trying to help!

Herefordshire Massive oaks, neolithic tombs and a farmer on a quad bike checking his sheep are a few of the highlights on this 12-day walkOften within sight of the Malverns, Black Mountains or Radnor Forest, our 12-day walk along the Herefordshire Trail leads from place to place around the county. Massive oaks used to be pollarded, and, in derelict orchards, clumps of mistletoe colonise old trees. Wayside hedgerows are loaded with haws, rotting blackberries, holly and spindle berries; crab apples strew rough lanes and bullaces keep yellow leaves and wrinkled purple fruit.Churches, from Dore Abbey to Pudleston, are decorated with flowers, fruit and swags of hops for harvest festivals. Pheasants bred for shoots feed and shelter in scrubby woods and, above Leintwardine, mature birds scuttle and glide between coverts of maize as five red kites wheel overhead. Continue reading...

Frank Bainimarama calls on Donald Trump to make a ‘personal change of heart and public change of policy on climate change’ at the United Nations climate change conference in Morocco. ‘Please take another look at the overwhelming scientific consensus of the man-made effects of global warming,’ he says, before inviting the US president-elect to see the communities that have been moved out of the way of the rising seas and meet the families of those killed by cyclone Winston Continue reading...

Australian businesses can take action on climate change by supporting Indigenous carbon farming while contributing to sustainable development goalsThere’s a touch of irony in the fact the Australian government has invested $200m in the international Green Climate Fund, a United Nations fund to assist developing countries in adapting to and mitigating the effects of climate change.There is, however, no equivalent investment fund by the government, or corporate Australia, towards developing sustainable economies on Aboriginal lands through one of those mitigation practices, namely carbon farming. Continue reading...

Energy Transfer Partners accused the Obama administration of being motivated purely by politics and said it would pursue rights to build controversial oil lineThe operator of the Dakota Access pipeline has asked a federal judge to approve immediate construction under the Missouri river just one day after the US government delayed the oil project that has faced international opposition from indigenous groups and environmental activists.Energy Transfer Partners, the owner of the $3.7bn pipeline, accused President Barack Obama’s administration of being “motivated purely by politics” and said it would “vigorously pursue its legal rights” to build under the river that provides the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s water supply. Continue reading...

Government subsidy to gas and oil companies undermine Trudeau’s plan to put national price on carbon dioxide by 2018, environmental report warnedCanada’s attempt to act on climate change is being undermined by $3.3bn in government subsidies flowing to oil and gas producers in the country a year, a new report has warned.

Nasa released data earlier this year showing that global surface temperatures across land and ocean in February were a whopping 1.35C warmer than the average temperature for that same month from 1951 to 1980. As the COP22 comes to a close, it’s time we think hard, and think creatively, about the way forward and start preparing for new initiatives. Building on the impressive success of COP21 in Paris, many political and business leaders as well as representatives of civil society seem eager to engage. That is a good thing, but it is not enough.For better and, increasingly, for worse, our global system of governance rests overwhelmingly on territorial nation-states. In this system, each country’s government represents its own national interest. No one represents humanity as a whole. Such devotion to narrow interests leads to a host of profound problems, well known to economists and students of human behaviour. In various contexts they are known as “the tragedy of the commons”, “the prisoner’s dilemma”, “exporting externalities”, and “free riding”. When asked to act for the common good, nation-states are predisposed to echo Cain’s notorious response: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Continue reading...

Authorities in Iranian capital forced to take emergency action amid unprecedented levels of air pollutionAt this time of the year, citizens of Tehran are accustomed to a thick curtain of fog that falls across the city, veiling everything from the 435 metre-tall Milad tower to the nearby Alborz mountains.This week, however, the blanket of smog smothering the Iranian capital has been blamed for a string of deaths and prompted unprecedented emergency measures by the city’s authorities. Continue reading...

My friend Alan Boatman, who has died suddenly in his sleep aged 46, ran his own environmental consultancy, Geo-Sys, in Laos, working on projects identifying and mitigating the impact of resource exploitation in this remarkable area of south-east Asia. Recognising the depth of his experience, the United Nations Drug Control Programme hired Alan to conduct opium surveys in Afghanistan and Laos. At one stage this led to an uncomfortable disagreement with the authorities, as his figures from the field research differed from theirs, but Alan was unmoved and held his ground.Alan developed a sense of adventure from an early age. He was born in Gibraltar, son of Ian, who worked on overseas projects for Cable & Wireless, and Carolyn, a poet, and was brought up in the Gambia and St Lucia, with two sisters, Kelly and Dale. Alan went to school in Essex, at Holmwood House and Felsted school. He then did a variety of jobs, including working in insurance, in a ski resort in France, as a deckhand on a private yacht and helping to open a night club in Antigua. Continue reading...

Nottinghamshire council approves iGas planning application to drill two wells at Misson, the third UK site to be approved for exploration this yearAn energy company has been given the green light to explore for shale gas in the East Midlands, the first step towards the site being potentially fracked in the future.Nottinghamshire council approved iGas’s planning application to vertically and horizontally drill two wells at Misson in north Nottinghamshire, by a vote of seven to four. Continue reading...

Plans for a continuous route along the Chicago River include cycling on floating pontoons – like the controversial Thames Deckway in London. But with the US city’s cycle numbers growing, this long-held ambition could yet be realisedCycling is no stranger to invention, from the steady swell of Kickstarter campaigns to the almost innumerable cycleways dreamed up to be dangled, dug and floated on various bodies of water around the world. The latest, a 6.5 mile, $84m (£67m) floating pontoon, is currently being imagined for the Chicago River, between the city’s Chinatown and Ravenswood Manor.The RiverRide, to link Horner and Ping Tom Park in Chicago, was dreamed up by James Price Chuck, investor and co-founder of Second Shore. It’s a six- to 12ft-wide, steel reinforced concrete pontoon, intended as a commuter and leisure route through the city. Continue reading...

‘Grave consequences’ for food supply with wheat production halved since the start of the war and the area of fields planted at an all-time lowFood production in Syria is edging nearer to collapse with wheat production having halved since the start of the war and the area of fields planted now at an all-time low, according to the UN.The World Food Programme and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned of grave consequences for the availability of food in the warn-torn region unless immediate assistance is provided to farmers. Lack of food could add to the 11 million Syrians already displaced by five years of conflict, they said. Continue reading...

The world’s temperature is running at 1.2C above pre-industrial levels after another year of record-breaking heat affecting people around the worldLatest figures from the UN’s World Meterological Organization (WMO) released on Monday showed that 2016 would very likely become the hottest year on record. This is a new high for the third year running, and means that 16 of the 17 hottest years on record have been this century.This year saw searing heatwaves from South Africa to India, Arctic ice reach its equal second-lowest extent and coral mortality of up to 50% in parts of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Continue reading...

The president-elect is surrounded with fossil fuel industry insiders, making a roll-back of climate change regulations likely. We can’t let this standSince election day, the public rejection of Donald Trump and his politics has been vast. Now, as the reality of his impending presidency settles in, those of us who reject the racist, misogynist, anti-environmentalist agenda he promises to usher in are left with one, glaring course of action: we have to organize and mobilize.Related: Trump could reverse 'dramatic' progress on clean energy, experts fear Continue reading...

UN’s Ban Ki-moon expresses hopes that the US president-elect will drop plans to quit a global accord aimed at weaning the world off fossil fuelsThe UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, said on Tuesday that action on climate change has become “unstoppable“, and he expressed hopes that US president-elect, Donald Trump, would drop plans to quit a global accord aimed at weaning the world off fossil fuels.At a meeting of almost 200 nations in Morocco to work out ways to implement the 2015 Paris agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions, Ban said US companies, states and cities were all pushing to limit global warming. Continue reading...

Liquidators are challenging rehabilitation order, arguing available money should be spent on worker entitlements, leaving taxpayers with cleanup billThe Queensland government may use its new power to pursue executives of Linc Energy for the cost of cleaning up its failed underground coal gasification site if the fallen company’s coffers are used up paying out employee entitlements.Liquidators of Linc are challenging in court an environmental protection order (EPO) for the company to fund rehabilitation of alleged serious contamination of farmland around its trial plant near Chinchilla, west of Brisbane. Continue reading...

With the potential to curb urban congestion, could a successful trial scheme in Morocco act as a launchpad for borrowing bikes across the whole continent?Moroccans claim you can identify someone as a true Marrakech local if they own a bicycle. The streets of this north African city were once full of ardent cyclists, but in recent decades they’ve been overtaken by scooters and cars that swarm the city’s congested roads.Now, French bike company Smoove, is trying to revive Marrakech’s biking culture — and boost sustainable transport — by launching Africa’s first fully functioning bike share scheme in the city. The launch coincided with the start of the COP22 climate conference in the city.

Photographer Richard Jones’s Energy+Notion project tells the story of energy in Wales, from the remnants of coal mining that shaped its towns and landscapes to the new windfarms springing up where the mines once stood. The project was conceived in collaboration with the Arts Council of Wales.• These photos feature as part of a touring digital installation and photo exhibition. The next venue is Blackwood Miners’ Institute, November 24 and 25 Continue reading...

Edwinstowe, Nottinghamshire Perhaps it is a human-sized story – that after 400,000 days on Earth, the Major Oak is still full of lifeAlthough British place names make frequent reference to different tree species, there can be few road signs giving directions to a single specimen. Nor can there be many English woods more steeped in story than Sherwood Forest.I found a few incidental tales even as I walked up to the Major oak. There were fairy bonnet mushrooms painting their way across a dead stump like Lowry crowds through Salford. There were some last wasps around a waste bin, and wood pigeons so glutted on acorns their crops bulged. A robin laced its sad song among the birches, but sadder still was a bench with the following inscribed across its seat: “Abby Louise Hucknall – Missed So Much.” An emotional counterpoint came amid much open-armed laughter from the children playing along a Halloween-themed trail. Continue reading...

The ABC reports a New South Wales agency dropped an investigation after Nationals MP Kevin Humphries said it was ‘too explosive and not warranted’There are calls for an inquiry into the connections between the farming industry, the National party and decisions by the New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage over allegations the agency dropped a land-clearing investigation after intervention from a Nationals MP.The NSW government is expected to pass legislation within days making the clearing of native vegetation easier, by allowing farmers to do so without approval in many cases. Continue reading...

A survey of 600 global companies released at the Marrakech climate change conference shows they are still not doing enough to mitigate water risksDroughts, water scarcity and stricter environmental regulations cost businesses a reported $14bn (£11bn) this year, up from $2.6bn in 2015. Yet companies still aren’t doing enough to protect themselves from water risks, according to a new report.Compiled by environmental non-profit CDP and released Tuesday at the climate summit in Marrakech, Morrocco, the report approached more than 1,200 of the largest listed companies around the world in sectors exposed to water risk. Just over 600 responded, meaning the $14bn figure is likely to be hugely underreported. Continue reading...

15 November 1927: A central authority to control inland waters must be a priority for the government

Herbivorous tropical fish in the remains of a kelp forest in northern New South Wales, Australia. A University of NSW study found the disappearance of kelp from waters near Coffs Harbour coincided with a 0.6 degree temperature rise that had the ‘truly catastrophic’ effect of attracting increased numbers of hungry fish• Destruction of kelp forests by tropical fish shows impact of ocean temperature rises Continue reading...

The Australian wave energy company’s new hub is the world’s largest and most advanced for developing offshore renewable energy technologyCarnegie Wave Energy’s offshore energy-generating infrastructure is purposefully inconspicuous. Its patented CETO buoys, which resemble large circular tanks, are tethered to an anchor in the seafloor and remain fully submerged, out of sight.It’s a design feature that prioritises long-term survival in the ocean over efficiency in converting energy, says Michael Ottaviano, Carnegie’s managing director. Continue reading...

An exceptionally rapid melt this summer has led to unusually high water temperatures in the Arctic Sea, slowing the progress of fresh ice formationResidents of the Alaskan city of Barrow (due to change its name to Utqiaġvik on 1 December) would normally be looking out across a frozen harbour by now, but this year the sea is reluctant to freeze.Barrow’s average temperature for October 2016 was a balmy -1C, significantly warmer than the long-term average of around -8C. And over the North Pole the air has been a full 10C warmer than average of late. Continue reading...

Deforestation near Coffs Harbour coincided with 0.6C temperature rise, which had ‘catastrophic’ effect of attracting fishHerbivorous tropical fish have destroyed kelp forests in northern New South Wales, showing that even small increases in ocean temperature can lead to kelp deforestation, an Australian study has found.The University of NSW study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Tuesday, found that the disappearance of kelp from waters near Coffs Harbour coincided with a threefold increase in the number of tropical fish in the region. Continue reading...

Calls for a tax on meat and dairy products (Report, 8 November) are misguided and would increase, not decrease, overall emissions from agriculture. Instead we should improve production systems by taxing nitrogen fertiliser and pesticides, the underlying causes of environmental damage associated with food systems.Something close to mass hysteria has developed in relation to cattle and other ruminants since the publication in 2006 of Livestock’s Long Shadow, by the Food and Agriculture Organisation. This report and its successor in 2013 are both flawed and misleading. They conflate the emissions from the destruction of virgin land in South America, the root cause of which is not chicken production, but our insatiable demand for vegetable oils, with the actual emissions from ruminants. They also failed to balance this by including emissions from the conversion of land to grow crops for human consumption, or the carbon sequestration associated with the planting of forests in parts of the world, such as the UK, that was taking place at the same time. Continue reading...

Sydney Renewable Power Company to sell 519 shares after International Convention Centre deal to buy all electricity producedThe company responsible for Australia’s biggest CBD solar installation has invited public investment, making it the first community renewables project in Australia with a public share offering.Sydney Renewable Power Company’s 520kW solar installation on top of the new International Convention Centre in Darling Harbour is the size of 12 tennis courts and will generate enough electricity to power about 100 homes each year. Continue reading...

With solar capacity up 577% since 2011 and wind energy surging, Trump’s pledges to abolish clean energy measures could have ‘major consequences’A huge shift to clean energy is under way in the US but the election of Donald Trump as president means progress could be reversed unless cities and states do more, energy experts have warned.

While prestigious routes are well-maintained, smaller footpaths under the care of local councils are suffering from budget cuts - and it’s these we need the mostThe largest ever survey of footpaths in England and Wales has found that almost half are in need of improvement, with a tenth of the 140,000-mile network in serious disrepair. For anyone, like me, who considers a decent yomp a staple of any good weekend, those results won’t seem in the least bit surprising.Of the 59,000 problems reported by the 3,250 citizen surveyors who took part in the Ramblers’ Big Pathwatch, a third were for missing signposts that can quickly turn a pleasant country stroll into an epic trudge as the detours mount up. But most were for obstructions, like barbed wire and collapsed bridges, or footpaths made impassable by flooding and overgrowth that would likely force you to abandon your walk altogether. Continue reading...

Study finds floods, storms and droughts cost global economy $520bn a year and highlights need to tackle climate changeFloods, earthquakes, tsunamis and other extreme natural disasters push 26 million people into poverty each year and cost the global economy more than half a trillion dollars in lost consumption, the World Bank has said.A bank study of 117 countries concluded that the full cost of natural disasters was $520bn (£416bn) a year – 60% higher than any previous estimate – once the impact on poor people was taken into account. Continue reading...

Seven-year project to stop wastewater flowing into Thames is unnecessary and ministers should have considered alternatives, says Chris Binney

ClimateHome: Failings on the part of the bank contributed to ‘real and often severe harm’ to villagers around the Sibovc mine, says leaked reportThe World Bank broke its own rules and contributed to the suffering of hundreds of Kosovans who were forced from their homes to make way for a coalmine, a leaked report reveals.The giant state-owned Sibovc mine has swallowed communities as it expanded. It would supply the only coal power plant on earth the World Bank is considering backing. Continue reading...

From drought-hit Nigeria to wine-growing Finland, we hear from people whose lives have already been changed by a warming world

Native Americans fear that the Dakota Access oil pipeline – a $3.7bn project that would carry crude oil from the Bakken oil field in North Dakota to a refinery in Patoka, Illinois – would contaminate sacred lands and their water supply from the Missouri river. Here, protesters at a camp near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation give their views on what the election of Donald Trump might mean for their campaign Continue reading...

An investigation reveals the social media site is acting as a shopfront for a multimillion dollar trade in animal parts, centred in a small village outside HanoiWildlife traffickers from a small, sleepy village in Vietnam are using Facebook to offload large amounts of illegal ivory, rhino horn and tiger parts, an investigation has revealed.

World Meteorological Organisation figures show global temperature is 1.2C above pre-industrial levels and will set a new high for the third year running2016 will very likely be the hottest year on record and a new high for the third year in a row, according to the UN. It means 16 of the 17 hottest years on record will have been this century.The scorching temperatures around the world, and the extreme weather they drive, mean the impacts of climate change on people are coming sooner and with more ferocity than expected, according to scientists. Continue reading...

Rural white men support Trump and oppose stopping climate change; the opposite is true of urban minoritiesThe world is shocked that America elected Donald Trump as its 45th president. Exit polls show that the country is sharply divided on Trump along the same lines as its sharp divisions on climate change.Political ideology was the single strongest determining factor in the election. 90% of Republicans voted for Trump, while 89% of Democrats voted for Clinton. Ideology is also the primary factor associated with acceptance or denial of human-caused global warming, as climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe explained eloquently in this video: Continue reading...

Rights campaigners call for Pizza to be permanently returned to birthplace saying shopping centre conditions unsuitableAnimal rights groups have called for the permanent return home of “the saddest polar bear in the world”, who will be temporarily moved from a shopping mall aquarium in southern China during an upgrade.The three-year-old female bear, named Pizza, has become a focus of global attention since Hong Kong-based Animal Asia posted in July an online video of the bear lying on her side in a glass enclosure in Guangzhou. Continue reading...

Chief medical officer for England Prof Dame Sally Davies to carry out study into health impacts of tiny particles of plastic consumed by fishThe government is to conduct an investigation into the impact on human health of microplastic particles found in shellfish and other marine animals.

Premier Jay Weatherill says Indigenous people will have final say even if public backs dump in referendumSouth Australia’s proposal for a high-level nuclear waste dump in the state’s north will go to a referendum, the premier, Jay Weatherill, has announced, but only if it has bipartisan support.The government has been considering the proposal following a recommendation by a royal commission into the nuclear fuel cycle that found the state could reap billions of dollars by storing waste from other countries. But the royal commission found public and political support for the dump was essential if it was to go ahead. Continue reading...

But while increase in emissions has been halted, CO2 concentrations in atmosphere still at record high and risingGlobal carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels have seen “almost no growth” for a third consecutive year, according to figures released as world leaders begin to arrive in Marrakech for a UN climate summit.Related: Donald Trump presidency a 'disaster for the planet', warn climate scientists Continue reading...

Latest Cedex report says October had the biggest proportion of renewables of any month since data made availableAustralia’s renewable energy sector hit a record in October, with 21.7% of electricity in the national electricity market coming from renewables, according to the latest Cedex report.That represents the biggest proportion of any month since the data was made available by the Australian Energy Market Operator in 2005, according to the report from the engineering consultants Pitt&Sherry and the Australia Institute. Continue reading...

Caistor St Edmund, Norfolk Today, however, I cannot be a hermit. There are stick-swinging children, scurrying woodlice and cross-looking treecreepersWhen modern life seems too much, I dream of living in the woods. I’ll be a mad, feral woman eating hazelnuts and tending a fire obsessively. It’s this specific wood where I would go, with its deciduous mix of ash, oak and chestnut, its sandy badger sett, wild garlic, bluebells in spring, and the clear, fast-flowing water of the gravel-bottomed stream. Known as Fox’s Grove, it’s just a few miles from the centre of Norwich.