Environment | The Guardian

The ability to cooperate and coordinate will mean the difference between looking forward with hope to the future or facing catastrophic climate changeIn 1972 the law was passed that allowed the UK to join what was then called the European Economic Community (EEC). Despite Europe’s current crises, it’s unchanging, fundamental challenge was expressed that year by Sicco Mansholt, then president of the European commission, probably better than by any of the current voices in the referendum campaign, whether for or against UK remaining in. Continue reading...

Whether you are taking part in protests or live in an area threatened by proposals we’d like to hear from youResidents of Kirby Misperton in north Yorkshire wait in anticipation to hear whether a planning application to frack a well near the village will be approved or not.Related: In the timeless Yorkshire moors of my childhood, the frackers are poised to start drilling Continue reading...

Zero emission milestone reached as country is powered by just wind, solar and hydro-generated electricity for 107 hoursPortugal kept its lights on with renewable energy alone for four consecutive days last week in a clean energy milestone revealed by data analysis of national energy network figures.Electricity consumption in the country was fully covered by solar, wind and hydro power in an extraordinary 107-hour run that lasted from 6.45am on Saturday 7 May until 5.45pm the following Wednesday, the analysis says. Continue reading...

Even eco-protesters show by their actions the disconnection between humanity and the rest of the animate world – which just wants us to leave it aloneThis spring is proving to be spectacular when it comes to its quota of sea monsters. As if reports of a sea serpent in the Thames and the Loch Ness monster being “found” weren’t enough, reality bites back with some true-life beasts beyond all expectation.A bizarre beaked whale washes up on an Australian beach like a primeval message from prehistory. A narwhal, complete with spiralling tusk out of some medieval bestiary, turns up in a Dutch estuary. And last Sunday a bowhead whale – an animal that may reach 300 years in age, and which surpasses all description with its huge, arching mouth filled with plates of fibrous baleen four metres long – surfaced off Cornwall, 1,000 miles and an ocean away from its designated domain. Continue reading...

Ambitious scheme to channel water from regions with a surplus to drought-prone areas could begin in days, but Bangladesh has raised concernsIndia is set to start work on a massive, unprecedented river diversion programme, which will channel water away from the north and west of the country to drought-prone areas in the east and south. The plan could be disastrous for the local ecology, environmental activists warn.The project involves rerouting water from major rivers including the Ganges and Brahmaputra and creating canals to link the Ken and Batwa rivers in central India and Damanganga-Pinjal in the west. Continue reading...

London’s former mayor says he knew about the report showing deprived schools were disproportionately affected by air pollution, so why wasn’t it made public?The former mayor of London’s response to claims he buried a report on how toxic air disproportionately affects deprived schools was trademark Boris Johnson bluster. To allege there was a cover-up was “absurd” and “risible”, he said. Of course he hadn’t hid the impact of dirty air.But in defending his record on air pollution, he also seemed to make things worse. On Monday we didn’t know if Johnson himself was personally aware of the findings of the unpublished report that the new mayor Sadiq Khan accuses him of suppressing. Continue reading...

Government plans to fell Poland’s Białowieża forest have divided families, led to death threats against green campaigners and allegations of an ‘environmental coup’ by government and state timber interestsEurope’s last primeval forest is facing what campaigners call its last stand as loggers prepare to start clear-cutting trees, following the dismissal of dozens of scientists and conservation experts opposed to the plan.

Environment minister refuses to admit Coalition has to change climate policies if it is to meet emissions reduction targetGreg Hunt – aka “the best minister in the world”* – is certainly hitting his key performance indicators when it comes to avoiding questions.

More than 30 green groups sign statement after damning report says extending regional forestry agreements ‘would constitute an irrational decision on environmental, economic and social grounds’More than 30 environmental groups have signed a statement demanding that agreements allowing the logging of Australian native forests not be renewed.Australia’s 10 regional forestry agreements (RFAs) were signed between 1997 and 2001, each running for 20 years, with the first two expiring in 2017. Continue reading...

Campaigners are seeking an explanation from officials on their level of knowledge about the dangers of a chemical mandated for sheep dippingGovernment officials have been criticised for an ongoing delay in explaining what they knew about the serious health risks to farmers of using a mandatory chemical treatment.As the Guardian revealed last year, at least 500 farmers across the UK were left with debilitating health problems after using organophosphate-based (OP) chemicals to protect their sheep against parasites, under the government’s compulsory dipping programme which ran up until 1992.

Parracombe, Exmoor From the greenery sounds the first cuckoo, so I follow tradition and run about to ensure the luck of liveliness for the rest of the yearOn the northern side of Exmoor luminous beech hedges thread upland fields and mark the onset of spring; regularly flailed banks flaunt drapes of fresh leaves, and sturdy trunks are topped with diaphanous crowns.Swallows, which have just arrived, twitter and swoop around a sheltered farmstead; mud has dried up and dusty ways are edged in uncurling ferns, stunted bluebells, leafy foxgloves and a sprinkling of white stitchwort. Continue reading...

The fossil fuel industry, fee-hungry lawyers, banks and those that stay silent are profiting from the reef’s destruction. It’s time for them to say no moreIt’s the worst crisis ever to hit the Great Barrier Reef and the extent of the devastation is only just coming to light. The reef is in the middle of the worst bleaching event ever seen, with unusually warm water killing as much as half the corals in the northern sections, with the trend set to continue for the next 20 years.Who’s to blame for this destruction? And which businesses are profiting from the activities that are causing this havoc?

Trust sets unusual terms because property in North Wales is on land that requires time-intensive, ‘nature first’ approach

Commissioner says decision not to proceed made after legal advice from prosecutorsTasmania police have dropped charges against the former Greens leader Bob Brown over a protest at a logging site in the state’s north-west.The 71-year-old was among several people charged after they allegedly failed to comply with directions to leave a business access area. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Market Forces says halt to refinancing existing loans would also test banks’ support for 2C warming targetAustralia’s big four banks could act on their stated ambition to help achieve a 2C warming target simply by giving no new loans to coal projects, analysis by financial activists Market Forces reveals.Such a move – including a halt to refinancing existing loans – would virtually empty the banks’ loan book of the $8bn they are lending to coal in just five years. Continue reading...

There are critics on the sidelines who say the Green party isn’t needed any more. But without it, vital policies will slide down the agendaThe next leader of the Green party will have one big question to address: what is the party for? Since its birth in the 1980s it has pursued an erratic course. If it was a bird, its flight pattern would be like a nuthatch’s, off the ground but sometimes breathtakingly close to it. At first it was unquestionably a single issue green party, preoccupied with issues around sustainability that it fought to make fashionable. From the early 1990s, it became an environmental party with social policies. At the last general election it was an anti-austerity party, the fate of the planet reduced to only one of six objectives. Now that Natalie Bennett, after four years as leader, is standing down to give her successor time to refresh its appeal before the next election, serious thinking is needed. Is it a potential party of government, or is it a party that seeks to disrupt and to challenge? What sort of a leader does it need; why does it still matter?The well-liked Ms Bennett, a former Guardian journalist, retires after a respectable if not dazzling tenure. She campaigned hard on the doorstep, and the results in the elections earlier this month were reasonable, if not quite as good as had seemed possible after the general election when the party won a record million-plus votes. It held on to its only parliamentary seat in Brighton, home of its former (and possibly future) leader Caroline Lucas. Membership is at a record high, up from 13,000 to 60,000 in the course of Ms Bennett’s leadership, ahead of Ukip, and on level pegging with the Lib Dems. Yet that moment in early 2015 when the Greens challenged for the space left by a lacklustre Labour party clinging cautiously to the centre ground came and went. And under the constraints of first past the post, an insurgent party can only break through on the back of strong local organisations that, outside Brighton, the Greens lack. Its standing in the polls now seems static at around 5%. Continue reading...

Thai authorities have closed the celebrated scuba-diving destination to visitors – but it’s not the first ‘honeypot’ site to take such actionRelated: Thailand closes 'overcrowded' Koh Tachai island to touristsThe trouble for Koh Tachai was that its beaches were just a little too white, its coral reef too colourful, its marine life too dazzling. Now you can’t go there, because Thai authorities have shut it to tourists – the latest and most drastic response to a booming and increasingly itinerant global population. Continue reading...

Nitrogen compounds from fertilisers and animal waste drifting over industrial regions is combining to form fine particulate pollution, report findsFarming is the biggest single cause of the worst air pollution in Europe, a new study has found, as nitrogen compounds from fertilisers and animal waste drift over industrial regions.When the nitrogen compounds are mixed with air already polluted from industry, they combine to form solid particles that can stick in the fine lung tissue of children and adults, causing breathing difficulties, impaired lungs and heart function, and eventually even premature death. Continue reading...

More cycling, better public transport and car bans - cities from Delhi to Zurich are using a range of initiatives to lower traffic pollution and improve healthParis

London’s new mayor must re-define the nature of the job if he’s to make a real difference on transport, housing, policing and social exclusion in the capitalThe euphoria surrounding Sadiq Khan’s election as London’s new mayor is now giving way to the annoying persistence of reality. The fact of his being a Muslim has generated headlines round the world and a transatlantic set-to with Donald Trump. The symbolism of Khan prevailing in the face of the muck thrown at him by Zac Goldsmith and his media allies is glorious. But now the hard graft of keeping the promises he made to voters has begun. It’s time to think about what Khan could achieve in his new job over the next four years.Too often since its creation at the start of the century the London mayoralty has been seen as little more than a showman’s platform, its powers and influence dismissed as insignificant. Khan’s passion for winning City Hall and the purposeful way he went about it suggest a politician equipped to make full use of the potential of his office and re-define it as an institution. What will qualify as success? Continue reading...

With debate surrounding EU subsidies we want to know what the vote will mean for those working in agriculture

2017 finance bill will set price at €30 a tonne in a bid to stir European action to cut emissions and drive forward the Paris climate agreementFrance will set a carbon price floor of about €30 ($33.95) a tonne in its 2017 finance bill as the government seeks to kickstart broader European action to cut emissions and drive forward last year’s landmark international climate accord.

With crippling quotas and endless regulations all over the country we want to know what the vote will mean for those working in fishing

Report by Wrap says 18% of 270,000 tonnes of edible food waste was redistributed to charities for food banksMore than 400m meals’ worth of edible food waste in the UK grocery supply chain could be redistributed to feed hungry people each year, according to a government-funded report.Just 18% of the 270,000 tonnes of potentially edible food waste produced last year was redistributed to businesses or charities for use in food banks, according to analysis by the Waste & Resources Action Programme (Wrap). Continue reading...

French president backs project despite fears that £18bn price tag could bankrupt EDF, which is 85% state-ownedFrançois Hollande has renewed his support for the controversial nuclear project planned by the French energy company EDF at Hinkley Point in Britain.“I am in favour that this project goes ahead,” the French president told Europe 1 radio on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Report’s author says City Hall publicised positive conclusions but held back the finding that deprived schools were disproportionately affected by toxic airThe author of a report on how London’s illegal air pollution disproportionately affects deprived schools has said City Hall under Boris Johnson held back the study’s negative findings, while publicising the positive ones.The Guardian revealed an unpublished Greater London authority (GLA) report on Monday that showed how deprived schools in the capital were disproportionately affected by toxic air, leading the new mayor, Sadiq Khan, to accuse Johnson of burying the report. Continue reading...

Algal bloom ‘of biblical proportions’ has led to protests and health emergency as concerns raised over dumping of rotting salmon in oceanChilean authorities are investigating the country’s salmon-farming industry after an algal bloom carrying a virulent neurotoxin spread for hundreds of miles along the rugged coastline of Patagonia, triggering a health emergency and angry protests by fishermen.The huge “red tide” has grown rapidly over recent weeks, in what has been described as the country’s worst environmental crisis in recent years: dozens of people have been poisoned by the algal bloom which makes seafood toxic and has deprived thousands of fishermen of a living. Continue reading...

The Catalan capital’s radical new strategy will restrict traffic to a number of big roads, drastically reducing pollution and turning secondary streets into ‘citizen spaces’ for culture, leisure and the communityIn the latest attempt from a big city to move away from car hegemony, Barcelona has ambitious plans. Currently faced with excessive pollution and noise levels, the city has come up with a new mobility plan to reduce traffic by 21%. And it comes with something extra: freeing up nearly 60% of streets currently used by cars to turn them into so-called “citizen spaces”. The plan is based around the idea of superilles (superblocks) – mini neighbourhoods around which traffic will flow, and in which spaces will be repurposed to “fill our city with life”, as its tagline says.This plan will start in the famous gridded neighbourhood of Eixample. That revolutionary design, engineered by Ildefons Cerdà in the late 19th century, had at its core the idea that the city should breathe and – for both ideological and public health reasons – planned for the population to be spread out equally, as well as providing green spaces within each block. Reality and urban development have, however, got the best of it, and as the grid lines became choked with cars, the city’s pollution and noise levels have skyrocketed. What was once a design to make Barcelona healthier, now has to be dramatically rethought for the same reasons. Continue reading...

More than 100 of the world’s poorest and most poorly governed countries have no or limited monitoring of the polluted air their citizens are breathingMore than 1 billion people live in countries that do not monitor the air they breathe, according to data released by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Pricing carbon is key to spurring the quick deployment of existing low-carbon technologies that we need

Greenpeace slams ‘insane’ plan for dozens of power plants, with huge implications for air quality and climate changePlans by Japan to build dozens of coal-fired power stations will cause at least 10,000 premature deaths, according to a study, as the country struggles to fulfil its climate change obligations five years after the Fukushima disaster closed down almost all of its nuclear plants.

Andaman Sea island to close for indefinite period from October as record numbers of tourists threaten beaches and coral reefsThailand has closed an island in the Andaman Sea to visitors in an attempt to ease the negative effects of tourism on its once-pristine beaches and surrounding coral reefs.Koh Tachai, an island in the famous Similan national park in south-west Thailand, would close for an “indefinite period” from 15 October, the Bangkok Post reported. Continue reading...

Bees have become a billion-dollar business. But who would try to steal them?The bees crawled up the thief’s arms while he dragged their hive over a patch of grass and through a slit in the wire fence he had clipped minutes earlier. In the pitch dark, his face, which was not covered with a protective veil, hovered inches from the low hum of some 30,000 bees.The thief squatted low and heaved the 30kg hive, about the size of a large office printer, up and on to the bed of his white GMC truck. He had been planning his crime for days. He knew bees – how to work them, how to move them, and most importantly, how to turn them into cash. Continue reading...

Claxton, Norfolk The song is as lowly and modest as the bush from which it emerges. It inhabits our spring subliminallyI can tell the weather by the St Mark’s flies, because, as they sail over the brambles, their fore-legs dangle together and are held so that they face directly into the oncoming breeze and fractionally ahead of the body. Rather like a boat’s keel, those legs keep the fly true in relation to the airstream, and they now point southwest.Those warm winds brought the summer migrants streaming home. As I walk down the beck the whitethroats sing at intervals. They are lithe creatures, adept at threading mouse-like through spiked vegetation. Two tiny extravagances of plumage are the ginger patches mainly in two wing feathers and a white powder puff at the throat, which swells up when they sing. Continue reading...

Scientist says lack of attention to climate change is ‘staggering’ given it is Australia’s last chance ‘to close down coal-fired power stations and save the reef’Tim Flannery says preserving the Great Barrier Reef from coral bleaching linked to climate change should be a central issue in the federal election campaign.Flannery, a scientist and member of the Climate Council, said the lack of attention paid to climate change so far in the eight-week campaign was “staggering”. Continue reading...

The leader who promised to end three-word slogans now says ‘jobs and growth’ every second breath. But will diluting the personality that made him popular win him the power to build a lasting legacy?Malcolm Turnbull is selling his “jobs and growth” election message with the zeal of a man whose life’s ambition depends on it.

Some 40 Bruny Island households are to be transformed into ‘mini-power stations’ as they trial Reposit Power’s software and solar storageThere are more than 1.5m households in Australia with rooftop solar. And in a few months time, 40 Tasmanian homeswill be acting as mini power stations – not just producing energy for their own consumption and to export back into the grid, but actively trading and profiting from the power they generate.Much has been written about rooftop solar and the impending boom in battery storage but the key ingredient to turning homes into mini-power stations is the software that links the hardware of these technologies. Now the Canberra-based startup Reposit Power is helping to change the way households and energy companies think about solar and storage. Continue reading...

Australian offshore oil and gas regulator keeps reasons for rejection secret, but says company will be given an opportunity to revise applicationBP’s application to drill for oil deep in the pristine Great Australian Bight has been rejected for a second time by the offshore oil and gas regulator, Nopsema.The regulator said on its website on Monday evening the company would be given an opportunity to revise its plans and resubmit. The decision implies the regulator found BP’s plans did not meet its regulatory requirements, although the reasons were kept secret. Continue reading...

Greens leader tells the Lowy Institute Australia should develop an independent foreign policy that made poverty and climate change prioritiesThe Greens leader, Richard Di Natale, has accused the Turnbull government of failing to understand that global warming is a bigger threat to Australia’s national security than terrorism.

Today we are looking at some of the environmental issues facing the nation and how lucky we are to have Greg Hunt as our environment minister

Scientists agree that aircraft pollution affects surface temperatures, but some people believe they have a darker sideA sky crisscrossed with contrails from high-flying aircraft is a familiar sight in Britain and North America. Depending on the weather conditions these can merge into a blanket of high cloud that at times can be dense enough to blot out the sun.Understanding exactly what this does to the climate is still work in progress, but it’s generally agreed that in these areas where the aircraft are constantly pouring out pollution the contrails make the nights warmer by acting as a blanket and the days cooler by reflecting sunlight back into space. Some studies suggest that over 30 years, these contrails will raise average surface temperature by as much as 1C, a serious magnification of global warming. Continue reading...

A calf that two men picked up in their SUV because they thought it was ‘freezing’ was put to sleep after it was rejected by its herd upon returningA newborn bison calf that was picked up and put into the back of car because someone thought it was cold has had to be euthanized, prompting the National Parks Service to criticize a spate of “inappropriate, dangerous and illegal behavior” by visitors to Yellowstone.

Organisation urges better city planning and defensive measures to defend against rapid rise in climate change-linked disastersThe global community is badly prepared for a rapid increase in climate change-related natural disasters that by 2050 will put 1.3 billion people at risk, according to the World Bank.Urging better planning of cities before it was too late, a report published on Monday from a Bank-run body that focuses on disaster mitigation, said assets worth $158tn – double the total annual output of the global economy – would be in jeopardy by 2050 without preventative action.

Coalition of environmental groups call for oil, coal and gas to be kept in the ground during mass protests around the world over the past two weeksThousands of people have taken part in what organizers have called the largest ever global civil disobedience against fossil fuels, with dozens of activists arrested during protests that shut down coalmines, rail infrastructure and a port.

Chemical used in Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller ‘unlikely to pose carcinogenic risk from exposure through diet’Glyphosate, the key ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller brand, has been given a clean bill of health by the UN’s joint meeting on pesticides residues (JMPR), two days before a crunch EU vote on whether to relicense it.The co-analysis by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and World Health Organisation found that the chemical was “unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans from exposure through the diet”. Continue reading...

Bangladesh is not the story of a secular country that has turned to radicalism: it is the story of a country that has, against all odds, survived, even flourishedI am a novelist. I look around at the world and I make up stories about people, families, lovers and friends. More often than not, the stories take place in Bangladesh, where I was born. When I close my eyes and think of home, it’s the peaty smell of the monsoon, the harsh light of the equatorial sun, the clashing sounds of the capital city, Dhaka, that come to mind.But, more often than not, people do not ask me about the peaty smell of the monsoon. The questions are about other things, the bigger things, such as religion, politics, the unaccounted bodies of the dead, the history that makes the present. I do not resent these questions – I understand why people ask them; after all, the headlines tell a particular story, and sometimes, we look for an interlocutor – someone to bridge the gap between here and there. Continue reading...

Peace museums | Church spires | Orgreave police forces | Old Trafford bomb scare | Letter-writers’ namesYou ask whether President Obama would dare to visit the Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima (Hiroshima survivors ask Obama to reaffirm his commitment to world without nuclear weapons, 14 May). Peace museums are dangerous; they can change minds. Perhaps British political leaders should visit this country’s unique Peace Museum in Bradford? If they dare.

Parents at the gates of one London school are not surprised that NO2 levels in the area are well above recommended levelsCopenhagen primary school in north London does not immediately stand out as a pollution hotspot. The school gates open on to a quiet cul-de-sac, while along one side runs the Regent’s canal, where birds swoop in the afternoon sunshine. The large Victorian building is topped by an “edible roof garden”, designed to allow the children to grow fruit and vegetable in a restful environment.Related: Boris Johnson accused of burying study linking pollution and deprived schools Continue reading...