Environment | The Guardian

Jean-Bernard Levy says he believes French state will help secure financial position for £18bn nuclear power station in UK

It’s remotely controlled and costs around £180 – and my husband’s convinced it is worth itEvery week a Guardian Money reader submits a question, and it’s up to you to help him or her out – a selection of the best answers will appear in next Saturday’s paper.This week’s question: Continue reading...

Victory in Baden-Württemberg promises to revitalise Europe’s oldest and biggest environmentalist partyRightwing populists are on the rise across America and Europe, and, with anti-refugee party Alternative für Deutschland expected to sweep into three state parliaments on Sunday, Germany is no longer an exception.One region, though, is bucking the trend. In Baden-Württemberg, the party expected to gain most from an increasingly polarised political climate is not the anti-refugee populists, but the Green party, which has been strongly supportive of Angela Merkel’s open-borders stance. Continue reading...

For all I know, in order to act like Leonardo DiCaprio you have to believe you are ‘fighting climate change’ when you fly by private jetTwo weeks ago I wrote half a line hinting at my belief – no doubt senile and irrational – that the allegedly forthcoming global climate change disaster might still be up for discussion. Hundreds of objectors immediately surfaced through the web, many of them trolls. If I were out to count the percentage of violently angry people among the internet population, it would be easier than fishing with grenades.Several of these choleric experts correctly accused me of not being a scientist. My only field of expertise is the use and abuse of language; but a trained ear for empty rhetoric is what tells me that most of them aren’t scientists, either. People who call carbon dioxide “carbon” know even less about science than I do. Their anger, I suspect, is driven by belief rather than knowledge. Continue reading...

Taxpayers could end up footing the bill for environmental rehabilitation if the troubled business can’t be saved or soldCleaning up Clive Palmer’s nickel plant would cost Queensland taxpayers almost $100m – more than double what was previously thought – according to a new assessment by the state government.Related: Clive Palmer: cartoon villain or possible white knight for Queensland Nickel? Continue reading...

Bradwell, Derbyshire I stopped to watch a buzzard hanging off the windFor years, I’d avoided Brough Lane. The rough track climbs steeply up a ridgeline south of the Hope Valley, but its wild views of Stanage to the northeast and Kinder Scout to the northwest are overwhelmed by the looming presence of Hope’s vast cement works, a structure that is undeniably and colossally industrial – the steroidal elephant in the national park’s bijou living room.Yet I felt a little ashamed of my prejudice. For a start, the works are surrounded by woodland and birds are abundant. There is the village of Bradwell, filling its valley with a tangle of 18th-century cottages and a modern estate. Thanks to cement, it’s a vibrant working community, and a contrast to neighbours more fully absorbed into Sheffield’s commuter belt. Continue reading...

Japan’s emperor and prime minister have led tributes to the 19,000 people who died five years ago when a powerful earthquake and tsunami struck the country’s north-east coast and triggered a triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Philip Levine says Rubio’s answer at Thursday’s GOP debate ignores reality of sea level rise in places such as Miami Beach, which has spent $100m on sea defensesThe mayor of Miami Beach, one of the US cities most vulnerable to sea level rise, has criticized Marco Rubio after the presidential hopeful said that it’s not possible to “change the weather” or the rising oceans through government regulation.

Jean-Bernard Lévy says nuclear project will not go ahead without more financial backing from French governmentThe boss of the French state-owned company behind the UK’s first new nuclear power station for 20 years has threatened to pull the plug on the £18bn project without further backing from François Hollande’s government.Jean-Bernard Lévy, chief executive of EDF, said he needed more financial support from the Elysée Palace to proceed with construction of the plant at Hinkley Point in Somerset. Continue reading...

Greenpeace has proposed the establishment of a huge Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the Arctic Barents Sea in order to protect vulnerable ecosystems from bottom-trawling (Major British seafood brands linked to fishing in fragile Arctic area, theguardian.com, 3 March). It is praiseworthy that Greenpeace challenges the Arctic countries to sustainably manage the resources found there. Unfortunately, a vast protected area is not the most efficient measure for protecting what needs to be protected.Demersal fish trawls may harm vulnerable benthic biota such as corals. In the Barents Sea there are no coral reefs, but other species are vulnerable to being caught in bottom-trawling. Based on 10 years of scientific monitoring of the Barents Sea, we see that the vulnerability among the benthic communities is not uniform across the area that Greenpeace proposes should be closed. In the Svalbard region of the Barents Sea, two-thirds of survey stations were classified as having low vulnerability to bottom-trawling. Thus full protection of the area would encompass areas that don’t need protection. While it is important to put in place appropriate restrictions, it is not wise to put overly rigorous restrictions on fisheries in the Barents Sea as this would run contrary to the global needs for increased sustainable fishing to help feed a growing global population. Continue reading...

The three-day-long King’s Cup elephant polo tournament kicks off in the Samut Prakan Province of Thailand on Thursday. The event is organised by a charity aiming to provide working elephants with medical attention and the opportunity to participate in the competition, if found physically fit. Money raised goes toward supporting elephant welfare across the country Continue reading...

I apologised under duress. Needless to say there is absolutely no way I would have said sorry had I known Lambert was a spyI met Bob Lambert at my first London Greenpeace meeting in 1985, when I was in my early 20s. We got chatting about animal rights and quickly became friends; he was charismatic and like the older brother I never had. He was someone I could identify with; he was amiable, vegan and believed strongly in animal rights. He’d drop little compliments. One that stands out was at a benefit gig for the Animal Liberation Front in September 1986, at a squat in Islington. I designed the poster and he said, “That looks great. You’re an artist!” I was flattered, and it stuck with me. I now know that spies are trained to tell you things you want to hear.This photograph was taken on World Anti McDonald’s Day. We’d just published a new leaflet entitled What’s Wrong With McDonald’s: Everything They Don’t Want You To Know. I think I contributed one sentence: “Revolution begins in your stomach.” It was the leaflet that led to the McLibel trial – I was one of those sued by McDonald’s in 1990. Continue reading...

Perfectly Imperfect produce will be introduced in 200 stores this week in crackdown on food wasteTesco is stepping up efforts to tackle food waste with the launch of a “wonky veg” range and a pledge to send all unwanted fresh produce to charity by end of next year.The Perfectly Imperfect will initially offer parsnips and potatoes before expanding to include a further 15 types of produce, including carrots and apples, over the next few months. The scheme is launching in about 200 stores from Friday. Continue reading...

Environment Agency says eight pumps capable of handling 30% more water to be installed along river as part of £13m projectThe Environment Agency has said it intends to replace all water pumps around York months after the failure of one led to flooding in large swaths of the city.Eight pumps capable of dealing with 30% more water are to be installed over the next 20 months, the agency said. Continue reading...

African penguin chicks, an Arctic weasel and Australia’s little red flying foxes are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...

Its claws were in my knees, my neck, my chest. Its jaw stretched over my head from my hairline to the back of my skullI spent most of my early life without direction. Raised in Minnesota, my family was so large – I have six siblings – it felt as if it was survival of the fittest and I began acting up for attention. I had my first beer in kindergarten, my first joint in seventh grade and my first line of cocaine at high school. I was making my parents cry every day. Aged 24, I threw everything in a van and left for Colorado. Three months after arriving, I was broke. To help clear my head, I often hiked through Roxborough state park, about 15 miles south-west of Denver. There are no dogs or bicycles allowed there. It’s just you and your hiking boots. From the top of the mountain the view is breathtaking – mountain ranges as far as you can see. I’d never felt a sense of calm like I did up there.On 30 April 1998, I was 50 yards from the top of the mountain when I saw a long, brown tail poking out from behind a pine tree. There hadn’t been a mountain lion sighting in the park for over a year, but I immediately knew that’s what it was. I froze, watching the tree. The mountain lion’s head would come up and look around, then it would go back to whatever it was eating, its jaws crunching through the bones of its kill. Continue reading...

US-Canadian initiative brightens chances of success for Paris climate agreement and casts Justin Trudeau as Obama’s heir in terms of global climate actionA joint US-Canadian declaration to help spur the transition to a low carbon economy passed the baton of global climate action from Barack Obama to Justin Trudeau on Thursday – and brightened prospects for the Paris agreement.

As transport commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan faced down critics to transform New York with 400 miles of cycling routes, a bike share scheme and the remodelling of Times Square. Any city can do it, she tells Peter WalkerJanette Sadik-Khan, who in alliance with her then-boss, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, arguably did as much to transform the city’s streetscape as anyone in its recent history, recalls an early moment when she wondered whether people were ready for such rapid change.It was August 2008 and the city was experimenting with a so-called summer streets programme, where almost seven miles of central streets were closed off to cars for three Saturday mornings in a row. The idea was not new – Bogotá introduced its equivalent, the Cicloviá, in the 1970s – but it was entirely untested in New York.

Natural defences can reduce flood height in towns by up to 20%, and should be used alongside conventional defences, say scientistsNatural defences, including planting more trees, could be a solution to the country’s flooding problems, according to new research.In a study led by the Universities of Birmingham and Southampton, scientists found that planting trees could reduce the height of flooding in towns by up to 20%.

For the past eight months rubbish has been piling up in Beirut, the Lebanese capital. Public outrage over health risks has prompted protest group You Stink to create a parody of an official tourism video by juxtaposing images of Lebanon’s beauty spots with the reality of the country’s waste crisis

Oil firm blames ‘challenging business environment’ and says decision was not influenced by climate activists’ protestsBP is to end its 26-year sponsorship of the Tate next year.The oil firm blamed the “extremely challenging business environment” rather than years of protest against the sponsorship, the Independent reported. Continue reading...

Cour des Comptes urges greater study of nuclear project’s risks given poor recent investments and the fact EDF must fund likely cost overrunsEDF’s £18bn project to build nuclear reactors in Britain is potentially risky for the state-owned utility, whose foreign investments in recent years have proved disappointing, France’s top public auditor has said.

Policy uncertainty abounds – superannuation, education funding, parental leave funding and childcare subsidies to name a fewHundreds of thousands of students are swatting through their final years of high school right now, pondering what to do with their lives. But they have no idea what university courses are going to cost in the future or even whether they will still be offered under the Coalition’s yet-to-be-announced policy.

Fed up with an eight-month garbage crisis that has seen their city turned into a rubbish dump, protesters have used drones to spoof a tourism ministry filmIn February, Lebanon’s tourism ministry released a promotional video shot using drones. It shows off the country’s postcard beauty: its historic cities, snow-capped mountains and pristine rivers, a country where you can (supposedly) ski in the morning and swim in the ocean in the afternoon.

An £800 tax would fund old diesel scrappage, encourage move to low-emission vehicles and reduce air pollution, according to Policy Exchange thinktankAn £800 pollution tax should be put on sales of new diesel cars, with the proceeds used for a scrappage scheme for older diesels, according to the thinktank Policy Exchange.The move, proposed ahead of George Osborne’s budget on 16 March, would encourage motorists to move towards lower emission vehicles and significantly reduce air pollution, according to the thinktank, which is close to Osborne. The idea is also backed by the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, and an influential committee of MPs. Continue reading...

Wildlife ‘firsts’ include Norfolk’s only sighting of a Balearic shearwater and a beetle not seen in Northern Ireland for more than 100 yearsThe biggest survey to date of nature along Britain’s coastline has uncovered a host of “wildlife firsts”.

Langstone Mill Pond The first of the next generation of herons has arrived after courting in DecemberFor most of the year, grey herons live a relatively solitary existence, lone individuals standing sentinel in the stream, stalking the mudflat pools on the low tide, or sailing silently over the house at dusk in pterodactyl-like silhouette. In spring, they assemble for the nesting season, usually returning to long-established heronries, but while they have always roosted alongside little egrets in the alder carr that borders the mill pond, the heronry here was only founded in 2014.There are only eight nests, messy jumbles of twigs like giant witch’s broom galls. Several of them are clustered in a squat, evergreen holm oak, the others in neighbouring trees. Herons are early nesters, with females usually beginning to lay in February, but the Langstone colony’s 2016 season got off to a premature start. Two pairs were seen courting in mid-December and both were sitting by January. Continue reading...

David Cameron says without single market cost of exporting British beef will soar to £240m, with £90m added to lamb exportsThe prime minister will warn that Britain’s exit from Europe would harm lamb and beef farmers, costing them an extra £330m a year to export their goods.“If we left this single market and, as some suggest, relied on World Trade Organisation rules, the extra costs of exporting British beef would be £240m a year. An extra £90m would be added to the cost of British lamb exports,” he will say on Friday. Continue reading...

Despite the pressing concerns of low-lying debate host city Miami, polling shows climate change is a concern of less than 1% of Republican votersThe subject of climate change was raised on Thursday at the Republican debate in Miami – a city with pressing concerns about its effects.Marco Rubio, the Florida senator fighting strongly on home ground as he sought to revive his presidential campaign, was asked: “Will you acknowledge the reality of the scientific consensus of climate change?” Continue reading...

Removal of nuclear fuel from power plant that suffered triple meltdown following 2011 tsunami could take 40 years or moreIn the chaotic two years after its name became forever associated with nuclear disaster, the Fukushima Daiichi power plant “resembled a field hospital”, according to the man who is now in charge of the most daunting task the nuclear industry has ever faced: removing hundreds of tons of melted fuel from the plant’s stricken reactors.“Now it really does feel like the situation is settling down and we can look ahead,” said Naohiro Masuda, head of decommissioning at the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco). Continue reading...

After directly fuelling the disaster at Fukushima, Australia should have taken steps to review and reconsider its role in the global nuclear tradeFive years ago this week the world held its breath, crossed its fingers and learnt a new word.

As Obama nears the end of his term and Trudeau is just beginning his, it seems as if the US president has found a like-minded champion of liberal causesWould that the battle for the White House were as congenial, sunny, optimistic and unabashedly inclusive and outward-looking as the symbolic handover for the job of liberal leader of the English-speaking world that took place on Thursday between Barack Obama and Justin Trudeau.The two leaders – Obama gray and nearing the end of his term, Trudeau in the first months of his prime ministership – affirmed that when it came to what they called the “big ideas” of climate change and economic inclusion the two shared a common global vision.

The dead eagles were found on 20 February and were thought to have fallen victim to a disease – but now officials say ‘these were human-caused deaths’Wildlife officials have said 13 bald eagles found dead in Maryland last month did not die from natural causes. A hunt for whomever killed the birds is under way.

No jumping lights, whacking cars or effing and jeffing: the Olympic champion tackles the issues of everyday cyclingLondon’s fleet of Boris bikes are sturdy, convenient even, but hardly famed for their speed and handling. However, if you see one ridden by a tall, bearded man unexpectedly vanish into the horizon when the lights change, don’t be alarmed. It is probably just Sir Bradley Wiggins getting about town.The 35-year-old will retire from top-level competition after the Rio Olympics, so his mind is turning to such everyday riding, and Wiggins predicts London will become as packed with bikes as the Netherlands. Continue reading...

Ministers urged to give go ahead to tidal energy scheme as doubts grow over Hinkley Point nuclear power stationMinisters have been urged to commit to plans for a huge tidal energy lagoon to keep the lights on in the UK, amid mounting concerns about whether the Hinkley Point nuclear power station will ever get built.MPs and peers are applying pressure for the government to get behind the tidal power project, saying it is an essential “plan B” to ensure energy security. Continue reading...

US president Barack Obama has appeared alongside Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau to vow to work together in the fight against climate change, saying that both countries are threatened by ‘rising seas, melting permafrosts and disappearing glaciers and sea ice’. Trudeau, who is on an official state visit to the US along with his wife and children, said he and Obama ‘share the same goal’ when it comes to climate policy Continue reading...

The US Department of the Interior said the ‘conservation success’ meant the subspecies no longer required protection but will continue to be monitoredThe Louisiana black bear, the animal credited with spawning the phrase “teddy bear”, is to be removed from the federal list of endangered wildlife following a two-decade conservation effort.

Keen cyclist but yet to brave the daily journey to work? Laura Stewart offers 10 top tips to put your bike on the roadCommuting by bike is a great way to breathe in some fresh air, move your legs and get your heart pumping. Unfortunately, on busy roads it can also be very daunting – trying to dodge drivers, potholes, and pedestrians can seem terrifying. No one likes to show up for work frazzled and exhausted from the effort of just getting there, so here are 10 tips on how to make your commute bike-friendly. Continue reading...

Chunks of Argentina’s Perito Moreno glacier collapse on Thursday as large chunks of ice break off and crash into the water. The Patagonian glacier known as the “White Giant” is one of Argentina’s biggest attractions. The river of ice 18 miles (30 km) long ends in a sheer wall blocking Lago Argentino where large pieces tumble into the water from time to time Continue reading...

The last time the Earth saw such a sustained increase was over 11 millennia ago, says US science agency. Climate Home reportsAtmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide last year rose by the biggest margin since records began, according to a US federal science agency.Fossil fuel burning and a strong El Niño weather pattern pushed CO2 levels 3.05 parts per million (ppm) on a year earlier to 402.6 ppm, as measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) said on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Countries previously seen as climate change villains present shared vision on cutting emissions as Justin Trudeau meets Barack Obama at White HouseThe US and Canada declared they would help lead the transition to a low-carbon global economy on Thursday, in a dramatic role reversal for two countries once derided as climate change villains.

Beer made from old bread; chutney from windfalls; shops that sell excess stock at cut prices – there are many ways to tackle the scourge of squandered foodIf they think about it at all, most people think of food waste, or surplus, as the “reduced to clear” section in the supermarket. But that is just a tiny fraction of what exists. The truth is that most food surpluses in the supply chain never even reach our supermarket shelves.Let me take you back to the Queen’s diamond jubilee in 2012. What a glorious weekend we were planning – barbecues, street parties and garden games, while we watched the 1,000-strong flotilla cruise down the Thames. Retailers had been planning for months, ensuring that their manufacturers and suppliers had a bumper supply of burgers, sausages, Pimms, cucumber and fruit ready to meet demand. Continue reading...