Environment | The Guardian

Activist says authorities have ‘handed a megaphone to the corporations and taken the megaphone away from the social movements’French authorities are enforcing “unprecedented restrictions on civil society” at the UN climate change talks in Paris, the author and activist Naomi Klein has said.

More than £12bn of the UK government spend on two new power plants will go abroad, mainly to companies in France, a government adviser warnsMore than half of the £24bn expected to be spent on the first British nuclear reactors for two decades could go abroad to foreign suppliers, a leading UK academic and government adviser has warned. Continue reading...

Royal Lancaster infirmary running on generator after flooded substation cuts electricity to 55,000 homes and businesses in north LancashireArmy trucks have been stationed at a hospital in Lancaster to act as ambulances after flooding cut the city off from the power grid and blocked all but one access route.The Royal Lancaster infirmary (RLI) is running on generator power after an electricity substation flooded, cutting electricity to 55,000 homes and businesses in Lancaster, Morecambe, Carnforth and the surrounding areas. Continue reading...

More than £150m worth of deals recorded amid post-Scottish referendum boom as forestry starts to lure institutional investorsForestry sales have reached a record £151m in Scotland, smashing the previous record by 50%.A report by the chartered surveyors and forestry agents John Clegg & Co said the current level of activity was 13 times the size of the market at the beginning of the millennium. Continue reading...

Debbie Dooley is a self-described ‘crusader’ for solar power in Florida, where she is up against major public power utilities. But she has already won a similar battle in Georgia, and she says her message is that of a true conservativeDebbie Dooley is a firebrand Republican and an outspoken founding member of the Tea Party. But in a fast-intensifying battle over the future of solar power in Florida, she is not on the side you might expect.Along with a diverse grassroots citizens’ coalition including environmentalists and other left-leaning activists, Dooley is taking on Big Energy and its big-spending conservative backers in an intriguing fight that puts her toe-to-toe with her onetime political allies. Continue reading...

Debbie Dooley is an original founder of the Tea Party Patriots who also happens to be an environmentalist. In her quest to bring a new solar initiative into law in Florida, Dooley tries to convince conservatives that confronting the energy monopolies is simply good business Continue reading...

Norway’s geography is ideal for hydro power. But clean energy schemes have cut reindeer grazing habitats by up to 40%It’s cold. Minus 10, 12 perhaps, and getting dark; the butter-fingers of a rising moon evident on the eastern horizon. Ill-equipped (the forecasts were for minus five), my ears start to hurt, and I pull in my hood. By the time you read this it will be colder still. And there are still no reindeer to be seen.Olav hands me his binoculars and tells me to focus on a hillside about three miles away across the snowy vastness of Norway’s Forollhogna National Park, a tract of ancient, ice-scoured mountains and mire, three hours’ drive inland from Trondheim. Continue reading...

The heat is on when it comes to staying in a warm flat or house. But renewable coal and woodstoves are worth investigatingCranking up the thermostat will cost you – and the planet: heating a room by an extra degree for a year equals 310-360kg of extra carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere.Of course fossil fuels belong in the ground. Some will argue that not all coals are as bad as each other, emitting different levels of carbon dioxide per million BTU (British thermal unit), and it is likely that you live in a smokeless fuel zone. Ecoal50 Smokeless Coal uses 50% renewable material. (Peat briquettes – from peat bogs, which are the UK’s Amazon basin in terms of carbon storage – are out of bounds.) Continue reading...

World Bank joins forces with private sector in $1.6bn AFR100 initiative designed to restore 100m hectares of forest across Africa by 2030More than a dozen African countries have joined an “unprecedented” $1.6bn (£1bn) initiative to boost development and fight climate change by restoring 100m hectares (247m acres) of forest across the continent over the next 15 years.The African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative – known as AFR100 – was launched on Sunday at a Global Landscapes Forum meeting during the Paris climate change conference. Continue reading...

Highgate is now a middle-class frontline against a billionaires’ investment invasionThe leafy suburb of Highgate in north London has long enjoyed a liberal, even radical, reputation. Its high concentration of left-leaning creative professionals was drawn to the area not just by large green spaces and fine views, but also by the legacy of wealthy social reformers who led campaigns from the salons of their grand mansions.But those same properties are at the centre of a growing battle between middle-class pillars of the community and a new generation of super-rich residents. The Highgate Society says it is launching at least one appeal per month against planning applications for mega-mansions, huge extensions and iceberg basements. Continue reading...

Our growth in living standards was based on blinkered ideologiesWill Hutton states that living standards have risen fortyfold in the past 250 years thanks to capitalism, science and technology (“Innovation will save our warming planet – so where is the investment?”, Comment). He then says, as though it were a separate issue, that similar transformations now need to be made in global energy production. He misses the fact that this stunning growth in living standards, not to mention the eightfold increase in world population, is almost entirely the result of exploiting cheap fossil fuels since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Without them, today’s capitalism, science and technology may not even have evolved.Climate change has been well described as a “wicked” problem; it leaves us with this vast global economic edifice that was built on the naive, unthinking expectation of endlessly burning cheap fossil fuels to drive equally limitless growth. We are now left facing utterly profound transformations from our short-lived “consumer society”, far beyond the blinkered, fossil-fuel era ideologies of our politicians and economists.

Country representatives and green groups say French summit is more cordial and efficient than Copenhagen five years agoNegotiators paving the way for a global climate change agreement in Paris have cleared a major hurdle, producing a draft accord in record time and raising hopes that a full week of minister-led talks can now clinch a deal despite many sticking points.No part of the deal has been finalised because in the end it is likely to be a tradeoff between developing countries’ demands – particularly for financing to help cope with the impacts of locked-in climate change – and wealthier nations’ insistence that over time all countries properly account for the progress they have made towards emission reduction goals. Continue reading...

Amateur footage shows flooding caused by Storm Desmond in Cumbria, and across the Republic Ireland on Saturday. The Environment Agency has said that 17 severe flood warnings are in force, with 66 flood warnings and 72 flood alerts. Flooding risks can be checked here or by following @EnvAgency on Twitter

Buyers are turning away from all diesel models, and cleaning up the technology will be a long and expensive businessSince the Volkswagen emissions test scandal in September, it is not just the German carmaker that has suffered a blow to its image. Diesel automotive technology also faces a battle to regain public trust.There are already some signs of demand for diesel cars shrinking since VW was forced to apologise for installing “cheat devices” in 11 million vehicles. In Germany, Europe’s largest car market, demand for diesel cars was down 11% by the end of October compared with the average level this year, according to data from car buying website MeinAuto. The decline for VW diesel cars was even steeper, down 14%. Continue reading...

Group of 10 lawmakers pledge to defend president’s environmental agenda in Congress, citing ‘promise from the American people to the world’Democratic senators staged a show of force at the Paris climate meeting on Saturday, pledging they “had Barack Obama’s back” and would defend his agenda in a Republican-controlled Congress.The appearance by 10 Democratic senators, days after Congress voted to repeal new power plant rules, was intended to demonstrate solid political support for Obama’s climate plan – despite Republican claims to the contrary. Continue reading...

While holiday consumerism can be pretty hard on the planet, there are plenty of ways to make your celebrations not just merry and bright, but environmentally friendly too Continue reading...

In draft proposals, less industrialised nations are regarded alongside developed states as donors to poorer countriesWealthy nations have come under attack from developing countries over proposed financial commitments designed to help them deal with the effects of global warming.The row, which came at the close of the first week of the crunch Paris climate talks, was over the wording of a proposal in the draft text of a potential agreement released on Friday, which became the subject of long negotiations into the early hours of Saturday morning. Continue reading...

Australia still has not learned not to make jokes about the impacts of climate change on its low-lying neighbours, Marshall Islands minister says at Paris talksAustralia still hasn’t learned not to make jokes about low-lying islands and climate change, the foreign minister of the Marshall Islands has said, referring to foreign minister Julie Bishop’s mocking comments last week about claims that one of the Marshall Islands was already submerged.

Crymych, Pembrokeshire There’s a spaciousness, an atmosphere about Preseli that enchantsGreen paths through heather, low sun picking out tints of its late flowering, led to the ramparts of Foel Drygarn. This easternmost top of Mynydd Preseli is a rewarding objective for short winter days. It only reaches 363 metres above sea level, but geographical and historical texture compensate for lack of height. Three huge, ruined, late bronze age cairns lie within its defensive hilltop enclosure. The dragon-crest tor rising from moist haze westerly is Carn Goedog, whence came the speckled dolerite menhirs of Stonehenge.The Golden Road – an ancient ridgeway from Crymych to the Gwaun valley – faded into distant dove-grey, slipped across low ridges that terminate in successive fine headlands along the north Pembrokeshire coast. There’s a spaciousness, an atmosphere about Preseli that enchants. I offered prayers of thanksgiving to the Reverend Parri Roberts and the poet Waldo Williams, who successfully resisted postwar military designs on 16,000 acres of this prime landscape for more of the training areas that blight so much of Britain. “We nurture souls in these areas,” Roberts wrote; and through his efforts Preseli does so still. Continue reading...

Succulents are the perfect houseplants: architectural, beautiful and fascinating. These days they're popping up everywhere, from terrariums to picture frames - but how easy are they to grow?In this week's Sow, Grow, Repeat Alys Fowler tries some succulent art with the help of florist Helena from Grace & Thorn and Jane Perrone goes behind the scenes at Kew to meet botanical horticulturist Elisa Biondi to look at some of the gardens' coolest, rarest and most intriguing succulents.We'd love to know what you think of Sow, Grow, Repeat. Add a comment below, tweet us at @guardiangardens and join our Facebook group. You can also email us at gardens@theguardian.com and we'd be eternally grateful to anyone who leaves Sow, Grow, Repeat a review on iTunes. Continue reading...

The Paris climate summit, Europe’s refugee crisis, Beatles fans in Mexico – the best photography in news, culture and sport from around the world this week Continue reading...

Follow Stephen Moss into the fascinating world of undiscovered owls, alien plants, jewel-like butterflies and bizarre marsupials

Five nations announce they will not use emission reduction credits they are entitled to, and on which Australia relies to meet its 2020 targetsFive big developed countries have voluntarily cancelled emission reduction “credits” achieved by overshooting their first Kyoto Protocol greenhouse targets – the same kind of credits Australia is banking to boast it has already “met and beaten” its international pledges.

From a boatman’s bungalow on the beach to a country pile bursting with in-built technology Continue reading...

Hareon Solar executive says firm is considering a billion dollar investment in large scale solar within a year but policy stability, not subsidies, is neededChinese firm Hareon Solar is “actively” considering a billion dollar investment in large scale solar projects in Australia, but the stability of government climate policy is its major concern, a senior company executive has told Guardian Australia.

Negotiators now focused on forging some kind of accord between nations amid impasse over key issues, such as monitoring of emissions reduction pledgesA weak agreement remains the greatest danger for the Paris climate talks, with negotiators confident some kind of deal will be reached before next weekend despite little concrete progress and continued trenchant disagreements on most issues.

Rupture at Aliso Canyon natural gas storage site has released the equivalent of 800,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide and won’t be plugged for another three monthsIt’s the climate equivalent of the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico: the rupture of a natural gas storage site in California that is spewing vast amounts of methane into the atmosphere and is likely to go unchecked for three months.The breach of the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage site, near Porter Ranch has forced the relocation of hundreds of families, who complained of headaches, nosebleeds and nausea from the rotten-egg smell of the odorant added to the gas to aid in leak detection.

New analysis casts doubt on theory that change in climate influenced Vikings to move to Greenland in 985, and posits it would have been relatively coldThe Vikings’ arrival and departure from Greenland was not heavily influenced by the so-called medieval warm period, according to new research that casts doubt that the climatic change was a global phenomenon.Viking seafarers, led by Erik the Red, are understood to have expanded from Iceland to south-western Greenland around 985. The Norse population grew to about 3,000 to 5,000 settlers, harvesting walrus ivory and raising livestock. But the colonies disappeared by 1460, with the local Inuit population remaining as the only inhabitants before Europeans again arrived in the 1700s. Continue reading...

Met Office predicts heavy rain and strong winds this weekend, with particular concern for rivers Tay, Clyde and TweedForecasters have predicted heavy rain and strong winds from Storm Desmond this weekend, and are warning some communities to prepare for flooding.

Mountain hare, Siberian ibexes and tiger butterflies are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...

We don’t want to wake up one day soon and find our own homes at risk, no easy solutions in sight and no answers for why we waited too long to actFor too many people around the world, climate change is, without any exaggeration, at their front door. It won’t be long before more Americans – in Florida and across the south-east, for instance – will have to live with and confront these risks every day. That’s why the Paris climate talks are so important.There are 31 Alaskan villages already facing “imminent threats” from warming ocean waters, erosion and flooding, according to a 2009 Government Accountability Office assessment. At least a dozen have relocated or are exploring relocation options. The same is happening elsewhere, both in the US and around the world.

City links: Rentable friends, turning homes into storage units and segregating public buses feature in this week’s best city stories from around the webThe best city stories we’ve spotted around the web this week take a look at the rise of “companionship businesses” serving lonely city dwellers, discover an apartment building in Berlin where homes have been turned into storage units, hear stories of gentrification in Brooklyn and imagine a future where the top decks of London’s buses are reserved for the super wealthy. We’d love to hear your responses to these stories: just share your thoughts in the comments below. Continue reading...

Africa has much to offer the world in the battle against climate change, but fellow leaders at the Paris climate talks must also be prepared to do their bitThe term “glacial pace” takes on real and literal meaning with climate change. The disappearance of our glaciers may have hastened dramatically, but our efforts to stop them doing so have moved at a truly glacial pace. This has to change, right now.Since the Kyoto protocol came into being, we have failed miserably to protect our planet. Current trajectories show the world is on track towards a temperature rise of about 3C by 2100. Climate talks in Paris this month are our last chance to turn the tide. Continue reading...

From the highs and lows to which world leader said what, how closely have you been following the action in the opening week of the summit?1According to a new analysis, which country has the most ambitious pledge at COP21?BhutanChinaGermanyMorocco2”Many of my people do know the Earth as a planet among stars, they only know their world is made up of islands and surrounding seas. We have lied to them that sea level rise is a gradual rise of the future.” Which head of state said this in their opening speech on Monday?Indonesia’s president Joko WidodoAnote Tong, president of KiribatiPresident of the Philippines, Benigno S Aquino IIIMicronesia’s president, Peter M Christian3How many countries are in the new global solar alliance, unveiled by the Indian government on Monday?2050801204Speaking on the opening day of the conference, what did Prince Charles say policymakers need to pay more attention to the plight of?England’s rarest bird of prey, the hen harrierFrance’s traditional cheesesThe Arctic’s reindeer populationMozambique’s elephants5Which part of the Paris deal did Obama say on Tuesday should be legally binding?The $100bn annual climate finance fund for developing countriesThe pledges made by countries to reduce their emissions, otherwise known as intended nationally determined contributionsThe periodic review of emissions reductions targetsThe loss and damage deal to compensate countries suffering disasters they are not responsible for6Which country pledged on Tuesday to spend billions on renewable energy projects across Africa?FranceGermanyIndiaThe UK7What did US Congress vote to block on Tuesday in what Republicans hope will be a symbolic blow to Obama’s authority at Paris?New legislation to tackle methane leaks from oil and gas wellsNew rules to limit emissions from US power plantsThe motion to reject the Keystone oil pipeline from CanadaNew limits to the emissions of heavy duty trucks8What is an “informal informal”?An additional voluntary pledge to cut emissions by a developing country that is dependent on funding from rich countriesA negotiator’s assistantA small ad hoc meeting that could help to decide the fate of a global dealA typo Continue reading...

Britian needs a clear and consistent approach to meet its Paris climate pledge - and that means embracing clean energy, says Energy and Climate Change Committee chair, Angus MacNeilOil tankers take a long time to turn around. The skyscraper-length ships carry so much weight and momentum that turning one 180 degrees takes at least 40 minutes even in calm seas. It is a fitting metaphor for the challenge our leaders face at the climate summit in Paris as they try to steer a new direction away from fossil fuels.Decades of dirty energy investment, the dead-weight of vested interests, shifting political tides and – let’s be honest – cheap fossil fuel prices, mean that changing the world’s entire energy system to remove the carbon causing climate change will also be a slow turnaround. Continue reading...

Delegates at the Paris climate talks must heed the success of green bonds, which underlines the boost financial solutions can give to the global warming battleGreen bonds have been described as a game changer in the fight against global warming. With more than $50bn (£33bn) in green bonds expected to be issued this year – and more than $532bn mobilised in wider mitigation and adaptation projects – delegates at this week’s climate talks in Paris will surely sing their praises.The success of the green bond can be credited to its easy re-imagining of a mainstream financial tool. Its wide adoption has revealed an appetite among diverse investor groups to put money into climate-friendly projects – from resilient infrastructure to energy efficiency – that offer a return for both the investor and the planet. Continue reading...

Puffins and kittiwakes on Unesco world heritage site are at risk from warming seas, National Trust for Scotland findings showThe survival of seabirds including puffins and kittiwakes on St Kilda – the island archipelago home to one of the world’s most important seabird populations – is being threatened by climate change, striking new evidence shows.Naturalists have discovered that the kittiwake, a small migratory gull with ink-black wing tips, is on the brink of disappearing from St Kilda. The remote cluster of Scottish islands in the eastern Atlantic is the UK’s only place with two Unesco world heritage site listings – for its culture and natural history – and one of only 24 sites with a dual listing worldwide. Continue reading...

The optimism showed by Miguel Arias Cañete before the UN climate conference kicked off has been replaced with clear signs of fatigue and a more cautious toneAre you still as optimistic as you were before the summit started?

Floodwater levels recede in India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu after a pause in heavy rainfall, giving rescue teams chance to step up operations to evacuate people stranded across the city of Chennai. Tamil Nadu, with a population of nearly 70 million people, is experiencing its heaviest rainfall in more than a century