Goan authorities remove the coconut from their official list of trees to make it easier for them to be cut down by farmers

Leonardo DiCaprio condemns fossil fuel industries at the World Economic Forum’s 2016 Crystal Awards. DiCaprio says the world cannot afford to allow the corporate greed of the fossil fuel industries determine the future of the planet and humanity

Solution to climate change is to keep fossil fuels in the ground, Hollywood star tells World Economic Forum in DavosLeonardo DiCaprio has launched a ferocious attack on the greed of the world’s energy industry at the World Economic Forum in Davos.DiCaprio used an awards ceremony to demand more action on climate change, decrying those who deny it is a problem. And he insisted fossil fuels must be kept in the ground – backing a campaign launched by the Guardian last year. Continue reading...

Healthcare workers John Henshaw and Jessica Hoyt among group of protesters who walked on to Forestry Tasmania coup at Lapoinya in state’s north-westTwo healthcare workers protesting against the clearfelling of native forest in Tasmania have become the first people charged under the state’s controversial anti-protest laws.John Henshaw, 66, and Jessica Hoyt, 35, were in a group of nine protesters who walked on to a Forestry Tasmania coup at Lapoinya, 37km from Burnie in north-west Tasmania, on Monday. Continue reading...

The lifting of sanctions will support positive change quickly if government funds are freed to tackle environmental challenges and if international investment is encouraged in green technology

The trial of 13 climate protesters is not really about aviation, it highlights a glaring democratic deficitThey have been reviled as vandals, hooligans and lunatics. But to me, these people are heroes. The 13 women and men on trial this week for cutting through the perimeter fence around Heathrow airport and chaining themselves together on a runway were excoriated by police, passengers and politicians. (One of the defendants in the case is a member of the cooperative society that rents my house.) If convicted, they all face a possible prison sentence. But there are two trials here: the legal proceedings in a local magistrates court, and a test of something much bigger.Aviation enjoys some astonishing exemptions from the civilising rules that constrain other sectors. Other industries must limit the noise they make; but aircraft, thanks to an obscure clause in the 1949 Civil Aviation Act, are exempt. Other industries pay duty on the fuel they use; but even when air passenger duty is subtracted, aviation’s various tax holidays amount to a subsidy of some £7bn a year, forgone by the Treasury. Some industries must limit the air pollution they produce; but while in principle airports are subject to pollution laws, in practice they have been allowed to breach them routinely for years. (In this case the legal immunity also seems to extend to motor traffic.) Continue reading...

Geopolitical uncertainty, over-regulation and cyber attacks among biggest threats to business, survey of CEOs findsThe high profile UN summit on climate change in Paris appears to have had little impact on the decision making and worries of global business leaders.

During his state of the state address, Rick Snyder announced a $28m request to aid residents whose water last year was found to contain high levels of lead Michigan governor Rick Snyder said during his state of the state address on Tuesday that he would release his emails related to the city of Flint’s water crisis and request for a $28m appropriation from the legislature to help aid the town’s residents.“We will not stop working for the people of Flint until every person has clean water, every single day, no matter what,” the governor said on Tuesday. The town’s water supply was found to have been poisoned with extremely high levels of lead last year. As part of his appropriation request, Snyder said the additional funding would provide bottled water, faucet filters, and lead-testing kits for households in the city of 100,000. Continue reading...

Plan to extract sand and gravel to further develop Dover port will endanger marine life, say conservationistsA stretch of sandbars and shoals off the Kent coast home to seals, famous for shipwrecks and proposed as a marine conservation zone is at risk from dredging, conservationists warn.Dover Harbour Board is considering dredging for sand and gravel from Goodwin Sands, which lies around six miles out from Deal, to expand cargo facilities and build a marina at Dover port. Continue reading...

Barack Obama declared a state of emergency in the Michigan city, where lead-poisoning has left residents without safe drinking water for nearly two yearsThe mayor of Flint, the Michigan city whose residents are drinking from water bottles after their drinking water was rendered toxic, endorsed Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, praising her campaign’s work in spotlighting the crisis there.“If this was a test, she has really come to the forefront and passed it because we in Flint need some help and we need it now,” Karen Weaver said on a conference call organized by the Clinton campaign. Continue reading...

Tom Swann, a researcher at the Australia Institute, says anyone exposed to the fossil fuel energy sector has lost money in the past three yearsInvestment in fossil fuels is dragging down the returns of Australians’ superannuation, with funds that limit or exclude fossil fuels performing above average in 2015.Balanced investment funds are estimated to have returned about 5.7% on average in the 2015 calendar year, according to preliminary analysis by Chant West, a superannuation research firm. But Future Super, which avoids any investment in fossil fuels, returned 7.04% in its balanced investment option, new figures reveal. Continue reading...

Florida politicians are debating a proposed law that would remove right of cities and counties to ban fracking and instead give power to a single state agencyEnvironmentalists are warning of a potential ecological disaster for the Florida Everglades if state lawmakers approve a measure that would open the door to fracking in the sensitive wetlands.On Tuesday, politicians in Tallahassee were debating a proposed new law that would remove the right of local municipalities to pass ordinances or resolutions banning fracking and instead place all regulation and oversight of drilling for oil into the hands of a single state agency. Continue reading...

Landmark new study that includes small-scale, subsistence and illegal fishing shows a strong decline in catches as more fisheries are exhaustedGlobal fish catches are falling three times faster than official UN figures suggest, according to a landmark new study, with overfishing to blame.Seafood is the critical source of protein for more than 2.5 billion people, but over-exploitation is cutting the catch by more than 1m tonnes a year. Continue reading...

Environmentalists challenge government over uncontrolled practice of body disposal by Hindus, who consider the river sacredIndia’s special environmental court has criticised the government for its failure to curb river pollution, a lawyer petitioning the court has said, after scores of bodies surfaced in the Ganges river.Last week more than 80 bodies – mostly decomposed skeletons and half-burned corpses – surfaced in the river in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh after a drop in water levels. Continue reading...

Official data shows coal use fell in 2015 across a wide range of measures as world’s largest polluter continues its transition to clean energyCoal-burning in China is in significant decline, according to official figures released on Tuesday, signalling a major turnaround for the world’s biggest polluter.The new data is good news for the fight against climate change but bad for the struggling global coal industry. Continue reading...

One refuse truck’s-worth of plastic is dumped into the sea every minute, and the situation is getting worseAs a record-breaking sailor, Dame Ellen MacArthur has seen more of the world’s oceans than almost anyone else. Now she is warning that there will be more waste plastic in the sea than fish by 2050, unless the industry cleans up its act.According to a new Ellen MacArthur Foundation report launched at the World Economic Forum on Tuesday, new plastics will consume 20% of all oil production within 35 years, up from an estimated 5% today. Continue reading...

Some of the 60 types of primate living at Chimelong safari park in Guangzhou, capital of south China’s Guangdong province. It is billed as the world’s largest animal theme park Continue reading...

A recent spate of bad air days caused the Norwegian city to introduce a controversial alternate-day car ban. Yet research shows the burning of logs in homes is a far bigger contributor to Bergen’s pollution problemsThe air quality in Norway’s second largest city, Bergen, grew so bad earlier this month that the council surprised residents by introducing a week-long, alternate-day plan for private vehicles based on their number plates. Cars with odd-numbered endings were allowed to drive on odd dates, while those with even endings could drive on even dates.The plan, which terminated on 13 January as snowfall finally cleaned the air, reflected the fact that traffic is typically raised in public debates as the major cause of this pollution. But the reality is rather different: new research shows that in Norway, the burning of logs in homes is a far bigger contributor to the problem than traffic – and more damaging to residents’ health. Continue reading...

Ric O’Barry – seen in documentary about slaughter in a Japanese village – says government is waging a ‘war on dolphins’The star of Oscar-winning documentary The Cove, about the killing of dolphins in a village in Japan, has been detained by immigration authorities at Tokyo’s Narita international airport.Ric O’Barry – an American known for training the dolphins used in the TV series Flipper – said immigration officials told him he could not enter Japan on a tourist visa because he was not a tourist, according to his lawyer, Takashi Takano. Continue reading...

Dismissal of Rolando Navarro has led to claims he was sacked after pressure from the timber industryPeru has sacked its top anti-logging official, leading to claims he was dismissed after pressure from the timber trade and drawing criticism from a leading US congressman and environmentalists.The presidential decision to dismiss Rolando Navarro , the former head of Peru’s forestry and wildlife inspection service OSINFOR was announced in El Peruano, the state-owned gazette. It makes no mention of why Navarro was dismissed.

Rockland, Norfolk She drops, then pounces, twisting foot to beak, and pulling on the lank, pink fleshTraditionally each village in the Broads had what’s called a staithe, a tiny “port” linking it commercially to the wider regional river system. Rockland’s is among the prettiest: a rectangular tidal pool, edged with steel-plate revetments and dotted with mooring posts, to which are attached idle dayboats with names like Windsong.On one side is a young oak grove that remains an almost permanent sump of winter shadow gathered over a neatly mown lawn with two slatted benches. Aside from the occasional fisherman plodding to his pitch, the grove is entirely untenanted and quiet, but for its one winter robin and, now, a female kestrel. Continue reading...

Greg Hunt says more ‘urban canopies’ will reduce heat within city environments and improve health outcomesThe environment minister, Greg Hunt, says the federal government will establish its vision for improved urban tree coverage within 18 months.Speaking to reporters in Sydney on Tuesday, he said the government would work directly with cities throughout 2016 and 2017 to set decade-by-decade goals for the creation of “urban canopies”. Continue reading...

Windy year helps Denmark to produce 42% of its electricity from wind turbines, despite two major windfarms being offlineDenmark produced 42% of its electricity from wind turbines last year according to official data, the highest figure yet recorded worldwide.The new year-end figures showed a 3% rise on 2014, which was itself a record year for Danish wind energy generation. Continue reading...

Pollution in some world cities is more than 12 times higher than safe levels. Maybe it explains why residents aren’t taking to the streets to complainAfter a week in Kolkata, blessed with mellow sunsets created by the yellowy haze that hung over the city, I flew back to Britain via Delhi on Friday. Our descent into Delhi was delayed because of fog, we were told, but the nicotine-coloured blanket smothering this dynamic Indian city was a malignant smog.Related: Cars are choking Kolkata, even though only a tiny minority in India can drive | Ian Jack Continue reading...

Ocean water has absorbed more than 90% of the excess heat and nearly 30% of the carbon dioxide generated by human consumption of fossil fuels

Podor, a small town in northern Senegal with a population of 14,000, is one example of thousands of towns and villages across Africa where people live without proper access to electricity

Replacement services and timetables to remain in place as engineers find that damage to key section of line near Lockerbie is worse than first thoughtDisruption to rail services between Scotland and England is to continue until March after engineers found that damage to a key section of line is worse than first thought.Replacement services and timetables were put on after Lamington viaduct near Lockerbie, Dumfries and Galloway, was badly damaged by flood waters during Storm Frank in December. Continue reading...

She may be an outsider to succeed Boris Johnson, but the Green Party candidate seems determined to invigorate the debate about the capital’s future

Renault announces it is working on technical plan to cut emissions from its cars, following raid on its facilities by French government’s investigatorsFrench carmaker Renault on Monday promised to come up with a “technical plan” over coming weeks to bring down harmful emissions of its vehicles.

Centre for Ecology and Hydrology confirms storms in December 2015 caused series of river records, including the Eden, Lune and TyneLast month broke a host of UK records for rainfall, rivers and groundwater, in addition to it having already been confirmed as the wettest and warmest December on record.According to the The Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH), which collects all the hydrological data available for the UK, December 2015 set the following records:

Company’s head of sustainability says consumption of many familiar goods is at its limitThe appetite of western consumers for home furnishings has reached its peak – according to Ikea, the world’s largest furniture retailer.The Swedish company’s head of sustainability told a Guardian conference that consumption of many familiar goods was at its limit. Continue reading...

Energex, which is owned by the state government, launches a 12-month trial of solar batteries to investigate ways to integrate them into electricity supplyA Queensland government-owned power company has installed the country’s first solar battery storage system from Tesla as it begins a year-long trial into how it can reward consumers who cut their reliance on the electricity grid.Energex, which has installed a Tesla Powerwall and another storage system from Californian company Sunverge at its Brisbane training facility, will collect data to work out how to integrate solar batteries into the network with financial incentives for customers. Continue reading...

Loopholes in planned ‘real world’ tests allow cars to emit double the standard for NOx pollution and are ‘legally indefensible’ say MEPs, after new advice revealedPlanned new ‘real driving emissions’ (RDE) test limits that would let cars substantially breach nitrogen oxide (NOx) standards are illegal under EU law, according to new legal analysis seen by the Guardian.The proposed ‘Euro 6’ tests would allow diesel cars to emit more than double the bloc’s ‘80 mg per km’ standard for NOx emissions from 2019, and more than 50% above it indefinitely from 2021. Continue reading...

Horton-in-Ribblesdale, Yorkshire Dales As a boy I first scaled this lion couchant by scrambling up the gritstone box of its nose and grabbing handfuls of its mane, namely long, wiry grassesThree Peakers and Pennine Wayers refresh themselves with beans on toast and capacious mugs of Yorkshire tea as they recount their endeavours. The cafe in Horton-in-Ribblesdale, like the adjacent house I grew up in, is at the end of a terrace with a grandstand view of Penyghent, 694m (2,277ft ), above. As a boy I first scaled this lion couchant by scrambling up the gritstone box of its nose and grabbing handfuls of its mane, namely long, wiry grasses. At 16 I traversed all Three Peaks, these 24 miles including the Table Mountain look-alike Ingleborough (2,372ft/723m) and Yorkshire’s Everest, Whernside (2,415ft 736m).Related: Novice cavers find marvels beneath the fissured limestone Continue reading...

Three women locked themselves by the neck to the gates of the Santos wastewater plant in protest against a ‘destructive industry’Three women from the “Knitting Nannas” anti-coal seam gas group have been charged after chaining themselves by the neck to a wastewater plant gate in northern New South Wales.The women locked themselves on to the gates of the Santos Leewood Water treatment plant south of Narrabri on Monday morning. The treatment plant will support 850 CSG wells above the Great Artesian Basin. Continue reading...

Originally published in the Guardian on 17 January 1966WESTMORLAND: We approached the vast dome of Cross Fell from the east across long, narrow gullies of frozen snow as the afternoon faded away in a wild sunset and the first stars began to peep out. From this direction and at this time of day, with huge banks of cloud building up all round and not a sight of trees or sheep or birds, it was easy to understand how the early geographers had thought the mountain the highest in England. For the great bulk of the fell with its plateau ringed with the collar of snow that stamps it as Cross Fell and nowhere else, rose up straight ahead through the swirling mists almost like the final slopes of an Alpine peak. And, indeed, the great barrier of Cross Fell and its neighbours is in fact the biggest mass of land in England over 2,000 feet - bigger even in bulk than the Scafells, Helvellyn, and Skiddaw lumped together. You can walk for 12 miles along the plateau without dropping below 2,000 feet. You can’t do this in the Lake District.We had walked on to the mountain to rest our legs from the exhaustion of ski-ing, in a bitter east wind, on snow frozen hard as polished glass. Perhaps this is the most remote and desolate corner of England, but there was a time when the fellsides must have buzzed with activity. Wherever you walk across the tussocks and peat hags of this bare, wind-swept moorland, you come across the signs of the miners who once dug here for lead and other minerals - scores of holes and piles of spoil cuttings to divert the becks and here and there a corner of ruined wall. They say that from here on a clear day the horizons can be up to 100 miles apart. But all you can see from the summit cairn itself is a quarter of a mile of dull foreground and then the limitless sky. Continue reading...