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...

The warbling of robins and the trilling of wrens, a singing song thrush, the high-pitched roundel of a goldcrest, and a chiffchaff calling out its name, could only mean one thing: spring had finally come to this little corner of the West Country.Yet despite the birdsong, the blue sky and the delicate breeze, this was not mid-March, but the end of December. So although hearing birds sing is always cheering, today’s chorus came with a health warning: that this winter’s topsy-turvy weather may be an early sign of climate chaos to come. Continue reading...

In Britain, since we are surrounded by the sea, it seems hardly necessary to tell people about the role of the oceans in our lives, but the European Union thinks we need more education. The idea is to get all European citizens to realise that oceans are changing because of our activities and that this is having an affect on our health and food supply, as well as climate.Considering how long it has taken to convince people that climate change is real it is a big ambition to get the same level of understanding about oceans. Continue reading...

When a northern bottlenose got stranded in 2006 it caused mass hysteria. Next Thursday, a memorial march commemorates the event, with puppeteers and the Whale Song Orchestra

Shadow chancellor, whose constituency includes UK’s largest airport, is prominent opponent of third runwayThe shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, will give evidence in the trial of 13 climate change activists who are alleged to have occupied a Heathrow runway in July in protest at the airport’s expansion.

Christiana Figueres says countries cleared multiple hurdles to reach accord, showing that ‘if we want to do something we can’The Paris climate agreement kindled “a huge flame of hope”, establishing a new model of 21st-century diplomacy, the woman behind the deal has declared.In her first public reflections on the climate accord signed in December, Christiana Figueres, the UN climate change official, said that after two decades of meandering negotiations, countries had at last discovered their “higher purpose” and risen to the challenge of dealing with global warming. Continue reading...

Growing up in remote Orkney Amy Liptrot couldn’t wait to get away. But after 10 years in London, unhappy and drinking too much, she finally got sober and ‘washed up’ on her home island. It was the best thing she could have done…

An extract from Amy Liptrot’s memoir The Outrun, in which she maintains her sobriety by banishing herself to her home island to walk and write

From Lands End’s basking sharks to fantastic jewel anemones in the Celtic Sea, 23 new conservation zones offer better protection to a wealth of marine life and habitats Continue reading...

Discarded fast food wrappers make up much of our rubbish – but we’re a long way off biodegradable packagingThe charity Keep Britain Tidy (KBT) is urging you to clean up for the Queen’s 90th birthday (cleanforthequeen.co.uk). Cigarette butts are the most littered item on our streets, followed by fast-food and snack packaging, and plastic bags.Litter is an ecological nightmare. Our rubbish fragments into bits of plastic that are washed into water courses, poisoning wildlife and choking the ecosystem. Every wrapper or container made from virgin materials that isn’t recycled is a blow to the ambitions of a smarter, more circular economy. KBT’s report How Clean is England? tells us that litter disproportionately affects low-income neighbourhoods, so it is a social justice issue, too. Continue reading...

An architect has built a revolutionary low-energy ‘passive house’ in his back gardenWhen Judith and Barry Richards sold their family home in Kent two years ago it was, says Judith, “a terrible wrench”. But it was also a relief. In their 70s, the retired academics had decided to split their time between their native US, where their son lives, and east London, where their daughter Jeanine lives with her architect husband Bernard Tulkens and their three children.Judith and Barry picked their favourite pieces of Georgian furniture, left the ride-on lawnmower behind and moved into a modest two-bedroom house at the back of Jeanine’s garden. Tulkens had received planning permission to build the house in 2010, and his parents-in-law decided to release the equity in their estate to help pay for it. “We thought we would use the opportunity to see more of the children and grandchildren,” says Judith. Now they see Thalia, 13, Cecile, 21, and Oscar, 8, far more frequently. For anyone with ageing parents, it is a dream scenario. And far from being a granny flat, this is more of a miniature grand design. Continue reading...

A series of conservation zones will be announced this week. But some experts fear this will not be enough to safeguard the future of our wildlifeWill it be enough for some of the more exotic denizens of Britain’s coastal waters? Seahorses, stalked jellyfish and dolphins are among the creatures it is hoped will gain better protection from 23 new marine conservation zones.The zones, which will be announced on Sunday on Sunday, stretch from the coast of Northumberland down to Land’s End and include Europe’s longest chalk reef off Cromer in Norfolk. They will bring the number of protected sites to 50, still far below the 127 proposed by an earlier £8m government consultation. Continue reading...

Our correspondent’s children go to school in a car with air filters, in a city with a pollution hangoverIt is a very ordinary weekday morning. I am taking my children to school, a 10-minute journey if the traffic is good, double that if it is not. A very normal checklist: sports kit, spare jumper and, of course, face mask.It is eight o’clock, the worst time of the day for pollution. Through the windows of the car – pooled with a neighbour – the smog is a thick yellow. The outlines of buildings, even trees, only a hundred or so metres away are blurred and vague. I check the air monitor readings on my phone. The levels of PM2.5, the tiny particulates that embed in lungs and can reach the bloodstream, are more than 300 micrograms per cubic metre. This is 12 times the European Union legal maximum. The level has previously topped 500. Continue reading...

The number of annual deaths caused by pollution around the world is now greater than malaria and HIV combined, according to a recent study, with scientists warning that fatalities could reach 6 million a year by 2050During these cold winter days, Anumita Choudhury dare not leave her small second-floor apartment in Delhi’s northern suburbs. Elderly now, she has developed asthma. The last time she ventured into the streets of the world’s second most populous city she began gasping for breath and had to be helped home by her neighbours.The story is the same in many of the world’s great cities. From Kabul in Afghanistan to Hong Kong and Shijiazhuang in China, and from Lima to São Paulo in Latin America, people are increasingly suffering in severe toxic smogs – leaving hospitals and health clinics flooded with people with respiratory and heart problems. Continue reading...

Glut of pork – thanks in part to Russian ban – sends prices plungingThe great British breakfast is under threat. Agriculture experts warn that Britain’s pig farmers are braced for a horrendous year, as a glut of pork on the global markets sends prices plunging and prompts an increasing number to quit.There are fears that, if farmers’ numbers dwindle, Britain will become heavily reliant on other European producers for its bacon, sausage and other pork products. Britain’s pig farmers make a loss of £7 on every pig slaughtered as global demand for pork lags behind supply. Continue reading...

World Health Organisation describes new data as ‘health emergency’, with rising concern likely to influence decision over Heathrow expansionThe World Health Organisation has issued a stark new warning about deadly levels of pollution in many of the world’s biggest cities, claiming poor air quality is killing millions and threatening to overwhelm health services across the globe.Related: ‘Yucky pollution,’ says my daughter, as Delhi chokes Continue reading...

After the water supply was found to contain high levels of lead, evidence is mounting that officials ignored or neglected indicators of a growing crisisLee and Ernie Perez knew something was amiss when their three cats started throwing up after drinking water.

Senior Labour peers confirm party will seek to strike out clause again if government closes Renewable Obligation schemeThe government is expected to be forced into a renewed standoff with the House of Lords over David Cameron’s reversal on green energy subsidies.After a series of constitutional rows, the tensions between the government and the upper chamber will reach a new flashpoint as the energy secretary, Amber Rudd, presses ahead with a scheme to end subsidies for new onshore windfarms. Continue reading...

Increasing renewables to 36% of the global energy mix by 2030 would provide about half emissions reductions needed to hold warming to 2C, says International Renewable Energy AgencyCountries can deliver on the promises of the historic Paris climate change agreement by rapid scaling up wind and solar power to 36% of the global energy mix by 2030, an international energy gathering will be told on Saturday.

The UK’s food and drink firms would have to meet EU food laws to export but have no power to influence those rules, says analyst Kate TrollopeBrexit could create a nightmare scenario for Britain’s food and drink industry, where companies have to abide by EU food regulations if they want to export to the EU but have no say over the regulations.

Godshill Inclosure, New Forest In the hollow of a fallen branch is a bees’ nest that has met with disaster. The combs are askew. Some have spilled onto the woodland floorThe New Year is only a few days old when we walk along the margin of Godshill Inclosure. There’s a chill in the air following a night of frost but the sun is raking this ridge with enough warmth to entice a host of insects to break cover. Little spirals of minute midges dance beneath overhanging branches. A bumblebee shoots out of the woodland edge, making a bee-line for the bank of glowing gorse blossoms. After days of overhanging clouds, and often drenching rain, the ground is a quagmire in places. This bright morning offers a very short opportunity for insects that have survived so far to refuel.Other bees have worked through the months past to build their nests, stocking their combs with sufficient honey to see them through the months ahead. As we press on into the Inclosure we come across a woeful sight. In the hollow of a fallen branch is a bees’ nest that has met with disaster. The insects are still tending their home but they are sluggish and look dispirited, for there is little warmth in this dark corner nor hope for them. Continue reading...

World’s fourth largest hydropower plant’s license was suspended weeks before testing turbines because operators failed to compensate local communitiesThe start of operations at Brazil’s Belo Monte dam could be held up following a court judgment that operators have yet to provide adequate support to indigenous groups affected by the giant construction.Related: Belo Monte, Brazil: The tribes living in the shadow of a megadam Continue reading...

• ‘Delta 5’ had attempted to illegally block trains carrying crude oil near Seattle

A 20-inch snake was discovered near San Diego on Tuesday, the third reported instance since October of the deadly animal washing up on California beachesCalifornia beachgoers have been urged to steer clear of a species of highly venomous sea snake following a third, and unprecedented, instance of an aquatic serpent washing up on to the state’s beaches.A 20-inch yellow-bellied sea snake was discovered on a beach near San Diego on Tuesday, where it was placed into a bucket before dying. The sighting was the third reported instance since October of the species, which prefers the tropical waters of the Pacific and Indian oceans, washing up on California’s beaches. Continue reading...