Frank Bainimarama says: ‘The Australian government, in particular, seems intent on putting its own immediate economic interests first’The prime minister of Fiji has delivered a blistering broadside at his Australian counterpart, Malcolm Turnbull, over the “climate change deniers” in his government who are helping doom Australia’s “unlucky island neighbours”.

Nineteen people have died and half a million have fallen ill in two months as haze from thousands of fires chokes south-east AsiaThe death toll from acrid haze blanketing parts of Indonesia has climbed to 19, a minister said Wednesday, almost double the previous figure as the crisis from widespread forest fires worsens.

River Severn, Shrewsbury A missile of glistening skin and fin, the salmon is propelled by instinct upstreamThe clocks have gone back for the winter and the salmon are leaping forward. It’s a fine October day: high cloud in a blue sky, a brassy glow in the trees. A couple of days of rain in the Welsh hills is now pouring over the weir. I join a small group of people holding phones and cameras, gathered at the railings of the weir, watching the water with rapt attention.The river crosses the weir in two steps. It licks smoothly over the lip, down a slope with a rough surface that makes dancing spiders of foam, then riffles taut and quick across a shelf to plunge into roiling white-water before resuming composure downstream. Continue reading...

Australian campaigners to bring court case in a bid to prevent whaling season from going aheadEnvironmental campaigners in Australia have mounted a fresh attempt to prevent Japan from killing hundreds of whales in the Antarctic this winter, as officials in Tokyo indicated they would ignore an international ban on the country’s “scientific” expeditions imposed last year.

PM tells Adelaide radio that he was sceptical Australia would ever build nuclear power stations, but a larger role in nuclear fuel industry was worth exploringAustralia should “look closely” at expanding its role in the global nuclear energy industry, including leasing fuel rods to other countries and then storing the waste afterwards, Malcolm Turnbull has said.But the prime minister said he was “sceptical” about whether Australia would ever build its own nuclear power stations to provide electricity to domestic customers, given the country had plentiful access to coal, gas, wind and solar sources. Continue reading...

Report says rising heat stress could threaten labour capacity across region, with Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia worst hitRising temperatures and humidity due to climate change are likely to increase the number of days with unsafe “heat stress”, putting south-east Asia at great risk of significant drops in productivity, a research firm said on Wednesday.Related: Extreme heatwaves could push Gulf climate beyond human endurance, study shows Continue reading...

Tar sands site had been slated to produce 80,000 barrels a day but lower global prices, cost-cutting and lack of infrastructure contribute to shelvingRoyal Dutch Shell will halt construction of its Carmon Creek thermal oil sands venture in Canada due to “uncertainties” facing the project, including a lack of infrastructure.

Nationals leader’s comments come after the the suicide of Queensland anti-CSG farmer George Bender and follow Fiona Nash’s call for a change to state lawsNationals leader Warren Truss believes farmers should have the right to veto coal seam gas exploration and extraction on their properties, following a call by assistant health minister Fiona Nash for a change to state laws.Related: Q&A: George Bender's daughter accuses politicians of neglecting farmers Continue reading...

MPs told it will be several months before levels of nitrogen oxide will become known as there is only one machine available to test real-world emissionsThe government has little idea of how much deadly nitrogen oxide (NOx) is being emitted by individual passenger cars because it has only one £100,000 machine able to test real-world emissions, it has emerged.Until now, government vehicle inspectors have used laboratory tests that can be manipulated by car manufacturers with “cheat devices” to give false results, MPs on the environmental audit committee were told. Continue reading...

Christiana Figueres tells investor event that a climate deal to be agreed in Paris in December will not be able to come up with a global carbon priceA climate change deal to be agreed in Paris in December will not be able to come up with a global carbon price, the United Nations’ climate chief, Christiana Figueres, said on Tuesday.Big multinational companies and investors, and most recently oil majors, have called for a global carbon price to help spur investments in low-carbon energy. Continue reading...

After years of people smelling my hair or teasing me on Twitter, I finally decided to ask those closest to me what they really think of my commitment to live green“Do I smell?” I asked this question to the man I’m dating, and he was appropriately perplexed.“What?” he asked. Continue reading...

MEPs outraged as biggest three European countries push for watered down nitrogen oxide targets ahead of crucial EU vote

« Ce serait fantastique d’obtenir de l’électricité du soleil » : le coup d’Etat et le contrecoup ne diminuent pas l’engouement pour un projet d’énergie solaire dans un village du Burundi

Prince of Wales speaks out on the benefits of divesting from oil, coal and gas and investing in renewables on financial and ethical groundsThe fortunes of fossil fuel companies will be “severely impacted” by a global climate change agreement, Prince Charles warned a financial sector summit in London on Tuesday. He also warned charities holding coal, oil or gas investments that these assets could “represent a significant conflict to their overall mission”.The heir to the throne’s intervention comes just weeks before a crunch UN summit in Paris at which the world’s nations are expected to produce an agreement to tackle global warming. It also follows a series of warnings that fossil fuels pose a risk to not only the climate, but also investors’ capital, with Bank of England governor Mark Carney warning in September of “potentially huge” losses. Continue reading...

Australia’s leading science institution has put its money where its mouth is on climate change, reports the Sydney Morning Herald

Public Health England imposes movement restrictions at farm in Westbury area after first case of anthrax in livestock since 2006A cow at a farm in Wiltshire has died from anthrax, the first such case in livestock since 2006.Movement restrictions were imposed at the farm and an animal’s carcass was burned at the end of last week. No other animals had been affected and the risk of infection in humans in close contact with the cow was very low, it added. Continue reading...

A shadowy image of an urban fox taken by British photographer, Richard Peters, is the overall winner of the 2015 GDT European wildlife photographer of the year competition, run annually by the Society of German Nature Photographers. Winners and runners-up explain how they captured their prizewinning shots Continue reading...

Beijing is attempting to build artificial islands, while other states in the region are looking to the US to flex its military muscle on their behalfOver the last two years China has dramatically stepped up land reclamation work on reefs and atolls it claims in the Spratly Island chain in the South China Sea, also claimed by the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam and Brunei. Chinese ships have been dredging new harbours, while cranes have been erected in an attempt to build artificial islands atop submerged reefs. There is evidence of airstrips being built. The US has protested that the work is illegal and destabilising and for months the Pentagon has been pushing the White House to take a firmer stance. Continue reading...

Independent assessors grant conditional approval for the $45m project on the remote north-west coast near BroomeA group of independent assessors has granted conditional environmental approval for a huge $45m onshore gas processing hub on Australia’s remote north-west coast.The three delegates hired by the Environmental Protection Authority were asked in January 2014 to assess a proposal to construct a common-user liquid natural gas precinct at James Price Point near Broome, 2,240km north of Perth, Western Australia. Continue reading...

Cyclists in Paris are now allowed to ride through red lights, and San Francisco is mulling a similar move. With the four main candidates for mayor considering just such a radical rewriting of the rulebook, could London be next?The lights turn red but the cyclist behind me shoots straight through. Two police officers radio to a colleague up the road who pulls him over and writes out a £50 on-the-spot fine. The Metropolitan Police hand out around 3,000 of these fixed penalty notices a year to cyclists for running red lights: many motorists would like to see them issue more – but could the offence instead be scrapped altogether?When Paris changed the rules this summer to allow cyclists to ride through 1,800 red lights, the French capital joined Brussels and cities in Germany and the Netherlands which have been doing just that for years. There’s a row over proposals to introduce similar changes in San Francisco – cyclists protested against a police crackdown by rigidly obeying traffic laws and brought traffic to a halt. Now, the four main candidates to replace Boris Johnson as mayor have said they will consider such a move in London.

Ecologists and Pintupi hunters in Australia’s Gibson Desert are employing ancient techniques in a bid to control the feral cats that threaten native wildlifeWhen Pintupi hunters from the ­Kiwirrkurra community in the Gibson Desert in central Australia catch a feral cat, they have two tasks. The first is to lop off a bit of the tail to give to Central Desert Native Title Services (CDNTS) in exchange for a $100 bounty.

Rumbling Kern, Northumberland: Below the ancient graffiti, an eider works around the bay looking for crabs and musselsGoldfinches clustered on dock seedheads as we made our way down the thin silver path to the sea. Most coastal flowers were over now, though yarrow, flat-topped and bone-white, still bloomed. Rose hips gleamed through tangles of briars. Agrimony seeds bristled, eager to snatch at clothes and be transported somewhere new.A warm autumn day, we sat on sloping boulders below the Bathing House, its sandstone walls and tall chimneys stretching up out of the rock. Built in the early 19th century by Earl Grey of nearby Howick Hall, it was designed for his large family to bathe, with an upstairs sitting room so Lady Grey could check on their 15 children in the pools below. Chisel marks show where a tide-fed swimming place was enlarged. There are remnants of metal fixings for awnings and stepped ledges angled towards the sun. Continue reading...

The prime minister is impatient for Australia to be right in the thick of the clean energy race, but the policy he has inherited and the mentality of some of his party force him to trot out tired ‘energy poverty’ linesRelated: Malcolm Turnbull: coal export ban ‘would make no difference to emissions’Malcolm Turnbull needs all his rhetorical skill to bridge the gap between what he knows is true and what he has to say to appease his party. Continue reading...

Labour and Greenpeace condemn ‘deeply disturbing’ move to avoid full parliamentary debate on allowing drilling beneath protected areasMinisters have been accused of trying to sneak through new rules allowing shale drilling under national parks without a proper parliamentary debate, in a move condemned by Labour and anti-fracking campaigners.The rules, first proposed in July, would permit drilling underneath protected areas, despite a commitment before the election from Amber Rudd, the energy secretary, to have an outright ban on fracking in national parks, sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs) and areas of outstanding natural beauty. Continue reading...

The prime minister dismissed the idea of a moratorium after prominent Australians wrote an open letter calling for discussion on a new coal mine banMalcolm Turnbull has declared a moratorium on Australian coal exports “would make not the blindest bit of difference to global emissions” because importers would buy it from elsewhere.Related: Prominent Australians ask world leaders to consider ban on new coalmines Continue reading...

Helen Bender addresses the Q&A panel in Toowoomba on Monday night. Her father, George Bender, killed himself this month after long battle against coal seam gas exploration on his Queensland farm. Days after her father’s funeral, she appeared on the program to ask when farmers would be granted refusal rights and to condemn politicians for ignoring their concernsRead a full report on last night’s Q&A episode Continue reading...

As Patricia, the biggest storm ever recorded in the western hemisphere, made landfall on the Mexican west coast on Friday Bill Patzert, climatologist at Nasa’s jet propulsion laboratory explained its origins. The current El Niño was “high-octane fuel for hurricanes” because it had “piled up a tremendous volume of warm water in the eastern Pacific”.Related: Hurricane Patricia hits the Mexican coast – in pictures Continue reading...

Helen Bender, whose father killed himself after long battle against coal seam gas, tells program’s panel: ‘I don’t believe any one of you politicians have listened’The Nationals senator Fiona Nash has called for state laws enabling landholders to refuse access to gas companies, saying they are the “simple answer” to an issue brought into focus by the suicide of a Queensland farmer.Nash told the ABC’s Q&A program states should make the necessary changes to empower farmers, and gas projects affecting residents nearby should be put on hold pending further study of their health impacts. Continue reading...

American Academy of Pediatrics urges doctors and politicians to protect children from environmental threats, such as natural disasters and heat stressChildren are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, according to a new policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).

Advisory board insists that avoiding red and processed meat is not a protective strategy against cancerBritain’s meat industry has hit back at the World Health Organisation report that raised alarm over its products by claiming that bacon, sausages and ham cause cancer.An advisory body funded by British meat producers said the key to preventing cancer was avoiding heavy drinking, not smoking and maintaining a healthy weight. “Red and processed meats do not give you cancer,” said Robert Pickard, a member of the Meat Advisory Panel and emeritus professor of neurobiology at the University of Cardiff. Continue reading...

Starting British summer time a month earlier will make us happier, healthier and more sociable – and possibly better at golf“Eggy go! Eggy go!” My two-year-old’s special rendition of that Frozen song rang out in the pitch-black at 5am on Sunday. I didn’t grumble because we are parents of toddlers for but a few seasons. When I realised it was actually 4am, I confess to a silent groan. The clocks’ autumnal falling-back meant a luxurious extra hour in bed. Now they entail a week of cajoling young body-clocks into rising an hour later each morning. But it’s not this mild inconvenience that makes me wonder why we cling to such an archaic system of time.Related: Iain Hollingshead: Whatever happened to Double Summer Time? Continue reading...

Latest killings in Hwange national park make 62 elephants that have been poisoned by poachers for their ivory tusks in the African country in OctoberZimbabwean rangers have found the bodies of 22 more elephants that were poisoned with cyanide in the country’s Hwange national park. The grim discovery brings to 62 the number of elephants poisoned by poachers in this southern Africa country in October.

The wet summer has slashed this year’s yields and increased prices by 30%. The best advice for next year’s Halloween? Grow your ownIt has been hailed as the Great British Pumpkin Shortage. Heavy rain in August cut pumpkin yields in half for Barfoots, one of Britain’s biggest pumpkin suppliers. Another grower in Kent reports a 10% fall.October is the cruellest month for pumpkin growers. “If only Halloween was six weeks earlier … they are ticking timebombs,” grower Jon Barfoot told a produce industry website. I’m not being smug but this alleged crisis won’t be felt in our household, thanks to my dad growing us an “atlantic giant” pumpkin, which feels as heavy as the combined weight of our three-year-old twins. Continue reading...

Officials from five continents follow Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment with demand for complete decarbonisationThe Catholic church has called on UN negotiators convening in Paris at the end of November to agree a goal for “complete decarbonisation” by 2050, and set a legally binding agreement to limit global temperature increase.The statement, which was announced by the Vatican on Monday and signed by Catholic officials from five continents, represents a sweeping attempt to link climate change to social justice and the exclusion of poor people who stand to lose the most from global warming. Continue reading...

Experts will take your questions on sponge cities live in the comments section of this page on Monday 26 October between 1-2pm GMT

Potsdam-based economist Ottmar Edenhofer on the piecemeal nature of climate policy, in an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine ZeitungHow well can the new head of the IPCC, Hoesung Lee, manage the huge reforms that you and others have publicly asked for?We’ve put forward suggestions for a feasible programme of reform, but we will see how Hoesung Lee will make this his own. There’s little room for manoeuvre. In a meeting in February in Nairobi, governments decided that they’d prefer to see the status quo upheld. Lee has to be very fast and vigorous if he wants reforms. However he is very dependent upon the IPCC panel agreeing, since only the governments are entitled to a vote and thus get to have a say. Continue reading...

Fires have spread beyond plantations deep into primary forests and national parks, the last strongholds of the endangered apesRaging Indonesian forest fires have advanced into dense forest on Borneo and now threaten one third of the world’s remaining wild orangutans, say conservationists.Satellite photography shows that around 100,000 fires have burned in Indonesia’s carbon-rich peatlands since July. But instead of being mostly confined to farmland and plantations, as they are in most years, several thousand fires have now penetrated deep into primary forests and national parks, the strongholds of the remaining wild apes and other endangered animals.

Wallaby David Pocock and author Richard Flanagan among 61 signatories to open letter calling for the future of coal to be on the agenda at Paris climate talksSixty-one prominent Australians, from Wallaby David Pocock to the Anglican bishop of Canberra George Browning, have signed an open letter calling on world leaders to discuss a ban on new coalmines and coalmine expansions at the United Nations climate change meeting in Paris in December.The signatories are backing a call by the president of Kiribati, Anote Tong, and other leaders of Pacific Island nations in the recent Suva Declaration on climate change from the Pacific Island Development Forum. Continue reading...

Peruvians should be better prepared for a phenomenon which they know well, since it all started on their coasts, says local historian Lizardo Seiner in an interview with El ComercioEver since the Spanish landed in Peru in the fifteenth century the magnitude of each El Niño event has increased, according to Lizardo Seiner Lizarraga. The northern coasts are especially in danger, said the history lecturer at the university of Lima, and specialist in the social and environmental history of risk.

Cold temperatures are essential to modern life. The cold is central to how we eat, breathe and use medicine. But cooling causes four times more emissions than all of the aviation on Earth. As the planet warms with climate change, we’ll need to change our century-old and polluting technology, because we need to stay cold

World’s largest concentrated solar power plant, powered by the Saharan sun, set to help renewables provide almost half the country’s energy by 2020The Moroccan city of Ouarzazate is used to big productions. On the edge of the Sahara desert and the centre of the north African country’s “Ouallywood” film industry it has played host to big-budget location shots in Lawrence of Arabia, The Mummy, The Living Daylights and even Game of Thrones.Now the trading city, nicknamed the “door of the desert”, is the centre for another blockbuster – a complex of four linked solar mega-plants that, alongside hydro and wind, will help provide nearly half of Morocco’s electricity from renewables by 2020 with, it is hoped, some spare to export to Europe. The project is a key plank in Morocco’s ambitions to use its untapped deserts to become a global solar superpower. Continue reading...