Fires cloaking south-east Asia in haze have cost Indonesia $16bn in 2015, more than double the sum spent on rebuilding Aceh after the 2004 tsunamiIndonesia’s economy took a $16bn hit this year from forest fires that cloaked south-east Asia in haze, more than double the sum spent on rebuilding Aceh after the 2004 tsunami, according to the World Bank.

The French yachtsman is pioneering the use of kite technology to produce clean power for cargo shipsThe only souvenir Yves Parlier has kept from his long career sailing the seven seas is the skeleton of a mahi-mahi, or common dolphinfish, almost one metre long. In February 2001, somewhere near the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, he caught this fish with a hook made from a broken aerial. It saved him from dying of hunger. Even now Parlier licks his lips at the thought of the feast that followed. “I started by devouring the offal, then I stripped the fillets and put them out to dry,” he says. “After that I sucked the bones and ate the skin. I had enough food to reach the finish.”Parlier made this miraculous catch while he was competing in his third and final Vendée Globe single-handed around-the-world race, sailed non-stop and without assistance, a contest he never managed to win. Dispirited and desperately hungry, he had spent the previous 10 days mixing packets of dehydrated food with platefuls of seaweed and krill, seasoned with the spices from oriental soup packets. Continue reading...

Government caps number of projects that can be carried out in a year under the environmental program, to achieve savings of nearly $318mThe government has nearly halved the budget of one of its core environmental programs, the “green army”, by capping the number of projects it can undertake to 500 a year.Related: Myefo: budget banks on 'unrealistic' $13.9bn savings blocked by Senate Continue reading...

Claxton, Norfolk The two lines of poplars by the lane were suddenly filled with 2,000 jackdaws from the roostEven as I stepped out, the rain was rattling at the back of my coat. Yet I still needed to release my ears from the noisy tunnel of the hood in order to hear it clearly.Immediately I could pick out a difference between the even fizz of drops on grass and the messier drumbeat under the trees, where water dripping off branches or twigs created its own counter rhythm to the downpour’s wider patter. Continue reading...

Environment, food and rural affairs committee warns plan to raise £600m from ‘external contributions’ for flood defences has only brought in £250m so farGovernment spending cuts must not be allowed to affect vital flood defence work, MPs warned on Tuesday.The Commons environment, food and rural affairs committee said that with more than 5.5m properties in England and Wales at risk of flooding, it was essential that spending on defences was prioritised. Continue reading...

Wednesday’s vote will show whether the European commission upholds the interests of its citizens, or sides with large corporations, says Corbyn advisorOn Wednesday, the European commission will vote on a series of demands made by the EU parliament on corporate tax transparency.This is important: no parliament has done more to promote tax justice issues than the European parliament. Its demands represent important steps towards ensuring large companies pay the right amount of tax, in the right place and at the right time. Continue reading...

After the excitement of UN talks in Paris fades, are business leaders ready to meet their pledges to reduce climate emissions?

Land court finds mining leases should be granted for Carmichael mine but with tightened environmental conditionsQueensland’s land court has dismissed a challenge by conservationists to Adani’s Carmichael mine, Australia’s largest proposed coal project.The land court president, Carmel MacDonald, recommended the state government approve the mine but with extra conditions around monitoring the impact on waterways and a local threatened species, the black-throated finch. Continue reading...

Evgenios Hamboullas, a member of the national parliament’s environment committee, posted a picture on Facebook showing the dish made of the birdsA Cypriot MP has stirred controversy online after posting a picture of himself at a table serving a dish of songbirds whose poaching is banned on the Mediterranean island.

The Bill Leak cartoon showing Indians attempting to eat solar panels was labelled ‘unequivocally racist’, but newspaper claims critics didn’t get jokeThe Australian newspaper has defended the publication of Bill Leak’s cartoon depicting starving Indians eating solar panels on the grounds of “freedom of speech”.The cartoon, labelled “unequivocally racist” by Macquarie university sociology professor Amanda Wise, ran in the newspaper on Monday after the global deal in Paris to reduce carbon emissions. It showed Indians attempting to eat solar panels sent to the developing nation in a box labelled with United Nations insignia in an attempt to curb carbon emissions. Continue reading...

Report on Guatemalan mine accuses the government and company running it, Tahoe Resources, of a military response to oppositionA Guatemalan investigative journalist named Luis Solano was in Canada last month to launch a report about a Canadian-owned silver mine in south-east Guatemala. The mine, Escobal, began operating last year and is run by Minera San Rafael (MSR), a subsidiary of the British Columbia-incorporated Tahoe Resources.The 27-page report, titled Under Siege: Peaceful Resistance to Tahoe Resources and Militarization in Guatemala, was commissioned by the International Platform Against Impunity in Central America and MiningWatch Canada, which published it in November. Based on the experience of several years research and interviews with local inhabitants conducted in mid-2015, one of the key allegations is that 1000s of people living in the region have voted against the mine and further expansion plans, with numerous plebiscites and peaceful marches held. Continue reading...

Of 88,000 actions assessed by the Fish and Wildlife Service, only two triggered more significant action in past seven years, new study findsThe US government has not halted a single project out of the 88,000 actions and developments considered potentially harmful to the nation’s endangered species over the past seven years, a new study has found.

The agreement reached at the COP21 Paris climate change talks is certainly a great improvement on anything that has gone before (One paragraph at a time: how the deal was done to save the planet, 14 December). Whether it is enough to save the planet (to be more precise, save the human race from catastrophe; the planet will look after itself) is questionable. Apart from the question of actual implementation of even the agreed measures (themselves expected to achieve only a 2.7C limit) there are many factors not taken into account. Barack Obama says the deal will create “more jobs and economic growth”. But growth, even “green growth”, is precisely the problem. We live on a finite planet with finite resources which we are already exploiting to the limit and beyond. The aim must be to achieve a steady-state economy, with resources fairly shared, but that is incompatible with capitalism’s growth imperative.A glaring omission is the effect of the many armed conflicts currently ongoing, The money allocated to tackling climate change is still dwarfed by that devoted to the means of death and destruction, currently $1.75tn annually. These conflicts themselves contribute to climate change: the US military is the biggest single corporate user of fossil fuels, a large proportion by high-flying jets, where the warming effect is variously estimated as from 1.7 to 4.0 times that at ground level. They inhibit attempts to deal with people’s real problems, the effects of global warming among many others. Mass migration, from a variety of causes including conflict and climate change, is another major problem that is ignored in the Paris agreement. There is still a very long way to go to ensure the future of the human race.

COP21 agreement excludes poor and fails to put humanity’s interests above short-term goals, say environmentalists and financial expertsLeaders from around the world have hailed the agreement struck in Paris on climate change, but some analysts and environmentalists are less sure about its impact.Bloomberg New Energy Finance, an independent analysis group, delivered a downbeat appraisal of the outcome, saying it was not the breakthrough many had claimed. Continue reading...

The prime minister hit the right notes with his speech at the climate change summit. But that message is at odds with his government’s policiesThe prime minister is right. He concluded his speech at the start of the Paris climate change summit by saying: “Instead of making excuses tomorrow to our children and grandchildren, we should be taking action against climate change today.” Friends of the Earth could not agree more.So why is it that almost everything Cameron’s government has done on climate and energy since being elected in May has moved us in the wrong direction, towards pitiful excuse-making when we come to look our children in the eye, let alone our grandchildren? Continue reading...

Indian official says while country has huge plans for solar, there are limitations to clean energy and coal will remain most efficient energy source for decadesIndia still plans to double coal output by 2020 and rely on the resource for decades afterwards, a senior official said on Monday, days after rich and poor countries agreed in Paris to curb carbon emissions that cause global warming.India, the world’s third-largest carbon emitter, is dependent on coal for about two-thirds of its energy needs and has pledged to mine more of the fuel to power its resource-hungry economy while also promising to increase clean energy generation. Continue reading...

EU climate chief says that aspirational 1.5C target was put into Paris climate deal at insistence of ‘most exposed countries’ and will require new strategiesThe EU has admitted it has not yet looked into the polices needed to hold global warming to 1.5C, as agreed at the landmark Paris agreement, and will instead ask a UN climate science panel for advice involving ‘negative emissions’ technology.The bloc’s negotiators had gone to Paris with a mandate for a 2C target but were forced to accommodate more ambitious demands from “the most exposed countries”, the bloc’s climate chief, Miguel Arias Cañete, said. Continue reading...

Teenager’s economics project noticed flaws in accounting a year before solar and wind power firm tries to avoid becoming Spain’s biggest bankruptcyAs Spanish engineering and renewable energy giant Abengoa struggles to avoid becoming the country’s biggest bankruptcy, it has emerged that a 17-year-old schoolboy predicted its collapse a year ago, spotting accounting discrepancies apparently overlooked by both Deloitte and Standard & Poor’s.Pepe Baltá, a secondary school student in Barcelona, chose Abengoa as his economics project and noticed flaws in its accounting. “If it does not act soon, there is a strong risk Abengoa will go into bankruptcy,” Baltá wrote last year in his 18-page paper, titled Analytical report on Abengoa, 2012 and 2013. Continue reading...

Ce documentaire personnel et méditatif raconte la mission d’un scientifique novateur à la recherche des preuves du changement climatique dans les glaces de l’Antarctique

El expresidente de México afirma que los intereses de los países en desarrollo son marcadamente divergentes a menudo

Laurent Fabius, the Paris climate deal overseer, is exactly the sort of politician 6 million French voters turned away fromIf you want to understand why 6 million disaffected French voters gave their support to Marine Le Pen’s Front National candidates in the regional elections (and will do so again when they get the chance), you could do worse than contemplate the career of Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister who chaired the 10-day summit on climate change in Paris.Climate change campaigners, who worry most about the existential threat of global warming (I do myself), heaved a collective sigh of relief that leaders of 196 countries pulled off a cliffhanger agreement on Saturday night. Sceptics point out that key clauses are more aspirational than substantial; wishful hot air, we might say. Even supporters are wary. Continue reading...

Provisions to increase transparency in supply chains will push forced labour up the corporate agenda, but there are concerns it does not go far enoughWhat do nail bars, the fishing industry, the London house of two medical professionals and cannabis farms have in common? They have all recently been implicated in modern slavery.This year the UK government passed the Modern Slavery Act, the first piece of UK legislation focusing on the prevention and prosecution of modern slavery and the protection of victims. After much debate, the government included a provision on transparency in supply chains, which came into force in October. Continue reading...

Armed forces around the world - including US military - will no longer be automatically excluded from including their carbon emissions under national reductions targetsThe US military and armed forces of countries around the world will no longer be automatically exempted from emissions-cutting obligations under the UN Paris climate deal, the Guardian has learned.Although the US never ratified the Kyoto Protocol, it won an opt-out from having to fully report or act on its armed forces’ greenhouse gas emissions, which was then double-locked by a House national defence authorisation bill in 1999. Continue reading...

Australian foreign minister Julie Bishop praises the historic deal signed by nearly 200 countries at the end of the Paris climate talks on Saturday. The agreement sets ambitious goals to limit temperature rise and hold governments to account for reaching targets

With all 196 nations having a say, the UN climate deal, with all its frustrations and drama, has proven that compromise works for the planetIn the final meeting of the Paris talks on climate change on Saturday night, the debating chamber was full and the atmosphere tense. Ministers from 196 countries sat behind their country nameplates, aides flocking them, with observers packed into the overflowing hall.Related: World leaders hail Paris climate deal as ‘major leap for mankind’ Continue reading...

A Play Streets scheme that closes roads to cars opened Clare Rogers’ eyes to the idea of roads for recreation. Now she’s part of a grassroots campaign to revolutionise cycling in Enfield – but the battle isn’t overMy sister Sally started it when she sent me a video about Playing Out – the seminal Bristol project which closes residential roads to traffic so children can play freely – adding: “Shame you couldn’t do this on your street.” Nothing goads like a sibling, and two years later our Palmers Green rat-run was an official London Play Street. Each month traffic is blocked off for three hours and the children play out with bikes, scooters, balls and chalk. Our girls, aged five and eight when it started, love it. It was a revelation seeing the tarmac used for something other than cars, and we got to know our neighbours in a way that was not possible when we only used the street to park on.The other revelation was the attitude of those neighbours who hated the idea. They organised a petition against the play street, and quotes from the time include: “Roads are for cars, not kids”, “We’ll be a magnet for paedophiles” and “Who’s going to pay when my car gets scratched?” Now these same neighbours have either approved the renewed play street order, or take part as stewards. I guess they just needed to see it up and running. Continue reading...

Residents of Morpeth, which last flooded in 2012, have spent the subsequent years battling to keep their insurance costs downGovernment pledges to spend billions of pounds on flood defences won’t necessarily shield householders against rising insurance costs in flood-hit areas of the country, despite the protection they offer.Around £23m of defences were completed in June in the Northumberland town of Morpeth after major floods in 2008 and 2012 wrought devastation. Yet some householders near the river Wansbeck still face massive and sometimes rising insurance premiums. Continue reading...

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber pushes for afforestation and advances to carbon capture and storage projects to limit global warmingHolding temperature rise to 2C – let alone hitting the aspirational target of 1.5C in the climate agreement concluded in Paris at the weekend – is going to require the deployment of technologies to suck carbon out of the atmosphere, the pope’s climate change adviser said.Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, who provided scientific advice in the drafting of the pope’s encyclical, said countries would have to move quickly to build up new solar arrays and wind farms, as well as scale up technologies still in the lab phase, to have any hope of reaching the target. Continue reading...

Dozens of flights cancelled, ferry services stopped as winds of up to 150kph make landfall in central PhilippinesHundreds of thousands of people were evacuated from the central Philippines on Monday as a typhoon with winds of up to 150km/h (95 miles per hour) made landfall, dumping heavy rain that could cause flooding, landslides and storm surges, authorities warned.

Comins Coch, Aberystwyth A December wedding seems to highlight the start of a new cycle of life much as the approach of the solstice does for the natural worldA village wedding is always an occasion, and draws folk back who have long since left to find their place in the wider world. At the reception I sat with several of the people my children went to school with. Though they are now long adult, I still carry a mental image of them as the band of youthful adventurers who explored the local countryside on bikes in the long summers of memory.I’d hoped to hear stories of their new lives in places from London to Japan, but they wanted to discuss the things that have happened in the village since they left. Continue reading...

The environment minister talks flexibility in emissions targets as Coalition backbenchers mock international deal reached at Paris climate conferenceThe Turnbull government will “probably” allow emission reduction permits to be bought from overseas, giving Australia flexibility to increase the targets it pledged at the Paris climate conference, Greg Hunt has predicted.The environment minister signalled there was scope to tighten Australia’s international commitments to curb climate change, as some of his Coalition colleagues rubbished the significance of the deal reached in the French capital at the weekend. Continue reading...

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 14 December 1915Mud, thick and sticky, was pleasantly veiled by the beautiful snow; then came the partial thaw followed by sharp frost. In lanes between white fields, where young beasts lowed plaintively, lacking sense to clear the covering and reach the grass, my cycle tyres crunched through the sugary compound on the unswept surface. Here a lapwing stood thoughtfully, now and then bobbing with that spasmodic jerk so suggestive of hiccough; there a few fieldfares wandered restlessly, calling as they flew, and under the hedge a blackbird searched for the haws it had wastefully scattered when food was abundant. The starlings alone seemed to be finding plenty of food; they bustled after the sheep, feeding on the green patches where the patient animals had grazed. The hare, looking very leggy as it lolloped across the snow, left characteristic but deceptive spoor, two footmarks side by side and two behind, one in front of the other. If we watch the hare travelling we do not see the forelimbs straddled, nor the hind feet placed in line; they are not what they seem, these marks, for the two in front were left by the long hind limbs; the forefeet, from which the hare gets little or no spring, touch the ground in succession. The powerful hind legs, at each spring, shoot ahead, and the feet strike the ground on each side and well in front of the balancing forelimbs. Continue reading...

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Actions to help climate change do not always help air pollution.One conflict area is wood heating. This is becoming increasingly popular across Europe as a low carbon fuel but it produces a lot of air pollution. This is especially true of open fires where most of the heat is wasted too. Modern stoves and wood chip burners perform better but it is difficult for any wood burner to match the low pollution from gas heating. Continue reading...

Globalisation has been spinning into reverse. But the Paris talks illustrate the potential of determined diplomacy between jealously sovereign statesIn the late 20th century, those who stood against globalisation were charged with swimming against an unstoppable tide, caricatured as “Stop the world, I wanna get off!” But in the 21st century, history is running with the anti-globalisers. World trade talks have gone nowhere, immigration controls have shot up the agenda, and two post-national EU projects – the euro and Schengen – are under strain. Figures as diverse as Donald Trump, Nicola Sturgeon and Marine Le Pen – who failed to convert a remarkable first-round victory in French regional elections into any outright wins – are all peddling one form of nationalism or another. Rumours of the death of the nation state, then, have proved exaggerated: globalisation is spinning into reverse.Looking back on the future as it appeared in the 1990s – as a technocratic, transnational order – a democratic push-back was surely inevitable, in some senses even desirable. But when problems from the overuse of antibiotics to terrorism refuse to respect national borders, the retreat from the dream of global governance has some frightening consequences, especially in connection with climate change, the archetypal global problem. Saving the planet in a fracturing world is a daunting challenge indeed. Continue reading...

Conservatives’ attacks on wind, solar and other ‘clean’ technologies has undermined ability to meet CO targets, experts sayThe government has been warned that a major U-turn in energy policy is required if it is to avoid charges of blatant hypocrisy following the commitments it made in the Paris climate deal this weekend. Critics say that the first test for Amber Rudd, the energy and climate change secretary, will come later this week, when she announces whether or not she plans to go ahead with a proposed 90% cut in solar subsidies.Business leaders, academics and environmentalists all believe that a series of attacks on wind, solar and other “clean” technologies since the general election have undermined Britain’s ability to meet new CO targets. Continue reading...

Jim Yong Kim joins host of powerful figures lauding ‘extraordinary’ talks undertaken in French capitalThe president of the World Bank has hailed the deal struck in Paris on climate change as a “game changer” that will set the world on a new course of economic growth and cooperation.Jim Yong Kim told the Guardian the Paris accord would redefine what economic development means for the future, by ensuring that the need to invest in a low-carbon future was included in plans for economic growth and lifting people out of poverty. Continue reading...

In papers seen by the Guardian, government calls for carmakers to be allowed to far exceed the nitrogen oxides limit until 2021The UK is pushing for a weakening of air pollution limits and a delay to their introduction in response to lobbying from the motor industry, documents reveal.In revelations that will raise questions over the British government’s commitment to the climate change deal agreed in Paris at the weekend, papers obtained by ClientEarth, a firm of environmental legal experts, and seen by the Guardian, showed the UK had pushed for limits on pollution to be relaxed. Continue reading...