Officials hope Texan birds of prey will scare off migratory flocks, as bird droppings make roads slippery and ruin landmarksIn one of the most adrenaline-fuelled moments of Spectre, the new James Bond movie, 007 races along the banks of Rome’s Tiber river and makes a dramatic escape from his would-be assassin.But if the high-speed chase was recreated today, Bond’s Aston Martin would almost certainly skid on the droppings of countless migrating starlings that have come to roost in the trees lining the river. His suit almost certainly would not survive unstained. Continue reading...

Ahead of a major urban design conference, the architect says we must plan for a more sustainable lifestyle – and discusses his disappointment at the likely rejection of his Thames Hub airport“Do you believe in infrastructure?” asks Norman Foster, with challenge in his voice. He does. Infrastructure, he says, is about “investing not to solve the problems of today but to anticipate the issues of future generations”. He cites his hero, Joseph Bazalgette, who, in solving Victorian London’s sewage problems, “thought holistically to integrate drains with below-ground public transportation and above-ground civic virtue”.Foster is delighted that Britain now has an infrastructure commission, chaired by Andrew Adonis, which he says gives the opportunity to plan in 30-year cycles and remove the politics from infrastructure. He will expound these views this week at the Urban Age 10th anniversary Global Debates, Urban Age being the LSE’s Deutsche Bank-sponsored series of conferences in which high-powered and highly powerful people travel the world exchanging views on city building. Continue reading...

On the eve of the 2009 Copenhagen summit, we reported on families threatened by climate change around the world. Now, as the Paris summit nears, many of their worst fears are being realisedThey are humanity’s hope for tomorrow, but each faces a future that looks increasing bleak and uncertain. Born in four different parts of the globe, these children came into the world in the weeks leading up to the Copenhagen climate conference in December 2009.At the time, the Observer described the lives of these young people as their families struggled to cope with the impact of climate change. Continue reading...

Residents of Ballina in New South Wales are baffled by a sudden spike in shark attacks along the coast – and searching for hi-tech, ecofriendly ways to stop themDarren Rogers’s living room is full of surfboards, but it is all he can do to get back in the water. The first time he tried, he looked down at his submerged legs and had a flashback of fellow surfer Tadashi Nakahara’s horrific injuries.Rogers is haunted by his final moments with the man he tried to keep alive after a catastrophic encounter with a great white shark. It severed both of Nakahara’s legs, the kind of injury that Rogers knew could only be inflicted by the ocean’s apex predator, “as big as your car, weighing almost as much … I do have vivid images of his injuries but because I was so close to his face, his eyes are the things that get me … just wishing I could make him alive again”, he says. Continue reading...

The Great Pacific garbage patch is one of the world’s least talked about environmental disasters. At Kamilo beach in Hawaii, Sophie Thomas from the Royal Society of Arts has documented pieces from the patch washed up on land, including discarded bottles, toothbrushes and toys

Up to 57% of tree species – including Brazil nut and açai fruit – would qualify as endangered if current trends continue, researchers saySouth America’s vast Amazon region harbors one of the world’s most diverse collection of tree species, but more than half may be at risk for extinction due to ongoing deforestation to clear land for farming, ranching and other purposes, scientists say.Researchers said on Friday that if recent trends continued, between 36 and 57% of the estimated 15,000 Amazonian tree species likely would qualify as threatened with extinction under criteria used by the group that makes such determinations, the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Continue reading...

If deforestation continues at current rate, 57% of the 15,000 tree species will be in danger, including Brazil nut, cacao and açaiMore than half the myriad tree species in the Amazon could be heading for extinction, according to a study that makes the first comprehensive estimate of threatened species in the world’s largest rainforest. Among the species expected to suffer significant falls in numbers are the Brazil nut, and wild cacao and açai trees, all important food sources.The world’s most diverse forest has endured decades of deforestation, with loggers, farmers and miners responsible for the removal of 12% of its area. If that continues in the decades ahead, 57% of the 15,000 tree species will be in danger, according to the researchers. Continue reading...

By banning protest at COP21, Hollande is silencing those facing the worst impacts of climate change and its monstrous violenceWhose security gets protected by any means necessary? Whose security is casually sacrificed, despite the means to do so much better? Those are the questions at the heart of the climate crisis, and the answers are the reason climate summits so often end in acrimony and tears.The French government’s decision to ban protests, marches and other “outdoor activities” during the Paris climate summit is disturbing on many levels. The one that preoccupies me most has to do with the way it reflects the fundamental inequity of the climate crisis itself – and that core question of whose security is ultimately valued in our lopsided world. Continue reading...

A balletic hippo, vervet monkey and rarely seen dancing lizards are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...

The EU’s professed commitment to sustainable development is not reflected in its proposed text for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment PartnershipLast week, the EU made public its initial proposal for legal text on trade and sustainable development in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The EU has a longstanding commitment to policy coherence for development, making sure its trade and other policies don’t have a negative impact on international development goals. Yet the EU’s proposal for TTIP says virtually nothing about ensuring that the world’s biggest trade deal does not have a negative impact on developing countries.Clearly, the EU doesn’t believe that a chapter on sustainable development need make more than passing reference to international development. Just one sentence is allocated to the implications for developing countries of a trade deal that both the EU and US want to use as a blueprint for future multilateral deals. Continue reading...

While we here at the Guardian love to keep it in the ground, that is not how we feel about trash. Landfills are collectively one of the biggest emitters of methane gas, which is far more potent at trapping heat in our atmosphere than carbon dioxide. As the trash problem and landfills on our planet all grow, here are some postcards from landfills you’d never want to receive. Continue reading...

Weakened draft regulations omit a new law that would have obliged countries to reduce waste by 30% by 2025The EU has dropped a plan to pressure countries into cutting food waste and marine litter by nearly a third, documents seen by the Guardian show.The law would have obliged countries to reduce food waste 30% by 2025 with national strategies for their retail, distribution, manufacturing and hospitality and household sectors. Continue reading...

As UN climate negotiations resume in Bonn, we look at why the crunch Paris climate conference from 30 November to 11 December is so importantThe governments of more than 190 nations will gather in Paris to discuss a possible new global agreement on climate change, aimed at reducing global greenhouse gas emissions and thus avoiding the threat of dangerous climate change. Continue reading...

Greenhouse gas levels are on track to exceed the worst-case scenario. But, as world leaders meet in Paris for the UN climate summit this month, Tim Flannery argues that there are still realistic grounds for hopeThis month’s meeting in Paris marks the 21st annual occasion on which nations have met to try to deal with the climate problem. After two decades of failing to agree, there is finally hope that a deal will be reached, with action to commence in 2020, and run until 2030. The world wonders whether Paris will be a success. But it is already a success, to the extent that the existing, unconditional pledges to limit greenhouse gas emissions made by nations in the lead up to the meeting are sufficient to shift humanity from the disastrous trajectory we are currently on. But the long failure of the negotiations to limit emissions gases will be felt way beyond Paris.For the last decade, greenhouse gases emissions have tracked the worst case scenario of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In 2009, the most recent year for which figures relating to all human-caused greenhouse gases exist, our emissions were around 50 gigatonnes of CO equivalent. And since then they have only grown. (CO equivalent is calculated by converting the warming potential of all of the 30-odd known greenhouse gases into the warming potential of a given volume of CO– rather like converting various currency values into a single currency). One way of grasping the significance of 50 gigatonnes is to consider what would be required to get a small portion of our annual emissions – say, four gigatonnes – out of the air. Continue reading...

From animated games to publicly identifying offenders, local authorities are getting creative in the fight to get rid of rubbishKeeping streets clean matters. According to the Local Government Association, councils spend almost £1 bn a year on tackling litter and fly-tipping, at a time when they face difficult choices due to budget cuts. Incidents of fly-tipping have increased by 20% in 2014 – last year there were 852,000 cases – while funding for street cleaning has fallen for the past four years. According to Clean Up Britain, 48% of people still admit to dropping rubbish on the streets (pdf), with chewing gum and cigarette stubs the main offenders.But councils are fighting back. From whodunnit campaigns, and CCTV monitoring, to litter raffles and animated games, councils across the UK are using unorthodox methods to make people think differently about the state of our streets and what can be done to keep them clean. Continue reading...

The deaths of farm workers in Central America are being linked to extreme temperatures. Researchers warn that far worse is to come

The ‘shocking’ scale of illegal trade in star tortoises in southern India has been revealed in a study published in the journal Nature Conservation. A large-scale network, fuelled by growing international demand for exotic pets, is causing extreme suffering to the animals and threatening the survival of the species, researchers warn. In one site alone, at least 55,000 tortoises were poached from the wild in one year Continue reading...

Rising temperatures and more extreme weather posing new challenges for National Trust properties’ gardens, rare books and tapestriesRare book collections, stately home gardens and 18th century tapestries are among the heritage being affected by a changing climate, the National Trust has warned.More erratic weather, changes to rainfall and rising temperatures are already having an impact on National Trust properties and land, the organisation said, forcing it to find new ways of managing the heritage in its care in the face of climate change. Continue reading...

South Uist I am awed to see a small flock of whooper swans heading for landfallCresting the rise at the end of the machair track I catch my breath at the first sight of the scene before me. Where usually there are miles of beach there is almost nothing but sea.As far as the eye can see there is line after broken line of wild, tumbling rollers, the wind streaming a fine mist of spray from their foam topped crests … and at the top of this highest of tides the wind driven waves are surging onwards almost to the foot of the low dunes. Continue reading...

The energy secretary’s much-hyped speech (UK to retreat from climate change goals, says minister, 18 November) was a spectacular display of governmental cognitive dissonance – saying one thing while acting in an entirely contradictory manner. Amber Rudd offered warm words about “a new energy infrastructure, fit for the 21st century”, yet her department ploughs ahead with firing up outdated high-carbon gas power stations set to burn climate changing fossil fuels for decades to come. Shutting coal power stations is a good move – and campaigners should be applauded for their long-running focus on this important goal – but doing so while promising a wave of new gas power stations simply doesn’t go close to ensuring we meet the energy challenges we face.Rudd spoke of competitiveness being at the heart of our energy system, yet her government has committed to subsidising outrageously expensive nuclear power stations while slashing support for solar and wind, which are popular, cheaper and faster to deploy. In these crucial weeks ahead of the Paris climate talks the government is compounding the failure of its shortsighted energy strategy. Never has a greater chance for rethinking the way we power our communities been presented to us – yet Rudd and her colleagues look set to squander this unique opportunity by hiding behind hot air and spin while failing to take the urgent action needed to tackle climate change.

While all eyes are on human numbers, it’s the rise in farm animals that is laying the planet wasteThis column is about the population crisis. About the breeding that’s laying waste to the world’s living systems. But it’s probably not the population crisis you’re thinking of. This is about another one, that we seem to find almost impossible to discuss.You’ll hear a lot about population in the next three weeks, as the Paris climate summit approaches. Across the airwaves and on the comment threads it will invariably be described as “the elephant in the room”. When people are not using their own words, it means that they are not thinking their own thoughts. Ten thousand voices each ask why no one is talking about it. The growth in human numbers, they say, is our foremost environmental threat. Continue reading...

This marks the first engineered animal product to be approved for sale although GM food such as soy and corn are already availableThe production and consumption of genetically engineered salmon has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, marking the first time that a genetically modified animal product has been cleared for sale in the US.

People around the world should protest ‘on behalf of those who can’t’, say organisers of climate march forbidden in light of Paris terror attacksA march expected to attract 200,000 people onto the streets of Paris ahead of crunch UN climate change talks was forbidden by the French government on Wednesday in light of last Friday’s terror attacks.But organisers have said it is now even more important for people around the world to come out onto the streets for “the biggest global climate march in history” to protest “on behalf of those who can’t”. Continue reading...

Luxembourg will tell the story of primitive society in a permanent nuclear winter – and will be the second time Miroslav Slaboshpitsky has shot at the locationMiroslav Slaboshpitsky, the Ukrainian director of the award-winning drama The Tribe, is to shoot his follow-up feature inside the Chernobyl exclusion zone, around the site of the world’s worst nuclear power plant disaster.Related: The Tribe review – one of the most disturbing films of the year Continue reading...

Officials told to stop issuing import permits for lion heads, paws and skins, while country considers stricter controls on other speciesFrance has banned the import of lion heads, paws and skins as hunters’ trophies, nearly four months after the killing of Zimbabwe’s most famous lion by an American trophy hunter sparked international outrage.In a letter to the actor and animals rights activist Brigitte Bardot, France’s environment minister, Ségolène Royal, said that she had instructed officials to stop issuing permits for lion trophies and was considering stricter controls on trophies from other species. Continue reading...

Oil-rich countries are choosing renewables as a means to create jobs, boost GDP and improve livelihoods - as well as reduce emissionsAccelerating signs of climate change and rising global temperatures are perhaps more pressing here in the Middle East, where the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) is headquartered, than anywhere else on the planet.Record-breaking temperatures made global headlines this year and a recent scientific study predicts the region will face heatwaves “beyond the limit of human survival” if climate change remains unchecked. Continue reading...

White House regards moves to oppose the US deal and block $3bn in climate aid for developing countries as empty threatsRepublicans moved for the second time in 24 hours on Wednesday to try to weaken Barack Obama’s position at the Paris climate negotiations, opposing a deal at the summit and threatening to block $3bn in aid pledged to developing countries.

Iron ore residue from the collapse of a mining dam, part-owned by BHP Billiton, has been passing down the Rio Doce in south-east Brazil. Pollutants have killed aquatic life and left residents of the towns of Resplendor and Baixo Guandu without clean water Continue reading...

There’s been joyful exuberance and solemn statesmanship, and squeezed in among meetings with world leaders, some carefully calibrated policy resetsWe’ve ridden a clear cycle with the prime minister since leaving Australia a week ago.Related: Malcolm Turnbull's reality check finds him adrift in Europe's sea of uncertainty | Katharine Murphy Continue reading...

National park authorities want to kill one in five animals to bring population down to target sizeYellowstone National Park is proposing to reduce its celebrated bison herd by 1,000 animals this winter by rounding up those wandering into adjacent Montana and delivering them to Native American tribes for slaughter, officials said on Wednesday.

Anote Tong says freeze on new coalmines before global climate summit in December ‘easiest, most reasonable’ way to help reduce emissionsThe president of the Pacific Island nation of Kiribati, Anote Tong, has urged the Australian government to support a moratorium on new coalmines before the global climate summit in Paris in December.Tong, who was in Melbourne for a public meeting hosted by the Australia Institute on Thursday, said it was the “easiest, most reasonable” measure world leaders could commit to to reduce emissions. Continue reading...

French government says demonstrations in closed spaces can go ahead but not those in public placesMajor marches which had been planned to coincide with the COP21 international climate talks in Paris will not be authorised for security reasons, the French government has said.Environmental activists – who had expected attract hundreds of thousands people on 29 November and 12 December – said that they accepted Wednesday’s decision with regret, but were now considering “new and imaginative” ways of making their voices heard. Continue reading...

‘High probability’ of a 30% decline in polar bear numbers by 2050 due to retreating sea ice, IUCN study findsGlobal warming is now the single most important threat to the survival of the polar bear with retreating sea ice set to decimate populations, according to a new study by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).It found a “high probability” that the planet’s 26,000 polar bears will suffer a 30% decline in population by 2050 due to the loss of their habitat, which is disappearing at a faster rate than predicted by climate models. Continue reading...

A more sustainable supply chain is needed, but will only emerge when the breakdown in trust between suppliers and buyers is resolvedMajestic Wine this week announced the removal of its chief buyer after its pre-tax profits dropped by almost half. Supply chain relations at the ailing retailer have been tense ever since it asked suppliers to stump up cash towards its new warehouse.Regrettably, such practices are all too common. Global brewer Carlsberg is also facing animosity from suppliers after following the likes of Diageo, Halfords and Mars and extending its payment terms to 93 days. Continue reading...

House committee unanimously approves proposed legislation to phase out such personal care products, whose exfoliants can end up in rivers and lakesUS lawmakers are to decide whether to ban personal care products containing microbeads – minuscule pieces of plastic considered harmful to the environment – after proposed legislation was approved by a bipartisan committee.Microbeads, typically under 5mm in size, are used as abrasive exfoliants in products such as toothpastes and facial cleaners. They often evade water filtration systems and flow into rivers, lakes and streams, where they can be mistaken for food by fish. Pollutants can bind to the plastic, causing toxic material to infect fish and, potentially, the humans that consume them. Continue reading...

Gas-fired power given a big boost at the expense of coal … and renewables Continue reading...