US-Senegalese rapper Akon has launched an ambitious energy project in Africa. But will it be as successful as his music?As night falls across Africa bustling cities light up and neighbourhoods begin to buzz, fed by traffic from well-lit roads. In the countryside, meanwhile, villages are plunged into darkness, shutting down the night-time economies of rural communities as restaurants and shops close and children light candles to do their homework.Related: Eight ways to reach 100% renewable in developing countries Continue reading...

Shoppers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have survived the introduction of the charge. Here’s how to navigate the rules in England

Victoria and South Australia both set records for the hottest ever starts to October while in Sydney the temperature reached 37 degreesWeather records were broken across Australia as the temperature reached 38 degrees in some parts of the country.Related: Queensland bushfires: emergency crews contend with hot, dry weather Continue reading...

If a river was polluted by any other industry than farming, there’d be outrage. But we don’t want to know about the impact of our livestockEat less meat and fish, drink less milk. No request could be simpler, or more consequential. Nothing we do has greater potential for reducing our impacts on the living planet. Yet no request is more likely to elicit a baffled, hurt or furious response.This point comes across with astonishing force in the film Cowspiracy. I would question some of the figures it uses, but its thesis – we just don’t want to talk about it – is undeniable. Leaders of the big US green groups either avoided the film makers like the plague or smiled and shook their heads when asked about livestock. State officials were struck dumb by the question. Continue reading...

Weeks of acrid haze have caused flight delays, school closures in Malaysia and respiratory problems for thousandsThe illegal burning of forests and agricultural land across Indonesia has blanketed much of south-east Asia in an acrid haze, leading to one of the most severe regional shutdowns in years.Related: Indonesia moves to stop forest fire pollution as haze grips Singapore Continue reading...

A London borough plans to turn four traffic-filled roads into Dutch-style streets which are safer for bikes and pedestrians. Many shops and residents are up in arms, despite growing evidence the project will benefit the local economy. Why?As cars stream past on both sides, a pedestrian perches on a tiny traffic island waiting for an opportunity to cross. A cyclist dodges round a 10-tonne lorry, held up by a driver trying to reverse into a tight parking space outside a high-street shop. Angry horns blare.It’s intimidating to be on foot or a bike in a space dominated by motor vehicles. In that sense, this suburban street in north London is like many of the radial roads that flow in and out of cities the world over – not a particularly pleasant place to be. Continue reading...

The Gold Coast’s latest bachelor, Henry, will fly out on Tuesday to join Canada’s Cochrane Polar Bear Habitat initiativeSea World polar bear cub Henry is to fly to Canada to join a conservation and breeding program.Henry will board a Royal Australian Air Force C-130J Hercules on Tuesday to fly from the Gold Coast to Sydney. Continue reading...

As England introduces a 5p charge for plastic bags, campaigners say the exemption for small shops should be endedA 5p tax on plastic bags must be extended to all shops to prevent further damage to the environment, campaigners have warned.Without the participation of smaller shops, and not just those employing more than 250 staff, the impact of the tax will be limited, they said. Continue reading...

By getting local communities to own and manage forests, the country has not only preserved its trees but seen the creation of a sustainable source of incomeThis is a big year for forests. They’ll be central to the UN climate change conference in Paris at the year end – the biggest since Copenhagen – where it’s hoped the ever-elusive binding deal on carbon emissions will be struck. Forest protection is also key to the sustainable development goals UN member states agreed last month. And this year, some countries have signed pacts to preserve their trees, among them Liberia’s with Norway.While few people would dispute the value of forests, strategies to keep them intact have all too often been ineffective. My home country, Tanzania, is an exception – and one of Africa’s rare success stories. Tanzania’s government has pioneered a simple, yet often overlooked, approach to preserving forests – its forest communities take care of them. As other African countries explore new ways to manage their trees, the lessons from this merit reflection.

With crucial climate talks on the horizon, Keep it in the ground turns its focus to hope for the future – the power to change and the solar revolution. Join us and help make that change happen

Heptonstall, West Yorkshire You have to walk over a packed paving of graves to enter the Old Church, which makes me feel squeamish, but the villagers take a pragmatic view of such thingsThe graveyard around the two churches of Heptonstall is reputed to contain 100,000 bodies, which is about the population of Halifax; a silent city of the dead, squeezed into an area about the size of a playing field.Weather-wise, it is a day of nothings; windless, tepid and grey as gritstone. Ted Hughes described the surrounding moors as “a stage for the performance of heaven”, but today it feels like that performance would be uninspiring, so I opt to linger in the village and explore. Continue reading...

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 8 October 1915Dandelion and hawkweed “clocks,” downy grey knobs, have replaced the yellow, many-rayed flowers that spotted with colour badly weeded fields and laneside wastes; they stand ripe for the wind to waft them far and wide. By the river the long pods of the great willow-herbs have coiled back like springs, and the feathery awns, a grey untidy litter, replace the handsome purple blossoms. Over the thorn hedge, which barely shows signs of autumn change, the cleavers crawled, but now, covered with numerous prickly seedpods, it clings in death, brown and withered; below it the docks in fruit, brown as coffee, and the stiff-stemmed hard-heads stand stark amidst the changing grass.It is not only garden plants that feel the early frosts. Few birds are singing. In the morning an occasional song thrush tries a catch or two, and in the woods to-day the ringdoves were almost as persistent as in spring, but the only birds which can really be claimed to be in good voice are the robin and starling. The former is everywhere – in the woods and lanes as well as near the houses – and the starling, though at the present time eminently sociable, feeding and roosting with his kind, often leaves them for a spell to sing in the orchard trees, which he never seems to forget. The pear tree was his perch when he whistled amorous vernal serenades; he perched there but was too busy to sing when the fruit ripened, and still he comes to whistle and chatter, though the crop - all that he and his companions left – is gathered. Continue reading...

At the heart of the VW revelations are tests for exhaust emissions of nitrogen oxides. These are a family of pollutants that become dominated by nitrogen dioxide as they mix in the air, causing most UK cities and towns to exceed World Health Organisation guidelines.Defra estimates that the UK death rate is 4% higher due to nitrogen dioxide pollution – around 23,500 extra deaths per year. This has a massive cost to society – around £13bn per year or 0.7% of our gross domestic product. Continue reading...

Matthias Müller expected to make the trip before he is summoned by the US authorities in response to the emissions scandalVolkswagen’s new boss Matthias Müller is expected to make a dash to the United States to apologise for the emissions testing scandal, which has rocked the global car industry.VW’s board wants Müller, who replaced Martin Winterkorn as chief executive just over a week ago, to make the trip to show humility even before he is summoned by US authorities, German magazine Der Spiegel reported. Continue reading...

Student group urges chancellor to shut archive as part of protest against fossil fuels and BP’s ‘insidious’ link to universityStudents at one of Britain’s top universities have written to their chancellor calling on him to shut down a BP archive based at the campus library in what amounts to an escalation of campaigns against fossil fuel companies.Warwick University students this summer successfully persuaded the academic board to halt investments in coal, gas and oil companies, and believe the BP archive should have no place either.

Violent storms and flooding send water cascading through Antibes, Cannes and Nice, inundating a retirement home and killing three people insideNineteen people are feared dead after violent storms and severe flooding swept the French Riviera, including three people who drowned in a retirement home after a river broke its banks.

Flint declared a public health emergency this week after a dangerous spike in its water’s lead levels. But parents say they’ve been ‘screaming’ about the issue for months in an area where water prices are among the country’s highestWhen Lee-Anne Walters learned in March that her son’s immune system was compromised after being exposed to lead in the city of Flint’s water supply, she did what any parent would likely do: break down and cry.“Shocked, angry … I was hysterical,” Walters told the Guardian. Barely able to speak, the 37-year-old called her friend Melissa Mays. Continue reading...

The ecologist and author has spent 30 years researching the overhunting of lions in Africa and is deeply pessimistic about their future. Here he talks about dishonest hunting operators, the urgent need for global money, why he takes issue with animal groups – and what we’ve learned from CecilCraig Packer likes sticking his shaggy academic head into dangerous places. He’s had death threats, confronted megalomaniac politicians, been run out of countries and mugged. But the man who has spent 30 years trying to study and save lions came close to real fear last month.As the world’s media worked themselves into a tizz over the American dentist who paid $50,000 to shoot Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe, Packer happened to have severe toothache, which forced him to seek treatment in Minneapolis, where he directs the Lion Research Centre at the university. Continue reading...

It was only old-fashioned detective work that forced Volkswagen to admit to the existence of its ‘defeat device’. And that should worry us allFor anyone interested in what is laughingly known as “corporate responsibility”, the Volkswagen emissions-fraud scandal is a gift that keeps on giving. Apart from the company’s Nazi past, its high status in German life, its hitherto exalted reputation for technical excellence and quality control, and its peculiarly dysfunctional governance, there is also the shock to consumers of discovering that while its vehicles are made from steel and composite materials, they are actually controlled by software. We are already close to the point where that software may be more valuable than all the physical materials that make up the vehicle, and, if Apple and Google have their way, that imbalance is set to grow.Volkswagen’s chicanery was discovered by good, old-fashioned analogue detective work. An independent outfit called the International Council on Clean Transportation got hold of some Volkswagens powered by the company’s EA 189 “clean” diesel engine, stuffed some chemical analysis kit in the boot, hooked a pipe up to the vehicles’ exhausts and drove the cars from San Diego to Seattle, collecting and analysing samples as they went. The discrepancy between the actual performance and the emissions recorded in official laboratory tests was what triggered the scandal. Continue reading...

Conservation charity World Animal Protection calls on leading travel companies to stop selling elephant rides and showsLeading conservation charity World Animal Protection has renewed its plea for the tourism industry to put an end to abusive elephant rides and shows, calling on leading travel brands to join the growing list of companies who are opposed to the practice.Making the call on World Animal Day, the charity says 63 travel companies have now signed up to its elephant-friendly tourism pledge, signifying a major shift in attitude in the industry. Continue reading...

Vehicle Certification Agency accused of a conflict of interest after VW scandalThe body examining the practices of the car industry following the Volkswagen emissions scandal has been accused of a major conflict of interest after it emerged that nearly three quarters of its funding comes from the companies it is investigating.According to its latest annual report, the Vehicle Certification Agency receives 69.91% of its income from car manufacturers, who pay it to certify that their vehicles are meeting emissions and safety standards. Continue reading...

Over the past 40 years, we have killed off 50% of marine life through overfishing, habitat destruction and climate change. But the international spotlight and a change in policy mean things are looking upI do love to be beside the seaside, but I am finding it increasingly hard to look the ocean in the eye. Over the past four decades we have killed off 50% of marine life through overfishing, habitat destruction and climate change. We shovel 250,000 tonnes of plastic into the ocean every year, and all Pacific tropical reefs could be lost by 2050. The blue planet gets short shrift; while we’ve protected 15.4% of terrestrial ecosystems, just 3.4% of the world’s oceans are marine protected areas.Land lubbers need to make a splash as ocean conservationists to push these numbers up. We should take a cue from earlier campaigns. In the 60s, a stretch of Australian coastal shelf was slated to become a limestone quarry. If it hadn’t been for a few campaigning environmentalists, it would have been lost forever. Today the site is known as the Great Barrier Reef. Continue reading...

Mark Carney’s intervention on the subject is welcome. Now the government must actMark Carney calls it the Tragedy of the Horizon: the chronic inability of Britain’s leaders, whether in business or politics, to tackle challenges that extend more than a few years ahead. There are plenty of examples, from the shameful failure to build enough homes to the indecision about whether, and where, to add to airport capacity. But climate change is the ultimate example: it presents an existential threat to the status quo, yet it barely features in the day-to-day calculations of many business and policymakers. It’s too big, too scary and, most of all, too distant, to start planning for.The governor of the Bank of England was castigated by some last week for offering doom-laden prognostications about global warming’s potential impact, straying into territory more commonly occupied by the Green party than financial technocrats. Some in the City believe the spirit of buccaneering free enterprise and the inexorable advance of innovation will eventually meet the challenges of climate change head on, as evidence mounts of its potential costs. Yet as Carney pointed out, threats often take financial markets by surprise, even when they should have been foreseeable. Volkswagen’s flagrant fiddling of vehicle emissions tests surely scotches the idea that big business will get to grips with the problem of its own accord. Continue reading...

Ministers need to take responsibility for the effects of pollution on public healthThe scandal over rigged tests by car manufacturers is entirely consistent with their past record (“Corporate cheating kills. It must be stopped”, leading article). In the 1980s, the battle to remove lead from petrol and to fit catalytic converters was vigorously opposed by the motor industry, which raised all sorts of technical problems that turned out to be groundless. Even so, both measures were passed by a Tory government under Margaret Thatcher. Nowadays, the Department for Transport emerges as a complicit partner in the rigging of tests, while Defra and the Department of Health seem to have abandoned completely their role as guardians of public health. Margaret Thatcher had a science degree from Oxford University. I’m not sure that this cabinet has a scientific qualification between them.

Vehicle ban, applied to just 30% of French capital, showed encouraging results – but new report says nation has far to goParis’s “day without cars” last week led to such a dramatic drop in both air and noise pollution that the mayor’s office is now planning more vehicle-free days in the French capital.Airparif, which measures city pollution levels, said levels of nitrogen dioxide dropped by up to 40% in parts of the city on Sunday 27 September. Continue reading...

Watery flows on the surface of Mars, Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin in New York, the Rugby World Cup, Rihanna at Paris fashion week – the best photography in news, culture and sport from around the world this week Continue reading...

Cenarth, Carmarthenshire My glimpses of these spectacular, shy, tree-hole-nesting ducks have grown more frequent in recent years. May that hopeful trend continueThe woods along Afon Teifi were dappled with autumn’s palette. It was fascinating to match tint to tree, to look forward to fire-tones suggested before realised. Squirrels dipped and scurried for nuts among paling hazel foliage. Before the first frosts, a solitary leaf drifted downwards, presage of pattering quiet tumult through coming weeks.From a riverside path, suddenly I glimpsed a flash of brilliant white, focused the glass in time to see a drake goosander arrowing upriver, low above the surface, its chuckling call carrying through still air, its large wing-patches startlingly white against cloud-reflecting water: “So arrogantly pure a child might think/ It could be murdered with a spot of ink” (as Yeats wrote of a swan). Continue reading...

Scientists warn that similar event to collapse of volcano on Cape Verdean island of Fogo 73,000 years ago poses major threat to nearby islandsThe sudden collapse of a volcano caused a tsunami that created waves up to 240 metres (800ft) high 73,000 years ago, scientists have discovered.The mega-tsunami took place near the Cape Verde islands off west Africa when the slopes of the volcano gave way – a process known as a “flank collapse” – and some experts fear a similar collapse could present a real threat today, especially around volcanic islands. Continue reading...

Survey of 440 sustainability workers around the world finds companies are taking steps to reduce their carbon footprintsMore companies are making climate change one of their top sustainability priorities, according to a survey released this week by nonprofit Business for Social Responsibility, which counts big brands like consumer goods giant Unilever and food and beverage maker Coca-Cola among its members.The annual survey, which polled 440 sustainability workers from nearly 200 companies around the world, aims to provide a snapshot of what environmental and social issues are important to businesses over the coming year. Continue reading...

Head of Acea manufacturers’ group calls plan to cap nitrogen oxide emissions for new cars by September 2018 unrealistic in letter seen by the GuardianEuropean carmakers have lobbied behind the scenes in Brussels for a one-year delay to the introduction of planned EU limits on nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions, despite public uproar at the VW rigging scandal.NOx pollution, particularly from nitrogen dioxide, is responsible for 23,500 premature deaths in the UK every year and the EU wants to introduce an 80mg per km emissions limit for all new cars and vans from 1 September 2018. Continue reading...

Police, fire crews and a specialist animal management team rescue the bird but are clueless as to how it ended up in North BoarhuntA rhea has been rescued by police, fire crews and a specialist animal management team after a householder in Hampshire found the large bird in his garden.Police were called at 12.30pm on Thursday when the man found the rhea in the front garden of his home in North Boarhunt. Continue reading...

The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox Continue reading...

Newspaper did not breach press code in report about Prof Peter Wadhams’s claims that British Arctic scientists had been assassinated, regulator saysThe Times did not misrepresent one of the world’s leading Arctic experts in a report on his claim that three British scientists investigating ice thickness may have been assassinated two years ago, the UK’s press regulator has ruled.Peter Wadhams, professor of ocean physics at the university of Cambridge, complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) that he had been inaccurately quoted in an article by the paper’s environment editor, Ben Webster. He said the piece had damaged his scientific reputation. Continue reading...

When more water is being found on Mars than in California, you know the drought is bad. Comedian Jason Saenz created and posted his own signs about the drought around Los Angeles Continue reading...

India’s announcement means all the world’s biggest economies are now publicly in favour of a deal, but there are still challenges aheadWith India’s plan for curbing carbon emissions now in, most of the major developing economies have responded to the UN’s requests for the commitments on climate change that will form the keystone of an agreement to be signed in Paris this December.Those commitments – to make absolute cuts in future emissions levels, in the case of developed countries; to curb future emissions growth, in the case of less industrialised nations – will not add up to the cuts that scientists say are needed to avoid more than 2C of warming above pre-industrial levels. This is significant, because the 2C threshold is regarded as the limit of safety, beyond which the changes in the climate are likely to become catastrophic and irreversible. Continue reading...

Funding geothermal and solar energy projects can help to provide clean, reliable, renewable power to people, boosting green growth and reducing povertySteam billows from an energy plant in a stretch of Kenya’s Great Rift Valley, about 180km north of the capital, Nairobi. But the white clouds rising from the tidy grid of pipes aren’t a sign of polluting greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change. They are a signal that the country of more than 44 million, where some 65% of the population does not have access to electricity, is one giant step closer to delivering clean, reliable, renewable power to its people.The first phase of the $746m Menengai geothermal development project is well under way, with already proven steam resources capable of generating 130 megawatts of electricity and working toward commissioning the first power plants in 2016. Continue reading...

Masai Mara’s annual migration, deer rutting season, manatees and curious macaques are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...

With autumn arriving in the northern hemisphere, we’d like you to share your seasonal signs and colours of fall wherever you are

Abermaw/Barmouth, Gwynedd As I turned north again, I looked over the parapet into the blue, opalescent water that the ebb tide was swirling seawardsI have used the bridge across the mouth of the Afon Mawddach many times, but probably haven’t given it the attention it deserves. Usually, arriving here marks the end of the long walk down the estuary from Dolgellau and I have been pushing for a feast of vinegar-soaked chips while waiting for my train home, or to seek a pint and a warm fire, depending on the weather. This time, I made the bridge itself my destination.This venerable structure was built mostly from heavy baulks of timber, but has an arched iron span at the northern end, which once swung open to allow the passage of shipping. It carries both the single track of the Cambrian Coast railway line and a wooden deck that provides a short cut for walkers or cyclists who wish to avoid the much longer journey via Penmaenpool. Continue reading...

Initiative inspired by reflective reindeer antlers in Scandinavia is aimed at making animals more visible to drivers at nightThere has long been talk of mysterious beasts haunting the great moors of south-west England. But night-time travellers on Dartmoor should now look out for a very odd creature indeed – a glow-in-the dark pony.The horses will be daubed with reflective paint to make them more visible to drivers after a rise in livestock being killed on the roads. About 60 animals have died on the Devon moor’s roads this year, an increase on previous years. Continue reading...

The new charges come into force in England on Monday, but what will it mean for shoppers?From Monday 5 October shoppers in England will face a charge of at least 5p for some of the carrier bags they use to take home their purchases. The move follows the introduction of similar charges in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.Which bags will I be charged for?

Government negotiations over financing means project may not produce power until 2021, a year later than originally plannedThe proposed scheme to build the world’s first tidal lagoon at Swansea Bay in south Wales has been put back at least a year following delays over the government agreeing the size of any subsidy.The £1bn project is also subject to an ongoing investigation into whether a major contract to a Chinese state company to build a breakwater was properly awarded. Continue reading...

More than 130,000 robots are predicted to be sold by 2017 as hotels and retail outlets start trialling automated staff. Mark Harris meets two of them

World’s third biggest greenhouse gas emitter says it will source 40% of its electricity from non-fossil fuel sources, ahead of Paris climate summitIndia, the world’s third biggest greenhouse gas emitter, has pledged to source 40% of its electricity from renewable and other low-carbon sources by 2030.It is the last major economy, following 140 other countries including China, the US and the EU, to submit a climate change plan to the UN before international talks to reach a deal on tackling global warming in Paris this December. Continue reading...

The community energy sector needs to look to more innovative models to survive the loss of government support and cuts to subsidiesOn paper, the Sretton Sugwas solar project just outside Hereford looks a dead cert. Pitched as the UK’s first community-owned photovoltaic installation on a former landfill site, the project promises to provide clean electricity for 250 homes as well as local jobs and financial returns for residents.But getting small-scale community energy projects off the ground has never been easy. Following a raft of policy revisions over recent months, it just got a lot harder. Continue reading...

Are shark numbers off the northern coast of New South Wales really increasing, as frequently reported? Even if they are, is killing them any sort of an answer? Humans have dastardly short memories, writes shark author James WoodfordThere is a simple populist action that would quickly see a reduction in the numbers of sharks, including great whites, off the north coast of New South Wales.