Charity says countries already facing a ‘major emergency’ include Ethiopia, where 4.5 million people need food aid because of scarcity of rain this yearAt least 10 million of the world’s poorest people are set to go hungry this year because of failing crops caused by one of the strongest El Niño climatic events on record, Oxfam has warned.Related: El Niño: a global weather event that may save California — and destroy the tropics | Kyle Meng & Solomon Hsiang Continue reading...

Energy grids, power stations and distribution networks are vulnerable to storms, flooding and heatwaves caused by climate change, say World Energy CouncilThe world’s energy infrastructure is at risk from the extreme weather expected to result from climate change, a group of prominent energy companies has warned.

WWF finds 31% world heritage sites at risk from fossil fuel exploration and mining, including Great Barrier Reef and Africa’s oldest national parkNearly one in three natural world heritage sites are at risk of exploration for fossil fuels and mining, a report from the conservation charity WWF has found.

Active lifestyle brands are organizing to protect the environment they rely on. This month, a small Philadelphia-based apparel company picked up 250,000lb of waste

Even talking about nuclear weapons brings us uncomfortably close to a nightmare too awful to contemplateFrom the age of five until 10 I lay awake every night frozen in terror by the thought of the four-minute warning going off when I was at school, which I knew to be at least a five minute run away even on a day when your legs weren’t paralysed by fear. When I at last revealed all to my mother, she brought sweet relief and the return of Morpheus by responding: “Don’t be so daft! There’ll be all sorts of palaver before a war starts, and I’ll keep you home. And we’re in London! It’s the first place they’ll hit, and we’ll all die together! Now go to sleep.”My understanding of global nuclear arrangements essentially arrested at this point. Teenage readings of Brother in the Land and Z for Zachariah, set in atomically- and apocalyptically bombed wastelands confirmed it was better not to know. Continue reading...

Armed with Pope Francis’s blessing, Filipino Yeb Sano begins 1,500km walk from Rome to Paris where he will arrive before crunch climate change summitA former international climate negotiator-turned-environmentalist is walking from Rome to Paris, hoping for a “miracle” that will push world leaders to strike a new deal on global warming.Wearing a pilgrimage T-shirt and a wooden cross hanging from his neck, Yeb Sano could be just another Catholic visitor to St Peter’s Square. But his canvas shoes point to another, more pressing purpose than a quick jaunt to the Vatican museums.

On Monday, English shoppers join the rest of the UK in having to pay for carrier bags. That’s great in theory, but a mess of confusing exemptions makes it hard to predict the impactHow many plastic bags have you got at home? I ask because I have just counted mine. They are sprawled across the kitchen table, my own personal, slippery, shiny bag mountain built from my own personal landfill site, otherwise known as the cupboard under the stairs. And they just keep coming. It is almost magic, the way you can go on pulling plastic bag out of plastic bag out of plastic bag, like rabbits from a hat. There are 82 in total. I didn’t know I liked department stores quite so much. Or, judging by the dozen blue bags from the corner shop, that I ate so many frozen desserts: they’re just too cold to carry in bare hands.Slowly but surely, this bag mountain is going to shrink and slide. On Monday, anyone in England who shops at a retailer that employs 250 or more full-time members of staff nationwide will have to pay 5p for a single-use carrier bag. The charge will apply in all kinds of outlets, from fashion chains to DIY stores as well as supermarkets. There are a few exemptions, such as aquatic creatures - though it would be interesting to watch people get goldfish home without a bag. But mostly, this is the start of a new life. One in which you must remember your own reusable bags every time you go shopping, or pay. Continue reading...

Diesel, with its lower CO emissions, was a policy priority but NOx failed to fall despite the ‘stringent’ regulationsFrom backroom deals between European leaders to the burying of the bad news of 23,000 premature UK deaths on the day Jeremy Corbyn was elected Labour leader, the scandal that has engulfed the diesel car is a startling tale.It is a story of good intentions being relentlessly undermined and has a nasty twist in the tail: even the real rationale for Europe’s drive for diesel – to curb global warming – has run into the wall. Continue reading...

Whatever you think about the capital’s cycle provision, jibes about ‘City boys’ or the middle class are a silly diversion from the real problemsI’d like to propose an amendment to Godwin’s law, the notion that decrees whoever compares an opponent to the Nazis in an online discussion has lost the argument.My variant would be this: if you’re debating cycle infrastructure and you use “middle class” in a pejorative sense, the internet automatically deletes your last day’s typed output. Continue reading...

Campaigners want end to laws that make donating food more costly than destroying it in country with huge harvests but high infant malnutritionFrom asparagus filling supermarket shelves in the UK to avocados entering the potentially huge Chinese market, Peru’s agribusiness shipments are booming at a time of declining demand for its metals exports, which powered a decade of record-high growth.Related: Just growing more food won't help to feed the world | Richard Ewbank Continue reading...

Rachel Notley supports a switch to clean energy to help Canada’s biggest oil-producing province move beyond fossil fuels within a centuryThe leader of Canada’s biggest oil-producing province has declared she sees no long-term future in fossil fuels, predicting Alberta would wean itself off dirty energy within a century.

Our attempt to launch a new environmental political movement in the UK was certainly ill-timed but is hopefully not doomedWell that was interesting. Last week I and a few other people attempted to launch a new environmental political movement here in the UK. If you count alienating most of your potential supporters on the very first day as a sign of success, I think things went rather well. If not ... well, I’ll get to that in a minute.The movement is “ecomodernism”, an attempt to transcend some of the political polarisation in current environment debates with a recognition that human ingenuity and technological innovation offer immense promise in tackling ecological challenges, even as poverty in developing countries is reduced and - hopefully - eradicated altogether. Continue reading...

German carmaker admits 1,189,906 British vehicles, including Audis, Seats and Škodas, were fitted with defeat devicesVolkswagen has revealed that almost 1.2m vehicles in the UK are involved in the diesel emissions scandal that has rocked the carmaker, meaning more than one in 10 of diesel cars on the country’s roads are affected.VW said the diesel vehicles include 508,276 Volkswagen cars, 393,450 Audis, 76,773 Seats, 131,569 Škodas and 79,838 Volkswagen commercial vehicles. The total number of vehicles affected is 1,189,906. Continue reading...

Italian oil giant’s $5.5bn project in Norwegian Arctic set to launch by the end of the yearItalian oil giant Eni has vowed to press ahead with oil production in the Arctic by the end of the year, undeterred by Shell’s decision to abandon its quest for Arctic oil.

Bag charge to be introduced in England on Monday, with Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland reporting dramatic falls in consumptionNearly two-thirds of people support the 5p charge for plastic bags that starts next Monday in England, according to a poll.The charge for single-use bags sees England catching up with the rest of the UK, with Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland all having reported dramatic falls in consumption after similar schemes were introduced. Continue reading...

Little Angel theatre, London

Electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors reveals its full-electric family SUV on Tuesday. Tesla’s Model X — one of the only all-electric SUVs on the market — was officially unveiled near the company’s California factory. CEO Elon Musk says the Model X sets a new level for automotive engineering, with features like rear falcon-wing doors, which open upward, and a driver’s door that opens on approach and closes itself when the driver is inside Continue reading...

The London mayor’s ambitious cycling plans have many laudable aims but their delivery must be kept under proper scrutiny

Mayor says investments must ‘catch up’ with the rest of the city in its effort to battle climate change and shift toward renewable energyNew York’s Mayor Bill de Blasio called on the city’s five pension funds on Tuesday to end their investments in coal companies, demonstrating his commitment to taking on climate change.

Republican candidate blames onerous regulations for holding back US from alternate drilling industries amid plummeting poll numbersThe embattled Jeb Bush campaign turned to an industry his family knows best on Tuesday with a stop at a shale gas producer in Pennsylvania and the launch of an energy policy focused heavily on deregulation.

The idea of capturing carbon emissions and turning it into something valuable has long intrigued scientists, businesses, politicians and environmentalists alike. But it’s never proven economically viable. Could the XPrize change that?Given the threat of climate change, what should the world do with its reserves of fossil fuels? Some say keep it in the ground. Others say fossil fuels are needed to in order to provide electricity to the poorest areas of the world.With the announcement Tuesday of its new $20m Carbon XPrize, the non-profit XPrize Foundation is taking a middle ground – launching a competition to find new uses for carbon dioxide (CO2) , the greenhouse gas emitted by coal and natural gas plants. It’s intended to allow the continued burning of fossil fuels while reducing or eliminating their climate impact. Continue reading...

The company’s exit has ‘lifted a burden’ on villagers who depend on marine mammal meat, says one Alaska Native, but a state representative bemoans the decision after residents ‘stood on the cusp of another boom’Like many villagers of Barrow, Alaska, Rosemary Ahtuangaruak woke up on Monday morning and prepared to set out for another day of whaling. Then she checked her phone. She had dozens of unread text messages.

Bill and Melinda Gates could send a message to politicians and the public that it’s possible to imagine a future free of fossil fuels and signal to others to followSeattle has found itself at a crossroads of the fight against fossil fuel extraction. Heading right through our waterfront are coal trains from Wyoming, oil trains from North Dakota, and Shell’s Arctic drilling fleet. It is quite the juxtaposition. Progressive Seattle, with its climate hugging politicians, tied to the fossil fuel extraction it claims to oppose.It’s the same challenge faced worldwide. At the same time as we make extraordinary advances in conservation and alternative energy sources, we lack the political will to stop fossil fuel extraction at the source. Bring on the solar panels, wind turbines, electric transit, bike lanes and LED lights, but if we keep pumping, digging and burning fossil fuel reserves we will still lose the fight. Scientists tell us that approximately 80% of our known reserves must stay in the ground to prevent the worst effects of climate change. Continue reading...

While we marvel at Nasa’s discoveries, we destroy our irreplaceable natural resources – so we can buy pre-peeled bananas and smartphones for dogsEvidence for flowing water on Mars: this opens up the possibility of life, of wonders we cannot begin to imagine. Its discovery is an astonishing achievement. Meanwhile, Martian scientists continue their search for intelligent life on Earth.Related: Nasa scientists find evidence of flowing water on Mars Continue reading...

2 Sisters Food Group unveils wide-ranging sustainability plan with targets to cut carbon emissions by 20% by 2018, reports BusinessGreenThe parent company of some of the UK’s biggest food brands including Fox’s Biscuits and Goodfella’s pizzas is this week set to flick the switch on a new electricity generator that will be powered by waste mashed potato.The new bio-refinery at 2 Sisters Food Group’s Carlisle factory is expected to produce 3,500 megawatt hours (MWh) each year in electricity and the equivalent of 5,000MWh in steam to help power the factory. The anaerobic digestion plants will use potato waste from the factory’s mashed potato and pie manufacturing lines as a feed stock. Continue reading...

A new palm oil plantation in Borneo, Malaysia, is being used by researchers to study ways of retaining endangered wildlife, including the orangutanHave you ever thought about what it’s like for the animals and birds living in a forest when it’s cleared to make way for a palm oil plantation? It’s similar to finding your home being demolished brick by brick.First the loggers come in and take away trees of commercial value. Species such as the orangutan, which rely on tree cover, will retreat to the forest boundaries, perhaps venturing out into the logged forest while there are still remnants of habitat left. Continue reading...

Epic journey of nearly 2 million wildebeest, gazelle and zebras to Kenya’s Maasai Mara reserve is being tracked onlineEvery year a million wildebeest, half a million gazelle and 200,000 zebra make the perilous trek from the Serengeti park in Tanzania to the Maasai Mara reserve in Kenya in their search for water and grazing land. It is one of nature’s most spectacular sights – and one that few people are able to see first hand.But this year the dramatic display is being broadcast live on the web – complete with expert commentary. Continue reading...

Sustainable development goals formally adopted at UN, a project documenting women and children’s lives around the world, and a report card on nutritionIf you are viewing this on the web and would prefer to get it in your inbox every two weeks, register for the email editionAfter years of consultations and campaigning, the world has a new plan for tackling poverty, inequality and climate change. The sustainable development goals were formally adopted by 193 member states at the UN general assembly, green lighting them to replace the millennium development goals, which expire this year. You can follow the action as it happened, read how the new pledge affects women and children, and see how campaigners turned out to mark the new agreement. And if you think you know a few things about the new goals, test your knowledge with our SDGs quiz.Related: World leaders agree sustainable development goals – as it happened Continue reading...

New managers of Liwonde national park say elephants and crocodiles have killed three poachers inside, and four people outside, the unfenced parkElephants and crocodiles have killed seven people in separate incidents over a seven-week period in and around a wildlife park in Malawi, the park’s managers said.African Parks, a Johannesburg-based group, attributed the deaths in Liwonde national park primarily to the fact the reserve is unfenced and also because poachers are illegally entering the park. The park’s 80-mile (129km) perimeter will be fenced, which will take 18 months, according to the non-profit group. Continue reading...

After years of bad press, salmon farms are signing up to new certification standards in a bid to prove their environmental and social credentialsStanding on the edge of a circular cage anchored to the seabed a few hundred metres offshore, salmon farmer Jan Børre is feeling proud. His industry has been criticised over the past two decades with reports emerging of seal deaths, pollution and escaping fish.But his farm, close to the Norwegian island of Skjervøy, has become one of the first to achieve an ethical accreditation designed to limit such problems.With 14 cages and more than 2 million salmon, Børre’s farm is one of the most modern sites in Norway, with submerged cameras in each cage monitored by staff on a support boat checking that the feed – dispensed via long pipes – is being evenly distributed to the fish. Continue reading...

What do you after completing the world’s first unsupported trek across Mongolia? Well, if you’re Welsh adventurer, Ash Dykes, you walk the length of Madagascar to help publicize the plight of vanishing lemurs.

Claxton, Norfolk Her long aristocratic jaws and black oval eyes were immobilised beneath a pall of silkIn this slow-draining delta of colour that we name “autumn” I think the most beautiful thing I have seen this year is a holly hedge at Walcot Hall, Shropshire, entirely meshed with spider’s webs. Spiders claim September like no other month, and in that morning light they were scattered over with dew.But spare a thought for male spiders, since these days are also treacherous. In the nettle bed by the dyke I came across one hopeful male on the edge of an orb-web spun by a particularly grand garden cross spider. The latter had just trussed up her latest catch, a wasp, and was laying her forelegs over that still-living insect in readiness to dissolve it with her digestive juices. Continue reading...

The Kermadec ocean sanctuary, in the South Pacific and spanning 620,000 sq km, expands an existing reserve surrounding the Kermadec IslandsNew Zealand will create one of the largest marine protected areas in the world, spanning an area of 620,000 sq km.The Kermadec ocean sanctuary will be one of the world’s most significant fully protected ecosystems, the prime minister of New Zealand, John Key, told the UN general assembly in New York. Continue reading...

More than 80% of people in the Ballina region oppose lethal measures in response to attacks, University of Sydney study reportsMost people in northern New South Wales oppose a shark cull, a survey by the University of Sydney has found.The research, released on the eve of an international shark summit in Sydney, found more than 80% of people in the Ballina region opposed lethal methods in response to shark attacks. Continue reading...

The findings come as shark experts meet at a summit at Taronga zoo in Sydney to discuss emerging technologies that can deter the marine predatorsShark experts will gather in Sydney on Tuesday to discuss new safety measures, as new research warns the culling of sharks could indirectly accelerate climate change.

On 21 September 1741, the young clergyman-to-be rose before daybreak and went into the fields for a bit of sport.“I found the stubbles and clover-grounds matted all over with a thick coat of cobweb, in the meshes of which a copious and heavy dew hung so plentifully that the whole face of the country seemed, as it were, covered with two or three setting-nets drawn one over another,” Gilbert White remembered, many years later, in A Natural History of Selborne (1789). Continue reading...

As Obama opens the Arctic for oil drilling, is he also making it harder for America to wean itself from its dependence on fossil fuels?

Oil giant’s US president says hugely controversial drilling operations off Alaska will stop for ‘foreseeable future’ as drilling finds little oil and gasShell has abandoned its controversial drilling operations in the Alaskan Arctic in the face of mounting opposition in what jubilant environmentalists described as “an unmitigated defeat” for big oil.The Anglo-Dutch company had repeatedly stressed the enormous hydrocarbon potential of the far north region in public, but in private began to admit it had been surprised by the popular opposition it faced. Continue reading...

Fully-protected marine area will cover 620,000 km2 in the seas north-east of New Zealand in the Kermadec region, reports Stuff.co.nzA vast stretch of New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone is being turned into an ocean sanctuary in a landmark deal to preserve one of the most pristine and unique environments on Earth.Prime minister John Key announced the deal in New York, and said it would encompass 620,000 km2 in the seas north-east of New Zealand in the Kermadec region. Continue reading...

Tiny land snail that can fit 10 times in the eye of a needle found in Guangxi province

Analysis suggests France and Germany will be giving about twice as much in 2020 – and other aid budgets may lose out so the UK can pay its climate debtThe UK’s £5.8bn ($8.8bn) pledge to help poor nations cope with climate change falls short of the country’s fair share of the burden and the efforts of other European leaders, campaigners have said.The announcement increases the UK’s climate aid by 50% over the five years between 2016 and 2021. Significantly, it will also be scaled up, so that by 2020 the annual finance is £1.76bn ($2.68bn), or close to double the current annual funding. Continue reading...

Get up close and personal with one of nature’s most beautiful wildest creatures as artist Stephen Walton shares a fascinating timelapse video of himself drawing a lion in charcoalCounting Lions, with words by Katie Cotton, drawings by Stephen Walton and an introduction by Virginia McKenna from the Born Free foundation is available at the Guardian bookshop. Continue reading...