Despite Trump’s position, a new survey has found that most Republicans believe mankind plays some role in climate change. Food industry executives say it’s past time their congressmen listenedIf the US Congress is to take meaningful action to curb climate change, the support of corporate America and Republicans will be required. This is why a meeting of food industry executives and politicians – joined by a lone Republican congressman – on Capitol Hill on Thursday may be the first glimmer of a bipartisan approach to climate action.US senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, and US representative Chris Gibson, a New York Republican, chaired the briefing. Bucking party orthodoxy, Gibson recently drew attention by organizing 11 moderate Republicans to support a resolution acknowledging the reality of climate change and asking Congress to act. Continue reading...

The VW scandal was not a surprise but it must lead to effective action – even though the cost will be highNext year marks the 60th anniversary of the Clean Air Act, marking the end of the worst urban pollution that, at the peak of the 1952 London smog, killed nearly 1,000 people a day. It probably did more to improve the health of Britons than any other public health measure until the ban on smoking in public places. Last month, the department of the environment finally published a paper on how it planned to meet EU air pollution limits. It acknowledged, for the first time, that as many as 50,000 people a year in the UK were dying because of air pollution. Nearly half of those deaths were caused by diesel emissions. The VW emissions scandal has only confirmed something that was apparent to anyone who has bought a new car in the digital age. A quick scan of the websites reviewing performance data showed that gaming the targets by which consumers made their judgments was more or less assumed. There was complicity not only between regulators and the major manufacturers, but between the major manufacturers and the people who bought their cars, whose preferences were shaped at least as much by government incentives to buy diesel as they were by the smallprint of the producer-generated emission measurements.Encouraged by tax breaks to buy diesels to help cut carbon emissions, European sales soared from 15% of new cars in 1990 to more than half in 2008, the rate of purchase accelerating rapidly after the manufacturers developed a new, quieter engine to meet growing demand. The danger to public health from nitrogen oxides and sooty particulates was acknowledged. Regulation of stringent emissions targets was presumed to be the answer. Only now has it become clear, thanks to organisations like the ICCT, the International Council on Clean Transportation, that in the past 15 years actual emissions from many different diesel cars have been anywhere between twice and seven times above the legal limit. Continue reading...

Join an expert panel on Thursday 8 October, 1-3pm BST, to discuss how to encourage innovation to improve energy access and sustainability“I was told it could be a little better than an incandescent bulb, but that was about it,” said General Electric engineer Ed Hammer, who invented the spiral compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) in the mid-70s. In fact, his invention uses just 25% of the power of an old-fashioned, incandescent bulb and lasts around ten times longer.Today CFLs are standard in homes and offices around the world and many countries have phased out incandescent bulbs, including an out-right legal ban in Argentina. If the electricity that lights the bulb is created from coal, then the invention has saved 500 pounds (227kg) of coal per bulb.

We asked you to share your September pictures of the wildlife around the world. Here’s a selection of our favourites Continue reading...

Laura Laker takes to two wheels around the Scottish capital to see how the council’s money is being spent and whether it is making a differenceI’m chasing Kim Harding down a hill. We’re heading from the Royal Mile to Princes Street on the kind of descent one rarely encounters, living as I do in a very flat part of the country.“I love that hill,” he says as we regroup at the traffic lights.Like Athens and Rome, Edinburgh is built on seven hills, but perhaps more akin to a “lumpy” city like Bristol, those hills don’t deter people from cycling in relatively high numbers by UK standards - 6% of journeys to work and school are by bike, or 2% of all journeys. Continue reading...

Group demands answers on the future and rehabilitation of sacred sites at the McArthur river mine, which mines one of the world’s largest zinc depositsTraditional owners have trespassed on to a mine to visit their own sacred sites and draw attention to ongoing fears mining giant Glencore could avoid financial liability for pollution and cleanup costs.The McArthur river operation near Borroloola in the Gulf region of the Northern Territory mines one of the world’s largest zinc deposits. Government documents recently revealed elevated lead levels in fish and cattle near the site, as well as inconsistencies in the information given to the public about contamination. Continue reading...

Experts doubt environment minister’s assumption that ‘safeguards’ mechanism can deliver cuts required to meet Australia’s emissions reduction targetAustralia is calculating that its big industrial emitters will be forced to reduce greenhouse pollution by 200m tonnes between 2020 and 2030, an assumption experts say will require major changes to the Direct Action policy which is not designed to force cuts from existing plants.

Dow Chemical and the Ocean Conservancy explain why they have formed an unlikely alliance to prevent plastic from choking the world’s oceansRoughly 8m tons of discarded plastic washes down our rivers and blows across our beaches into the ocean every year. Left unchecked, there may be one ton of plastic for every three tons of fish in the sea within ten years. Most of this plastic breaks into smaller pieces in the ocean, where animals, from shrimp to whales, readily confuse it with food.

Diesel cars made by Renault, Nissan, Hyundai, Citroen, Fiat and Volvo among others emitted far more NOx in more rigorous tests, research showsNew diesel cars from Renault, Nissan, Hyundai, Citroen, Fiat, Volvo and other manufacturers have been found to emit substantially higher levels of pollution when tested in more realistic driving conditions, according to new data seen by the Guardian.Research compiled by Adac, Europe’s largest motoring organisation, shows that some of the diesel cars it examined released over 10 times more NOx than revealed by existing EU tests, using an alternative standard due to be introduced later this decade. Continue reading...

St Dominic, Tamar Valley, Cornwall The light haloes trees near the river and tinges stubble fields pink behind the orchard where the old cider press is in useThe westering sun glints on shrivelled leaves, rowan berries and ivy flowers on the roadside verge by Viverdon Down. The evening light tinges stubble fields pink and haloes crowns of trees around Westcott and towards the river Lynher.On this predominantly arable side of the parish, overlooked by the skyline of Caradon, Stowes Hill, Sharp Tor and Kilmar, cultivation of next year’s crops began well before the quarter day of Michaelmas. The little enclosure that contains the prehistoric henge stands out among the browns of the soil and arrishes and the emerald of pastures. Continue reading...

World’s biggest mining company confident of doubling profits by 2030 even with the introduction of stringent emission controlsThe world’s biggest mining company has spent £37m a year on climate change since 2007, and is confident of doubling its profits by 2030 despite the possibility of stringent new controls on greenhouse gas emissions.BHP Billiton said on Tuesday that efforts to forge a new global agreement on climate change, at UN talks scheduled for Paris this December, would not harm its future profits, and anticipated continuing to mine for coal for decades to come. Continue reading...