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EU negotiators agreed on Tuesday a deal for the bloc’s €1.074 trillion seven-year budget and a €750 billion coronavirus recovery fund, with tighter scrutiny for climate spending part of the final package.

When Joe Biden formally takes over the presidency in January he will face some of the greatest crises to hit the US in recent history: a pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 Americans, a devastated economy, a rapidly overheating climate and a deeply fractured nation.

The Guardian's Lauren Gambino looks at how Biden and the vice-president-elect, Kamala Harris, plan to 'heal' the country after four years of Trumpism – and the challenges they will face with the prospect of having to navigate these times without a majority in the Senate

• How Joe Biden beat Donald Trump in the fight for America’s soul – video

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Roy Smith made his "exciting" discovery while trawling through wrongly-identified shark fossils.

UK scientists show how astronauts on the Moon or Mars could one day mine for metals using bacteria.

In spring, canola crops burst into flower in the Riverina and central west regions of NSW, creating a sea of yellow. Tourists have been travelling to farms to photograph the coloured landscape as an alternative to travelling interstate during lockdown

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Research shows birds also flock to waste centres on weekdays when rubbish is delivered

Super-smart gulls flock to school playgrounds shortly before break times in order to hoover up the scraps, a study has shown. The birds also target rubbish dumps, but mainly on weekdays when fresh waste is being delivered.

Having a snack snatched from your hand by a greedy gull is already a common, if unwelcome, occurrence. But the latest research shows the birds are even smarter than thought: they know where and when their meals are being served.

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Czech utility CEZ continued to be less heavily hedged than in recent years over Q3, while its relatively resilient coal generation is set to tumble next year following a deal to sell its biggest facility.

Tally of culled animals 2.5 million and rising, as confusion mounts over bid to stamp out Covid variant among animals

Denmark’s prime minister has admitted the massive mink cull she authorised last week was illegal, as opposition parties called for the resignation of the agriculture minister who has been overseeing the policy.

Mette Frederiksen announced last week that all the country’s mink would have to be culled due to fears that a Covid-19 mutation moving from mink to humans could jeopardise future vaccines.

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California electricity sector CO2 output rose year-on-year for the second consecutive month as a September heatwave broke weather records across the Golden State, California Independent System Operator (CAISO) data showed.

The post will lead on the Scottish Government's policy for industrial climate regulation – developing and implementing new regulations post-EU Exit that cover several areas that originated from EU law - carbon pricing / emissions trading, and regulation of Fluorinated Greenhouse Gases (F-gas) and Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS).

German utility Uniper reported an 11% year-on-year drop in EU-based CO2 output for the first nine months, though the opening of the Datteln coal plant slowed its decarbonisation efforts, according to quarterly results published on Tuesday.

New IEA report says renewables immune to impact of Covid-19, but not to policy failures - but will still overtake coal within five years as number one source of generation.

The post Renewable energy generation will overtake coal within 5 years, says IEA appeared first on RenewEconomy.

CEFC injects nearly $A10 million into Zhengrong Shi's Sunman, which is rolling out lightweight and flexible solar technology.

The post CEFC invests $10 million in Sunman’s “solar skin” technology appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Theta is the 29th Atlantic storm this hurricane season and another system is forming in the Caribbean.

Sars, Mers, now this: we must think hard about how we farm animals that are known hosts of human coronaviruses

Two decades ago, a seminal study from the University of Edinburgh compiled a list of all known human infectious diseases. It found a total of 1,415 different human pathogens, and claimed that 61% were capable of spreading between humans and animals. Today, with the world put on hold by a deadly disease that seems likely to have spread first from bats to humans, we know the dangerous effects of such pathogens all too well.

The group of diseases that spread from animals to humans are collectively known as zoonoses. The term encompasses diseases such as measles, which first spread from cattle to humans thousands of years ago but now transmits exclusively between people, and Ebola, which periodically passes from bats to humans, where it then spreads from person to person. It can also refer to food-borne diseases caused by bacterias such as salmonella and campylobacter that we only get from the consumption of animal products and almost never pass from person to person.

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The voluntary carbon market should be standardised to allow credits to list on exchanges to help massively scale up and meet Paris Agreement climate goals, according to a consultation launched Tuesday by private sector taskforce steered by UN climate finance envoy Mark Carney.

Three tourists boiled dinner in national park, leading to fines, a ban and some apt puns

When it comes to unthinking human behavior in America’s premier nature preserve, the retired Yellowstone historian Lee Whittlesey can reel off the examples.

There is the tourist who took a selfie in front of a bison only to be tossed in the air by it. There is the drone that crashed into bubbling park waters. And then there’s the latest story, which has driven him both to vexation and to punning.

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Exclusive: report warns of ‘yawning gap’ between government rhetoric on environment and reality of years of underfunding

The government’s conservation watchdog has been “cut to the bone”, with staff underpaid, undervalued and overworked and feeling unable to protect England’s most valuable wildlife sites, according to a new report and testimony from workers.

Natural England, which is sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), has a range of responsibilities, including monitoring and protecting the country’s most valuable habitats such as sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs) and national nature reserves (NNRs). It also works with farmers to protect biodiversity and advises the government on environmental policy, planning and licensing.

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Grants are now available for projects that strengthen our national heritage. All places on the National Heritage List are eligible to apply until 7 January 2021. To find out more, visit the Business Grants Hub.

Exclusive: Gap between actions and beliefs threatens green recovery from pandemic

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People are planning to drive and fly more in future than they did before the coronavirus pandemic, a survey suggests, even though the overwhelming majority accept human responsibility for the climate crisis.

The apparent disconnect between beliefs and actions raises fears that without strong political intervention, these actions could undermine efforts to meet the targets set in the Paris agreement and hopes of a green recovery from the coronavirus crisis.

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