The Guardian

Revealed: Interior department official says he is ‘thrilled’ by Trump’s ‘knack for keeping the attention of the media and public focused somewhere else’

A top US official told a group of fossil fuel industry leaders that the Trump administration will soon issue a proposal making large portions of the Atlantic available for oil and gas development, and said that it is easier to work on such priorities because Donald Trump is skilled at sowing “absolutely thrilling” distractions, according to records of a meeting obtained by the Guardian.

Joe Balash, the assistant secretary for land and minerals management, was speaking to companies in the oil exploration business at a meeting of the International Association of Geophysical Contractors, or IAGC, last month.

Strikes are planned at 60 locations in Australia, including every state and territory capital

Tens of thousands of Australian school students are expected to walk out of class on Friday to demand governments take action on climate change.

The Australian strikes are part of a global campaign by students for greater urgency from politicians in tackling what they see as the greatest threat to their future.

Schoolchildren around the world are joining a global strike against climate change this week. But they’re not the only everyday people inspired to take action. We talk to 10 UK activists on the frontline of our most serious environmental issues.

Extinction Rebellion is an environmental direct action group

Data shows while emissions from electricity sector are in decline, gains have been wiped out by increases from other industries

Australia’s annual carbon emissions have reached a new high and drops in emissions from the electricity sector have been wiped out by increases from other industries, according to new data.

Ndevr Environmental, an emissions-tracking organisation that releases quarterly greenhouse gas emissions data, said on Thursday that annual emissions for the year up to December 2018 increased to 558.4m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. It was the highest level on record when excluding unreliable land use data.

Environment department ‘cherry picked’ data to claim clearing has decreased, but figures show recent steady increase

Two of Australia’s largest environment groups have accused the federal environment department of providing inaccurate information about land clearing to the Senate, and of not acting to reduce habitat loss.

The Australian Conservation Foundation and WWF Australia say the department has “cherry picked” data to claim that land clearing in Queensland has decreased, when national figures on land clearing rates in that state in fact show increases since 2011.

Young activists and our columnist answer your questions as pupils around the world stage climate strikes

On Friday 15 March young people around the world will be walking out of their classrooms to strike for action to save the planet from climate change.

Related: Young climate strikers can win their fight. We must all help | George Monbiot

Temperatures likely to rise by 3-5C above pre-industrial levels even if Paris goals met

Sharp and potentially devastating temperature rises of 3C to 5C in the Arctic are now inevitable even if the world succeeds in cutting greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris agreement, research has found.

Winter temperatures at the north pole are likely to rise by at least 3C above pre-industrial levels by mid-century, and there could be further rises to between 5C and 9C above the recent average for the region, according to the UN.

Environmental groups say chancellor’s climate change pledges do not go far enough

Gas boilers will be replaced by low-carbon heating systems in all new homes built after 2025 in an attempt to tackle the escalating climate crisis, Philip Hammond has said.

In his spring statement, the chancellor said new properties would use alternative systems, such as heat pumps, to help the UK reduce its carbon emissions.

Labor has promised to introduce strong environment laws and a national EPA if elected but policy details have been scarce

Three months on from Bill Shorten’s promise to introduce strong environment laws if elected, campaigners are calling on Labor to release the policy detail behind the pledge, with one accusing the ALP environment spokesman, Tony Burke, of going missing on the issue.

For activists who have spent decades fighting to strengthen protection of Australia’s natural heritage, Shorten’s commitment at the ALP conference in December to bring in a new environment act and a national environment protection authority (EPA) was an extraordinary breakthrough. In the months since, they say, the issue has evolved into a question mark.

Environment groups, councils and London mayor challenge airport expansion in high court

The decision to expand Heathrow airport with a third runway was unlawful because it failed to consider the full impacts of climate change and the need for more stringent targets to avoid catastrophic global warming, the high court has been told.

Friends of the Earth on Wednesday accused the transport secretary, Chris Grayling, of acting unlawfully when he agreed to the expansion, which is contained in the government’s airports national policy statement.

Air quality has become a key political issue after record pollution levels hit the country last week

South Korea has passed emergency measures to tackle the “social disaster” being unleashed by air pollution, after record levels of fine dust blanketed most of the country in recent weeks.

The national assembly passed a series of bills on Wednesday giving authorities access to emergency funds for measures that include the mandatory installation of high-capacity air purifiers in classrooms and encouraging sales of liquified petroleum gas vehicles, which produce lower emissions than those that run on petrol and diesel.

Trevor St Baker says deputy governor’s speech warning of risks to Australia’s economy is ‘totally inappropriate’

The coal baron and Liberal National party donor Trevor St Baker has blasted the Reserve Bank deputy governor, Guy Debelle, for sounding the alarm on climate change, branding a significant speech on Tuesday warning of risks to Australia’s financial stability “totally inappropriate”.

The politically connected founder of the business electricity retailer ERM Power, who has approached the Morrison government to underwrite new coal developments in Victoria and New South Wales, including a high-efficiency plant on the site of the AGL-owned Liddell power station, told the ABC on Wednesday Debelle’s intervention was out of order.

Scientists map out threats faced by thousands of species of birds, mammals and amphibians

More than 1,200 species globally face threats to their survival in more than 90% of their habitat and “will almost certainly face extinction” without conservation intervention, according to new research.

Scientists working with Australia’s University of Queensland and the Wildlife Conservation Society have mapped threats faced by 5,457 species of birds, mammals and amphibians to determine which parts of a species’ habitat range are most affected by known drivers of biodiversity loss.

At this point of crisis we must bypass rhetoric and political posturing

• Our new series focuses on the climate change emergency. You can help support it
  

Over the past 30 years I have reported so many broken climate policy promises and quoted so much rhetoric that proved to be hollow, it is difficult to trace it back to the start. I think it’s a faded press release from 11 October, 1990 headed “government sets targets for reductions in greenhouse gases”.

“The government recognises the greenhouse effect as one of the major environmental concerns facing the world,” said Ros Kelly, Bob Hawke’s environment minister. “This decision puts Australia at the forefront of international action to reduce emissions of all greenhouse gases.”

Our wide brown land has come to an end. As we launch the editorial appeal for The Frontline: Australia and the climate emergency, we look back at the impact made by the series

• Our new in-depth series focuses on the climate change emergency and you can help support it
  

It was a very long list.

When we first considered the idea of a new investigative series looking at Australia’s less-scrutinised environmental issues, we knew we had to speak to those on the frontline. We discussed the idea with Australia’s top scientists and environmentalists and it became clear there were many issues needing urgent attention.

The new sites created by a sweeping public lands bill have been years in the making – here’s our guide

Donald Trump has signed a sweeping new public lands bill that protects 1.3m acres of wilderness and creates monuments to US history that has been overlooked, including the African American experience in the civil war and the fight for civil rights.

Years in the crafting, the measure will designate 367 miles of new scenic rivers and 2,600 miles of new national trails. It protects nearly 500,000 acres in California alone, and enlarges both Death Valley and Joshua Tree national parks. And it reauthorizes a crucial funding mechanism for land and water conservation that had lapsed.

Astrobatrachus kurichiyana lurks in leaf litter and is sole member of an ancient lineage

An orange-bellied frog with a brown back, covered in tiny spots that resemble a starry sky, has been discovered in a mountain range in India, surprising researchers who said its ancestors branched off on the evolutionary tree from other members of the same frog family tens of millions of years ago.

The frog, which is about 2cm to 3cm long, has been named Astrobatrachus kurichiyana, although some might prefer its more rock-star sobriquet: “Starry Dwarf Frog.”

Extraction also causes 80% of biodiversity loss, according to comprehensive UN study

Extraction industries are responsible for half of the world’s carbon emissions and more than 80% of biodiversity loss, according to the most comprehensive environmental tally undertaken of mining and farming.

While this is crucial for food, fuel and minerals, the study by UN Environment warns the increasing material weight of the world’s economies is putting a more dangerous level of stress on the climate and natural life-support systems than previously thought.

Researchers say dirty air is killing 800,000 people a year in Europe, and urge the phasing out of fossil fuel burning

The number of early deaths caused by air pollution is double previous estimates, according to research, meaning toxic air is killing more people than tobacco smoking.

The scientists used new data to estimate that nearly 800,000 people die prematurely each year in Europe because of dirty air, and that each life is cut short by an average of more than two years. The health damage caused by air pollution in Europe is higher than the global average. Its dense population and poor air results in exposure that is among the highest in the world.

UN warns of global failure to tackle hazards – with risks ranging from cancer to coral damage

Sales of synthetic chemicals will double over the next 12 years with alarming implications for health and the environment, according to a global study that highlights government failures to rein in the industry behind plastics, pesticides and cosmetics.

The second Global Chemicals Outlook, which was released in Nairobi on Monday, said the world will not meet international commitments to reduce chemical hazards and halt pollution by 2020. In fact, the study by the United Nations Environment Programme found that the industry has never been more dominant nor has humanity’s dependence on chemicals ever been as great.