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As the drought continues to bite, a number of regional towns in New South Wales and Queensland are facing desperate water shortages.

Business Council chief executive Jennifer Westacott is warning "unintended consequences" may result from the Government's re-framed energy "big stick" legislation.

A daily summary of our news plus bite-sized updates from around the world.

Biofuel credits under the US Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) jumped in value over the past several days amid reports that President Donald Trump may back a plan to make up for compliance obligations waived through dozens of programme exemptions this year.

Critics and supporters of California's Tropical Forest Standard (TFS) are anticipating a contentious meeting on Thursday to decide the fate of the possible precursor to jurisdictional REDD offsetting, with some believing state regulator ARB will approve the proposal after its year-long review.

Climate deniers have joyously laboured to create a world potentially uninhabitable for our children. Our activism has failed, and rebellion may be the only answer. Tim Flannery, Professorial fellow, Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Paddy Manning's new book charts the challenges faced by the Greens (and greenies in general) with admirable clarity and detail. Marc Hudson, Researcher, University of Manchester Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Millions of acres of midwest farmland have been underwater for months in poor rural US areas

Media interest in natural disasters concentrates on events such as hurricanes that happen over a short period in a specific area. Sometimes, though, destructive weather effects build up gradually across a region over many months, like the floods afflicting the American midwest this year.

A blizzard described by the National Weather Service as “of historic proportions” in March added to already deep snow cover. Spring rains rapidly melted the snow and the inundation began. Above-average rainfall has continued through August, and a slow-motion disaster has played out.

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The Policy Analyst is responsible for providing research, analytical and strategic support to all projects & proposals and to all levels of management in the company.

As predictions about the climate crisis increasingly become observations, Australians are witnessing first hand the impacts of more frequent and severe weather events. These images supplied by the Climate Council show the devastating effects on the continent’s ecosystems and unique wildlife. Australia’s ecosystems are already under grave stress from land-clearing, over-harvesting and invasive feral animals and plants; climate change is adding to the litany of woes and proving to be the last straw for some systems and species

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Government decision follows critics saying 2020 deadline had no chance of being met

The government has pushed back the deadline for its £13bn smart energy meter rollout by four years to 2024 after critics said the project had “no realistic prospect” of meeting its deadline.

The government has bowed to pressure to extend the deadline after a damning report from the National Audit Office said households might be forced to pay £500m more than expected after a string of delays affecting the software underpinning the network.

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Big changes are needed to farm subsidies, but there will always be targeted support to certain sectors and farm types, writes Richard Harvey

It is impossible to disagree with the Food and Land Use Coalition report’s findings ($1m a minute global farm subsidies ‘are destroying the world’, 16 September). Yet it would be wrong to dispense with all agricultural support programmes, particularly in the UK. Big changes are needed, but there will always be targeted support to certain sectors and farm types.

First, we do need to support the small-scale, family-based business structure. This is the only way of sustainable farming in the uplands and less productive land areas. All land use requires management, even woodland. This is not poor resource use; it is supporting public benefit from business centres that would otherwise not be financially viable.

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California regulator ARB opened a second solicitation for its Compliance Offsets Protocol Task Force (OPTF) on Friday, as the agency is seeking additional applicants from the environmental justice and labour communities.

Broadcaster will act as ambassador for government review into global costs and risks of habitat loss

Sir David Attenborough has agreed to become the public face of a landmark government study into biodiversity loss and its impact on the economy.

The broadcaster and naturalist will act as an ambassador to promote the review around the world as the government attempts to demonstrate its determination to fight the climate emergency.

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A role supporting Shell’s commitment to reduce the Net Carbon Footprint of its energy products, together with increasing internal and external interests in carbon topics like management of methane emissions, nature-based solutions and carbon capture. 

This position is an exciting opportunity to apply technical, analytical and product development skills in the context of an environmental NGO that works with many of the world’s largest multinationals, such as Siemens, Volkswagen, and Danone, to mitigate climate change, improve water security and tackle deforestation.

There’s an explosion of the eight-legged creatures in Britain’s gardens due to the warm weather. Here’s why you should welcome them into your outdoor spaces

Where have all these huge spiders in our back gardens come from? It is a question asked a lot at the moment, given the apparent population explosion in recent weeks, and the webs lacing our outdoor spaces. But actually, they’ve been here since early spring. They hatched last autumn, as tiny 1mm spiderlings, from eggs deposited under a silken protective igloo last autumn. At this time of year, they are reaching adult maturity – finally big enough to be noticed.

This year’s warm summer has been kind to spiders, giving them plenty of invertebrate food (mostly flies, but also bees, wasps, butterflies and beetles), and a temperature that speeds up their growth.

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Our reporting draws attention to the catastrophic loss of species across the planet and looks at ways to tackle the crisis

This project focuses on biodiversity: the variety of all life on our planet. It highlights the crisis represented by huge losses of animal, insect, bird and plant life around the world, as well as innovations to tackle these losses.

This series is supported, in part, through grants to theguardian.org by the BAND Foundation, a private family foundation established in 1999 to oversee charitable interests through strategic grant making, primarily in nature conservation, epilepsy and climate change, and by the Wyss Foundation, a private foundation founded in 1998 by Hansjörg Wyss that is “dedicated to supporting innovative, lasting solutions that improve lives, empower communities, and strengthen connections to the land”.

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EUAs surged by almost a euro in reaction to a massive spike in oil prices early on Monday, but prices soon slipped back after falling short of last week's one-month high.

With Trump expected to skip the global meeting, the question will be: can the rest of the world save itself from climate breakdown if the most powerful nation is pulling in the opposite direction?

This story originally appeared in the Nation. It is republished here as part of the Guardian’s partnership with Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story.

As world leaders converge on New York City for the United Nations climate action Summit on 23 September, they enter what may be the most consequential week in climate politics since Donald Trump’s surprise election as president of the United States in 2016. Trump, of course, announced soon after taking office that he was withdrawing the US from the Paris Agreement, the landmark treaty signed at the last big UN climate summit in 2015. António Guterres, the UN secretary general, convened this week’s summit precisely because the US and most other countries remain far from honoring their Paris pledges to reduce heat-trapping emissions enough to prevent catastrophic climate disruption.

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