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A childhood spent in developing countries observing communities working together to solve problems, influenced the career of sustainable energy facilitator, Jarra Hicks.

Christmas is hectic, and it can be easy just to go with the flow and vow to cut your plastic use in the new year. But here are some easy steps you can take now to make your Christmas plastic-free. Manuela Taboada, Senior Lecturer, Visual Design, Queensland University of Technology Glenda Amayo Caldwell, Senior Lecturer in Architecture, Queensland University of Technology Hope Johnson, Lecturer, Queensland University of Technology Leonie Barner, Associate Professor, Queensland University of Technology Rowena Maguire, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, Queensland University of Technology Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Extinction Rebellion group call on BBC to tell ‘full truth about ecological emergency’

Climate campaigners are calling on the BBC to declare a climate emergency and make the issue its top editorial priority.

In a letter published in the Guardian, the new civil disobedience group Extinction Rebellion (XR) says the BBC, “as a respected media voice in the UK, needs to play a key role in enabling the transformative change needed”.

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Clare Farrell of Extinction Rebellion issues an urgent eight-point call to action for the public broadcaster

This Friday, Extinction Rebellion will hold a peaceful demonstration to call upon the BBC to convey the severity of the climate and ecological emergency we are experiencing, and the urgent action needed to address this. The BBC, as a respected media voice in the UK, needs to play a key role in enabling the transformative change needed. We are requesting:

1. The director general, Tony Hall, agree to a meeting with a delegation from Extinction Rebellion to discuss how the BBC can tell the full truth on the climate and ecological emergency.

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Australia’s national parks are under threat due to funding cuts, excess tourism and politics, so we want you to share your favourite park stories

• Under siege: our commitment to Australia’s national parks is waning
  

Australians love our national parks: many of us escape the daily grind by walking, hiking and enjoying these protected areas, from the Daintree in Queensland and Uluru-Kata Tjuta in the Northern Territory to Kosciuszko in New South Wales and Cradle Mountain in Tasmania, and everywhere in between.

But national parks are under attack: funding cuts, the weight of tourism and political double standards are jeopardising their future. Our unique biodiversity is threatened by this lack of protection and we are at risk of not meeting the targets we agreed to as a nation in the International Biological Diversity treaty.

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The government has committed to protecting our national parks and biodiversity, yet investment is lower and jobs have been slashed

• Tell us about your favourite national park and why it’s important to you?

National parks are under siege in Australia. There are more than 500 parks in Australia, covering 28 million hectares or almost 4% of the country, but after decades of steadily adding to our national estate and making progress towards honouring our international commitments to protect biodiverse regions, Australia’s commitment has waned.

Funding has been slashed at both the state and federal levels and the creation of new national parks has stalled.

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Agreement will fail to halt devastating rise in global temperature, say scientists

The world has been put on notice that its best efforts so far will fail to halt the devastation of climate change, as countries came to a partial agreement at UN talks that failed to match up to the challenges faced.

Leading figures in climate science and economics said much more must be done, and quickly, to stave off the prospect of dangerous levels of global warming.

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Friends of the Earth granted judicial review it hopes will help alter planning rules

Ministers face a pair of legal challenges to their planning rules on fracking this week, from a national environmental group and the son of fashion designer Vivienne Westwood.

The government used its revamped planning rulebook to tell local authorities in July that they should recognise the benefits of shale gas and facilitate its extraction.

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Fractious UN climate change talks ended with a deal on putting the Paris agreement into practice – but much else left unresolved

• ‘We can move forward now’: climate talks take significant step

Countries settled on most of the tricky elements of the “rulebook” for putting the 2015 Paris agreement into practice. This includes how governments will measure, report on and verify their emissions-cutting efforts, a key element because it ensures all countries are held to proper standards and find it harder to wriggle out of their commitments.

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Delegates agree ‘rulebook’ for Paris goals, but key questions have been ignored or put off

They lacked the drama, excitement and eventual breakthrough that marked the Paris agreement of 2015, but this year’s UN climate talks produced important steps forward in putting the landmark accord into practice.

After last-minute wrangling over wording, late on Saturday night delegates in Poland finally agreed a text that contains most of the “rulebook” needed to guide countries’ implementation of the Paris goals.

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Hopes were high for the interior secretary’s tenure. But profiteers and climate deniers quickly changed that

When President Trump’s new secretary of the interior Ryan Zinke rode a horse across the National Mall to the steps of his new office, there was cautious optimism, as a western congressman who professed to idolize Teddy Roosevelt seemed like a solid choice to govern 20% of the land base of the United States.

In the unforgiving milieu of Washington DC, Zinke and the “horse he rode in on” were subjected to withering ridicule. As the 18th director of the National Park Service (NPS), where I oversaw over 400 national parks and the equestrian patrol of the National Mall who accompanied the new secretary, I chalked it up to a publicity stunt.

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Falling revenues from waste reprocessing have led to a financial black hole for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority

The government body given the job of cleaning up Britain’s old nuclear power stations has warned that taxpayers will have to help plug a looming multimillion-pound gap in its finances left by shrinking revenues.

David Peattie, chief executive of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, said revenues would fall more than 10% annually in coming years due to the end of an era of nuclear waste reprocessing. One plant ceased operations in November and another will stop in two years.

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UK households will throw away 2.2m kg over the Christmas period

It was once a simple choice of stilton or cheddar with a few grapes on the side and the pleasure of assembling a course that requires no cooking.

But for many households the Christmas cheeseboard has become an elaborate affair – often resulting in a vast amount of waste. Now, as a new survey estimates that 2.2 million kilograms of cheese from the festive dining table will be chucked in the bin this year, specialists are urging shoppers to aim for a “zero waste” cheeseboard. “If you buy cheese that tastes amazing you’re far less likely to waste it,” said Dominic Coyte of Borough Cheese Company. “In my house I tend to end up with lots of small bits left, so I grate and freeze it. Freezing can affect the texture so it loses its rigidity, but it’s still good to use for cheese on toast or in sauces or gratins. The remainders of a boxed soft cheese can also be baked in the oven with garlic, rosemary and white wine – day-old bread with a bit of bite is ideal for dipping in it.”

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Discovery of 1,026 tusks at Phnom Penh port follows a tip from the US embassy

Cambodia seized more than 3.2 tonnes of elephant tusks hidden in a storage container sent from Mozambique, a customs official said on Sunday, marking the country’s largest ivory bust.

The discovery of 1,026 tusks at the Phnom Penh port followed a tip from the US embassy, the official said, and highlights Cambodia’s emergence as a key regional transit point for the multibillion dollar trade in illicit wildlife.

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Negotiators in Katowice reached agreement on a Paris rulebook late Saturday night, but Article 6 left a gaping hole as a decision on carbon markets was left for next year’s negotiations in Chile.

The BBC's Matt McGrath looks back at key developments at UN climate talks that have ended in Poland.

Nations agree on implementing 2015 Paris agreement, but put trickiest issues on back burner

The UN climate change talks ended late on Saturday night in Poland with a deal agreed on how to put the 2015 Paris agreement into action, but with other contentious problems left to be resolved next year.

Countries thrashed out the complex details of how to account for and record their greenhouse gas emissions, which will form the basis of a “rulebook” on putting the Paris goals into action. But difficult questions such as how to scale up existing commitments on cutting emissions, in line with stark scientific advice, and how to provide finance for poor countries to do the same, were put off for future years.

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Nearly 200 nations agree rules on implementing 2015 Paris agreement at UN climate talks in Poland.

It's been said we know more about the back side of the moon than we do about parts of the Earth's oceans.

Climate talks are in an extra day as negotiators try to agree the next steps for the Paris agreement.