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Nearly 8,000sq kms lost in the year to July amid alarm new president Jair Bolsonaro will make situation worse

Brazil has released its worst annual deforestation figures in a decade amid fears that the situation might worsen when the avowedly anti-environmentalist president-elect Jair Bolsonaro takes power.

Between August 2017 and July 2018, 7,900sq kms were deforested, according to preliminary figures from the environment ministry based on satellite monitoring – a 13.7% rise on the previous year and the biggest area of forest cleared since 2008. The area is equivalent to 987,000 football pitches.

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

Report points particularly to important habitats in Queensland and NSW where land clearing is prevalent

Australia is failing to meet international targets to protect nature in parts of the country where land clearing and habitat destruction are widespread, according to data in a major new United Nations report.

The UN report on protected areas, released at the Convention on Biological Diversity Conference of the Parties in Egypt, examines progress by countries to meet global conservation targets.

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Climate change could cost the US hundreds of billions of dollars and damage health, a major report warns.

EU carbon prices fell back towards €20 from a fresh six-week high on Friday as crashing crude prices jolted markets.

• ‘Impacts of climate change are intensifying across the country’
• Draft outlines claim current response to crisis is insufficient

Climate change is already harming Americans’ lives with “substantial damages” set to occur as global temperatures threaten to surge beyond internationally agreed limits, a major US government report is set to warn.

The influence of climate change is being felt across the US with increases in disastrous wildfires in the west, flooding on the east coast, soil loss in the midwest and coastal erosion in Alaska, a draft of the US national climate assessment states.

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A few more weeks of wild volatility stand between EU carbon prices currently anchored around €20 and the resumption of the bull run that has been on pause since mid-September, analysts predict.

Prosecution based on secret footage obtained by rights charity Animal Equality at Fir Tree farm in Lincolnshire

Two men pleaded guilty today to charges of animal cruelty while employed at a pig farm, Fir Tree in Goxhill, Lincolnshire.

Artis Grogprkevs, 31, and Troy Wagstaff, 30, have appeared at Grimsby magistrates court charged with causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal between 2-27 April this year.

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A family of roe deer and the bignose unicornfish are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

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Theresa May called on to commit to ambitious climate target

Fifty Conservative MPs have called on Theresa May to adopt an ambitious target of cutting carbon emissions to net zero before 2050, to show international leadership on climate change and protect British jobs.

Former ministers Damian Green, Oliver Letwin and Anna Soubry are among the signatories of the letter to the prime minister, which said that a stronger long-term goal would cut energy bills and improve air quality.

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ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst captures the launch of the Russian Progress MS-10 cargo spacecraft.

Record absence of ice after freak warm spells denies pregnant bears birthing dens and triggers ‘extirpation event’ warning

A record slow freeze of many regions of the Arctic this winter is making it harder for pregnant polar bears to find birthing dens.

The delayed formation of sea ice during autumn has worried biologists, who fear a first “extirpation event” – the local extinction of a species – may be approaching faster than forecast for the most affected populations.

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Closing prices, ranges and volumes for China's regional pilot carbon markets this week.

New Zealand carbon allowances this week halted their slide below the market's de facto price ceiling as compliance buyers emerged to provide support.

Australia’s Clean Energy Regulator this week issued just shy of 20,000 carbon credits, only a tenth of the recent weekly average, highlighting concerns over the market’s ability to meet potential increasing demand under a strengthened Safeguard Mechanism.

Extreme weather meteorologist Dean Narramore explains the weather systems causing chaos across parts of the country.

Sydney Harbour and the Egyptian pyramids feature in debut images from the first all-UK radar spacecraft.

Urgent planting of wildflowers will attract pollinators and boost farmers’ food crops, expert to tell UN

The collapse in bee populations can be reversed if countries adopt a new farmer-friendly strategy, the architect of a new masterplan for pollinators will tell the UN biodiversity conference this week.

Stefanie Christmann of the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas will present the results of a new study that shows substantial gains in income and biodiversity from devoting a quarter of cropland to flowering economic crops such as spices, oil seeds, medicinal and forage plants.

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Some compare it to snooker, others to figure skating. But for those who have given their lives to competitive ploughing, it’s more than a sport, it’s a way of life. By Sophie Elmhirst

On 31 August, the night before the first day of the World Ploughing Championship, the bar of the Hotel Fortuna in the small German town of Reutlingen was crammed with the global ploughing elite. The scene resembled a low-key United Nations afterparty – Swiss, Kenyans, Australians, Latvians, Canadians and French, all slugging back long glasses of German beer. The top flight of international ploughing is a limited pool, the same faces recurring every year, and so the atmosphere was jovial, like a school reunion, 50-odd ploughmen and two ploughwomen (the sport has historically been dominated by men) hailing each other affectionately across the room. Much of the talk concerned the wild boar who had apparently dug up the field where the following day’s competition would take place. But there was something else in the air too, a bonhomie edged with rivalry. They were here to win.

The two English competitors, Mick Chappell and Ashley Boyles, stood to one side with their families. Chappell is 57, Boyles 35, but it was the younger man who bid everyone goodnight and went up to bed early. Boyles takes his ploughing very seriously. Chappell, a man more inclined to Freddie Flintoff-style bouts of prolonged revelry, leaned against a wall, finished a pint and readily accepted the offer of another. Earlier in the summer, he had told me he would prepare for the world championship by drinking five pints the night before. When asked if any other international athlete adopted a similar strategy ahead of a major competition, he disputed the terms: “I wouldn’t say athlete.”

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Innovation should mean solutions that work for everyone, not just economists. Professor Lars Coenen, City of Melbourne Chair in Resilient Cities, University of Melbourne Cathy Alexander, Research Fellow, Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.