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Winners are all grassroots activists who have taken on powerful vested interests

• 2018 Goldman environmental prize – the winners in pictures

The world’s foremost environmental prize has announced more female winners than ever before.

The struggle for a healthy planet may sometimes feel like a series of defeats, but this year’s Goldman environmental prize celebrates six remarkable success stories, five of them driven by women.

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Our analysis of the new renewable energy projects to come on line in next few years suggest a fall in electricity prices - at least until the closure of Liddell.

Construction of lithium-ion “giga-factory” in Queensland’s north one step closer after Imperium3 consortium signs up Siemens to New York project.

SA Water plans to install 152MW solar PV and 35MWh of storage by 2020 to slash its electricity bill, previously forecast to reach $55 million, to zero.

Horses help patients deal with anxiety and stress issues; beach sculptures brings smiles to Shelley Beach; we visit a boutique duck farm; and meet a dog with an acute sense of smell.

XTB unveils a managed portfolio of individual ESG corporate bond units.

Meet "Plastic King" Robert Bezeau and his four-storey castle made out of recycled bottles in Panama.

Erosion of the cliff at Hemsby, Norfolk, has left 18 homes uninhabitable over the past five years.

The former New York Mayor offers $4.5m to cover the lapsed US contribution to the Paris climate deal.

Report on the state of the world’s birds reveals a biodiversity crisis driven by intensive farming, with once-common species such as puffins and snowy owls now at risk

One in eight bird species is threatened with global extinction, and once widespread creatures such as the puffin, snowy owl and turtle dove are plummeting towards oblivion, according to the definitive study of global bird populations.

The State of the World’s Birds, a five-year compendium of population data from the best-studied group of animals on the planet, reveals a biodiversity crisis driven by the expansion and intensification of agriculture.

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Dingoes increase cattle yields, mountain lions reduce car crashes and vultures eat organic waste: like them or not, predators help humans. Christopher O'Bryan, PhD Candidate, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland Eve McDonald-Madden, Senior lecturer, The University of Queensland James Watson, Professor, The University of Queensland Neil Carter, Assistant Professor, College of Innovation and Design, Boise State University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

• Former NYC mayor criticises Trump for pulling out of deal
• EPA chief Pruitt did meet lobbyist linked to condo, despite denials

The former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has said he will write a $4.5m cheque to cover this year’s US commitment to the Paris climate agreement.

Related: Macron begins Trump charm offensive with Fox News interview

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Pod of orcas spotted between Dunoon and Gourock, thought to be hunting seals or porpoises

A pod of killer whales has been spotted in the river Clyde apparently hunting seals or porpoises.

Images and videos have been posted on social media over the weekend of about half a dozen killer whales, or orcas, between Dunoon and Gourock.

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• Pruitt and Steven Hart both denied any recent business
• Two men met at EPA HQ in July 2017 to discuss Chesapeake Bay

Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt met in his office last year with a veteran Washington lobbyist tied to the bargain-priced condo where Pruitt was living.

Both Pruitt and lobbyist Steven Hart had previously denied Hart had conducted any recent business with EPA.

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Survey suggests pest problem is worst in south-east England, and in flats and pre-1950s housing

Got a lovely collection of cashmere sweaters you don’t want devoured by moths? Then maybe you should move to a new-build house in the east Midlands. That, you see, is the type of dwelling and region least likely to be tormented by the pesky insects, according to a new study by English Heritage at least.

English Heritage conservators have been monitoring the remorseless rise in moth numbers, blamed on a string of exceptionally mild winters – although the survey ended before the spectacularly bitter weather of last winter – and last year invited visitors to their properties to help by collecting free moth traps and reporting their haul.

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The environmental scourge of plastic has shot to the top of the political agenda. We talk to the creatives and campaigners behind five imaginative new ventures

Among retailers and manufacturers, they talk of “the Blue Planet effect”. The BBC series, screened late last year, was the moment that many of us realised the catastrophic impact our use of plastics was having on the world’s oceans. Scenes such as a hawksbill turtle snagged in a plastic sack, the albatrosses feeding their chicks plastic or the mother pilot whale grieving for her dead calf, which may have been poisoned by her contaminated milk, are impossible to unsee.

It’s a crisis that affects us all, and the facts make for dispiriting reading. If nothing changes, one study suggests that by 2050 our oceans will have more plastic swimming around, by weight, than fish. It’s already estimated that one third of fish caught in the Channel contain plastic; another piece of research found that “top European shellfish consumers” could potentially consume up to 11,000 pieces of microplastic a year.

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Removing a thick fishing rope from a highly fertile whale’s jaw was a priority for scientists who fear the species may be in terminal decline

A mission to disentangle a particularly important North Atlantic right whale from a thick rope wrapped around its jaw has proved a partial success, amid growing fears that the endangered species is approaching a terminal decline.

The individual female whale, known as Kleenex, is considered one of the most productive North Atlantic right whales left in existence, having given birth to eight calves. Its condition has deteriorated, however, since it was spotted off the coast of Delaware in 2014 with a thick fishing rope wrapped around its head and upper jaw.

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A Nasa flight analyst explains three things you need to know about going to Mars.

Taps in capital city of Maputo being turned off every other day as climate change exacerbates southern African drought

In the township of Chamanculo, in Maputo, Mozambique, a network of household taps made the community water pump obsolete years ago, freeing residents from the daily burden of lugging massive jerrycans of water long distances.

But a water crisis, partly caused by an ongoing drought affecting much of southern Africa, is already reversing progress in this coastal city. An emergency “orange alert”, declared last February by the country’s disaster management council after failed rains, has triggered such strict water rationing across the capital city that the taps are turned off every other day and irrigation is banned.

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Decision on Tasmanian, NSW and Queensland woodlands’ on hold despite advice from expert committee

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Farmers’ associations, the Tasmanian deputy premier and a Tasmanian Liberal senator lobbied the environment and energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, not to grant critically endangered status to woodlands eligible for protection under Australia’s national environment laws.

In 2017 the independent threatened species scientific committee, which provides scientific advice to the government about conserving threatened species, recommended two new woodlands be listed as critically endangered ecological communities under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

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