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Legal NGO ClientEarth to take the government back to court if it fails to set out a new range of measures to tackle Britain’s toxic air

Environmental campaigners are set to take the government back to court over what they say are ministers’ repeated failings to deal with the UK’s air pollution crisis.

ClientEarth, which has already won two court battles against the government, has written a legal letter demanding that the environment secretary Michael Gove sets out a range of new measures to address air pollution which contributes to the deaths of 40,000 people across the UK each year.

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NEG appears to be the most ill-considered, poorly detailed and potentially useless policy that anyone can remember, and a disaster for renewable energy, climate targets and consumer prices. It appears to be the work of Australia's so-called "energy mafia", hungry to retain power of incumbent oligopoly.

St Dominic, Tamar Valley Black Rocks and Crimson Queens and Green Chisel pears – colourful fruit with colourful names on show at Cotehele’s Apple Day

Sheltered from rain, inside the display tent at Cotehele’s Apple Day, the perfume of juice and ripe fruit pervades the damp air. Examples of different varieties are pinned to a board and Mary and James (my sister and brother-in-law) have laid out a lavish array from their orchard of local varieties, gathered on rare dry days during recent weeks.

A basket of pears, decorated with swags of rose hips and sloes, includes the large Aston Town (originally found in a pub garden at Launceston), Green Chisel (possibly the Hastings pear), green sweats, various harvest pears, grey and red Catterns, all awaiting the results of genetic tests to confirm their identities.

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Amongst all the sound and fury regarding the Government’s energy plan there is a central question going unanswered - what is the level of emissions reduction being proposed by the Government? And at what cost?

The runway to strong emission reductions at an affordable price is at risk of being thrown away under the Coaliton's new policy, which could require retailers to buy the output from its own expensive Snowy Hydro project. The energy mafia would approve.

The killing of two activists who successfully campaigned to shut down a mine has shocked environmentalists in Turkey who fear their deaths will embolden others to kill to protect their profits

• Interactive: recording the deaths of environmental activists around the world

Cedar branches whisper in the Anatolian breeze. Twigs crunch underfoot. A truck rumbles from a distant marble quarry. The crack of a hunter’s rifle echoes through the forest.

The sounds of tranquility and violence intermingle at the remote hillside home of Aysin and Ali Büyüknohutçu, the Turkish beekeepers and environmental defenders whose murder in Finike earlier this year has sent a chill through the country’s conservation movement.

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States stunned by lack of detail in new energy policy. In a testy phone hook-up they were told all the government had was a press release and an eight-page letter.

Origin Energy's newly released decarbonisation plan shows the gen-tailer is taking climate change rather more seriously than the Coalition.

The Australian public has been ‘negged’ by unfounded fears of blackouts. Will we be 'negged' again by the proposed new energy policy?

By rebranding coal as 'dispatchable', the government's National Energy Guarantee looks set to preserve demand for coal-fired power by giving it a new role – one it's not well equipped to fulfil. John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

China has installed 42GW of new solar PV in 2017 so far, putting it on track to reach a record 50GW for the year. Meanwhile, in battery storage...

A shocking image of a dehorned black rhino makes Brent Stirton Wildlife Photographer of the Year.

Assuming it is implemented, the Turnbull government's National Energy Guarantee will in effect establish a de facto price on carbon emissions from the power sector.

The federal government has announced a new National Energy Guarantee focused on electricity reliability, after deciding not to implement a clean energy target. Alan Pears, Senior Industry Fellow, RMIT University Anna Skarbek, CEO at ClimateWorks Australia, Monash University Dylan McConnell, Researcher at the Australian German Climate and Energy College, University of Melbourne Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

A ceremony at the Natural History Museum, London, will reveal the winners of its Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition on Wednesday. Two overall winning images have been selected from the winners of each category, depicting the incredible diversity of life on our planet. They are on show with 99 other images selected by an international panel of judges at the 53rd exhibition, which opens at the museum on Friday.

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The decision to walk away from a Clean Energy Target makes no sense. But small communities will forge ahead with the transition to renewable energy.

• Researchers find alligators preying on small sharks in Atlantic and Gulf
• ‘The frequency of one predator eating the other is really about size dynamic’

American alligators are frequently seen ambling around golf courses in Florida as players warily compete their rounds. But new research suggests the reptiles partake in a far more outlandish habit when away from the greens – eating sharks.

Related: ‘I don’t want to imagine a world without giant snakes in it’

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Animals that evolved in cold parts of the world usually have lighter skin. If a light-skinned animal has blood vessels close to the surface of their ear skin, this will make the ears look pink. Wayne Iwan Lee Davies, Adjunct Research Fellow, School of Biological Sciences, University of Western Australia Shaun Collin, Winthrop Professor/WA Premier's Research Fellow, School of Biological Sciences and the Oceans Institute, University of Western Australia Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Walsall’s heyday | Wind power | Elon Musk’s Hyperloop | Today programme | Worst deal ever

“Walsall was never a pretty town”, according to Roy Boffy (Letters, 16 October); this may be true now but has not always been the case. Its handsome villas and public buildings were remarked on in 1834 by William White in The History, Gazeteer and Directory of Staffordshire and he believed it needed to yield to no other town in Staffordshire in beauty and elegance. During the 19th century, Walsall added more civic buildings, many built to help improve the life of working people. The 20th and 21st century have not been kind to the town but that is not a reason to forget its history.
Cathy Schling
London

• Regarding Paula Cocozza’s article on “the resource that could power the world” (G2, 15 October), let us not forget that wind has indeed already powered the world in the political and economic sense, powering the sailing ships of naval and merchant fleets that set up the European empires that dominated the pre-20th-century globe.
Beth Cresswell
Hightown, Merseyside

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New bill omits key ‘precautionary’ principle requiring developers and industry to prove actions will not harm wildlife or habitats as well as ‘polluter pays’ protections

• Interactive: How will Brexit affect British wildlife?
  

The cornerstones of wildlife and habitat protection have been quietly left out of the withdrawal bill ripping the heart out of environmental law, campaigners say.

A key principle under EU law which provides a robust legal backstop against destruction of the environment – the precautionary principle - has been specifically ruled out of the bill as a means of legal challenge in British courts.

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