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BMW says sales of electric BMW and Minis soared 52% in April; company secures autonomous driving road test licence in China.

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

Utah’s state-sponsored lawsuit challenging California’s carbon market and coal power restrictions will advance until the new fiscal year, the lawmaker spearheading the initiative told Carbon Pulse.

Residents of a small Victorian town realised that delicious water can be a curse as well as a blessing, when they lost a legal battle to stop a local farmer shipping groundwater to a nearby bottling plant. Emma Kathryn White, PhD Candidate, Infrastructure Engineering, University of Melbourne Rebecca Louise Nelson, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Melbourne Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

ACT government brings forward its zero emissions target to 2045, turning its focus to transport and gas, and laying down the gauntlet for other states and Canberra to follow.

Researchers discover an unexplained rise in a compound that is highly destructive to the ozone layer.

Researchers discover an unexplained rise in a compound that is highly destructive to the ozone layer.

Carbon-cutting activities in Peru’s waste sector could be developed using international emissions trade in a way that resolves many concerns over how carbon markets can contribute to the Paris Agreement, according to an initial draft of study commissioned by Nordic countries.

A Washington DC lawmaker will introduce a carbon fee and rebate bill in early June that would see the US capital implement the highest carbon price of all sub-national proposals put forth throughout the country this year.

The New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) published new draft rules on Tuesday that would set CO2 standards for the few remaining coal plants in the state’s fleet, helping the state phase out the fossil fuel entirely by 2020.

EU carbon allowances rocketed above €15 on Wednesday for the first time since 2011 after a failed auction appeared to light a fuse under prices.

CFCs have been outlawed for years but researchers have detected new production somewhere in east Asia

A sharp and mysterious rise in emissions of a key ozone-destroying chemical has been detected by scientists, despite its production being banned around the world.

Unless the culprit is found and stopped, the recovery of the ozone layer, which protects life on Earth from damaging UV radiation, could be delayed by a decade. The source of the new emissions has been tracked to east Asia, but finding a more precise location requires further investigation.

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Freshwater supplies have already seriously declined in 19 global hotspots – from China to the Caspian Sea – due to overuse, groundbreaking study shows

Water shortages are likely to be the key environmental challenge of this century, scientists from Nasa have warned, as new data has revealed a drying-out of swaths of the globe between the tropics and the high latitudes, with 19 hotspots where water depletion has been dramatic.

Areas in northern and eastern India, the Middle East, California and Australia are among the hotspots where overuse of water resources has caused a serious decline in the availability of freshwater that is already causing problems. Without strong action by governments to preserve water the situation in these areas is likely to worsen.

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London's Science Museum unveils a replica of the probe Europe will send to the inner-most planet.

Campaigners force a referendum on the future use of synthetic pesticides in Switzerland.

More than 27,000 people applied for 1,000 public places at the scientist's Westminster Abbey service.

Winning images from the prestigious annual competition held by the Society of German Wildlife Photographers (Gesellschaft Deutscher Tierfotografen – GDT) which showcases talent from within the EU. This year’s winner is German photographer Maximilian Hornisch with his image of a golden eagle

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Influential committee says collapse in low-carbon investment is endangering jobs and threatening climate commitments

Investment in the UK’s low-carbon economy has fallen dramatically, endangering jobs and putting in doubt the government’s commitments on climate change, an influential committee of MPs has warned.

Funds going into renewable energy, the mainstay of the low-carbon economy, fell more than 50% in 2017, having dropped by 10% in 2016, bringing annual investment in the sector to its lowest since the financial crisis in 2008.

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Garrett Fisher spent much of his summer in 2015 flying over places like Yellowstone taking stunning pictures of retreating glaciers

After hearing that the glaciers of the Rocky Mountains are rapidly vanishing, financial consultant Garrett Fisher took a novel course of action – he flew a light aircraft, built in 1949, low and alone over the mountains in order to photograph them.

Fisher spent much of his summer in 2015 flying over places such as Yellowstone, Glacier National Park and Grand Teton National Park, taking stunning pictures of retreating glaciers for a new book.

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Iceland is among the first supermarkets to introduce the new ‘trust mark’ that shows shoppers which food packaging has no hidden plastic in it

A new plastic-free “trust mark” is being introduced today, allowing shoppers to see at a glance whether products use plastic in their packaging.

The label will be prominently displayed on food and drink products, making it easier for consumers to choose greener alternatives.

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