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Exclusive: The prime minister says the UK leads the world on climate action, but Foreign Office officials dedicated to the issue have plunged since 2016

The number of full-time officials dedicated to climate change in the Foreign Office has dropped by almost 25% in the two years since Boris Johnson became foreign secretary, according to data released under freedom of information (FoI) rules.

Johnson has also failed to mention climate change in any official speech since he took the office, in marked contrast to his two predecessors.

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Wenlock Edge, Shropshire: Toads can control their skin tone and this soft yellowishness showed it was ready to ‘a-wooing go’

“How could a purse / squeeze under the rickety door and sit, / full of satisfaction, in a man’s house?” wrote the poet Norman MacCaig in Toad. This toad, a soft yellow-brown and ornamentally purse-like, had come through the back door somehow and was squatting defiantly on quarry tiles. It was seeking asylum from an extraordinarily brilliant morning, unfamiliar heat and ultraviolet light that the weather forecast said was moderate but to toadskin was extreme radiation. It did not seem full of satisfaction to me but then Bufo bufo’s narrowing eyes with horizontal pupils and that broad enigmatic smile may be mistaken for smugness.

The place in the toad’s head that myth says contains a jewel is hidden by an inscrutable mask that is somewhere between divine and reprobate. The bulging paratoid glands on its head, the warty skin excrescences that secrete toxins, and the sumo stance, all suggest repulsion but its soft yellowishness is the colour of fading daffs, with hints of celandine, primrose, agate and potting sand. Toads can control their skin tone and this was being dressed to “a-wooing go”.

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Scientists, entrepreneurs, students and environmentalists have gathered in Cairns to work out ways to reduce stresses on the World Heritage Area, with a particular focus on marine pollution.

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

Efforts to incentivise negative emission activities in the US are slowly emerging, but they face huge challenges to play more than a supporting role over the next decade.

Spring is risky for mountain hares; to avoid predators, they have to time their change from white to brown carefully

Britain’s mountain hare Lepus timidus should presently be turning from white to grey-brown with a blue tinge as the breeding season starts. Spring is a dangerous time; the snow disappears and adults need to blend in to avoid hungry eagles or a fox.

Unlike brown hares and rabbits the mountain hare is a true native species, but is increasingly threatened by climate change as it has to climb higher to find a suitable habitat. There are mountain hares as far south as Derbyshire and on the Pennine Hills, where they have been introduced, but their true home is in alpine Scotland.

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This Brittany farm could be available to someone who will preserve its traditional methods.

We can take back control of our waters, writes Bertie Armstrong, while Steve Peak laments the Tories’ broken promises

We agree with Polly Toynbee that fishing is “deep-dyed in the national identity” (Opinion, 23 April). The UK is in the middle of some of the best fishing grounds in the world. Where she is wrong is in making two assertions: firstly, that taking back control of our waters “is not going to happen, because it can’t”; and secondly, that the problem is that UK skippers sold their quotas to foreigners.

On the first, actually it can. The United Nations convention on the law of the sea (UNCLOS) awards sovereign rights over and responsibilities for the natural resources to coastal states in their own exclusive economic zones. That will be us on Brexit, and there are a couple of pre-packed examples of the benefits in the EEZs of our near north-east Atlantic neighbours. Iceland catches 90% of the seafood resource in its EEZ and Norway some 85%. For us, under the rules in the common fisheries policy, we catch 40%, which is absurd. It certainly can change, and according to the prime minister and DexEU and Defra, it will change. It will be a negotiation, but if, as Polly says, the referendum was actually won on fishing sentiment, then public support will see the negotiations move in the right direction.

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Scientists have modified a plant's genes to make it produce high levels of a key malaria drug, potentially helping meet the large global demand.

Renowned conservationist dedicated to saving orphaned elephants and releasing them back into the wild

Elephant babies like coconut oil. This discovery has saved the life of hundreds of orphaned, unweaned elephants, left behind when their mothers were killed, victims of the ivory wars that have catastrophically reduced elephant populations across Africa.

The discovery came after two decades of efforts by the renowned conservationist Daphne Sheldrick, who has died aged 83. She devoted most of her life to rescuing young elephants and releasing them back into the wild.

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Substances used to aid muscle-building and weight loss made up more than half of the pharmaceuticals found in the capital’s sewers. What does this tell us about modern life?

Along with the flushed debris and the thriving bacteria – the wet wipes, condoms, and sanitary towels; the listeria and E coli – that have congealed within the giant fatbergs in the sewers under central London, are chemicals found in banned gym supplements. In fact, they were discovered in greater quantities than drugs such as cocaine and MDMA.

In tonight’s Fatberg Autopsy: Secrets of the Sewers, on Channel 4, samples from a giant block were examined to see what it contained. Caused by people pouring cooking oil down the drain – which then congeals with items that should not be flushed, such as wet wipes – fatbergs are an increasing problem for water companies, particularly in urban areas. But the examination of fatbergs’ chemical content also provides a picture of the way we live. The scientists who did the analysis discovered numerous predictable substances, such as paracetamol, prescription medications and substances used in skin creams. But more surprising was the amount of hordenine and ostarine – described by the programme-makers as often being found in gym supplements, which made up more than half of the pharmaceuticals found.

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Discovery prompts fear that melting ice will allow more plastic to be released back into the oceans.

Samples taken from five locations found concentrations of more than 12,000 microplastic particles per litre of sea ice

Scientists have found a record amount of plastic trapped in Arctic sea ice, raising concern about the impact on marine life and human health.

Up to 12,000 pieces of microplastic particles were found per litre of sea ice in core samples taken from five regions on trips to the Arctic Ocean – as many as three times higher than levels in previous studies.

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Analysts Energy Aspects have raised their EU carbon price forecasts for the third time in as many months, though warned that the market appears to be getting “jittery” amid heightened options-related risk.

European carbon prices climbed back above €13 on Tuesday after a stronger auction encouraged buyers and appeared to trigger a bout of short-covering.

A vet gives advice on how to assist dehydrated bumblebees emerging from hibernation.

After years of rapid expansion, China is slamming the brakes on solar power capacity growth this year to shift its focus onto quality control and cost reduction, senior energy officials said Tuesday, signalling a bump in the road in the country’s efforts to wean itself off fossil fuels.

New Zealand carbon allowances fell 0.3% on Tuesday but still ended just 30 cents below the all-time highs hit in February as overall market sentiment remains bullish.

Japan this week issued the first-ever batch of offsets to a Thailand-based project under the Joint Crediting Mechanism (JCM), taking the number of host countries that have received carbon credits under the programme to five of Japan’s 17 partners.

Exclusive: Taking back control of UK waters would lower the price of British-caught fish, new analysis shows – but most of the fish we eat is imported

A hard Brexit that banned EU fishermen from UK waters would lead to many more fish being landed by British boats and a corresponding drop in prices, according to new economic analysis.

But there’s a catch. Two-thirds of the fish UK consumers eat are imported from overseas, and the costs of those would rise, due to the trade barriers resulting from a hard Brexit. Moreover, the fall in the price of UK fish would lead to a drop in earnings for UK fishermen. Overall, the analysis shows closing the UK’s sea borders would be a “lose-lose situation” for both UK and EU consumers and fishing industries.

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