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On 15 December 2015 Australia’s Environment Ministers established the National Clean Air Agreement. The Agreement seeks to ensure that the community continues to enjoy clean air and address the impacts on human health and the environment.

This second edition highlights implementation successes over the last six months, outlines priorities for implementation over the next six months and describes key strategies for coordination and efficient delivery of Reef 2050 Plan commitments.

Through Partnerships for the Reef, the Reef Trust is inviting the corporate sector, investors, philanthropic organisations and individuals to work in partnership with the Australian and Queensland governments on practical on ground projects that...

GREAT MOMENTS IN SCIENCE: Ever wondered how tiny little ants coordinate a raid on the cat's bowl? Humans could learn a lot from the answer, says Dr Karl.

Cartoon in News Corp paper by veteran Bill Leak described by critic as ‘shocking ... and unequivocally racist, drawing on base stereotypes of third world people’

A cartoon in the Australian depicting starving Indians chopping up and eating solar panels sent to the developing nation in an attempt to curb carbon emissions has been condemned as “unequivocally racist”.

Drawn by the veteran cartoonist Bill Leak, Monday’s cartoon was his response to the climate deal signed in Paris at the weekend. India is the world’s fourth-largest greenhouse emitter.

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The call for applications for funding through the 2015-16 Solar Towns Programme (Round 3) is now open. Applications close 12 February 2015

The call for applications for funding through the 2015-16 Solar Towns Programme (Round 3) is now open. Applications close 12 February 2015

Two decades of talks have come to this: an ambitious agreement to hold states to emissions targets – but already low-lying countries are worried

Governments have signalled an end to the fossil fuel era, committing for the first time to a universal agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions and to avoid the most dangerous effects of climate change.

After 20 years of fraught meetings, including the past two weeks spent in an exhibition hall on the outskirts of Paris, negotiators from nearly 200 countries signed on to a legal agreement on Saturday evening that set ambitious goals to limit temperature rises and to hold governments to account for reaching those targets.

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The goal of 1.5C is a big leap below the 2C agreed six years ago in Copenhagen. Here’s what the agreement means for global emissions and the future of the planet

Governments have agreed to “pursue efforts” to limit warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels: something that would have seemed unthinkable just a few months ago.

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The former Nasa scientist criticizes the talks, intended to reach a new global deal on cutting carbon emissions beyond 2020, as ‘no action, just promises’

• John Kerry rejects scientist’s claim Paris talks were ‘fraud’

Mere mention of the Paris climate talks is enough to make James Hansen grumpy. The former Nasa scientist, considered the father of global awareness of climate change, is a soft-spoken, almost diffident Iowan. But when he talks about the gathering of nearly 200 nations, his demeanour changes.

Related: John Kerry rejects leading climate scientist's claim Paris talks were 'fraud'

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A Siberian tiger called Zolushka is filmed in the Bastak nature reserve in east Russia playing with two young cubs. Zolushka was found orphaned in 2012 and after a year of rehabilitation was retuned to the wild. Now it seems Zolushka has given birth to cubs in the wild. The Siberian tiger is one of the most endangered species in the world with as few as 500 left in the wild

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Agency application on ecological sustainability - call for public comments open from 10 December 2015 until 18 January 2016

Application on ecological sustainability - Call for public comments open 11 December 2015 until 29 January 2016.

Scientist who features in BBC series says Australia’s positions on reef and coal are incompatible, but environment minister Greg Hunt fails to address contradiction at Paris screening

A leading scientist who features in David Attenborough’s new series about the Great Barrier Reef has told the Australian government it cannot expand coal exports and continue to claim to be protecting the reef.

The government is planning a big tourism campaign to run at the same time as the new series screens around the world.

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Committee on Climate Change had warned in October that the government must take action to protect homes from risk of flooding

The UK government was warned by its official climate change advisers in October that it needed to take action on the increasing number of homes at high risk of flooding but rejected the advice.

The decision not to develop a strategy to address increase flooding risk came just a few weeks before Storm Desmond brought about severe flooding in Cumbria, Lancashire and other parts of the north west causing an estimated £500m of damage.

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Millionaire behind adventure brand and Esprit, who ploughed fortune into saving South American ecosystems, suffers hypothermia from falling into lake

Douglas Tompkins, co-founder of the North Face outdoor company who poured millions into conservation, has died after falling into near-freezing waters during a kayak accident in southern Chile.

Tompkins, 72, was taken with acute hypothermia to a hospital in Coyhaique after high winds flipped his adventure kayak during a trip across Lake General Carrera in Patagonia on Tuesday, reports said. He died about six hours after arriving at hospital in the regional capital.

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The Australian Heritage Strategy is one of Australia’s key heritage priorities. The Strategy provides a nationally driven strategic direction for heritage management across all levels of government and the community for the next ten years.

From rapid ice melts to calving glaciers and a snow terrain poked by dark patches, Daniel Beltrá’s stunning images show how rising temperatures and global pollution are literally leaving their dark imprints on Greenland’s pristine landscape. ‘Climate change is having its biggest and most visible impact in Greenland. It is like the canary in a coal mine; what is happening there will affect us all,’ he says

Photographs by Daniel Beltrá/ Courtesy of Catherine Edelman Gallery

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GREAT MOMENTS IN SCIENCE: Scientists recently witnessed the birth an exoplanet the size of Jupiter. Dr Karl explains how planets are born from the apparent emptiness of space.

The draft negotiating text for a global deal is in. These are some of the people who will now decide the outcome of the talks

As ministers from countries around the world fly in for the crunch second week of the UN climate talks in Paris there are still significant areas of disagreement, but also optimism at the talks that a deal can be done. The negotiating text has been pared back to just over 20 pages – a much better position than at the equivalent point at the Copenhagen talks in 2009. Here are some of the key individuals who will decide the outcome of the talks.

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