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Light-coloured roads and rooftop gardens are planning measures being employed to combat rising urban temperatures

With summer still apparently a long way off, it seems premature to be worrying about heatwaves but they are becoming as great a threat to life as winter cold. Predictions are that, in summer, most European cities could become as much as 10C hotter by the end of this century, testing the old and very young who both have trouble regulating body temperature.

Related: Urban heat islands: cooling things down with trees, green roads and fewer cars

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Across large ares of Australia, rocky outcrops are being obliterated to open up more land for farming. But many of these "bush rocks" are refuges for fragile ecosystems. Damian R. Michael, Senior Research Officer, Australian National University David Lindenmayer, Professor, The Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Achieving newly-proposed emission reductions goals as part of California's Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) remains uncertain due to both market and regulatory concerns, which could impact the viability of the clean fuel standard as a whole.

Securing rights to cultural flows would provide employment and skills for Indigenous communities along river system

• Murray-Darling: when the river runs dry

When the water levels of the Darling river fall, local elders in Wilcannia, New South Wales, say, the crime rate spikes, particularly juvenile crime.

It seems like an odd correlation until the elders explain just how important the river is to their everyday lives.

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Analysis shows 94% of the 5,000 estimated koala deaths due to habitat loss from 2012 to 2016 occurred outside the state’s heavily developed south-east

Environmentalists estimate that tree clearing in regional and rural Queensland is now 15 times more destructive to the state’s koala populations than urban sprawl.

Development, and the loss of koala habitat for housing and infrastructure, was considered a key reason why the koala was added to the “vulnerable” species list in 2012.

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The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) proposed new amendments on Friday for its electricity sector cap-and-trade programme intended to operate in parallel to RGGI.

Cambridge University researchers find human cancer drugs could halt the extinction of the marsupial.

A fossil find from Saudi Arabia adds to growing evidence that modern humans left Africa earlier than supposed.

The A’I Cofan in the Amazon fight back against small-scale miners invading their land and new, large-scale concessions upriver

Three A’I Cofan men were staring down at a pit of rocks, dead foliage and filthy water where two gold-panners were working. Beyond was a sluice and hoses running down to the rushing, green waters of the River Aguarico. To the right, there was mud, more rocks, more equipment, a makeshift tent and camp. Behind, to the left, a Hyundai excavator and a track running downriver.

No more than two weeks before, no track had existed and all this had been primary forest. Now that was gone. Only an area about 110 x 50 metres, you might say, but this is how gold rushes start.

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Official files show government expects 973,000 households to face increased daytime noise

More than 2 million people would be exposed to additional aircraft noise if Heathrow builds a third runway, according to a government analysis.

Ministers have argued that Britain’s biggest airport will affect fewer people with noise in future, due to quieter planes. But government calculations suggest a new runway would still have a negative impact on nearly a million households, or 2.2 million people.

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Australia has issued nearly 1.1 million carbon credits over the past two weeks, with around 40% of them going to landfill operator LMS Energy, data from the Clean Energy Regulator showed.

Serbian social media users mock city's tribute to the first man in space.

Next stage of planning process for Anglesey site postponed as effect on tern colonies is assessed

Plans for a nuclear power station on the Welsh island of Anglesey have been delayed by concerns over the plant’s impact on colonies of protected seabirds.

The proposed twin reactors at Wylfa were given the green light by the UK’s nuclear regulator in December, with backers hoping to win financial support from the government. The Welsh plant would have a capacity of 3GW, similar to the 3.2GW of the nuclear power station being built at Hinkley Point in Somerset.

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From chlorine to novichok, Hamish de Bretton-Gordon takes us through the history of chemical weapons.

The media watchdog says the ex-chancellor was "not sufficiently challenged" during a radio interview.

The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) is grappling this week to secure an initial strategy to address shipping emissions, with countries edging towards agreeing a carbon-intensity goal initially and only later committing to absolute emission cuts and potentially using carbon markets.

Ofcom says interviewer failed to challenge controversial claims including that there had been no increase in extreme weather events

BBC Radio 4 broke impartiality rules by failing to sufficiently challenge climate change denier Nigel Lawson’s controversial claims in an interview, the broadcasting watchdog has ruled.

Lord Lawson appeared on a Radio 4 programme last summer denying the concept of climate change, which prompted complaints from the Green party, and prominent scientists Brian Cox and Jim Al-Khalili, who said it was “irresponsible and highly misleading” to imply there was still a debate around the science supporting it.

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Tip turkey, dumpster chook, rubbish raptor – the Australian white ibis goes by many unflattering names. But it is a true urban success story, scavenging to survive in cities across Australia as wetlands have been lost. Wildlife photographer Rick Stevens captured them in Sydney

• See the rest of our Australian cities week series here

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China’s climate change office has asked for assistance from the power industry to develop realtime CO2 emissions data reporting for power stations covered by the national emissions trading scheme, a move that if successful would make it the world’s first carbon market to deploy such equipment.

A government-funded financing vehicle in China’s second-biggest coal-producing province has teamed up with the local carbon exchange to leverage public and private capital targeting carbon trading and clean industrial projects in a bid to cut its reliance on coal.