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For the past decade, the Barcelona-based visual artist Xavi Bou has devoted his work to revealing “the hidden beauty of natural movement”. His initial focus was birds; now he’s moved on to insects. In collaboration with US entomologist Adrian Smith he’s created an eye-popping series that captures – by merging multiple frames into a single image – the rhythmic flutterings of butterflies and chaotic leaps of spittlebugs and treehoppers. As well as their beauty, Bou was struck by the crucial role that insects play in ecosystems, even as their numbers plummet – it’s estimated that the biomass of flying insect species has decreased by 75% over the past 27 years. “We need to move beyond seeing insects as mere nuisances,” says Bou. “They are fascinating, essential creatures, and we owe them a great deal.”

• See more of Xavi Bou’s images here

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Ministers set out plans for outlawing neonicotinoids but considering application by farmers to use Cruiser SB

Bee-killing pesticides are to be banned by the UK government, as ministers set out plans to outlaw the use of neonicotinoids.

However, the highly toxic neonicotinoid Cruiser SB could be allowed for use next year, as ministers are considering applications from the National Farmers’ Union and British Sugar.

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Producers and managed money narrowed their California Carbon Allowance (CCA) and RGGI Allowance (RGA) net V25 length, even as the groups continued to build their open interest (OI) in the vintage year across both markets, data released Friday from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) showed.

Dairy industry members were dissatisfied with Washington’s proposed revision to its Clean Fuel Standard (WCFS), arguing that the regulator’s considerations for biomethane fell short of incentivising investment. 

Planned legal changes will see three neonicotinoid pesticides completely banned from any future use.

The New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) released Thursday a discussion draft of its future Clean Transportation Fuel Standard (CTFS), inviting public comments until mid-January.

From break dancing to nude bathers and the country’s best mullets, here’s a selection of our photographers’ finest work

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Canada’s first sustainability and climate disclosure standards were published Wednesday, enabling companies to voluntarily adopt the measures until mandated by provincial and territorial securities regulators.

The California-Quebec joint WCI auction in February will offer a lower volume of allowances in the first quarterly allowance sale of 2025 than it did in the last of this year, according to a Friday notice from California regulator ARB.

Researchers say species is second-longest living mammal on Earth after bowhead whales

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In 1893, the World’s Fair was getting under way in Chicago, the world’s first number plates appeared on cars in Paris, and Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination would later spark the first world war, spent time hunting kangaroos and emus in the NSW town of Narromine.

Also, according to researchers, up to 10% of southern right whales in existence could have still been swimming the ocean today, if not for other factors.

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Based on data so far in December from major registries, the voluntary carbon market is set to record its biggest year ever for credit retirements, new analysis from Carbon Pulse shows.

Carbon Pulse rounds up the most significant carbon pricing trends and developments in the Latin America and Caribbean (LATAM) region for 2024, highlighting a diversifying and increasingly international markets landscape, as major regional powers, notably Brazil, took a big step forward in advancing mechanisms.

A carbon removal standard has published the first protocol for durable carbon removal (CDR) in the mining industry.

Gold Standard has confirmed to Carbon Pulse that it will make a decision on whether, or how, to integrate the UN-backed CLEAR clean cooking methodology within its carbon crediting programmes in 2025.

The ongoing environmental crises are unlikely to be solved unless crediting schemes move beyond just carbon, with governments now tasked with starting establishing common metrics on biodiversity to back the market uptake, a researcher at the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) told Carbon Pulse.

Around one-third of local authorities are unaware of how the upcoming expansion of the UK carbon market will impact incineration and energy recovery of waste, a survey has found.

A UK council announced this week it has become the first local authority to commit to a beyond net zero strategy, with plans to help scale carbon removal (CDR).

Volatility and trading volume in European carbon allowances diminished on Friday morning while prices were little changed by midday, as market participants started to clear their desks ahead of the holiday break and natural gas traded in a comparatively narrow range.

Global consultancy Accenture is investing in nature-based carbon removals to tackle residual emissions and reach its net-zero target by 2025, the company revealed this week.

Labour seems gripped by a form of denialism. The danger is real and incremental change won’t avert it

• Jeremy Corbyn is independent MP for Islington North and was leader of the Labour party from 2015 to 2020

There is no need to overcomplicate things: a rise in global temperatures of 3.1C is not compatible with human survival. That is where we are heading, unless we act now. On our current path, the world will exceed 1.5C of warming, and could reach a rise of 2.6-3.1C by the end of the century.

For you, today, that might make the difference between wearing a jumper or a jacket. For humanity, it is the difference between survival and extinction. Paris and Berlin will bake under heatwaves. New York will be hit by frequent storm-surges. Coastal towns will be submerged; 800 million people are living on land that will be underwater.

Jeremy Corbyn is independent MP for Islington North and was leader of the Labour party from 2015 to 2020

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