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Mild winter, cold spring and late summer lead to fall in numbers as 40 of 57 species struggle to cope with fluctuating weather

Butterflies in the UK have suffered one of their worst years on record, with 70% of all species experiencing a decline in numbers over the past year, according to conservationists.

The annual UK butterfly monitoring scheme (UKBMS) found that 40 out of the 57 species studied saw numbers drop between 2015 and 2016, making 2016 the fourth worst year on record for the insects.

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While Turnbull pedals Australian coal as a solution to India's electrification problems, study finds Mumbai could source half its peak power needs from rooftop solar.

Croft Castle, Herefordshire The noble parasite is an actor in the uncanny drama of life feeding on life

She looks like a fly in a fur coat; her wings made of clear cellophane with black bat markings; her syringe proboscis not for piercing flesh but sipping nectar; she is either a blur of speed or a full stop. The bee-fly is a chimera of contradictions and as true a sprite of spring as any of the animals associated with the season.

Sunlight forms pools under the ancient trees in the park at Croft Castle in Herefordshire. The great trunks of sweet chestnut trees, grown according to legend from chestnuts captured from Spanish ships at the Battle of Trafalgar, spiral on a bank above an oak that is a thousand years old. Its massive trunk, broken, bulging with the fearlessly mischievous expression of Pan himself, still sprouts living branches.

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Australian electricity prices have soared and emissions are still the highest in the developed world (behind Estonia). The way to get out of this mess might be energy auctions, if extending RET or carbon pricing are not options.

Trina Solar today announced that it launched its high-efficiency bifacial module DUOMAX Twin at Clean Energy Expo China (CEEC Expo) 2017 in Beijing.

Leaders and innovators from across the Australian clean energy industry are invited to nominate for this year’s Clean Energy Council Awards.

This week has been a big one for batteries and electric vehicles (EVs), both of which have been making headlines. And for wind and solar auctions.

A 754MW solar PV plant in Villanueva and Tesla's stockmarket manoeuvres help drive a "tepid" Q1 of clean energy investment, says BNEF.

The big old fossils are going to come out swinging at proposed 5-minute settlement rule, but fast, flexible players will form backbone of a decarbonised grid.

The authors say the research can be applied to other structures, such as DNA.

German utility giant E.ON to invest in airborne wind energy, an innovative type of wind energy based around offshore tethered drones.

Some of Victoria’s key former gold and coal mining centres targeted by $1m fund to support development of community renewables, and solar and pumped hydro.

Call for Palaszczuk government to allow crocodile-hunting safaris in far north Queensland follows string of recent attacks

Queensland’s Katter Australian party MPs are threatening to block the upcoming state budget, unless the Palaszczuk government culls crocodiles.

The Mount Isa MP, Robbie Katter, said he and fellow KAP MP Shane Knuth will block the budget unless the government supports their legislation to establish crocodile safaris in far north Queensland, along with other management strategies.

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The 1,805MW of solar PV capacity on rooftops of Queensland homes and business now more than biggest power station by capacity in the state, overtaking the 1,780MW Gladstone coal plant.

The Carbon Neutral Program will be attending 4th Australasian Emissions Reduction Summit on 2-3 May 2017.

The Carbon Neutral Program presented at the National Sustainability in Business Conference on 23-24 March 2017.

Carbon Neutral Program presented on voluntary carbon neutral standards for building and precincts at the Green Cities Conference on 6-8 March 2017.

Corals on the Great Barrier Reef have bleached again in 2017 as a result of extreme summer temperatures. It’s the fourth such event and the second in as many years, following earlier mass bleachings in 1998, 2002 and 2016.

The consecutive bleaching in 2016 and 2017 is concerning for two reasons. First, the 12-month gap between the two events is far too short for any meaningful recovery on reefs that were affected in 2016.

Second, last year’s bleaching was most severe in the northern section of the reef, from the Torres Strait to Port Douglas, whereas this year the most intense bleaching has occurred further south, between Cooktown and Townsville. The combined footprint of this unprecedented back-to-back bleaching now stretches along two-thirds of the length of the Great Barrier Reef.

Last year, after the peak temperatures in March, 67% of the corals died along a 700km northern section of the reef – the single greatest loss of corals ever recorded on the reef.

Further offshore and to the south, most of the bleached corals regained their colour after the 2016 bleaching, and survived. The patchiness of the bleaching means that there are still sections of the Great Barrier Reef that remain in good condition.

It is still too early to tell how many corals will survive or die over the next few months in the central section as a result of this year’s bleaching.

Four major events

Each of the four bleaching events has a distinctive geographic pattern that can be explained by where the water was hottest for sustained periods during each summer.

For example, the southern Great Barrier Reef escaped bleaching in both 2016 and 2017 because the summer sea temperatures there remained close to normal. Similarly, the earlier mass bleaching events in 1998 and 2002 were relatively moderate, because the elevated water temperatures experienced then were lower than those in 2017 and especially 2016.

The marine heatwaves in 1998 and 2016 coincided with El Niño periods, but this was not the case in 2002 or this year, when water temperatures were also abnormally high. Increasingly around the tropics, we are seeing more and more bleaching events, regardless of the timing relative to the El Niño-La Niña cycle. This reflects the growing impact of global warming on these events.

The local weather also plays an important role in determining where and when bleaching occurs. For example, in 2016, ex-Tropical Cyclone Winston came from Fiji to Australia at the end of February as a rain depression, and cooled the southern region of the Great Barrier Reef, saving it from bleaching.

This year, the category 4 Tropical Cyclone Debbie tracked across the reef in late March, close to the southern boundary of the latest bleaching.

But TC Debbie was too far south to prevent the bleaching that was already under way in the reef’s central and northern sections. Instead of helping to ameliorate the bleaching, this powerful cyclone has added to the pressures on some southern reefs by smashing corals and exacerbating coastal runoff.

Prospects for the future

The fallout from this and last year’s events will continue to unfold in the coming months and years. It takes several months for severely bleached corals to regain their colour, or to die. On some reefs in the Great Barrier Reef’s central region, underwater surveys in 2017 are already documenting substantial loss of corals.

The recovery times for northern and now central reefs that have lost many corals will be at least 10-15 years, assuming that conditions remain favourable for corals during that period.

We have a narrowing window of opportunity to tackle global warming, and no time to lose in moving to zero net carbon emissions. We have already seen four major bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef with just 1℃ of global average warming.

The goals enshrined in the Paris climate agreement, which aims to hold global warming well below 2℃ and as close as possible to 1.5℃, will not be sufficient to restore the Great Barrier Reef to its former glory. But they should at least ensure that we continue to have a functioning coral reef system.

In contrast, if the world continues its business-as-usual greenhouse emissions for several more decades, it will almost certainly spell the end of the Great Barrier Reef as we now know it.

Terry Hughes receives competitive research funding from the Australian Research Council, and provides regular advice to both the Commonwealth and Queensland governments.

James Kerry does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

AEMC indicates its support for switch to 5-minute settlement period, albeit with a 3-year transition period, and to a new rule that could allow alternatives to investment in more poles and wires. Both offer incentives to storage, demand response, and local renewables, and herald a more rapid shift to a smarter, cleaner and cheaper grid.

Company should not receive $900m loan for rail line because it claims project is viable without it, shadow minister for resources says

Adani should not receive a $900m concessional loan for a rail line from its proposed Carmichael mine because the company claims the project is commercially viable without taxpayer funds, Jason Clare has said.

Speaking on Radio National on Wednesday, the shadow resources and northern Australia minister said it would be “terrific” if the project went ahead and created jobs but it should “stand on its own two feet”.

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