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As diesel emission fears mount, a growing number of parents now consider clean air the main factor when choosing a school

An increasing number of parents are shunning good schools because of the local air quality while some are even looking to move out of cities altogether, as fears over the effects of diesel emissions on health mount.

Last week a major study published in the Lancet found that pollution from diesel vehicles was stunting the growth of children’s lungs, leaving them damaged for life.

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Farwiza Farhan on efforts to protect the forests where orangutan, rhinos, elephants and tigers co-exist.

Dutch artist Suzanne Jongmans creates photographs that echo the old masters, but with a modern twist: she crafts intricate costumes using recycled plastics, old blankets and used packaging. Jongmans finds inspiration in painters such as Jan van Eyck, Rembrandt and Holbein, whose level of detail she aims to replicate. “When you look at the old masters, you can really see the time that is put into the paintings,” she says. “And that fits with the method I developed.” There is an implicit environmental message in her work but, she says, her primary objective is giving a new life to these old materials. “I’m a collector mostly – I collect all kinds of things, like blankets, wool, things from nature. And I would like all these materials to tell a story.”

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Protesters plan to close five main bridges across Thames over extinction crisis

Thousands of people have descended on central London for a “day of rebellion” in protest over the looming climate crisis.

People began massing on five bridges over the River Thames from 10am on Saturday. A short time later groups of protesters began to block the roads on the bridges, some of the busiest and most important in the capital.

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Off Track explores the Little Penguin (Eudyptula minor) colony on Bowen Island in NSW. [Repeat]

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

California regulator ARB on Friday postponed a decision until next spring on whether to approve the Tropical Forest Standard (TFS) that could allow jurisdictions to link their sector-based offset programmes to the state’s carbon market, with stakeholders warning of the standard's environmental and social ramifications.

EU carbon prices ended above €19 on Friday as the UK government stuck to its efforts to pass a Brexit deal, while a huge drop in coal prices boosted the prospects for coal generators to ramp up EUA buying.

Scientists in Brazil find first evidence of plastic pollution in Amazon basin freshwater fish

Scientists have found the first evidence of plastic contamination in freshwater fish in the Amazon, highlighting the extent to which bags, bottles and other waste dumped in rivers is affecting the world’s wildlife.

Tests on the stomach contents of fish in Brazil’s Xingu River, one of the major tributaries of the Amazon, revealed plastic particles in more than 80% of the species examined, including the omnivorous parrot pacu, herbivorous redhook silver dollar, and meat-eating red-bellied piranha.

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Nodal Exchange and IncubEx launched their first tranche of environmental products in North American carbon, renewable energy, and other environmental markets on Friday, adding another player offering futures contracts in the market.

Cuadrilla won’t say if it has halted Preston New Road exploration, at cost of £94,000 a day

The shale gas firm Cuadrilla has refused to confirm whether it has halted fracking after triggering a series of minor earthquakes near Blackpool, raising questions over the operation’s future prospects.

Dozens of small tremors have been registered near the company’s Preston New Road site, after it started pumping high volumes of water underground in October to explore for gas.

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EU carbon prices will soon rise to levels that will force the closure of a number of German coal plants, according to a member of an industry association represented on the country’s coal exit commission.

Starlings over Rome and the ‘smiling angel’ of the Yangtze are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

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While EU carbon futures prices are increasingly seen as driving fossil fuel forward prices, researchers have found a looser relationship in the spot market and differing ones when it comes to the inverse, namely how each fuel affects EUAs.

Huge expansion of agri-food industry is harming environment, say investigators

Green energy subsidies are fuelling the rise of poultry mega-farms across Northern Ireland, with owners accused of contaminating sensitive habitats with emissions from chicken faeces.

An alliance of agri-food companies enlisted the support of Northern Ireland politicians to unlock an estimated £800m in subsidies for contractors. This has paved the way for industry expansion at the expense of the environment, according to an investigation by the not-for-profit journalism group SourceMaterial.

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China Southern Power Grid Co. on Friday auctioned off a small batch of offsets eligible for use in the Guangdong ETS that cleared nearly 40% above the secondary market price for allowances.

Closing prices, ranges and volumes for China's regional pilot carbon markets this week.

Ranking of countries’ goals shows even EU on course for more than double safe level of warming

China, Russia and Canada’s current climate policies would drive the world above a catastrophic 5C of warming by the end of the century, according to a study that ranks the climate goals of different countries.

The US and Australia are only slightly behind with both pushing the global temperature rise dangerously over 4C above pre-industrial levels says the paper, while even the EU, which is usually seen as a climate leader, is on course to more than double the 1.5C that scientists say is a moderately safe level of heating.

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From Belize to Barbados, tourist beaches have been swamped by huge tides of foul-smelling sargassum – and climate change could make the problem worse

“It was like something out of a science fiction movie,” says Barbara Hall from the office of the beachside hotel she runs in Placencia, southern Belize.

“I woke up at 6am, looked out my window and realised we had a big problem. It was absolutely overwhelming.”

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New Zealand carbon allowances suffered a third straight day of losses on Friday, with the increasing gap to the de facto price ceiling  spurring sellers to come forward after months of near-zero trading.