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Tax exemption for all-new zero-emission electric taxi brought forward in boost for new greener cabs

Prospects for London’s new electric taxi have been boosted after the Treasury brought forward a £1,550 tax exemption to this April.

The British-built, zero-emission capable taxi had been liable for a luxury car tax, introduced in 2017, of £310 per year for five years, deterring cab drivers from upgrading to the greener vehicle.

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Sudan, whose future was "not looking bright", rallies slightly as his carers treat his wounds.

A family found the message, dropped in 1886 by a German ship, on a remote beach in West Australia.

Diver Rich Horner has captured video of himself swimming through water densely strewn with plastic waste and yellowing food wrappers, with the occasional tropical fish darting around.

The footage was shot at a dive site called Manta Point, a cleaning station for the large rays on the island of Nusa Penida, about 20km from the popular Indonesian holiday island of Bali.

• 'Plastic, plastic, plastic': British diver films sea of rubbish off Bali

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The aircraft carrier USS Lexington went down in the 1942 Battle of the Coral Sea, with 216 lives lost.

Tonya and Kym Illman discovered the oldest known message in a bottle washed up at a WA beach.

Claxton, Norfolk: All the elements have come together to create a moment of seasonal delight

It is one of the more subtle attractions of our parish but its seasonal window is brief and upon us right now. It is composed of four very commonplace elements, but their convergence is as special and unpredictable as the arrival of a rare migrant.

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The myth that SA renewables are responsible for their high electricity prices keeps on keeping on. So here's another reason why it should be debunked.

Australia has a natural advantage in solar, but its global ranking in utility-scale solar is worse than its Winter Olympics medal tally.

India's newly inaugurated Pavagada Solar Park looks at farmers as key partners, and also key beneficiaries of the world-leading 2GW project.

A series of 28 consecutive News Polls show the Coalition is trailing Labor. So perhaps it's time to dump the right wing policies on energy and climate Turnbull promised to cherish, and set a new path. Here are some quick and easy fixes, offered free, and without retainer.

Waste consultancy Eunomia claims English packaging firms need to step up on recycling rates.

This map shows the scale of land clearing in Australia by visualising the extent of clearing in states where data is available

Australia is in the midst of a land clearing crisis. Some estimate that 3m hectares of woodland will be cleared between 2010 and 2030.

This is having a huge impact on the environment. Loss of habitat is one of the main threats to about three-quarters of Australia’s 1,640 plants and animals listed by the government as at risk. Land clearing, and land-use changes that follow it, have caused a fivefold increase in the sediment pollution pouring on to the embattled Great Barrier Reef, further diminishing its ability to deal with climate change.

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A British designer wants used gum recycled into useful objects - also leading to cleaner streets.

A report has said the south Indian city is likely to run out of water - but is this really the case?

A breakthrough in materials technology could see fast-charging supercapacitors rival lithium-ion batteries.

Heavy rain has many graziers celebrating but the patchy weather has left some without and even those with mud in their backyards say it's not the end of the drought yet.

Flies need good grip because they often sleep upside down. Bryan Lessard, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, CSIRO Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

New treaty compels states to investigate and punish killings and attacks on people defending their land or environment

Officials from 24 Latin American and Caribbean states have signed a legally binding environmental rights pact containing measures to protect land defenders, almost two years to the day since environmental leader Berta Cáceres was killed in her home in Honduras.

Last year almost 200 nature protectors were killed across the world, 60% of them in Latin America. The new treaty obliges states to “guarantee a safe and enabling environment for persons, groups and organisations that promote and defend human rights in environmental matters”.

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Replacing the government-controlled system by private companies made the costs of the delivery process soar, writes David Reed. Plus letters from John Heawood and Mark Lewinski

Privatising our vital energy services was a disaster waiting to happen, though the Tories daren’t admit it (Row over rise in energy bills for 1m households, 3 March). Every house has one set of cables carrying electricity and one set of pipes with gas; in addition, all the key energy market prices are set nationally, regionally or even globally, so there can be little or no competition in supply costs. You could argue that having more buyers actually increases competition, pushing prices higher.

We may not realise it, but it has been cold in all of Europe, so price rises are inevitable. As your report says, the 7.9% rise in prices in the last six months was “driven primarily by increases in wholesale gas and electricity costs”. How will the government’s much-vaunted price cap help with that? I have changed suppliers almost every year in the last five or more years, but my bills are higher than ever, for a very simple reason: replacing the government-controlled system by more than a dozen private companies, all with highly paid chief executives and shareholders to keep happy, made the costs of the delivery process soar. How could it not?

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