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A new provision from California regulator ARB to provide Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) credits for two types of fuelling infrastructure for zero-emissions vehicles (ZEVs) may raise concerns about the programme’s commitment to technology neutrality and environmental integrity, according to stakeholders at the agency’s public workshop on Monday.

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

The US has more captive tigers than the rest of the world has wild ones. Why?

As Researcher in Climate Protection & Urban Governance, you will support our team in working on projects on national and European climate policy and urban governance. In particular, you will work at the interface between traditional emission reduction approaches and adaptation – especially in cities – to climate change. In addition, you will support the acquisition of new projects in these fields.

Carp that soak up the sun are fitter, and bold fish benefit more by sunbathing for longer

One magic late afternoon in summer, sitting on the bank of a clear, still lake in Hertfordshire, it was possible to see lines of motionless carp on the surface that appeared to be sunbathing. The idea that fish, like snakes and other ectotherms (“cold-blooded” creatures), might enjoy or benefit from sunbathing was dismissed as a childish fancy at the time, but many decades later has been vindicated.

A scientific paper shows that carp not only sunbathe, but also gain body heat, grow faster and are fitter as a result. These fish were warmer than their surroundings despite the fact that scientists thought this was impossible because the fish were immersed in cold water. Another key finding is that not all fish gained equally. The darker fish absorbed more warmth than their paler companions and grew faster.

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New Australia Institute paper finds neither Coalition nor Labor’s pollution reduction targets would see us doing our fair share

Pollution reduction targets for 2030 proposed by the Coalition and Labor will not see Australia contributing its fair share to cut greenhouse gas emissions under the Paris climate agreement, according to new research.

A paper from the progressive thinktank the Australia Institute finds the Turnbull government’s target of a 26-28% reduction on 2005 levels is “inadequate according to any recognised principle-based approach” and the Labor target of a 45% reduction is “the bare minimum necessary for Australia to be considered to be making an equitable contribution to the achievement of the Paris agreement’s two degree target”.

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EU carbon prices lost ground for a second day on Monday, sinking to a one-week low as traders grew preoccupied by coming weeks of high auction supply and a looming option expiry date.

Many of the oldest and largest specimens of Africa's baobab tree have died over the past 12 years.

Champion of wildlife conservation in towns and cities

George Barker, who has died aged 77, was a champion of wildlife conservation in towns and cities. During his long service in the government wildlife service, the Nature Conservancy Council (NCC), and its successor bodies, he became the acknowledged expert on urban nature conservation, a field that had been largely neglected. His openness to new ideas, unusual in a public servant, and gentle advocacy over four decades, helped to make a success of urban wildlife conservation both at home and abroad.

Acting almost alone at first, Barker set about destroying the myth of the “urban wildlife desert”. Long before ecosystem services became a crucial part of urban planning and design, Barker realised that city landscapes can be surprisingly rich in wildlife, especially in post-industrial “brownfield” sites such as quarries and spoil-heaps. These places were seen as derelict land and were completely unprotected. Barker also understood that urban parks and even gardens can become reservoirs for wildlife if managed in the right way.

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China’s environmental regulators on Monday started a one-year long campaign to ensure the enforcement of anti-emission measures across the nation’s most polluted cities as part of efforts to reduce its reliance on coal, according to an official statement.

European commission’s inaction is putting people’s health at risk, law firm says

People’s health is being put at risk by Brussels’ slow response to the use of dangerous chemicals, according to a report.

A study by ClientEarth, an environmental law organisation, found that in nine out of 10 cases the European commission’s decision to ban a toxic chemical after it had been identified was “excessively delayed”, sometimes for up to four years.

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South Korea’s June 1 CO2 permit auction sold 85% of the allowances on offer, settling at a 2% discount to the secondary market, according to a government official on Monday.

Danish-Canadian urban designer Mikael Colville-Andersen busts some common myths and shows how the bicycle has the potential to transform cities around the world

• Copenhagenize is published by Island Press

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The WSJ disguises climate misinformation as “opinion”

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) Opinion page has long had a conservative skew, and unfortunately that has extended to politicizing climate change with biased and factually inaccurate editorials.

Over the past several weeks, the WSJ’s attacks on climate science have gone into overdrive. On May 15th, the Opinion page published a self-contradictory editorial from the lifelong contrarian and fossil fuel-funded Fred Singer that so badly rejected basic physics, it prompted one researcher to remark, “If this were an essay in one of my undergraduate classes, he would fail.”

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Could this historic meeting between the leaders of the US and North Korea mark the beginning of a new era?

Don’t think bringing children along for the ride means you have to miss out on one of cycling’s true pleasures. You just need to do a bit of extra planning

One of the great joys of riding a bike is touring – pedalling from place to place, without a fixed timetable, ideally with camping gear and everything else you need strapped to your bike. So that poses a question: can you do it with children?

The answer is a qualified yes – qualified in the sense you just need to do a bit more planning. We recently tried out a first brief family cycling tour with our son, now seven, and learned a lot in the few days of cycling through the Surrey and West Sussex countryside.

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15 June 1918: Colour shimmered in the sun and seemed to pervade everything

Surrey
The morning air was so light that it hardly touched the tops of the tall poplars, yet it was strong enough to sway poppies in the wheat and make yellow charlock tremble slightly in a farther outfield. Colour shimmered in the sun and seemed to pervade everything; a sense of it came with the rich scent of hay, raked, cocked, waggoned, and pronged by young women, who did everything but shape the stack which now stands on a log foundation near the wood. There timber, mostly ash, was cleared early in the year; birds who had used it as a great grove flew aimlessly across; it then lay bare, a place of the dead, and itself a dead place. Now it is a green copse alive with song; finches twitter, a yellow-hammer perches on the five-barred gate which spans the cart road, foxgloves line the ditch bank. The young sprouted ash with hazel hushes make an underwood through which you must push your way, the open spaces are green with ferns, and in the evening, from birches which were left standing, a blackcap whistles a short but strong tune.

Related: Fields of gold: the best of Britain’s wild meadows

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Springwatch presenter says Britain is increasingly ‘a green and unpleasant land’

He’s currently enjoying a great bounty of nature, from tree-climbing slugs to blackbird-gobbling little owls on this year’s Springwatch, but Chris Packham warns that we are presiding over “an ecological apocalypse” and Britain is increasingly “a green and unpleasant land”.

The naturalist and broadcaster is urging people to join him next month on a 10-day “bioblitz”, visiting road verges, farmland, parks, allotments and community nature reserves across the country to record what wildlife remains – from butterflies to bryophytes, linnets to lichens.

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Bigland Hall, Lake District: Lost in the fog with a recalcitrant compass, I’m glad to encounter the former coach of the British orienteering team

A sea fret creeping in from Morecambe Bay has me baffled. The ancient ride I’ve been following through a corner of the Bigland Hall estate is covered in fog. Normally my compass’s needle points to magnetic north no matter which way I turn. Today? Useless. The needle spins around like a roulette wheel. With visibility down to a few metres, I’m lost. I have the verges to guide me, but is the Flookburgh-Haverthwaite road still to my right? Or have I inadvertently turned through 180 degrees, so that the B5278 is now to my left and I am walking back the way I came?

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After the NSW government gave them heritage protection with the brumby bill, I had no choice but to quit the NSW threatened species scientific committee

Last year, I drove up to the New South Wales high country with my oldest son. We arrived at Geehi, found a camp site, rigged up our rods and waded into the crystal clear water, hoping to snag a trout. Between casts, my attention was drawn to a pair of black cockatoos, sailing overhead. Looking up, I noticed the main range of Kosciuszko. Ancient and imposing, granite worn smooth by rain and snow, embroidered with lichens and wildflowers. I don’t know how long we stood there, in silent awe of the jagged peaks, but it’s a treasured moment frozen in time.

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