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Europe will vastly overshoot its carbon emissions target for coal unless it closes all 300 power stations, says thinktank Climate Analytics

The European Union will “vastly overshoot” its Paris climate pledges unless its coal emissions are completely phased out within 15 years, a stress test of the industry has found.

Coal’s use is falling by about 1% a year in Europe but still generates a quarter of the continent’s power – and a fifth of its greenhouse gas emissions.

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Dogs mirror the personalities of their human companions, according to research.

Authorities say no risk of contamination after blast in machine room at facility 15 miles west of Cherbourg

An explosion has occurred at EDF’s Flamanville nuclear plant in northern France, causing minor injuries but no risk of contamination, authorities have said.

The blast took place in the engine room at the plant, which is 15 miles west of the port of Cherbourg.

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GoT’s Jaime Lannister has shown little love for the far north, unlike the man who plays him, Danish actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who has been collecting street view imagery for Google in southern Greenland to highlight the impact of climate change

• Discover Machu Picchu from your sofa

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Plans to launch satellites - and even people - from the UK get a boost from government.

Fake news propagates through the conservative media to the halls of Congress where science is under attack

This weekend, conservative media outlets launched an attack on climate scientists with a manufactured scandal. The fake news originated from an accusation made by former NOAA scientist John Bates about a 2015 paper by some of his NOAA colleagues. The technical term to describe the accusation is ‘a giant nothingburger,’ as Bates clarified in an interview with E&E News:

The issue here is not an issue of tampering with data, but rather really of timing of a release of a paper that had not properly disclosed everything it was.

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I grew up with a piano in my bedroom, but now the thought of ivory fills me with revulsion. The UK needs to impose a total ban on the trade of elephant tusks

Growing up in our two up, two down terraced house on the Southside of Edinburgh, I shared my bedroom with a cherished family heirloom – my granny’s mini-grand. This beautiful piano had been to the other side of the world and back. It ended up taking up half my room and a whole lot of my life. I taught myself to play on it, bashing out the sevenths while pretending to be (pre-Wings) McCartney. Now I think of that piano with total revulsion. I believe anyone in the possession of ivory should feel the same. It is over. It has to be.

Look at the knife handles or antique toothpick and then think of the dead mother with her face hacked off as her tuskless, helpless one-year-old tries to nudge her back to life. Google image search is always a useful resource. I feel no differently about the thought of a gorilla-hand ashtray (yes, they are a thing in parts of the Far East) or a nice cool glass of lion bone wine (ditto). One more time: ivory is so over.

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Galilee Blockade, which opposes the $16bn Carmichael mine, urges followers to apply for jobs with the Indian company

A civil disobedience campaign targeting Adani’s controversial Queensland coal project has asked almost 12,000 supporters to sign up for a job with the miner.

The Galilee Blockade is working on infiltrating Adani and related companies to gain sources of information to help its plans for “direct action”.

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The decision comes after Donald Trump formally backed the pipeline in an early act as president.

Sandy, Bedfordshire: Peewit, teeack, chewit … whatever you call it, it sounds like the Clangers

Unearthly sounds have filled the fields lately, breaking frosty silences or cocking a whooping snook at louring skies. The lapwing’s voice is the joker in the pack, shooting up and down the scales like a novice twiddling the knobs on a synthesiser. It does not feel grounded in this landscape of puddles, mud slaked over boots, ragged grass margins, finches giving out throwaway chirrups, and the dull ribbed skeleton leftovers of last year’s flowers.

Our field-working forebears must have listened daily and tried to capture the distinctive peculiarity of these sounds in words. So much so that Vanellus vanellus may well have more regional names than any other bird. Lancashire’s chewit calls to Orkney’s teeack, Norfolk’s pie-wipe answers Lothian’s peasiewheep. I’m a child of the TV generation, and I always think when I hear the birds that the Clangers have landed.

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Wind energy overtakes coal as the EU’s second largest form of power capacity but concerns remain over politicians’ enthusiasm for renewables

Renewable energy made up nearly nine-tenths of new power added to Europe’s electricity grids last year, in a sign of the continent’s rapid shift away from fossil fuels.

But industry leaders said they were worried about the lack of political support beyond 2020, when binding EU renewable energy targets end.

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Australian owned, CSIRO-developed battery storage technology tested as possible solution for powering remote, rural communities in India.

Korean-owned zinc refiner ups size of proposed Qld solar farm to 116MW, casting shade on claim renewables are a "manufacturing killer".

With the help of snake handlers and Trish Prendergast, a senior veterinary nurse at a clinic in Townsville, Queensland, the 1.5m-long carpet python manages to regurgitate an entire tennis ball after it was found swollen in a residential yard.

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South Australia threatens to take "decisive action" to regain control of the energy industry. The privately owned generators only have themselves to blame.

AGL says it expects large-scale battery storage will play a critical role in the changing nature of Australia's electricity grid.

A group of prominent US Republicans has proposed a carbon tax that pays cash dividends to Americans.

The way orangutans communicate could shed light on humans' first words.

Fumigation must start immediately to avoid further destruction on the main agricultural area.

AEMO warns of rolling blackouts on Friday for coal-dependent NSW as the summer heatwave continues across Australia. SA faced similar problems on Wednesday – but in that state, renewables are again taking the blame.