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No consequences for the company if its mine causes greater environmental damage to threatened habitats than expected, says study

Australia’s environmental laws are too weak, a new report argues, citing the Carmichael coalmine as an example. Even what the environment minister has described as the “strictest” environmental conditions on the development allow the destruction of endangered species habitats, the degradation of ecologically and culturally significant water bodies, as well as the production of fossil fuels for burning, it says.

When the federal environment minister gave the most recent approval for Adani’s huge coalmine in 2014, he said it was done on the basis of “36 of the strictest conditions in Australian history”.

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Fossil fuel divestment is gathering pace around Australia and the world. More and more individuals and organisations are pulling their investment assets out of companies involved with the exploration, extraction, production or financing of fossil fuels.

The underlying reason is the brutal maths of climate change: to keep global warming within 2℃ of pre-industrial levels – as both scientists and the Paris climate agreement say we must – around 80% of declared fossil fuel reserves need to stay in the ground.

So far, 580 institutions, controlling assets worth about US$3.4 trillion, have divested from fossil fuels. The top four types of divest institutions are faith-based groups, foundations, governments and educational institutions. The pattern in Australia is largely the same.

Local governments have been some of the most active organisations in the Australian divestment scene. Last week Sydney’s city council pledged to divest its A$500 million portfolio, regardless of the outcome of the forthcoming mayoral and council election.

It will join a list of 27 Australian local governments that have divested since 2014. This includes other significant investors such as the City of Melbourne and the ACT government. Sydney is the tenth Australian local government to have made a divestment pledge in 2016 alone.

Australian universities have joined in. In May, La Trobe University pledged to divest its A$40 million portfolio from fossil fuels. Swinburne University, with a portfolio of some A$150 million, agreed to pursue a similar goal last December. And last week Queensland University of Technology (QUT) agreed to pull its A$300 million fund out of fossil fuels.

Many financial institutions have also joined the movement. So far 52 banks and credit unions in Australia have publicly divested and will no longer fund fossil fuels. Among these are comparatively major players such as Bendigo Bank.

Why now?

Beyond an underlying recognition of a need to move to a low-carbon economy, the trends driving the current flurry of divestment are manifold.

Part of the impetus is due to the growing financial case for divestment itself. This means that divestment, far from being a decision made in spite of lower financial returns, can actually lead to better returns.

International events are probably also driving this year’s prominent moves. The negotiation of the Paris Agreement late last year, and its recent ratification by both China and the United States, may make continued investment in fossil fuels seem riskier.

But the strongest force behind divestment seems to be simple public pressure from concerned citizens, investors and students. At every Australian university that has announced plans to divest, the decision has been made after lengthy “fossil-free” campaigns by students and academics. It has been a bottom-up phenomenon, rather than top-down, proactive actions by the administration.

Different approaches

The exact approaches to divestment have varied across institutions. Different organisations have adopted contrasting timelines and extents for their divestments, as well as differing approaches to transparency.

La Trobe University has pledged to divest from the “top 200 publicly traded fossil fuel companies ranked by the carbon content of their fossil fuel reserves within five years”. This will be coupled with full carbon disclosure and annual reports on the state of divestment.

Similarly, Swinburne’s responsible investment charter says that it will divest from companies that earn significant revenues from fossil fuel extraction or coal power generation. This will be backed by full disclosure of investments and carbon exposure.

Others have been more ambiguous. QUT has directed its external fund manager to ensure that it has “no fossil fuel direct investments” and “no fossil fuel investments of material significance”. Sydney’s council has agreed to put coal, gas and oil extraction on its list of environmentally harmful activities that are to be avoided when investing.

Others have taken even more unconventional approaches. Both Monash University and the Australian National University (ANU) have taken first steps partially divested by targeting coal. The ANU, which blacklisted seven specific resources firms in 2014, has made a point of reducing the “carbon intensity” of its portfolio. This appears to have been done with view to reducing its carbon risk exposure. This is financially prudent, but it is not full divestment, and therefore not real moral leadership.

To draw a parallel with a previous campaign, it’s hard to imagine universities during the apartheid era bragging about reducing their “racism intensity” while stopping short of a full embargo.

It would be intriguing to compare the reductions in carbon intensity from full divestment to that of the ANU’s current approach. For now that is impossible since the ANU has not made details about its externally managed investments publicly available.

Given the diversity of actions there is a need to clarify what exactly constitutes full divestment. At the very least, transparency and carbon disclosure should be considered as necessities for accountability.

Truth to power

The main aim of fossil fuel divestment is not what many people tend to think. It’s not about reducing carbon risk. It’s not even primarily about financially wounding the fossil fuel industry. It’s about taking away its social licence – turning fossil fuel firms into social pariahs, just like big tobacco.

There is also a curious element to the movement: it is not the powerful who are typically taking action.

Among government it is the local branches such as the ACT government and Sydney council that are taking action. No Australian state government has yet joined the ranks, while the federal government seems intent on making its climate policies as friendly as possible to the fossil-fuel industry.

Among universities, too, smaller institutions such as La Trobe, Swinburne and now QUT have led the charge. So far none of the Group of Eight elite universities has fully divested. It is odd, given their cherished status as “thought leaders” and drivers of national policy debate.

Among banks it has generally been the smaller players who have responded to climate science and investor concerns. None of the “big four” banks – Westpac, ANZ, NAB and the Commonwealth Bank – has divested. Instead they funded the fossil fuel industry to the tune of A$5.5 billion last year.

But as divestment gathers pace, powerful institutions will soon have no choice but to jump aboard the juggernaut or be left behind. Once national governments, major banks and superannuation and pension funds divest, the financial bottom line of the fossil fuel industry may actually take a hit.

Destroying a social licence can eventually lead to financial losses. Markets, like movements, often operate by critical mass.

In historical hindsight the first movers of divestment will be viewed fondly. The laggards, meanwhile, will probably be seen by future generations as 21st-century Neros, fiddling with their money while the planet burned.

Luke Kemp has received funding from the Australian and German governments. He is an active member of the Fossil Free ANU campaign.

Ever had a gut feeling that you have something in common with a coral reef? Well, you do. Both humans and corals rely on microorganisms to function normally.

Across all species, microbiomes – the communities of microorganisms that live with us – support ecosystems by cycling nutrients, fixing nitrogen and breaking down detritus.

In the human gut, our microbiome helps extract nutrients from ingested food, as well as influencing the immune system. We are also beginning to understand how this internal ecosystem can affect our physical and mental health.

Corals are also influenced by their microbiome. Like the human gut, the microbiome is thought to contribute to the success of coral and coral reefs through roles in nutrition, nutrient cycling and protection against diseases.

However, in comparison to the human microbiome, the processes by which coral bacterial populations influence the health and functioning of these important ecosystems are not well known. Some of these bacteria could be the source of new human drugs, or help us understand how bleaching affects corals.

A major challenge is the sheer complexity of coral microbiomes. This makes it difficult to identify the bacteria playing these important roles or to decipher how they interact with the coral.

An unexplored underwater microworld

Corals harbour a microbiome comprising hundreds of thousands of microorganisms (bacteria, viruses, archaea and fungi) organised on a microscale imperceptible to the human eye. A coral colony offers many different spaces for microbes to live in. This array of microhabitats helps make corals one of the most diverse ecosystems in the world.

One coral species can host more than 100,000 different bacteria, and a gram of coral can harbour more than 30,000 bacteria of thousands of different types. The number and types of these bacterial communities can vary across coral colonies, species and reefs.

These communities also change when corals are stressed, such as when they experience changes in environmental conditions, become diseased, or face competition from algae for space. But these relationships are complex, so how can we figure out what’s going on?

Microbes for every purpose

As with a human microbiome, the study of coral bacteria first involves collecting samples (though requiring scuba divers rather than swabs) to collect DNA. The bacterial genomes are then sequenced and the DNA sequences compared against databases of sequences from known bacteria. This comparison has allowed us to classify the microbes.

Through these analyses, it has been possible to identify bacteria present at different stages of corals’ lifespan. These include species involved in cycling nitrogen and sulfur, and rare bacteria that could play a role in transporting nutrients from the photosynthetic algae that live within corals (known as zooxanthellae).

We’ve also identified bacterial species that produce antimicrobial and antibacterial compounds, which help prevent disease and overgrowth of the immobile coral.

However, thousands of the bacterial DNA sequences don’t match anything in current databases. These anonymous bacteria have not been reported in any other ecosystem and are likely to be entirely new bacterial species.

New medicines

The diversity of the coral microbiome is not only fascinating but also offers the tantalising prospect of new medicines and new biologically active compounds.

For example, we urgently need new antibiotics to fight the rapid acceleration of resistance. Almost all of our current antibiotics were first isolated from bacteria. Importantly, no clinically useful antibiotic with a completely new mechanism for fighting infection has been discovered since the 1980s.

New bacterial species offer untapped resources for the discovery of new antibiotics, as well as other bioactive products, if they can be cultured successfully. Cultivating coral bacteria is a huge challenge, but is also an opportunity to understand antimicrobial compounds that exist in nature.

Culturing these bacteria could also enrich resources like the Griffith University Nature Bank, which collects biological samples and shares them with researchers looking for new drugs around the world.

Mine canaries and invisible helpers

It is clear that we have only scratched the surface of the complex ecosystem of coral reefs and their unexplored microbiomes. We are continually learning just how diverse coral systems are, and evaluating how unique and unexplored they remain.

Advances in DNA technologies are enabling us to explore ever more dimensions, but a long and exciting path still lies ahead. Continued analysis of coral reefs and coral microbiomes is important to understand the ecology and biology of corals and coral reefs – and crucially how these are changing, particularly in response to external events such as bleaching and coastal pollution.

Preserving untapped and unexplored resources is also vitally important for the future discovery of new and improved antibacterial compounds.

Alejandra Hernandez receives funding from Australian Awards and ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.

Roisin McMahon receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council.

Tracy Ainsworth works for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University. She receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.

Jenny Martin is Director of the Eskitis Institute for Drug Discovery at Griffith University and Honorary Professor at the University of Queensland. She receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia.

Exclusive: MPs and activists want BP’s exploration licences to be suspended over ‘very critical safety issue’ identified by US regulators

Oil rigs poised to begin drilling in the Great Australian Bight could use faulty equipment that US regulators say is very likely to cause a “catastrophic incident” like the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

With no assurances the faulty equipment can be avoided in the Bight drilling, and safety plans that probably rely on faulty equipment already approved, parliamentarians and conservationists are calling for any approvals of BP’s pending environmental plans to be halted, and its exploration licences to be suspended, until the problem has been solved.

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• Not legally binding but may stem trade and poaching
• Nearly one third of Africa’s savannah elephants killed between 2007 and 2014
  
• Ban negotiations spurred feud

Nations and environment groups have agreed to shut down the domestic ivory trade, despite the resolution nearly being derailed by objections from countries including Japan and South Africa.

Related: Push for ban on domestic ivory trade spurs feud at international summit

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Replace food items you buy with greener ones. What could be simpler?

The eco swap is the most bite-sized of all sustainable lifestyle actions. You simply replace items in your diet with those that have less impact, in terms of CO2 emissions, land use and change of land use – normally deforestation, and, critically, lower water consumption.

The Soil Association recommends carefully pinpointed swaps this month (it’s national awareness month for organic produce this September). If 24 million households that buy yogurt swapped to organic (even just once), almost 2,000 more cows would be free to range on clover-rich organic pastures. (Its standards do not allow cattle to be reared full time in giant sheds). And if every carrot buyer switched to organic, that would result in 50% more wildlife and 30% more species of wildlife on pesticide-free farms.

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Apple trees are laden, vines are healthy, and in Norfolk the harvest is in. But with bees still in shocking decline, all is not rosy

On a balmy evening last week in north Wales, the bats were flitting about, the blackberries were as large as grapes, the little winberries on the Berwyn hills were as sweet as sugar and the rowan trees were bowed down with berries. It was nearly as warm at 9pm in Chirk as it was in Lagos.

Welcome to early autumn 2016. After a very wet and notably mild winter, a soggy spring and a warmer-than-average summer, much of Britain has been basking in tropical-style humidity and temperatures.

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As coalition of countries, including the US, push for resolution to end ivory trade, Japan, Namibia, South Africa and Canada raise concerns at Hawaii meeting

A resolution to end the domestic trade in ivory has descended into acrimony at a major conservation summit, with a handful of countries, including Japan and South Africa, objecting to the proposed ban.

A coalition of countries, including the US, France, Gabon, Kenya and Malawi, spoke in favor of an International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) motion that calls for every country to ban their internal trade of ivory.

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The ongoing violence in Syria, the Rio Paralympics, wildfires in Spain, the US Open tennis in New York – the best photography in news, culture and sport from around the world this week

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South Uist Before me is a curve of white sand and a lazy sea of glorious Hebridean blue, breaking with a gentle whisper on to the shore

It’s the best kind of late summer day, with bright sunshine and a temperature as high as anything we’ve had this year. The smell of new-mown grass carries on the warm breeze and from a few fields away comes the muted drone of a tractor. Emerging from under the bridge the river curves sinuously as it crosses the sand on the final stage of its journey to the sea. But unlike it, rather than heading for the beach I take the path behind the low dunes. It is edged by a riot of plants, some still in flower.

The violet-blue flowers of common vetch stand out from the luxuriant tangle of its intertwining leaves, while clumps of purple thistle-like hardheads rise above them. The remains of umbelliferous hogweed, dried ochre seed-heads atop brittle, ridged stems, make sculptural statements amid the foliage. Scattered liberally throughout are the cheerful yellows of the autumn hawkbit.

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Global investment in renewable energy is now higher than in fossil fuels. China has a policy to shift away from coal and has begun an energy transition. Change is happening. The challenge is for the world to rebuild its energy system quickly to minimise damage from a warming planet.

With one leaf, one potato-like tuber and one flower when the time is right, the Yellow-lip Spider-orchid is one of the rarest plants in Australia. It is also sexually deceptive.

Ground-breaking work on synthetic organ transplants made Paolo Macchiarini one of the most famous doctors in the world. Now his reputation lies in tatters.

Researchers discover that during sleep, thoughts your care about are more likely to enter your memory.

This Sunday is Sustainable House Day and we visit one house in Melbourne which has had a sustainable makeover.

Pigs are wreaking havoc in the Daintree forest, but there's concern about how they should be controlled; and why a 'pastured egg' could be your new breakfast choice.

A federal judge denies a request to halt construction on a controversial oil pipeline that is deeply opposed by Native American tribes.

Findings suggest that the cephalopods – which have the most complex brains of any invertebrate – also prefer quality over quantity when it comes to food

New research suggests cuttlefish can not only count better than a one-year-old human, but they also prefer quality over quantity when it comes to food.

A study of 54 one-month-old cuttlefish hatched in captivity was carried out by Tsang-I Yang and Chuan-Chin Chiao, researchers at the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan.

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Cabinet Office paper, revealed accidentally, suggests collective responsibility may be waived by Theresa May

A leaked Whitehall document suggests Theresa May could hold a free vote on expanding airport capacity, potentially allowing some cabinet ministers to oppose a third runway at Heathrow.

The Cabinet Office paper, photographed on the tube and passed to Channel 4 News, examines the possibility of waiving collective responsibility for any vote on the highly controversial issue of expanding an airport in south-east England.

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