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Experts say devastating hurricane so early in season is ‘big wake-up call’ – and predict even more powerful storms

The poignancy was unmistakable: prognosticators at Colorado State University amended their already miserable seasonal tropical cyclone forecast on Monday precisely as Hurricane Beryl was filling Houston’s streets with floodwater and knocking out power to more than 2m homes and businesses.

“A likely harbinger of a hyperactive season” was how CSU researchers characterized Beryl, which set numerous records on the way to its Texas landfall, including the earliest category 5 hurricane, strongest ever June storm, and most powerful to strike the southern Windward Islands.

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Campaigners welcome ‘seismic shift’ and urge museum bosses to review links with other fossil fuel sponsors

The Science Museum has been forced to cut ties with oil giant Equinor over its sponsor’s environmental record, the Observer can reveal.

Equinor has sponsored the museum’s interactive “WonderLab” since 2016, but the relationship is now coming to close, a move that will be seen as a major victory for climate change campaigners.

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This isn’t down to one wet, cold British spring but a disturbing longer-term decline in insects. Thankfully, we can help

Anyone with even a passing interest in the natural world will have noticed a dramatic phenomenon this year: a lack of insects. Perhaps most noticeable is the near-absence of butterflies. Species that are usually common, such as large and small whites, small tortoiseshells, gatekeepers, ringlets, peacocks and meadow browns, are in many places down to the point of having almost disappeared. This is certainly the case where I live, in Cambridge.

Bee populations seem to be down here, too, with flowery margins that would at this time of year normally be alive with pollinators now eerily quiet. Hoverflies are depleted, moths scarce and aphids have either appeared very late or not at all. Buddleia bushes, with their fragrant mauve flowers that are usually festooned with butterflies, moths and many other insects, sit naked of their normal visitors.

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Southern Water says it wants to protect rare chalk streams, but campaigners say it could pollute the Solent

A proposed £1.2bn scheme to recycle effluent from the sewage system and turn it in to drinking water has been criticised as a threat to the environment and a potential costly “white elephant”.

Southern Water wants to treat effluent – wastewater from the sewage system – at a plant at Havant in Hampshire and pipe it into a nearby spring-fed reservoir to boost water supplies during droughts. The scheme would ensure less water is extracted from two rare chalk streams: the Rivers Test and Itchen.

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Scientists fear adaptations to global heating may leave some species struggling to mate successfully

An ambush bug with a darker-coloured body is better at snagging a sexual partner than its brighter counterpart when it is chilly. Darker males can warm up more easily in the early mornings, and therefore get busy while everybody else is still warming up.

This is one of the many examples of how temperature affects colouring in insects, and in turn can affect their ability to mate, according to a new review article published in the journal Ecology and Evolution.

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Customers of regulated British Columbia utility FortisBC will automatically have 1% of their gas blended from renewable natural gas (RNG) sources.

The Campbell’s keeled glass-snail was officially extinct until March 2020, when a local citizen scientist found it on the remote Norfolk Island. 40 of the thumbnail-sized snails were taken to a dedicated and quarantined captive breeding facility in Taronga zoo. 40 baby snails were born in the last fortnight, after initially struggling to reproduce in captivity

• Lion brothers make record-breaking 1.5km swim in hope of finding mates - video

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The Pennsylvania Senate passed on Thursday a bill establishing a regulatory framework around carbon capture and storage (CCS), which now sits on Governor Josh Shapiro's (D) desk for possible approval.

Producers added to their holdings in RGGI Allowances (RGAs) in the most significant way since late February, while both emitters and financial players cut back their net length in California Carbon Allowances (CCA) ahead of a Wednesday cap-and-trade rulemaking workshop, weekly data from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) released Friday showed.

The newly elected European Parliament is holding its first plenary session in Strasbourg next week, with a potential majority for Commission President-designate Ursula von der Leyen seemingly hanging on the future of climate policies, as she needs backing from the Greens to secure a second term.

EU member states have handed out more than three-quarters of their 2024 quotas of free carbon allowances under the ETS, according to data released by the European Commission.

EU climate and environment ministers are poised to call for expanding the pool of countries contributing to the new global climate finance goal, in draft conclusions preparing for the EU’s COP29 negotiating position, although the document did not to specify the amount the bloc itself should provide.

Reporter Emanuela Barbiroglio recaps key EU energy and climate developments from last month and the stories to watch out for in the weeks ahead, as part of a briefing produced in cooperation with Clean Energy Wire.

Donations grew dramatically after Australia’s black summer but animal carers say they didn’t receive enough

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Australia’s largest wildlife rescue organisation faces a landmark vote on Sunday, as members unhappy with the distribution of donations after the black summer bushfires attempt to change its constitution.

The income of the Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service (Wires), based in NSW, ballooned from $3m to more than $100m thanks to the success of its fundraising campaign after the catastrophic fires of 2019-20, which burned millions of hectares of land and reportedly killed or displaced 3 billion animals.

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The much-delayed auction for carbon credits, eligible for international trade under Article 6, from a Malawi clean cooking project has been confirmed for next week, organisers said Friday, after a clarification letter was published specifying that the initial transfer of the corresponding adjustment will occur upon issuance of the units.

A Colombian non-profit has launched a water crediting pilot programme in a 20,000-hectare area of a river basin in its country, planning to issue the first units by year-end, while preparing a separate biodiversity credit pilot.

Four animals released in Wallington estate in Northumberland last year have transformed the landscape

The first beavers in Northumberland for more than 400 years have been stupendously busy. There are new dam systems, as well as canals and burrows, new wildlife-rich wetlands and, thrillingly, a baby beaver.

Whether it is male or female remains to be seen. “Beavers don’t have external genitalia,” said Heather Devey, an expert. “They are really hard to sex. It’s really only through their anal glands that you can tell.”

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Europe's first hydrogen-ready combined heat and power plant (CHP) has been launched in northwest England that will supply power and steam to help decarbonise a refinery and other industrial users in the region.

Low yields combined with low prices for some crops also led to a 13% drop in farm output compared with 2022

Income from farming in England plummeted by 19% last year after floods meant harvesting many crops was impossible.

Farmers have called for more support from the government as the climate breaks down, meaning agricultural businesses are no longer able to count on mild UK weather and increasingly face drought and floods.

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The UK renewables arm of energy giant Electricite de France (EDF) has announced a project aimed at advancing research on the effects solar farms can have on biodiversity, including how they could generate benefits for nature.