The Guardian

Campaigners say car park extension at Manningtree station inhibits access to Dedham Vale and threatens habitats

A commuter car park in Essex is to be one of the first test cases of whether the government will enforce new legislation aimed at protecting national parks and landscapes in England.

Dedham Vale is a designated “national landscape” on the border of Essex and Suffolk, home to increasingly rare species including hazel dormice and hedgehogs. Within it is Manningtree station, where the train operator Greater Anglia built an extension to the car park to cope with increased traffic.

African giant pouched rats trained to alert their handlers when they find illegally trafficked wildlife products

Rats could be the latest weapon deployed in the fight against endangered wildlife trafficking, according to a study of rodents trained to sniff out pangolin scales, rhino horns, elephant tusks and hardwood.

Researchers trained eight African giant pouched rats to sniff out the contraband, even when it was hidden among items commonly used to hide trafficked goods, including peanuts, leaves, wigs and washing powder.

UK government offers undisclosed sum in compensation to Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah for daughter’s untimely death

The mother of a nine-year-old girl who became the first person in the UK to have air pollution cited on their death certificate will receive an undisclosed settlement from the government in compensation for her daughter’s untimely death.

Settling a legal case, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Department for Transport and the Department of Health and Social Care issued a statement expressing sincere condolences to the family of Ella Kissi-Debrah, from south-east London, who had a fatal asthma attack in 2013 after being exposed to excessive air pollution.

Fears raised that biodiversity summit not addressing countries’ failure to meet a single target to stem destruction of natural world

Governments risk another decade of failure on biodiversity loss, due to the slow implementation of an international agreement to halt the destruction of Earth’s ecosystems, experts have warned.

Less than two years ago, the world reached a historic agreement at the Cop15 summit in Montreal to stop the human-caused destruction of life on our planet. The deal included targets to protect 30% of the planet for nature by the end of the decade (30x30), reform $500bn (then £410bn) of environmentally damaging subsidies, and begin restoring 30% of the planet’s degraded ecosystems.

Downpours caused Spain’s deadliest flooding in decades. Floodwaters surged through cities, towns and villages, trapping people in their homes, sweeping up cars in their wake and causing significant damage

A report by BoM and CSIRO checks ‘vital signs of Australia’s climate’ – and shows temperature trends will only worsen

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“It is a wicked problem,” says Dr Karl Braganza at the Bureau of Meteorology, after running through Australia’s latest State of the Climate report.

The effects of rising heat on land and in the oceans, coupled with rising greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, are changing Australia’s climate rapidly and “flowing through to how our society, economy and other things operate”.

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UK ‘among most nature-depleted countries in the world’ warns environment secretary

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Farmers and conservationists will have to “learn to do more with less” ahead of expected deep budget cuts to the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the environment secretary has said.

Steve Reed said that Labour would continue to prioritise the restoration of the nature in England, but acknowledged that the chancellor’s budget would be “difficult”.

Almost half of global land area saw extreme drought for at least one month, according to Lancet Countdown

Heat-related deaths, food insecurity and the spread of infectious diseases caused by the climate crisis have reached record levels, according to a landmark report.

The Lancet Countdown’s ninth report on health and the climate breakdown reveals that people across the world face unprecedented threats to their health from the rapidly changing climate.

Orders roll in as Chinese carmaker launches Shark 6 in move that could signal electrification spreading from sedans and SUVs to large ute market

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A new plug-in hybrid EV ute that could rival Australia’s top selling vehicles, the Ford Ranger and Toyota Hilux, has received almost 1,000 pre-orders within hours of going on sale.

The BYD Shark 6, which has a range of about 80km on battery electric before switching to petrol, could be the start of China muscling in on the market dominated by diesel vehicles.

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Lochaber tree, named after the ceilidh band that discovered it, now in running for European Tree of the Year contest

An ancient oak named after a ceilidh band has won the UK’s tree of the year competition and will now compete in the European edition.

The Skipinnish Oak in Lochaber, Scotland, was discovered by chance by members of the band of that name who were playing a nearby gig for the Native Woodland Discussion Group.

Charities plan to create flagship for nature recovery on 3,850-hectare portion of estate sold by Duke of Northumberland’s son

The Wildlife Trusts have bought part of the Duke of Northumberland’s son’s estate in the largest land sale in England for 30 years.

Marketed by its estate agents as “a paradise for those with a penchant for sporting pursuits, from world-class fishing on the illustrious River Coquet to pheasant and grouse shooting”, Rothbury estate has now been bought by the federation of charities, which plans to restore it for nature.

It was my dream job. But what’s the point of preserving masterpieces for a future being destroyed by fossil fuel companies?

• Margaret Reid is currently on remand for taking action with Just Stop Oil

I used to be part of the art world but I just can’t stomach it any more. Now I’m in prison, and it suits my conscience better. Back in the 1980s, art was my life. Aged 16, I fell head over heels for painting and could imagine nothing better than spending my life working in museums.

Looking back almost 40 years, I see my younger self, starstruck in Paris. I’m staring up with awe at Théodore Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa and greedily gobbling up the story of how it scandalised the art world. That sickening green cadaver that almost fell out of the frame had me weeping with admiration. Of course it shocked the critics. They hated the grisly truth: the emaciated corpse that was a direct challenge to government corruption and incompetence.

Margaret Reid is a former museum professional currently on remand for taking action with Just Stop Oil

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Department’s finances were slashed during austerity and campaigners say more cuts will stall progress to meet nature and climate targets

Rachel Reeves has been urged not to cut the government’s environment funding in the budget as analysis shows the department’s finances were slashed at twice the rate of other departments in the austerity years.

Between 2009/10 and 2018/19, the environment department budget declined by 35% in monetary terms and 45% in real terms, according to Guardian analysis of annual reports from the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the Environment Agency and Natural England. By comparison, the average cut across government departments during the Conservative austerity programme was about 20%. During the first five years of austerity, it was the most cut department.

Researchers found 38,000 fewer people – 10 times number of murders – would have died if atmosphere was not clogged with greenhouse pollutants

Climate breakdown caused more than half of the 68,000 heat deaths during the scorching European summer of 2022, a study has found.

Researchers from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) found 38,000 fewer people would have died from heat if humans had not clogged the atmosphere with pollutants that act like a greenhouse and bake the planet. The death toll is about 10 times greater than the number of people murdered in Europe that year.

Deluge of delegates at biodiversity conference has led some to impromptu accommodation

Robert Baluku, a Ugandan delegate to the UN’s biodiversity summit in Colombia, found himself between a rock and hard place when his team’s accommodation was abruptly cancelled, leaving them stranded before the start of Cop16 in Cali.

The city’s hotels were packed to capacity with thousands of country leaders, scientists, government ministers and UN negotiators, and Baluku was left scrambling for options – until the Motel Deseos (Desires) came to the rescue.

Exclusive: Linked accounts on X push petrostate’s posts about climate summit and drown out criticism

Scores of apparently fake social media accounts are boosting Azerbaijan’s hosting of the Cop29 climate summit, an investigation has revealed.

The accounts were mostly set up after July, at which time seven of the top 10 most engaged posts using the hashtags #COP29 and #COP29Azerbaijan were critical of Azerbaijan’s role in the conflict with Armenia, using hashtags such as #stopgreenwashgenocide. By September this had changed, with all of the top 10 most engaged posts coming from the official Cop29 Azerbaijan account.

It seems reasonable to call the Coalition’s policy what it primarily is: a proposal to expand fossil fuels

Some news you may not have clocked last week while the focus was on important things like a royal tour: 44 of the world’s top climate scientists, including four decorated Australian professors, released an open letter warning that ocean circulation in the Atlantic is at serious risk of collapse sooner than was previously understood.

They said a string of studies suggested the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a body backed by nearly 200 countries, had greatly underestimated the possibility that the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation – or Amoc, a system of ocean currents that brings heat into the northern Atlantic west of Britain and Ireland – could in the next few decades reach a point at which its breakdown was inevitable. The cause? Rising greenhouse gas emissions.

The mammals were once common across Europe but urban development has pushed them towards extinction

Hedgehogs are now listed as “near threatened” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s red list after a decline in numbers of at least 30% over the past decade across much of their range.

While hedgehogs were once common across Europe, and were until now listed as of “least concern” on the red list, they are being pushed towards extinction by urban development, intensive farming and roads, which have fragmented their habitat.

Australian miner paying ‘massive bonuses’ for ‘steamrolling ahead with an outdated and unacceptably risky coal growth strategy’, activists say

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Whitehaven Coal, one of Australia’s biggest coal producers, faces a rare “second strike” from shareholders this week as climate activists seek to draw attention to the miner’s plans to ramp up volumes and resulting carbon emissions.

The ASX-listed company received a 41% vote against its executives’ remuneration report at last year’s annual general meeting. A vote of at least 25% at this year’s AGM on Wednesday would force a motion to spill Whitehaven’s board.

Australia must insist on full removal when ExxonMobil decommissions offshore gas project, Wilderness Society says

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An international law expert has warned abandoning oil and gas infrastructure in Bass Strait would breach Australia’s obligations under international law, if ExxonMobil pursues this plan in decommissioning its Gippsland offshore project.

Prof Donald Rothwell, who specialises in international law at the Australian National University, said Bass Strait was used for international navigation and had special status under the UN convention on the law of the sea (Unclos) and related International Maritime Organisation (IMO) guidelines.

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