The Guardian

EU president abandons plan to overhaul flagship birds and habitats directives following a huge public campaign

The European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, has been forced to abandon an overhaul of flagship nature laws after an unprecedented campaign that mobilised over half a million people in protest.

The popular birds and habitats directives protect almost a fifth of Europe’s landmass, about 200 wetlands, meadows and marine habitats, and more than a thousand animal and plant species.

Supermarkets say they are pulling out all the stops to ensure there are no empty shelves in the run-up to Christmas

Love them or loathe them, they are a staple part of the Christmas dinner. However, consumers shopping for sprouts this year could have less choice than usual after some British-grown crops were ravaged by “super-pest” moths during the summer.

Supermarkets said they were pulling out all the stops to ensure there were no empty shelves in the run-up to the crucial festive season, although some may be unable to supply some lines such as popular “sprout stalks” or loose sprouts and may relax their usual specifications to allow smaller or imperfect items.

Cuts made to workforce at home and overseas despite ministers saying climate diplomacy should be a top priority

The UK has cut the number of Foreign Office staff working on climate change, despite ministers arguing the issue should be a top foreign policy priority.

The Liberal Democrats said it was “appalling” and sent “the wrong signals” to the world, after a minister revealed the figures in a recent parliamentary answer.

Campaigners hail announcement that funding for air quality measures will rise to £875m over the next five years

Campaigners, health charities and and neighbourhood groups have welcomed plans by the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, to more than double funding to clean up the capital’s dirty air.

London is one of the most polluted of dozens of cities in the UK that breach EU standards on nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a toxic gas caused by diesel vehicles. Air pollution has been linked to nearly 9,500 premature deaths in the city each year.

Extreme weather is driving up uninsured losses and insurers must use investments to fund global warming resilience, says study

The ability of the global insurance industry to manage society’s risks is being threatened by climate change, according to a new report.

The report finds that more frequent extreme weather events are driving up uninsured losses and making some assets uninsurable.

Duncansby Head, John O’Groats As the wind rises the timbre alters and I struggle to place it – the howling of wolves, infants wailing, dissonant chords on a pipe organ?

At the far north-eastern corner of the British mainland the land rises up from the sea like cake from a tin: edges are clean and sharp, layers of sediment cut through the red sandstone like jam.

The sun is out, the air is still, and the residents are busy making their preparations for winter in this rare break in the weather.

Wangan and Jagalingou opponents, who say project would override native title on most of their land, dispute Queensland mining minister’s approval of leases

Traditional owners have launched a fresh legal challenge to Adani’s proposed Carmichael mine, declaring they would go all the way to the high court to stand as the last “line of defence” against the contentious project.

Wangan and Jagalingou opponents of the mine on Tuesday went to the Queensland court of appeal to dispute the state mining minister’s approval of Adani’s mining leases.

Prime minister says Josh Frydenberg has to explain himself in wake of climate change policy backdown

Malcolm Turnbull has said he will not impose a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme.

The prime minister said he would not do anything that increased electricity costs for consumers, especially when households were struggling to pay their bills.

‘Almost unprecedented’ event attributed to warm temperatures and winds, with some areas more than 20C (36F) warmer than usual

Both the Arctic and Antarctic experienced record lows in sea ice extent in November, with scientists astonished to see Arctic ice actually retreating at a time when the region enters the cold darkness of winter.

Related: The fate of Arctic sea ice – Science Weekly podcast

Progressive thinktank wants to know whether company will pay full coal royalties, full company tax rate and create jobs it claims

The progressive thinktank the Australia Institute is stepping up its campaign against the controversial Adani Carmichael mine proposal, publishing an open letter to Malcolm Turnbull questioning the project.

The questions being posed via a full-page advertisement in the Australian Financial Review on Wednesday include whether the Adani mine, if it proceeds, will pay full coal royalties to the Queensland government, or whether the project has been granted a royalty holiday.

Alice Bell is right that we need to talk about climate change (Opinion, 6 December). However, when we do, people often say there is no point in cutting one’s own emissions (by not flying, for example) because hardly anyone else is; and they say there is no point in the UK doing anything, because other countries aren’t. Sadly, people in other countries are probably using the same arguments and so, in a self-fulfilling way, it could be argued that they are all correct. Certainly there is no evidence that nations or individuals are actually going to make the changes needed to cut greenhouse gas emissions adequately, whatever pledges may have been made at international conferences.

Clearly, we need a new approach: to invest in a combination of carbon scrubbing, geoengineering, third-way solutions, forest protection and reforestation. These can be funded by an international financial transactions tax, and they don’t involve lifestyle changes people won’t accept. We need to start now.
Richard Mountford
Hildenborough, Kent

Internet giant says renewable energy is increasingly lowest cost option and it will not rule out investing in nuclear power

Google’s data centres and the offices for its 60,000 staff will be powered entirely by renewable energy from next year, in what the company has called a “landmark moment”.

The internet giant is already the world’s biggest corporate buyer of renewable electricity, last year buying 44% of its power from wind and solar farms. Now it will be 100%, and an executive said it would not rule out investing in nuclear power in the future, too.

A collection of zoological wonders from November 2016, featuring mobbing hyenas, speeding bats and crab power

As global temperatures rise, extreme downpours will increase putting huge strains on infrastructure and agriculture, finds climate study

When the skies open up and deluge an area, the results can be catastrophic, with roads washed out and homes destroyed by the resulting flash floods. Such extreme downpours are already occurring more often across the US, but a new study finds that as global temperatures rise, storms could dump considerably more rain and skyrocket in frequency.

The study, in the journal Nature Climate Change, suggests that storms that now occur about once a season could happen five times a season by the century’s end, a 400% increase.

Firefighters recover two cars from a sinkhole in Texas. An off-duty sheriff’s deputy died and two other people were hurt when two vehicles plunged into the water-filled sinkhole in San Antonio on Sunday. It appeared after a sewer line ruptured during heavy rain

• One dead after Texas sinkhole swallows two cars
  

England fells more trees than it plants and government must keep to its targets to evade deforestation, say forestry groups

Every year Brazil, Congo and other developing countries are lambasted by environmentalists and western politicians for deforestation at a time when trees are needed to counter climate change and prevent flooding.

Now two prestigious organisations are warning that England may have tipped into deforestation, with more trees being cut down than planted for the first time in possibly 40 years.

Conspiracy websites and hyperpartisan media outlets are building huge online audiences who want to hear climate change is a hoax

Back in December 2015, Donald Trump gave a 30-minute live interview to the website Infowars.com and its combustible leader, Alex Jones.

“Your reputation is amazing and I will not let you down,” said Trump, who, at the time, was leading in most polls for the Republican presidential nomination.

Claxton, Norfolk They rose and fell, swaying as if one organism were breathing slowly, and as they approached they never made sound

I saw the goose skein as a tentative line in a southern blue sky and, since it was arrowed straight towards me, I rested arms and binoculars on a gate to ease the muscle ache.

One, two minutes must have passed as the skein slowly grew, before it occurred to me that large birds in flight never rush. The wing beats are steady, solemn, self-reliant. I remember once in eastern Turkey watching a line of flamingos like this. There is an almost identical length of neck and leg fore and aft of those pink flamingo wings and, such was their lack of progress, it was a good five minutes before I could even work out in which direction they flew.

Analysts says $1bn loan proposal shows lack of financier interest and Adani may not meet investment criteria due to position that public funding ‘not critical’

Doubts have emerged over the eligibility of Adani’s rail link for public funding as the company pushes ahead with plans for the controversial Carmichael coal project with a promise of 600 jobs at a new operational headquarters in Townsville.

The Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, said “you can’t get the smile off my face” when commenting on the news of the potential jobs boost in a television interview.

The government hopes its latest reports will keep the reef off Unesco’s world heritage in-danger list. But protecting the reef for future generations involves addressing the threat posed by climate change

At first glance, the progress reports on the Great Barrier Reef released last week by the Australian and Queensland governments might seem impressive.

The update on the Reef 2050 Plan suggests that 135 of the plan’s 151 actions are either complete or on track.