The Guardian

Huge tank in Oxfordshire replicates the power and shape of the waves and will lead to improved coastal defences, building design and response plans

The full and devastating power of tsunamis has been recreated in lab for the first time, revealing valuable secrets about the little-understood waves. The work will lead to vital improvements to sea defences, coastal buildings and evacuation plans, ultimately saving lives.

Five major tsunamis have struck coasts around the world since 2004, killing 300,000 people, and the risks are rising as coastal cities expand. But the terrible violence of the giant waves means any scientific instruments present are almost always destroyed. The result is little knowledge of the huge forces with which tsunamis hit coasts.

Kenyan conservationist Paula Kahumbu leads a new generation of Africans who are taking control of their environmental future

In the cool and serene area of Karen, near Nairobi, in the offices of the conservation organisation she has built, Paula Kahumbu eats chicken and rice and talks about a revolution.

Related: Why the Guardian is spending a year reporting on the plight of elephants

Lack of access to safe water in the war-torn country is driving migration and disease and pollution, say hydrologists and humanitarian groups

War-torn Syria’s water supplies are deteriorating fast, triggering migration and disease and stoking a pollution crisis in neighbouring Lebanon, hydrologists and humanitarian groups have warned.

“Water security continues to deteriorate for many civilians [in Syria]. Evidence shows that control over power and water infrastructure is [being] used as a weapon of warring parties,” said Noosheen Mogadam, a policy adviser with the Norwegian Refugee Council based in Gaziantep on the Turkish-Syrian border.

Junichiro Koizumi disputes current leader’s description of situation at stricken nuclear power plant as being under control

Japan’s former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi has labelled the country’s current leader, Shinzo Abe, a “liar” for telling the international community that the situation at the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is under control.

Koizumi, who became one of Japan’s most popular postwar leaders during his 2001-06 premiership, has used his retirement from frontline politics to become a leading campaigner against nuclear restarts in Japan in defiance of Abe, a fellow conservative Liberal Democratic party (LDP) politician who was once regarded as his natural successor.

Issue to be discussed in parliament after petition backed by leading conservationists gets more than 120,000 signatures

MPs will debate whether to ban driven grouse shooting after a petition created by a leading conservationist passed the threshold of more than 100,000 signatures.

Mark Avery, a campaigner and former head of the RSPB, launched the petition in March with backing from broadcasters Chris Packham and Bill Oddie, and the League Against Cruel Sports, calling for grouse shooting to be banned because he said it often leads to the illegal killing of birds of prey, which eat red grouse.

The ocean conservation society last week completed its first-ever expedition to document the richness of habitats and threats to marine life in waters off the Netherlands, UK, Norway and Denmark. The results from the two-month, at-sea study will be used to strengthen marine protection in the region

No issue better connects the environment to people’s lives than energy. In order to deliver clean, affordable electricity we need to change our undemocratic system of supply

We are on course for a climate catastrophe. 2016 is set to be the hottest year on record. Unless the Paris agreement’s target of limiting the rise in temperatures by 1.5C is met, heatwaves like that in 2003, which killed tens of thousands of people in Europe, will become the norm. And that is before considering rising sea levels and desertification that will sink cities, and kill and displace millions, or the fact that the Earth has already lost half its wildlife in the past 40 years.

The task for politicians is to propose real solutions to the single most important issue facing humanity. Too often, the environment is considered a matter for scientists, enthusiasts and activists. To increase public understanding and energise the political debate, we need more than facts – we need a programme that resonates with people’s everyday experiences, offering not just warnings but opportunities and improvement.

Labour leader to announce plans to massively increase renewable energy and phase out coal power earlier than currently planned

A Labour government under Jeremy Corbyn would ban fracking, ditch all coal-fired power stations and massively increase renewable energy, his leadership campaign has announced.

In the clearest signal yet that the party intends to embrace an ambitious environmental agenda and break its traditional strong links to mining and fossil fuel extraction, the Labour leader has pledged to phase out all coal power stations by the “early 2020s” and invest heavily in energy-saving to avoid building many new power stations.

Heritage Lottery Fund report warns of a continuing a decline in the condition of parks as austerity budget cuts squeeze council budgets

The UK’s hugely popular public parks face falling into decline and neglect as a result of budget cuts, a new report warns.

Park use is rising, with 57% of adults now visiting their park once a month or more, while 90% of families with children under five head to their local green space at least monthly, the State of UK Public Parks 2016 study reveals.

Lindisfarne On the table around the crust in my fingers it was like a dancefloor, with dominant birds and watching wallflowers

Sparrows had gathered in a coffee house courtyard on a late summer afternoon on Holy Island. Most of the tourists were chasing the ebb tide across the causeway as the North Sea wiped and revealed a sacred history every few hours. With the tide out, the island’s holy precincts endured their heritage quietly, with a few stragglers and the birds.

Furtive and mouse-like, the sparrows scuttled under tables, the lookouts venturing on to chair backs to scope out possibilities. They have an acute instinct for a good mark, and I had a sparrow-friendly vibe and a sandwich.

• Nine of 14 distinct populations to be removed from endangered list
• Four populations still listed as endangered, one as threatened

Federal authorities are taking most humpback whales off the endangered species list, saying they have recovered enough in the last 40 years to warrant being removed.

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) said on Monday that nine of the 14 distinct populations of humpbacks will be removed, while four distinct populations remain listed as endangered and one as threatened.

Exclusive: Department of Environment confirms agency’s ‘mid-September’ move from Melbourne ‘to improve operating efficiency’

The Climate Change Authority will be moved from Melbourne to Canberra within the next fortnight, putting its independence from government under the spotlight.

A spokesperson for the Department of Environment has confirmed the move in “mid-September” to Guardian Australia, and said it was being done “in order to improve its operating efficiency”.

While the call by Pope Francis that religions should take far more responsibility for rampant environmental damage is most welcome (Environmental destruction is a sin, says pope, 2 September), he should be reminded that by far the most damaging cause of impending crisis is the huge near-threefold increase in the human population over the last 75 years to more than 7 billion.

Organised religion has stubbornly resisted all realistic forms of birth control and must take its share of the blame for this catastrophe. Worse still, even in the face of this evidence they persist in treating control as a sin. Is this not time for a rethink?
Emeritus Professor Colin Green
University College London, Northwick Park Institute for Medical Research

Major savings reported across all sectors before 2020 goal but analysts warn UK could reverse gains after Brexit

Europe has met a landmark goal of slashing its energy consumption six years ahead of time, cutting greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to the switching off about 400 power stations.

In 2014, the EU’s 28 member countries consumed 72m tonnes of oil equivalent less than had been projected for 2020, according to a report by the EU’s science arm, the Joint Research Centre (JRC). The figure matches Finland’s annual energy use.

Campaigners say the government intends to charge business rates for small solar installations on schools, but academies, private and free schools will be exempt due to charitable status

State schools with solar panels will be hit with a tax hike that exempts private schools, free schools and academies, according to campaigners.

The government proposes to end an exemption for small solar panel installations (less than 50 kilowatts) and charge business rates on them from April 2017. The charity 10:10 has calculated this will cost schools more than £820 a year for the average 10kW installation and, combined with recent cuts to the subsidy paid for rooftop solar energy, make future projects risky or uneconomic.

All flights at London City airport were disrupted on Tuesday morning by a Black Lives Matter UK protest on the runway. Nine people chained themselves together on the runway to highlight the environmental impact of air travel on the lives of black people locally and globally

• Nine Black Lives Matter protesters arrested after City airport travel chaos
  
• Protesters lie in chains on London City airport runway – aerial video
  

Climate Home: Leaders back rapid implementation of the Paris agreement and ramping up of green finance, but fail to set timeline for phase-out of fossil fuel subsidies

Leaders of the world’s biggest economies reaffirmed their commitment to tackling climate change as the G20 summit came to a close in Hangzhou on Monday night.

What they did not agree on were hoped-for deadlines to ratify the Paris climate agreement and phase out fossil fuel subsidies.

Campaigners and politicians say discussion is a matter of urgency following fresh revelations of superbugs in UK supermarket meat products

Tougher regulations on the use of antibiotics on farm animals are needed as a matter of urgency as part of Brexit negotiations, campaigners and politicians have urged, after fresh revelations of superbugs found in UK supermarket meat products.

E coli germs resistant to all of the currently used antibiotics have been found in UK supermarket meat, with a quarter of chickens found to contain the deadly superbugs, in research from Cambridge University.

New studies show that climate polarization is on the rise in the US; WSJ climate coverage is full of denial.

A new study by a team of sociologists at Oklahoma State University has found political polarization on climate change is growing in the United States. Today’s Republicans are less likely than they were a decade ago to accept that the effects of global warming have begun, that humans are responsible, and that there is a scientific consensus on these questions. Democrats and independents are slightly more likely to answer these questions correctly today than a decade ago.

At three times the size of California, the scope of the Papahānaumokuākea reserve has also highlighted how little of the world’s oceans are protected

As a grand gesture in the dying embers of a presidency, Barack Obama’s decision to create the world’s largest marine protected area in Hawaii was a chance to flex American exceptionalism with little downside.

“I love our president,” said Kevin Chang, of conservation group Kua’aina ulu ‘auamo. Chang said Hawaiians who successfully lobbied for Obama’s extension of the Papahānaumokuākea (pronounced Pa-pa-hah-now-mo-koo-ah-keh-ah) monument are “ecstatic”.