The Guardian

Mexico, Canada and US collaborate on report that concludes the three nations will have to dramatically ramp up efforts to reach 10% protection goal

North America is far from reaching national and international targets for protecting oceans, according to a first-of-its-kind report released on Wednesday.

The Dare to Be Deep report, created by a coalition of NGOs in the US, Canada and Mexico, finds that less than 1% of these countries’ oceans are protected like national parks – with only four years left to reach the 10% protection goal set in the multilateral Biodiversity Convention.

Brexit would allow Britain to renegotiate a more favourable share of catches, claims out campaigner George Eustice

Britain would have an opportunity to upend fishing quotas that give a “disproportionately large” share of catches to France if it votes to leaves the EU, according to George Eustice, the pro-Brexit minister for farms, food and fisheries.

In an interview with the Guardian, Eustice said that even if it left the EU, the UK would still respect catch limits set out to preserve stocks, some driven to near-extinction by decades of over-fishing.

We asked you to share your most striking images of the weather in May from around the world. Here are some of our favourites

• You can add your June weather photographs here

Funding for geoengineering computational experiments was mysteriously included in a Senate appropriations bill

On his late-night talk show, Jimmy Kimmel recently invited climate scientists to explain that they’re not just messing with us about global warming.

Elephant populations in Tanzania’s Selous national park could collapse unless poaching and mining are urgently controlled, say WWF

Elephants could disappear from one of Africa’s most important wildlife reserves within six years unless industrial scale poaching is stopped and mining is brought under control, the WWF has said.

Selous national park, a world heritage site in southern Tanzania, has lost an average of almost 2,500 elephants a year since the 1970s. But it has now reached a crtitical stage with only about 15,000 left, according to the latest census.

Steep rise between 2010 and 2014 shows link between EU’s renewable energy mandate and deforestation in south-east Asia, say campaigners

Leaked trade industry figures show a five-fold increase in the use of palm oil for biodiesel in Europe between 2010 and 2014, providing new evidence of links between deforestation in southeast Asia and the EU’s renewable energy mandate.

The leaked figures, which the Guardian has seen, show that 45% of palm oil used in Europe in 2014 went to biodiesel, up from 8% in 2010.

Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party MP Robert Borsak admits to shooting and eating an elephant while on a hunting trip in Zimbabwe. In a late-night sitting of New South Wales parliament on Tuesday, he defends his choice ‘to hunt and gather my own meat because it is my right to do so – it’s a clean, organic and sustainable way to live’

• Australian state MP admits eating elephant he shot in Zimbabwe
  
• Australia Greens leader views coral bleaching while snorkelling – video

Energy inefficient and substandard construction in developing countries locking the world into high greenhouse gas emissions for decades, warns Fatih Birol

Buildings currently being constructed at an increasing rate in developing countries are locking the world into high greenhouse gas emissions for decades to come, the world’s leading authority on energy has warned.

Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, told the Guardian that the world’s number one priority in tackling climate change must be to ensure those buildings meet higher standards of efficiency and safety.

From Tibetan monks playing basket ball with ice thawing high up in the Himalayas, to the pollution that hides behind the Taj Mahal, here’s our pick from 60 exceptional environmental photographs, by photographers and filmmakers from 70 countries, that will go on show at the Royal Geographical Society in London from 29 June to 21 August. The winners will be announced on 28 June

• Photographs provided by the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management
  

Captured by the XL Catlin Seaview Survey, these images show the extent of coral bleaching in the Indian Ocean archipelago of the Maldives. Scientists say this and similar devastation elsewhere in the world, including Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, are visible evidence of the impact of global warming

• Coral bleaching spreads to Maldives, devastating spectacular reefs

Exclusive: Images from the Indian Ocean archipelago reveal the extent of the longest global coral bleaching event in history

• Coral bleaching in the Maldives – in pictures

The longest global coral bleaching event in history is now devastating reefs in the crystal clear waters of the Maldives, with images released exclusively to the Guardian powerfully illustrating the extent of the damage there.

Photographed by the XL Catlin Seaview Survey, the images captured the event in May as it moved beyond the now devastated Great Barrier Reef and into waters further west.

Pact addresses concerns that burgeoning output from renewables is putting strain on electricity grid and pushing up prices

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has hammered out a deal with state premiers on the latest reform to Germany’s renewable energy law aimed at curbing the costs and controlling the speed of the roll-out of green power sources.

After a meeting with the leaders of Germany’s 16 states that stretched into the early hours of Wednesday, the government agreed to cap the expansion of onshore wind power at 2.8 gigawatts in capacity per year.

Returning to Alan Bennett’s old street to shoot The Lady in the Van threw up surprises for residents and crew

When a decrepit van, filled with a homeless old lady’s flotsam and jetsam, appeared with a film crew on Gloucester Crescent, 25 years after a similar vehicle had last been seen there, it proved a popular addition to the street for two people in particular.

“Camden Town is party central and when the crew turned up on one Monday morning they found a couple who’d been having a good time in the van,” says director Nicholas Hytner. “They’d apparently been there all weekend.

The Australian Greens leader examines coral bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef while snorkelling at Lizard Island in Queensland. Richard Di Natale also dives at Michaelmas Cay, where he is joined by his deputy, Senator Larissa Waters. All footage provided by the Australian Greens

Orcas exist in every ocean, adapting to different conditions and diets. Genome sequencing has allowed insights into their evolution - and similarity to humans

Geneticists have deciphered the brief history of the killer whale: the predator that exists in every ocean but has evolved over the generations to hunt in disciplined packs, and specialise in a range of diets.

The lesson is that genetic mutations that may have favoured survival in changing circumstances were then enhanced by natural selection – and by social learning within killer whale family groups.

Cars and houses are buried in rubble after extreme floods hit parts of south-west Germany. Streets in Braunsbach were strewn with debris after two streams burst their banks. Four people have died, including a firefighter. Much of Germany and Europe experienced heavy rain and thunder storms over the weekend

• Four dead after severe floods hit southern Germany

The EU referendum has united an often fractious industry, with skippers in ports from northern Scotland to Cornwall desperate to dump imposed quotas

William Whyte has a new flag flying from the rigging of his vast blue-hulled trawler, its fabric snapping in the brisk breeze coming in off the North Sea. It features the cartoon of a militant-looking fish wearing armour, a union jack shield at its waist and the legend “Fishing for Leave”.

These flags are appearing on boats around Britain’s coast. The country’s trawlermen are placing themselves in the vanguard of the campaign to quit the EU. There is talk of a flotilla massing on the Thames, as the country’s fishing fleets press the case for Brexit.

Tara national park, Serbia The extraordinary thing is not how comfortable local people are around bears but how they live in almost parallel worlds

Sitting in a forest hut for three hours watching a glade fill with shadows tests to the limits all that modern life has made of us, especially our capacities for patience, stillness, silence.

Not that I expected the objects of our vigil to reciprocate. On the contrary, brown bears in this park can be 250kg, so I was assuming that they might give warning of their approach: inadvertent rustling perhaps, or anxious alarm calls from nearby birds. Not a bit of it: what was so affecting was how the bears brought the stillness with them. On one occasion an animal walked right by us and while just 4 metres away we heard nothing.

Greens leader Richard Di Natale criticises Labor and the Coalition for their commitments to new coalmines, accusing them of taking huge donations from the fossil fuel lobby and harming the future of renewables on ABC’s Q&A program on Monday. When asked about his plans for central Queensland, Di Natale says: ‘I tell you what we won’t be doing is opening up a new coalmine and killing the Great Barrier Reef.”

Ever since visiting a remote Indonesian village as a teenager, Justine Flynn nurtured the dream of improving the lives of millions of people. Today, she has raised more than $4 million for life-changing food, water, health and sanitation programs by selling innovative local products

It was a week after the terror attacks of 9/11, and 14-year-old Justine Flynn was about to get on a plane to a remote village in Indonesia to help out at a local children’s foundation.

The fact her mum and dad let her go, despite the climate of fear, became a life-changing moment which set her on her path as a social entrepreneur and for which she is forever grateful.