The Guardian

An unidentified sea creature and a shoal of disappearing fish are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

Countries from around the Pacific Ocean met to discuss ways of protecting the shrinking supplies but were unable to come to any agreement, officials say

Pacific island states and countries failed on Friday to strike a deal to protect shrinking supplies of tuna and adopt cutbacks following a regional conference, officials said, sparking condemnation from conservationists.

The Pacific Ocean is the world’s largest tuna fishing ground, accounting for almost 60% of the global catch.

Honduras has become a no-go zone for environmental activists after eight people were murdered in 2015 alone, reports IPS

Chills ran down Tomás Gómez Membreño’s spine when he first heard about the brutal murder of his renowned friend and ally, the Honduran Indigenous leader Berta Cáceres, six months ago this week.

30 mayors from cities including London, Paris, Tokyo, Sydney, New York, Cape Town and Rio de Janeiro call for rapid ratification of Paris climate deal

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has joined forces with city leaders from around the world to call on governments to take urgent action on climate change.

Ahead of a meeting of the G20 group of leading nations in Hangzhou, China, 30 mayors from cities including London, Paris, Tokyo, Sydney, New York, Cape Town and Rio de Janeiro called on national leaders to work with them to “build a low carbon, climate safe world”.

Isle of Gigha, Argyll The young otters were having a good time, splashing and paddling and roughhousing; we were enchanted

Having abandoned our bikes by the gate, we follow a cattle trodden path between walls of bracken down to where field meets sand. The silver slip of a beach is postcard perfect, a flawless bleached-bone white. But close up it is busy with the telltale trails of recent visitors: speechmark hoofprints of cattle and the flatfoot waddle of whooper swans, each webbed imprint as large as my palm.

No people, though, which was our aim. We set up camp upon a grassy flat, and wander along the foreshore, picking through tidewrack and pocketing curios: a mermaid’s purse, torn and discarded, scraps of net, pebbled glass.

My spectacles are not rose-tinted when I remember several dozen late-summer butterflies supping on buddleia to gain energy for their winter hibernation

The fact that I was delighted this week to find a trio of small tortoiseshells and three red admirals on one of a dozen buddleia I’ve planted in my garden shows how low our expectations have sunk.

My spectacles are not rose-tinted when I remember several dozen late-summer butterflies supping on buddleia to gain energy for their winter hibernation in very similar garden habitat when I was a boy three decades ago.

New European ruling bans any new orders on GU10 spotlights and PAR30 floodlights, which can waste up to 10 times more energy than LEDs

Energy-gobbling halogen spotlights will be phased out across Europe from Thursday, in a boost for super-efficient LEDs ahead of a wider halogen bulb ban in 2018.

Directional halogen bulbs already in stores can still be sold after today but no new retailer orders will be possible for the spotlights, which can waste up to 10 times more energy than LEDs.

The US president was in Honolulu on Wednesday to tell an audience of Pacific island leaders that ‘No nation … is immune from a changing climate.’ Last week Obama created the world’s largest marine reserve by quadrupling in size the biodiverse Papahānaumokuākea national monument. He will visit Midway Atoll, part of the protected area, on Thursday

• Obama makes climate change personal with call for action in home state Hawaii

US president delivers two major speeches on climate change, on in Nevada, pleading with politicians to act in the interest of future generations

Barack Obama has issued perhaps his most personal plea yet to overcome the existential threat posed by climate change.

The US president gave two major speeches on climate change in the space of a day, one in Nevada and another in Hawaii, after Air Force One managed to safely dodge two hurricanes lurking in the Pacific.

Thousands of models are 30% worse on average when measuring miles per gallon in real-world conditions, according to comprehensive new data

Just two cars deliver their advertised fuel economy when on the road, with the thousands of other models 30% worse on average in the real world, according to comprehensive new data.

Some cars, such as the Fiat 500 and Ford Fiesta, gave barely half the mileage advertised.

Though Kenya’s elephant population is stable and poaching is relatively under control, across Africa savannah elephants are increasingly under threat

Saving Africa’s elephants: ‘Can you imagine them no longer existing?’

Some of the world’s biggest buyers have stopped trading with Korindo after the emergence of footage claiming to show illegal burning in Papua province

A Korean palm oil company has been dropped by buyers after footage emerged that allegedly shows the illegal burning of vast tracts of tropical forest on lands it holds concessions for in Indonesia.

Some of the world’s biggest palm oil trading producers including Wilmar, Musim Mas and IOI have stopped using palm oil sourced from Korindo, much of which is destined to meet European demand.

Our father, Martin George, who has died aged 86, championed the conservation of the Norfolk Broads. He was one of the last great naturalists of his generation.

His achievements were many and varied, those around him recalling his enthusiasm and energy as new sites and species were found. He put several initiatives in place, including the Hoveton Great Broad nature trail, which he designed and implemented. He led the Nature Conservancy’s ground-breaking 1965 report on Broadland, which alerted the public and government to its ecological challenges, and played significant roles in the subsequent establishment of the Broads Authority and launch of the Broads grazing marsh conservation scheme, the forerunner of national agri-environment payments to farmers.

Mike Scadd loves the waters of Louisiana more than anything in the world. A vote for Clinton would help protect them. But there’s something more important to him and others than clean water: pride in his people

Sometimes you have to go a long, long way to discover truths that are distinctly close to home. Over the last five years, I’ve done just that – left my home in liberal Berkeley, California, and traveled to the bayous of Tea Party Louisiana to find another America that, as Donald Trump’s presidential bid has made all too clear, couldn’t be closer to home for us all. From those travels, let me offer a kind of real-life parable about a man I came to admire who sums up many of the contradictions of our distinctly Trumpian world.

So come along with me now, as I turn right on Gumbo Street, left on Jambalaya, pass Sauce Piquant Lane, and scattering a cluster of feral cats, park on Crawfish Street, opposite a yellow wooden home by the edge of waters issuing into Bayou Corne, Louisiana. The street is deserted, lawns are high, and branches of satsuma and grapefruit trees hang low with unpicked fruit. Walking toward me along his driveway is Mike Schaff, a tall, powerfully built, balding man in an orange and red striped T-shirt, jeans and sneakers. He’s wearing tan-rimmed glasses and giving a friendly wave.

Though Arctic sea ice started the summer at record lows, it is unlikely to set a new record annual minimum, reports Climate Central

As the sun begins its seasonal descent in the Arctic sky and temperatures drop, the summer melt of sea ice is slowing down. In the next few weeks, the span of the Arctic Ocean covered by ice will reach its annual low.

But despite beginning the summer at unprecedentedly low levels, this year’s minimum won’t break the stunning record of 2012, experts say, thanks to cloudy weather that slowed the rate of melt. 

Greens motion also calls on government to rule out publicly funding any of the mine’s associated infrastructure

The government is under increasing pressure to rule out public funding for Adani’s Carmichael coalmine, after the Senate passed a Greens motion calling on the Coalition to rule out financing the mine or any associated infrastructure.

The government did not oppose the motion, so it was carried without a formal count on Thursday.

Across Africa, poaching is on the rise. Progress is being made here and there, but the battle to save the largest animals on the Earth is far from being won

In the Samburu National Reserve in northern Kenya, when the fierce heat of the sun has softened into a gentle evening glow, David Daballen and I climb into a jeep to find some elephants.

As we drive through the savannah, Daballen, a conservationist at Save the Elephants, points out family groups and individuals within them. “These are the Butterflies, this group is Storms, here are the Spices,” he says. We have been looking out for Cinnamon, the Spices’ matriarch, and suddenly there she is: around 50 years old, huge and tuskless, having been born without any precious ivory. Close to her is Habiba, who was orphaned along with seven siblings when poachers killed their mother in 2011. The orphans were adopted by Cinnamon and the rest of the Spices.

‘Ethical ivory’ from the extinct animal is in high demand as elephants fall out of favour in China. Photographer Amos Chapple followed the tuskers in the Russian wilderness searching to uncover the lucrative remains

A collection of zoological wonders from August 2016, featuring a head-bopping sea-lion called Ronan, long-lived sharks and lobsters that bag up their poo

Majority of the Salvation Army’s sites, third of Quaker meeting houses, and 2,000 churches belonging to 16 Catholic dioceses switch to renewable energy

More than 3,500 churches across Britain have moved their electricity supply to renewables, or are planning to do so, according to data released on Thursday.

Those switching away from fossil fuels include the majority of the Salvation Army’s sites, about a third of Quaker meeting houses, and about 2,000 churches belonging to 16 Catholic dioceses which are running entirely on renewable energy.