The Guardian

Research shows ‘rapid decline’ in numbers caused by hunting, pollution and nets

South Africa’s great white sharks face the threat of extinction after a steep decline in numbers caused by trophy hunting, shark nets and pollution, according to a study released Wednesday.

The six-year research project along the country’s coastline revealed that only between 353 and 522 of the sharks are still alive, half the level previously thought.

Scientists said cooling of tip over past 15 years is related to wind patterns, but does not mean that global warming has stopped

The tip of the Antarctic peninsula has cooled over the past 15 years, scientists have found, but the discovery does not mean global warming has stopped.

Researchers analysed air temperature data from the area, which covers about 1% of the continent, and found it had warmed quickly from the 1920s until the late 1990s, as climate change drove up global temperatures. Since then, temperatures have fallen.

Technology firm hailed success of machine-learning trial and said efficiencies will be applied to all its centres by end of year

Google says it has cut its vast data centres’ energy use by 15% by applying artificial intelligence to manage them more efficiently than humans.

The servers that power billions of web searches, streamed films and social media accounts are estimated to account for around 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Google is believed to have one of the biggest fleets of them in the world.

Greenpeace urges legal ban to tackle problem after finding that top personal care companies fell short on commitments

Loopholes in the voluntary pledges by the biggest personal care companies to phase out polluting microbeads have been revealed in a report from Greenpeace, which says a legal ban is needed.

Tiny plastic beads are widely used in toiletries and cosmetics but thousands of tonnes wash into the sea every year, where they harm wildlife and can ultimately be eaten by people, with unknown effects on health. A petition signed by more than 300,000 people asking for a UK ban was delivered to the prime minister in June A US law banning microbeads was passed at the end of 2015.

Maria Damanaki questioned feasibility of UK controlling stocks or setting its own catches without input from Europe

The EU’s former fisheries chief has said it is an illusion that the UK will be able to dictate its fishing policies after Brexit.

Maria Damanaki, the former commissioner for fisheries, who oversaw the most sweeping reforms of the EU’s common fisheries policy in decades, said: “The idea that you can control fisheries at a national level is an illusion for any country, but especially the UK - with Brexit or without. International cooperation is needed to keep stocks and control.”

The World Bank is poised to support a new coal plant that would modernise Kosovo’s creaking energy infrastructure, but also lock the young nation into a future powered by a regressive fossil fuel

In the early days of December 2015, as the Paris climate talks veered off course and off schedule, the US secretary of state John Kerry left his team of negotiators and flew to Kosovo to voice his support for a proposed US-built, World Bank-sponsored coal power station.

Speaking alongside the prime minister, Isa Mustafa, Kerry told reporters at Pristina airport that the Kosovo e re (New Kosovo) plant would help the tiny, impoverished country do “its part to contribute to this global effort of nations who are committed to dealing with climate change” by replacing an extremely high-polluting cold war-era power plant. Kerry then returned to Paris and helped land a deal intended to bring the fossil fuel era to an end.

Government says carbon storage technology not cost-efficient, while critics say U-turn will double cost of tackling climate change

The government’s cancellation of a pioneering £1bn competition to capture and store carbon emissions may have pushed up the bill for meeting the UK’s climate targets by £30bn, according to a report from the UK’s official spending watchdog.

The National Audit Office (NAO) report, published on Wednesday, says the move has delayed by a decade the deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology in the UK, which takes emissions from power stations and industry and buries them so they do not contribute to global warming.

Bolt Head, South Devon This Finnish windjammer loaded with thousands of tons of grain had reached Falmouth from south Australia in just 86 days

Eighty years ago the cliff-land here was thronged with curious sightseers, including my grandfather and uncle who drove from St Dominic to view the wreck of the Herzogin Cecilie with its masts towering towards the spectators. This Finnish windjammer – a four-masted barque loaded with thousands of tons of grain – had reached Falmouth from the Boston Island anchorage in south Australia in just 86 days, but on the last lap towards Ipswich it foundered on the Ham Stone off Soar Mill Cove.

Hosegoods, the Plymouth grain merchants, salvaged damp wheat, and my grandfather bought some cheaply for delivery to Cotehele Mill via the river Tamar and his barge, the Myrtle. It was mixed with extra-dry Persian barley, made into pig and poultry meal, and sold to local farmers.

US agencies Nasa and Noaa say last month was 0.9C hotter than the 20th century average and the hottest June since records began in 1880

As the string of record-breaking global temperatures continues unabated, June 2016 marks the 14th consecutive month of record-breaking heat.

According to two US agencies – Nasa and Noaa – June 2016 was 0.9C hotter than the average for the 20th century, and the hottest June in the record which goes back to 1880. It broke the previous record, set in 2015, by 0.02C.

With the coal boom on the wane, mining companies want to escape the cost of rehabilitating their sites. But even if governments effectively restrain them, many of the huge voids in the landscape will never be filled in

Australia is teetering on the edge of a massive hole – one left by huge mines that may soon close. As they do, the country is playing a desperate game of catch-up to make sure the mining companies pay for the cleanup. But a legacy of limited environmental requirements means that even if that succeeds, the end of the coal boom will leave Australia pockmarked with unfilled holes.

This game has been highlighted in recent years by a trend of major miners unloading projects to industry minnows amid a coal slump. As they do so, taxpayers risk being lumped with cleanup costs in the wake of their collapse.

It looks like Andrea Leadsom is unconcerned that her children’s children may never see a butterfly unless they climb a mountain (Leadsom’s views make her surprise choice for new role, 15 July), which she sees as a sensible approach to environment planning. Could Patrick Barkham (Wet summer is last straw in disastrous year for butterflies, 15 July) perhaps persuade the family to take part in the big butterfly count?
Helen Esplin
Coleford, Gloucestershire

• Perhaps I’m paranoiac, but I rather resented the implication that because I enjoy AE Housman, I must be a xenophobic Brexiteer (Housman Country: Into The Heart Of England by Peter Parker, reviewed by Blake Morrison, Review, 16 July). The bleakness below Housman’s sylvan surface has long been recognised and was concisely captured by Hugh Kingsmill’s parody of Housman’s verse which begins: “What still alive at twenty-two / A clean upstanding lad like you?”
David Edwards
St Helens, Merseyside

Duterte says Paris climate pact seeks to dictate to developing countries and limit economic growth, reports Climate Home

The Philippines will not honour commitments it made under the Paris climate change deal, president Rodrigo Duterte has said in a speech.

“You are trying to stifle us,” Duterte said on Monday in widely reported comments. “That’s stupid, I will not honour that. You signed … That was not my signature.”

The 66-mile route takes in Dover’s White Cliffs and Dungeness and is latest section of national coastal route to be completed

The first south-eastern stretch of a national trail that will eventually allow people to walk the whole way around England’s coastline has opened.

The 66-mile route, which starts in Camber in East Sussex and finishes in Ramsgate, Kent, is the latest section to become part of the England Coast Path. When completed in 2020, it will be one of the world’s longest coastal walking routes at 2,700 miles (4,345km).

Competitions to catch monster sharks have been held on the US Atlantic coast for decades, but now critics are stepping up their fight and calling for a ban

It’s 4am at the dock on Block Island, a teardrop-shaped New England vacation spot situated off Rhode Island, and tempers are fraying among fishermen competing in one of the region’s growing number of big money “monster” shark fishing tournaments.

At the previous night’s pre-competition gathering, one fisherman tore off his shirt and hurled it at the organizers, enraged at what he saw as an insufficient prize pot. Then, on the opening morning of a two-day contest to reel in the largest shark, anger flares from a very different source.

Often overlooked compared to cars and factories that are far bigger causes of smog, ship traffic has more than doubled off East Asia since 2005

A boom in shipping is aggravating air pollution in China and other nations in East Asia, causing thousands of deaths a year in a region with eight of the world’s 10 biggest container ports, scientists said on Monday.

Often overlooked compared to cars and factories that are far bigger causes of smog, ship traffic has more than doubled off East Asia since 2005 and some pollution from the fuel oil of ships wafts inland, they said.

From the mundane to the more serious, it’s in everyone’s interest to preserve the spirit of the overnight London-Suffolk bike ride

The Dunwich Dynamo is a roughly 120-mile bike ride to the Suffolk coast, on a date sometime near the fullest moon between the end of June and mid-July, setting off from Hackney’s London Fields park around 8pm and arriving at the beach sometime after dawn.

If the description seems a little hazy that’s because the ride is technically unorganised. There is no registration, no timer and no number to pin on to your cycle jersey.

WWT urges ministers to uphold promise to boost nature and cut the costs of environmental damage after the Brexit vote

Ministers must deliver on a manifesto pledge for a 25-year plan to boost nature and cut the costs of environmental damage, it has been urged.

Harm caused by floods, air pollution, water pollution and chemicals in the atmosphere are adding billions of pounds a year to bills, insurance premiums and costs for businesses, farms and households, environmentalists warn.

The $650m, 96-turnbine Dundonnell project is expected to save 700,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year

Victoria has approved a $650m, 96-turbine windfarm that will be the largest in the state as it bids to become the nation’s renewable energy leader.

The approval of the Dundonnell project means 300 direct and indirect jobs will be created during construction and the turbines will generate 1000 gigawatt hours of clean energy each year. It is enough to power 140,000 homes.

Claxton, Norfolk I reached the river Yare when the sun’s first effect was a band of exquisite apricot that shaded incrementally colder overhead

According to the veteran chronicler of English slang Jonathon Green, the expression “sparrow’s-fart” is a late 19th-century coinage, when country folk knew a thing or two about dawns.

All I can say is that while Claxton sparrows were busy and loud when I got back to the house, as I left it at 3.55am they were silent. The early birds were song thrush and blackbird, whose music rose and pooled in the woods beyond the houses and down the dell, by the gate, where the marsh begins.

Senior environmental and agricultural figures cite lack of top-level experience, track record and policy approach as fears

Andrea Leadsom’s appointment as environment secretary has raised significant concerns among senior environmental and agricultural figures over her suitability for the role.

Leadsom’s lack of top-level political experience, absence of track record in farming or environmental areas and ideological approach to policy are all cited as fears. However, her junior ministers are viewed more favourably in terms of tackling the enormous challenges faced by her department.