The Guardian

While Rishi Sunak spouts pro-motorist rhetoric, Amsterdam, Paris and Edinburgh are leading the charge to be healthier cities

When friends from my home town of Miami visit Edinburgh, where I now live, one thing they always remark on is the quality of life here. Sure, Miami has more sunny days, a mild winter, South Beach and Lionel Messi, but it is practically impossible to get around there without a car. Compare this with Edinburgh, where you can walk, cycle, or take the bus or tram. Travel is free on public buses for under 22s, and while low-traffic neighbourhood (LTN) schemes aren’t perfect, the council is rolling them out in the pursuit of a vibrant, active city.

Edinburgh’s commitment to pedestrians is not about banning cars, but about making it cheaper and simpler to replace short-distance single occupancy journeys with alternatives that have far-reaching benefits for the city’s inhabitants and the planet. It’s about making it easier to get to school, work or the city centre without relying on a car.

Move comes as campaigners call for wider access to land after court of appeal ruling on Dartmoor case says activity is lawful

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Labour would extend the right to wild camp to all national parks if elected, the party has said following the restoration of the right on Dartmoor by the high court.

On Monday, the court of appeal ruled that wild camping on Dartmoor was lawful without landowner permission, overturning a high court ruling in favour of a landowner who wanted to ban the practice. Ruling on the appeal, Sir Geoffrey Vos, the master of the rolls, said wild camping counted as “open-air recreation” as allowed in the 1985 Dartmoor Commons Act.

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs, including wildfires, kangaroos and a bear in a jacuzzi

Antarctica’s sea ice levels are plummeting as extreme weather events happen faster than scientists predicted

Antarctica is currently experiencing dramatic changes at unprecedented rates, marked by repeated extreme events. These include circum-Antarctic summer heatwaves and an autumn heatwave last year, with temperatures soaring up to 40C above the average. Moreover, both last summer and this winter, sea ice extent has reached record lows. These changes have happened even faster than scientists predicted.

These changes coincide with a broader global pattern of extreme air and sea surface temperatures, wildfires, floods, disease and other events deeply impacting ecosystems and society. Scientists have warned society about global climate change and its impacts since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s first report in the early 1990s. The Antarctic community has done so repeatedly too. These warnings are now being realised.

Families worry about where their children will go during the summer as crumbling playgrounds are left in disrepair

• England’s playgrounds crumble as council budgets fall

It’s a warm day in July and Ginette is pushing her grandson on a swing next to the remains of a climbing frame, destroyed in an arson attack last October and still not replaced at the height of summer.

“This is so sad,” she says. “This used to be a beautiful park, now look at it.”

Children suffering from ‘shameful’ failure to protect play with park budgets falling by £350m in 11 years

• ‘The swings are missing’: Children in Newcastle left with nowhere to play

Playgrounds around England are falling to pieces, missing large pieces of play equipment, or simply being locked up, as councils facing huge budget cuts struggle to maintain them. In some of the poorest parts of the country, family groups are warning that children face a summer spent indoors because of a lack of safe and free spaces to play.

The head of Play England has said that children’s mental health will suffer as a result, and has called for radical change from what he called a “shameful” lack of protection for children and play in planning.

Exclusive: Deleting national emissions ceiling regulations as part of scrapping EU laws ‘a clear example of deregulation’

The government is ignoring its post-Brexit green watchdog over the removal of air quality regulations, in a move that has been described by experts as “a clear example of deregulation”.

The Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) was set up in 2020 to replace the role the EU had played in regulating and enforcing environmental law in the UK. Campaigners raised concerns at the time that it might not have the same teeth as the EU and that it would not be able to stop the government riding roughshod over environment protections.

Energy networks commissioner urges action to ease decade-long delay for windfarms and solar arrays

New power lines in Britain should be built more quickly to ease the decade-long backlog of renewable energy projects waiting to connect to the electricity grid, according to a report commissioned by the government.

The government’s first energy networks commissioner, Nick Winser, used his report to warn ministers that without new cables and substations more green energy projects were likely to be rolled out before they could be connected to the grid.

Exclusive: hundreds of consultants, GPs and others write to Keir Starmer and Sadiq Khan over Labour’s position on Ulez

Hundreds of doctors have urged politicians to stand firm on initiatives to tackle air pollution, warning that they see its “devastating health consequences” in patients on a daily basis.

Air pollution is the single largest environmental risk to public health, linked to between 28,000 and 36,000 UK deaths a year. The estimated cost to the NHS and social care of air pollutants is estimated to be £1.6bn between 2017 and 2025.

Keir Starmer and other senior Labour figures have prompted alarm among health professionals after they called on the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, to reflect on the expansion of the capital’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) after the Uxbridge byelection defeat.

New analysis of Environment Agency data by Lib Dems shows more than 100 systems are faulty

An increasing number of sewage monitors in England’s swimming spots are broken, new analysis has shown, meaning unknown quantities of raw sewage may be present in bathing waters.

New analysis of 2022 Environment Agency data by the Liberal Democrats has shown that more than 100 sewage monitors in bathing waters were faulty. This is an increase on 2021, when 88 of the monitors were broken.

UN appeals for another country to step in for biodiversity summit – due to take place in 2024 – as Ankara cites ‘force majeure’ for move

Turkey has withdrawn from hosting the United Nations’ Cop16 biodiversity summit in 2024, citing three large earthquakes in February that devastated parts of the country.

The nature summit, which will be the first since governments agreed this decade’s biodiversity targets at Cop15 in Montreal last December, had been scheduled to take place in Turkey in October next year to discuss progress on the agreement.

Greenpeace protesters climbed on to the roof of the prime minister's mansion in North Yorkshire and draped it in oil-black fabric to 'drive home the dangerous consequences of a new drilling frenzy'. The climbers managed to get on top of Sunak's constituency home in Kirby Sigston as the PM flew to California on holiday. After reaching the top of the building using ladders and climbing ropes, they unfolded 200 sq metres of fabric to cover one side of the property. Last week, Sunak pledged to 'max out' the UK's oil and gas reserves as he announced 100 new licences for North Sea drilling, which experts say could be catastrophic for the climate

• Greenpeace protesters drape giant oil-black fabric over Sunak’s mansion

At least 400 attendees require treatment for heat-related symptoms on first day of the World Scout Jamboree in South Korea. The event, which started earlier this week, has drawn 43,000 young Scouts from 158 countries this year

• Heatwave sees hundreds fall ill at World Scout Jamboree in South Korea

Group chaired by former chief scientist Ian Chubb writes to Tanya Plibersek, saying ‘business as usual’ on the reef is not an option

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Leading national experts on the Great Barrier Reef have called for an urgent reassessment of the way the world’s biggest reef system is managed, saying current approaches are too inflexible in the face of “unremitting global warming.”

An established independent expert panel, chaired by the former chief scientist Ian Chubb, wrote to the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, saying “business as usual” is no longer an option.

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Sightings rise to 170,000 so far this year as climate breakdown changes behaviour of species

Red admiral butterflies are enjoying a 400% boom in British gardens this year, data reveals, as the migrant insect favours the warmer climes brought by climate breakdown.

Butterfly Conservation has reported 170,000 sightings of the majestic red and black insect so far this year in its annual Big Butterfly Count.

The independent member for Kooyong Monique Ryan has accused the federal government of encouraging more gas projects by introducing legislation that would allow carbon dioxide to be pumped into international waters. 'The bill will be a key enabler of gas expansion, granting social licence for new and highly polluting greenwashed fossil fuel projects,' she says. The government says the bill is intended to bring Australia's laws into line with changes to an international treaty on the prevention of marine pollution, known as the London Protocol

• Teal MPs slam CO2 sea dumping bill as ‘greenwashing’ fossil fuel industry

Temperature records only go back to the 19th century, but they tell a very clear story: it’s getting hotter – and we’re causing it

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With the planet seeing record-breaking temperatures, and after more than 100 million people in the US were placed under heat warnings, now seems the perfect time for climate change contrarians to tell their readers that it’s all overblown hype.

Heatwaves? Not as bad as they used to be. Wildfires? They’re on the decline.

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The south-western Japanese islands of Okinawa were hit by Typhoon Khanun on Wednesday, grounding flights and forcing local authorities to issue evacuation orders across the area. Khanun is the third typhoon to hit the east Asia region in recent weeks, following Talim and Doksuri, and registered wind speeds above 110mph, according to Japan's meteorological agency. A third of homes in Okinawa are believed to have had their power cut off because of the storm

Covid-19 restrictions ushered in worldwide avian enthusiasm, with potential wellbeing benefits

Interest in wild bird feeding surged over the pandemic, a study has found.

Researchers used data from Google Trends to assess the weekly frequency of searches for terms including “bird feeder”, “bird food” and “bird bath” from January 2019 to May 2020. After two weeks of lockdown, there was a dramatic increase in bird-related searches.

Marina Silva welcomes progress but says climate crisis means upcoming regional summit needs to produce real action

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell by at least 60% in July compared to the same month last year, the environment minister, Marina Silva, has told the Guardian.

The good news comes ahead of a regional summit that aims to prevent South America’s largest biome from hitting a calamitous tipping point.