The Guardian

PM2.5 from heating homes using solid fuel such as wood increased by 19% from 2021 to 2022, data shows

A rise in harmful emissions from wood-burning stoves has cancelled out decreases in particulate pollution from road and energy sources in the UK, government data reveals.

Emissions of PM2.5 from domestic combustion – heating homes using solid fuel such as wood – increased by 19% between 2021 and 2022, counteracting efforts made to travel and produce commercial energy in less polluting ways.

On an oceanic quest in the southern hemisphere, our writer encounters the only albatross species endemic to Australia

As one seabird enthusiast once proclaimed: “Real birds eat fish.” That was certainly true of the species I was hoping to encounter on my first oceanic quest in the southern hemisphere.

A dozen of us boarded the first Sydney Pelagics trip of the year, chugging out of the famous harbour early one January morning. We soon left the silver gulls and crested terns behind, before coming across the first of a quintet of shearwaters: wedge-tailed, short-tailed, flesh-footed, Hutton’s and a single streaked, a scarce visitor from Japan.

The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) has successfully translocated 21 eastern black rhinos to a region where they have been extinct for 50 years. Here’s how they caught, transported and released these critically endangered 1,400kg creatures to their new home

• Just two northern white rhinos remain. The species’ first IVF pregnancy could save them from extinction

It could be next Thursday or maybe Friday

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A landslide in Turkey's eastern Erzincan region has buried a goldmine, and authorities say at least nine workers at the site are missing. Footage circulating on social media captured the moment a torrent of muddy earth burst into a valley near the mine in the İliç district. Turkey's interior minister, Ali Yerlikaya, said 400 people from the country's emergency agency, AFAD, had been dispatched to the mine to rescue the trapped workers

Campaigners accuse government of ‘back door’ amendment to bring in pollution rule change that was defeated in Lords

The government is facing a legal challenge over plans to permit housebuilders in England to allow sewage pollution “through the back door”.

The campaign group Wild Justice, along with the law firm Leigh Day, have submitted plans for a judicial review over what they term an “unlawful attempt to use guidance to introduce a change that was defeated in the House of Lords last year”.

Farmers across Europe demand higher prices and looser environmental rules

A tractor blockade has seriously disrupted operations at the Belgian port of Antwerp, Europe’s second largest, authorities said, as angry farmers continued their protests in half a dozen European countries.

“No freight can be delivered or picked up, as trucks are halted, while employees are only being allowed in after a long wait,” said Stephan Vanfraechem, the director of the association of port operators Alfaport.

Green New Deal Rising aiming to help create climate caucus in parliament by promoting candidates in marginal seats

Young climate activists are discreetly trying to influence Labour’s candidate selection process in six constituencies before the general election, in an effort to form a climate caucus that can sway the next parliament.

Outlining its electoral strategy at a press event on Monday night, Green New Deal Rising (GNDR), a youth climate campaign, said it intended to mobilise thousands of young activists to promote eight general election candidates in marginal seats.

Report by RSPB and British Trust for Ornithology finds H5N1 has killed three-quarters of great skua and 25% of northern gannets

The UK has lost more than three-quarters of its great skuas on surveyed sites since bird flu struck, according to the first report quantifying the impact of H5N1 on seabird populations.

The deaths have happened over two years, since the outbreak of H5N1 in 2021. The UK is internationally important for seabirds, home to most of the world’s 16,000 pairs of nesting great skuas.

Government plans to deliver SMRs ‘lack clarity’ say environmental committee, and will likely fail to meet clean-energy goal of 2035

MPs have warned that a planned fleet of small nuclear reactors are unlikely to contribute to hitting a key target in decarbonising Britain’s electricity generation, as the government opened talks to buy a site in Wales for a new power station.

The Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) said that ministers’ approach to developing factory-built nuclear power plants “lacks clarity” and their role in hitting a goal of moving the grid to clean energy by 2035 was unclear.

Scientists say global heating is driving ice loss and warmer water, as ice cover falls short of 50-year average of 18%

The average ice cover over the five Great Lakes was just 6% last month, placing it among the least icy Januarys since records began 50 years ago, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa).

The Great Lakes – Superior, Huron, Michigan, Erie and Ontario – are located at or near the US-Canada border, and are connected by a network of smaller lakes and rivers that span a combined surface area of 95,000 sq miles, making it the largest freshwater system in the world.

Investor-State Dispute Settlements are legal, huge and often hush-hush – and fossil fuel firms and others are using them to hold the planet to ransom

• How a US mining firm sued Mexico for billions – for trying to protect its own seabed

What do you get if you cross the planet’s richest 1%, a global legal system adapted to their investment whims, and the chance to squeeze billions from governments? The answer is “Investor-State Dispute Settlements”, or ISDS, alternatively dubbed “litigation terrorism” by Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel prize-winning economist. ISDS is a corporate tribunal system, where a panel of unelected lawyers decides whether a company is owed compensation if the actions of national governments leave its assets “stranded”.

In hearings, which are often held behind closed doors, ISDS documents, claims, awards, settlements – even the content of cases – need not be made public, regardless of any public-interest considerations.

The consultation and planning around the energy rollout has been lacking – so let’s knock the edges off and get investment that works for our communities

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I recently discovered the chest freezer in our shearer’s huts had blown up in a lightning strike. The power had been out for two weeks. It felt like a CSI plot: I’m the woman with the torch, pushing the creaky shed door open to find a cloud of blow flies hovering around a bad smell.

The little bastards had found a tiny breach in the freezer seal. I did my best rendition of Brad Pitt in Se7en – What’s in the box? When I opened the lid, even the maggots had gone to fly heaven. The vestiges of splendid homegrown lamb were a grey mush at the bottom of the freezer.

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The huge leaks of the potent greenhouse gas will doom climate targets, experts say, but stemming them would rapidly reduce global heating

• ‘It’s impossible to breathe’ – life by Delhi’s towering landfills

There have been more than 1,000 huge leaks of the potent greenhouse gas methane from landfill waste dumps since 2019, the Guardian can reveal.

Analysis of global satellite data from around the world shows the populous nations of south Asia are a hotspot for these super-emitter events, as well as Argentina and Spain, developed countries where proper waste management should prevent leaks.

Migrating animals are at risk from pollution, the spread of invasive species and the climate crisis, first report of its kind reveals

More than a fifth of migratory species under international protection are threatened with extinction, including nearly all nomadic fish, according to the first UN expert assessment.

From humpback whales to Dalmatian pelicans, each year, billions of animals journey with the seasons over oceans, on land and in the skies. But a new report by the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) has found that many migratory species are at risk of disappearing, threatened by human pollution, the spread of invasive species and the climate crisis.

From this week, developments must result in more or better natural habitat than before, in a move hailed as one of the world’s most ambitious

England is launching a biodiversity credit scheme this week that attempts to force all new road and housebuilding projects to benefit nature, rather than damage it.

The “nature market”, called biodiversity net gain (BNG), means all new building projects must achieve a 10% net gain in biodiversity or habitat. If a woodland is destroyed by a road, for example, another needs to be recreated. This can happen either on site or elsewhere.

Australia’s largest oil and gas producer stands accused of distracting from credible action to cut emissions by greenwashing its fossil fuel plans

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Australia’s largest oil and gas producer, Woodside Energy, has expanded its focus on fossil fuel exploration and increased its direct greenhouse gas pollution since announcing it had an “aspiration” of reaching net zero emissions.

Woodside’s spending on looking for new oil and gas reserves was $160m in 2019 and dipped to $96m in 2021 – a year affected by the Covid-19 pandemic – before rising to $418m in 2022, according to a report by the Australian Conservation Foundation.

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Agency’s draft report backs paraquat’s safety but lawsuit’s plaintiffs say EPA ignored evidence of Parkinson’s risk

The US Environmental Protection Agency is doubling down on its controversial finding that a toxic herbicide is safe for use across millions of acres of American cropland, despite what public health advocates characterize as virtual “scientific proof” the product causes Parkinson’s disease.

The agency in 2021 reapproved paraquat-based herbicides for use, but a coalition of agricultural and public health groups sued, charging that the EPA had ignored broad scientific consensus linking the substance to Parkinson’s.

An alligator snapping turtle, with a jaw experts say can break through bone, was spotted living by a lake in Cumbria.

The animal is native to swamplands of the southern US such as Florida, has a hard and rugged shell as well as a sharp and wide jaw.

Vets said despite not being used to the cooler climate in the UK, the turtle, who has been named Fluffy, was relatively healthy, although a little lethargic when first brought in. The turtle will soon be moving to a specialist wildlife centre in Cornwall

• Fluffy the alligator snapping turtle with ‘nasty bite’ found in Cumbrian tarn

This sorry saga is not encouraging if it is a precedent for how Labour will handle the hard choices that it will face in government

I know a dead pledge when I see one, and I’m looking at one now. Labour’s green prosperity plan is history. It’s kicked the bucket, run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is an ex-pledge. It has suffered the same fate as the Norwegian Blue in Monty Python’s Dead Parrot sketch.

The abandonment of the commitment to invest £28bn a year to accelerate the transition to a carbon-free economy is not a routine political volte-face. This was Sir Keir Starmer’s signature pledge, one launched with tremendous fanfare as his flagship policy in 2021. There has not been a larger, more contentious or more excruciating U-turn during his time as Labour leader.