The Guardian

… to be announced at 12.30pm AEDT. Follow our live blog from 11.30am for the red carpet, emotional speeches and all the reaction

• Find all our bird of the year content
• Download your Australian birds poster as a jpeg or pdf (large file)

The campaigns are over. The votes are in. The scrutineers are in the tally room.

The winner of the 2023 Guardian/BirdLife Australian bird of the year will be announced at 12.30pm AEDT on this website, after voters culled a field of 50 down to 10 for the final day of voting on Thursday.

Find all our bird of the year content

Guardian Australia has produced a glorious A3 poster of Australian birds that can be downloaded here as a high-resolution jpeg or pdf to be printed out. (The pdf is a large file so may take a while to load.)

Mountain’s peak has been measured every two years since 2001 and height has varied by almost 5 metres

Mont Blanc, the tallest mountain in the Alps, has shrunk by 2.2 metres since 2021 to its lowest height in recent memory.

The mountain, which is capped by a ridge of ice covering the rock, was measured by a team of surveyors from the Haute-Savoie regional administration, aided by a drone.

Exclusive: No regulator is monitoring scale of impact of dangerous chemicals on wildlife or public health

A toxic cocktail of damaging chemicals created by road pollution is flowing into England’s rivers and no regulator is monitoring the scale of its impact on wildlife or public health.

More than 18,000 outfalls, such as pipes, and about 7,700 soakaways managed by National Highways discharge rainwater potentially contaminated with heavy metals, hydrocarbons, microplastics and other chemicals from the main road network into rivers and on to land.

Climate crisis funding for poor nations should reach $200bn to $400bn a year by same date, says pre-Cop28 report

Fossil fuel exploration should cease globally by 2030 and funding to rescue poor countries from the impacts of the climate crisis should reach $200bn (£165bn) to $400bn a year by the same date, according to proposals in a UN report before the next climate summit.

Countries were still “way off track” to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, the report found, and much more action would be needed to make it possible to limit global heating to 1.5C above preindustrial levels.

Bee and hornet hit ground with such force the attacker is sent scarpering, University of Exeter scientists find

Bumblebees are not fast or agile enough flyers to evade an attack from an Asian hornet and an airborne scrap would almost certainly result in victory for the latter.

But University of Exeter scientists have found that when attacked, buff-tailed bumblebees have a dramatic but effective response: simply dropping out of the air “like a brick”, taking the hornet with them.

The tragic felling of the tree is making land managers reflect on how this barren landscape should look in future

Last Wednesday night, Britain was robbed of one of its best-loved trees. Mike Pratt, the CEO of Northumberland Wildlife Trust, describes the venerable, now-recumbent sycamore at Sycamore Gap on Hadrian’s Wall as a “totem tree; a touch point in the landscape”.

But the tree, standing alone in a national park, also reminded some of how nature-depleted England is. As environmentalist Ben Goldsmith said at the time: “That someone would have destroyed this iconic tree is beyond comprehension; but what’s even more shocking is that this was pretty much the only tree in that entire landscape. Our national parks can and should be so much better.”

Five people have been arrested after Just Stop Oil protesters disrupted a performance of Les Misérables at the Sondheim theatre in London’s West End.

During a performance of the song Do You Hear the People Sing? members of the Just Stop Oil group stormed the stage with banners to boos from the audience.

In a post on X, the group wrote: '4 people are locked to the stage of the French-revolution-themed show. Valjean steals bread to feed a starving child. How long before we are all forced to steal?'

• Just Stop Oil protest disrupts Les Misérables performance in London

Luca Locatelli, an Italian photographer, has been researching the circular economy: an economic model geared to the elimination of waste, involving the circulation of products and materials and the regeneration of nature. His photographs document stories, practices and initiatives in Europe inspired by the movement, and nature-based production solutions and processes which tackle socio-environmental issues

Luca Locatelli’s The Circle is on display at Gallerie d’Italia, Turin until 18 February 2024

As our climate warms, urban trees will be needed more than ever. A study looks at how they can be protected

El Niño is officially under way and Australians are preparing for a hot spring and summer. Urban trees play a vital role in keeping cities cool, evaporating water to provide a natural form of air-conditioning, cooling air temperatures and reducing heat-related deaths by more than a third. But trees struggle with extreme heat. A study shows that simply planting trees isn’t enough; urban trees need continuing care.

Researchers investigated the impact of extreme heat on trees during Australia’s last major heatwave, in 2019 and 2020. They found species with large thin leaves, such as red maple, were particularly vulnerable to extreme heat, whereas trees with thicker leaves, such as ash and Chinese elm, were better able to regulate their temperature. The results, published in Global Change Biology, show that access to water is also crucial, with well-watered trees able to open their pores and evaporate water, preventing scorching of leaves.

The carbon emissions driving the climate crisis and rapid arrival of an El Niño event are to blame, researchers say

Global temperatures soared to a new record in September by a huge margin, stunning scientists and leading one to describe it as “absolutely gobsmackingly bananas”.

The hottest September on record follows the hottest August and hottest July, with the latter being the hottest month ever recorded. The high temperatures have driven heatwaves and wildfires across the world.

Thinktank says rapid growth of wind and solar is near rate required if world is to hit 2030 target as part of 1.5C pathway

Carbon emissions from the global electricity sector may peak this year, after plateauing in the first half of 2023, because of a surge in wind and solar power, according to a climate thinktank.

A new report on global electricity generation found that the growth of renewables was so rapid that it was close to the incredibly fast rate required if the world is to hit the tripling of capacity by the end of the decade that experts believe is necessary to stay on the 1.5C pathway.

Five arrested after group members storm production, unveiling banners and locking themselves to stage

Five people have been arrested after Just Stop Oil protesters disrupted a performance of Les Misérables at the Sondheim Theatre in London’s West End.

During a performance of the song Do You Hear the People Sing? members of the Just Stop Oil group stormed the stage with banners. In a video of the protest posted online, the performance came to a halt as one member shouted “just stop oil”, to boos from the audience.

It’s hard to overstate just how exceptionally high global temperatures are now, but we have the technology to avert disaster

“Absolutely gobsmackingly bananas” is not standard scientific language, but these are not standard times, scientifically.

New data shows average global temperatures in September were not just the hottest ever recorded, but 0.5C above the previous record for the month. They were about 1.8C above temperatures in pre-industrial times, before humans started pumping vast amounts of heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads

Statement at UN human rights council voices ‘disappointment’ after Abu Dhabi refuses to change restrictive laws

The UK has asked the United Arab Emirates, one of its closest Gulf allies, to explain how it will guarantee free speech around the UN Cop28 climate summit in Dubai after the country refused to change its restrictive laws on free speech.

The refusal came after a four-yearly UN review of the UAE’s human rights record.

At first an oddity roaming in an otherwise desperately ordinary suburb, the curious creature continues to survive – alone and silent

• Cast your vote in the Australian bird of the year poll today
• Keep up with all our bird of the year content

For two months, we called it Strange Bird.

We had moved into a new home in the summer. A tightly packed street in Sydney’s inner west, where gardens are small, nature strips absent and the cement footpath is broken up by fledgling trees around which residents plant small squares of flowers and creepers. It was here, almost immediately, that we encountered a lone, large bird.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Francis also defends climate protesters and calls on governments to make Cop28 in Dubai a turning point

Pope Francis has said the rich world must make profound changes to tackle the climate crisis, while defending climate protesters and urging governments to make the forthcoming Cop28 climate summit a turning point.

He called for “a decisive acceleration of energy transition” from fossil fuels to renewables, but cautioned against relying on new technology such as carbon capture and storage, which he said was “like pushing a snowball down a hill”.

Protection plan for Doñana Natural Space hailed by environmentalists as ‘step in the right direction’

A controversial plan that would have placed one of Europe’s most important and threatened wetlands in even greater jeopardy has been paused after an unexpected agreement was reached between Spain’s caretaker government and the regional authorities in Andalucía.

Water supplies to the Doñana national park in western Andalucía – whose marshes, forests and dunes extend across almost 130,000 hectares (320,000 acres) and include a Unesco-listed national park – have declined drastically over the past 30 years because of climate breakdown, farming, mining pollution and marsh drainage.

FoI requests show Shell and BP among firms giving funds to institutions which have pledged to divest

Major fossil fuel companies have committed tens of millions of pounds in funding to UK universities since 2022, it can be revealed, despite many of these institutions having actively pledged to divest from oil and gas.

According to freedom of information requests submitted by the climate journalism site DeSmog, more than £40.9m in research agreements, tuition fees, scholarships, grants and consultancy fees have been pledged to 44 UK universities by 32 oil, coal and gas companies since 2022.

Pollack from the Channel and dover sole from the Irish Sea among those to avoid, Good Fish Guide says

Only about one in eight UK fisheries have been awarded “green” status for sustainability in the latest edition of the Good Fish Guide.

Of the 337 wild fisheries around the British Isles included on the list, which is compiled by the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) and updated twice a year, only 13% were regarded as good sustainable choices. The MCS categorises a fishery as a species of fish or shellfish from a specific area caught in a specific way.

Dr Gianluca Grimalda told by Kiel Institute for World Economy he must be at his desk on Monday after finishing fieldwork

A climate researcher has been threatened with the sack by his employer after refusing to fly back to Germany at short notice after finishing fieldwork in the Solomon Islands archipelago.

On Friday Dr Gianluca Grimalda, an environmental campaigner who refuses to fly on principle, was told by his employer, Germany’s Kiel Institute for World Economy, that if he was not at his desk on Monday he would no longer have a job to return to.