The Guardian

Surfers were seen catching waves near a suspected oil slick off the coast of Coogee in Sydney a day after hundreds of pieces of black debris washed up along the beach. The beach was closed and beachgoers warned not to touch the material, which could be 'tar balls' formed from oil spills or seepage at sea

• Suspected oil slick spotted off Sydney's Coogee beach after mysterious black balls wash ashore

These remarkable fish need clean rivers to breed in. Their decline highlights the collapse of environmental regulation

The collapse in the number of wild salmon in England and Wales is deeply dismaying. These fish are widely regarded as wonders of the natural world because of their extraordinary life cycle. This takes them thousands of miles out into the North Atlantic Ocean, before they return to our rivers – swimming and leaping upstream – to spawn.

Climate change and failures of marine conservation have contributed to the decline in numbers across their entire range, which extends from Russia to Portugal. But in Britain, the poor state of rivers is another obstacle to the species’ survival. As well as a warning of the global threat to biodiversity, their dwindling numbers are a reminder of the price paid for the repeated breaking of environmental law.

Investors say climate change poses biggest risk to their assets, and urge Albanese government to see the economic dangers of a slow path to net zero

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Institutional investors dealing with portfolios in the trillions of dollars aren’t typically the most vocal climate campaigners. You won’t find many superannuation fund staff, fund managers, asset consultants or brokers with a placard on the streets or on top of a Newcastle coal train.

But you may increasingly find them on a screen you’re watching. Or at least their message.

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Conservative ‘wish list’ of policies for a future Trump administration goes so far as transforming food and farming

When Project 2025 began making headlines this summer, it was largely for the ways the conservative “wish list” of policies for a future Trump administration would restructure the entire federal bureaucracy, deepen abortion restrictions and eliminate the Department of Education.

But the document – a proposed mandate for the next Republican president authored by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank – also outlines steps that would radically transform food and farming, curtailing recent progress to address the excess of ultra-processed foods in the United States. Among those: weakening the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), ending policies that consider the effects of climate change – and eliminating the US dietary guidelines.

UC San Diego has added an innovative prerequisite to ‘prepare students for the future they really will encounter’

Melani Callicott, a human biology major at the University of California, San Diego, thinks about the climate crisis all the time. She discusses it with family and friends because of the intensity of hurricanes like Milton and Helene, which have ravaged the southern US, she says. “It just seems like it’s affecting more people every day.”

That’s one reason why she is glad that UC San Diego has implemented an innovative graduation requirement for students starting this autumn: a course in climate change. Courses must cover at least 30% climate-related content and address two of four areas, including scientific foundations, human impacts, mitigation strategies, and project-based learning. About 7,000 students from the class of 2028 will be affected this year.

Exclusive: EA warns it lacks budget to tackle England’s rising number of potential ‘forever chemicals’ locations

The number of sites identified as potentially having been polluted with banned cancer-causing “forever chemicals” in England is on the rise, and the Environment Agency (EA) says it does not have the budget to deal with them.

A former RAF airfield in Cambridgeshire and a fire service college in the Cotswolds have joined a chemicals plant in Lancashire and a fire protection equipment supplier in North Yorkshire on the agency’s list of “problem sites” for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).

Residents and marine scientists unable to identify pale masses, as myriad theories are blown out of the water

They are slimy on the outside, firm and spongy on the inside and surprisingly combustible. And in recent months, they have been washing up on the shores of Newfoundland.

The depths of the Atlantic have long held mysteries, but the riddle of the mysterious white “blobs” spotted on the beaches of the eastern Canadian province has baffled both residents and marine scientists.

As he travels along the Iranian coast, Khashayar Javanmardi photographs rusting ships, blazing wetland fires – and humans struggling to stay alive

Countries promised to save 30% of land and sea for nature - but as their deadline approaches, only 24 have followed through with a plan

More than 80% of countries have failed to submit plans to meet a UN agreement to halt the destruction of Earth’s ecosystems, new analysis has found.

Nearly two years ago, the world struck a once-in-a-decade deal in Montreal, Canada, that included targets to protect 30% of land and sea for nature, reform billions of dollars on environmentally harmful subsidies and slash pesticide usage. Countries committed to submit their plans for meeting the agreement before the biodiversity Cop16 in Cali, Colombia, which begins this month – but only 25 countries have done so.

Energy crisis panel warns country is ‘dangerously unprepared’ and must shift away from gas quickly

Britain is at risk of experiencing a repeat of the sharp increase in energy costs which has fuelled the continuing cost of living crisis because it relies too heavily on gas, according to an expert panel of industry leaders.

The Energy Crisis Commission has warned that the UK is still “dangerously underprepared” for another crisis because it continues to rely on gas for its power plants and home heating.

A US study estimates the total climate pollution from LNG was 33% greater than that from coal over a 20-year period. This should have major ramifications for emissions policy

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The claim that Australian gas exports are “clean” and needed to drive the transition to net zero greenhouse gas emissions has become an article of faith for significant parts of the country’s industry, media and political classes – often repeated, only occasionally challenged.

It has buttressed a massive expansion of the liquified natural gas (LNG) industry in the north of the continent over the past decade, with major new developments in Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

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Data compiled by EEA shows quality of water bodies falls far short of target first set for 2015 and since extended to 2027

Only about one-third of Europe’s surface water is in good health or better, a report has found, despite an EU target first set for 2015 to bring all bodies of water up to good quality.

About 37% of Europe’s surface waters qualified as having at least a good ecological status and 29% a good chemical status in 2021, according to data from 19 member countries compiled by the European Environment Agency (EEA). The original deadline for the EU target has been extended to 2027 but data suggests this is on track to be missed by a wide margin.

Warm air from south to bring above-average temperatures – but heavy rain expected to follow

North-west Europe is forecast to experience a burst of autumn warmth this week, thanks to warm air from southern Europe spreading northwards. This brief episode of warmer-than-average conditions will be driven by an amplified, or “wavy”, jet stream, which will allow warm air to push farther north.

Daytime temperatures across much of France are forecast to reach the mid-20s on Tuesday and Wednesday, with some areas in the south-west potentially exceeding this. Meanwhile, the Benelux area and south-east England are expected to reach the low-20s by midweek.

We’ve all been there. We’ve all felt like a badly made-up, odd-limbed, irritable floor-dwelling mess

As you contemplate the wonders of evolution, and how a creature can be born with something weird and new, and that thing can either help it get ahead or not hurt its chances, and it can then reproduce and make another one like it, spare a thought for the red-lipped batfish.

A real animal, it has the kind of mouth that, as a kid, you may have made from Babybel cheese wax, to go with your red wax fake nails. It has a beard of white whiskers. It has fins that bend backwards, like a person’s arms at yoga when they are about to do upward dog. Before your eyes, it sprouts a new limb from its nostril. Its nose – technically a snout – is long, at the top of its head, and hook-shaped. It cannot swim, only crawl. Its crawl is more like a waddle.

The mid-Atlantic archipelago of nine islands, the tips of drowned volcanoes, is a remarkable place for marine mammals. The clear, deep waters provide the perfect habitat for cetaceans, and 28 species of whale and dolphin have been documented there. The Dutch scientist and photographer Jeroen Hoekendijk spent a week in September capturing the diversity of Azorean wildlife

• Photographs by Jeroen Hoekendijk

Invasive Species Council says 5 million native mammals, birds, reptiles and frogs are killed by feral and roaming pet cats a day in Australia

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A five-person team of expert shooters will soon target feral cats in New South Wales national parks as the state steps up efforts to control the pest animals.

The intensive ground operation is being deployed in response to increased cat numbers, according to National Parks and Wildlife Service deputy secretary, Atticus Fleming.

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Information ‘blueprint’ of the spotted handfish could aid monitoring, captive breeding and protection efforts, scientists say

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They’re Australia’s own underwater punks in leopard print.

Spotted handfish are an endangered species of fish that prefer to “walk” instead of swim, thanks to their unusual pectoral and pelvic fins; have a fluffy dorsal fin on their head that looks almost like a mohawk; and live in the waters off south-east Tasmania.

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The keen birdwatcher encourages others to take 20 minutes out of their day, describing the experience as ‘meditative’

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In early October the comedian Geraldine Hickey went looking for tawny frogmouths, a charismatic bird with a frog-like beak and mottled feathers.

“They’re a good-looking bird,” Hickey says, though it hasn’t yet appeared in her annual bird calendar, a project she started as a “lockdown thing” that has gained its own dedicated audience.

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United Utilities and Severn Trent had four-star environment ranking but discharges breached permits, campaign group says

• ‘Ankle deep in sewage’: English spring water village suffers supected unlawful spills

Two of England’s biggest water firms dumped raw sewage into rivers across the country in suspected illegal breaches of their permits, despite being given the highest possible rating by the regulator for their environmental performance, the Observer can reveal.

Severn Trent Water and United Utilities were responsible for 1,374 raw sewage spills from sewage treatment works in apparent breaches of permits over a two-year period in more than 80 watercourses, according to an analysis of previously unpublished operational data. It is alleged the suspected illegal discharges were during dry weather or at times when the plants were not at operating capacity.

Water firm Severn Trent accused of being in breach of environmental permits over pollution near Malvern Hills

• Top-rated UK water firms ‘dumped 1,374 illegal spills into rivers’

Colwall, a village of less than 3,000 people on the border between Herefordshire and Worcestershire, is renowned for its spring water, which comes from the nearby Malvern Hills. An area of outstanding natural beauty, it has been favoured by the royal family for centuries, including Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria.

But the water at Colwall is now in the spotlight for very different reasons. The most recent data from Severn Trent Water, the company that covers the area, reveals that a sewage treatment works on Cradley Brook, near the village, spilled sewage for 1,756 hours in 2021 and 1,361 hours in 2022.