The Guardian

Fears grow that some are adopting unscrupulous tactics to profit from people, with penalties set to rise

A record number of councils in England and Wales are using private companies to issue fines for littering and fly-tipping amid concern that some contractors are adopting unscrupulous tactics to profit from people.

Littering penalties are set to rise as part of a crackdown on antisocial behaviour. The environment minister, Rebecca Pow, said the maximum amount people caught fly-tipping could be fined would more than double from £400 to £1,000. Those who breach their household waste duty of care could be fined £600, up from £400.

Analysis by conservation group Oceana suggests areas where suspension imposed not fished by fleets anyway

Annual short-term moratoriums on squid fishing imposed by Chinese authorities are probably meaningless as there appeared to be little fishing activity in the areas before the bans were announced, analysis has claimed.

In 2020, China’s ministry of agriculture and rural affairs announced a pilot program banning fishing in parts of the south-west Atlantic Ocean from July to October, and parts of the eastern Pacific Ocean from September to December.

Private flights pollute up to 14 times more than commercial ones – yet are taxed less. Let’s change that

The climate crisis is not in transit, it’s arrived at the gate. It’s in our skies, our water, and our land – with record-shattering heat waves, increasingly severe wildfires and flooding from superstorms and rising seas.

We have no time for delays. Tackling this crisis and protecting frontline environmental justice communities will take all of us. And the tax-dodging ultra-wealthy need to stop fueling the problem and start supporting first-class solutions.

Edward J Markey is a US senator from Massachusetts

The case for environmental action is clear, but there are fears about personal freedom and who will bear the financial burden

In less than three decades, the UK must reach net zero to avoid the worst impacts of climate crisis for our economy and national security. We’re already halfway there, having almost halved our emissions since 1990. But to achieve this momentous goal, we must now build support for the individual policies required, while preserving the cross-party consensus on the need to act. Conservatives want to protect our planet, but that doesn’t mean they’ll agree on every policy campaigners propose to get there. The public wants the debate to focus on how, not if, we reach carbon neutrality.

There is a conservative route to net zero. It’s not a contradiction in terms. The UK has a long and rich history of conservative environmentalism. In 1989, Margaret Thatcher became the first world leader to raise the spectre of climate change in a global context. Another Conservative prime minister, Theresa May, fired the starting gun on the race to net zero by 2050, enshrining the target in law.

Sales are falling due to nutritional and environmental concerns – but also because it just doesn’t taste that good

Faux meat is failing. Once championed as a way to fight the climate emergency, protein alternatives are now struggling, with plant-based pioneers Beyond Meat reporting net revenue losses of nearly 31% in the second quarter of this year.

I could say I’m surprised, but the truth is I’m only amazed that our collective love affair with fake meat lasted as long as it did. I was once a fan, but standing in front of a towering wall of hyper-processed meat alternatives in my local supermarket last year, I couldn’t help but think: are vegan burgers that bleed really the answer to our meat consumption woes?

Aine Carlin is a vegan food writer and blogger

Wildfires fanned by strong winds from Hurricane Dora have burned through the town on Lahaina in Maui. The US Coast Guard had to pull a number of people from the ocean beside the town after they dived in to escape smoke and flames. 'It's like an apocalypse,' said a local resident

• Six people killed in unprecedented Hawaii wildfires fanned by hurricane winds

The election of the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has changed the environmental politics of the region. But more international assistance is needed

In last October’s Brazilian election, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeated Jair Bolsonaro by a margin of 1.8%. That narrowest of victories may have been the single most important environmental development of 2022. With Mr Bolsonaro in power, the Amazon rainforest was hurtling towards a tipping point after which it would no longer function as a climate stabiliser and the world’s biggest carbon sink. Between August 2021 and July 2022, an area of forest the size of Qatar was cleared in the interests of big business.

Lula’s government has stopped the rot. Companies involved in illegal deforestation have been sanctioned, armed interventions have taken place to end illegal mining operations, and new conservation areas have been established. Deforestation dropped by 42% during Lula’s first seven months in office, and the state has returned as a protective presence in the Brazilian Amazon. The transformed political context was the catalyst for this week’s landmark regional summit in Belém, in which the eight Latin American nations sharing the Amazon came together – for the first time in 14 years – to produce a plan for its sustainable development.

Footage captured a mobile home being swept away by floodwater on Tuesday as a powerful storm brought destruction to Norway. Landslides in some areas left an entire town stranded as meteorologists warned of the strongest rainfall in a quarter of a century.

The storm – named Hans – has killed at least two people, ripped off roofs and caused widespread disruption across northern Europe in a summer that started with wildfires across much of the region. As much as 80-100mm of rain in 24 hours was forecast in parts of the country

• Storm Hans causes havoc in Norway with heaviest rain in 25 years forecast

Wildfires in Hawaii fanned by strong winds burned structures in areas including the historic town of Lahaina, forcing evacuations and closing schools in several communities. Rescuers pulled a dozen people from the ocean after they dived in to escape the smoke and flames; the coastguard tweeted that a crew rescued 12 people from the water off Lahaina. A firefighter responding to the West Maui fire was taken to hospital after experiencing smoke inhalation and was in stable condition, Maui county said. Because of the wind, helicopters were not able to dump water on the fires from the sky or gauge more precise fire sizes. Firefighters encountered roads blocked by downed trees and power lines as they worked the inland fires

• Hawaii wildfires force evacuations and ocean rescues as people flee into water

Experiment by Google and American Airlines reduces vapour trails, which are a source of global heating

Aircraft contrails – or clouds of condensation behind planes – have been a familiar sight in skies across the world since the start of the jet age. However, a new experiment by Google and American Airlines suggests they could soon become much rarer, in a small but significant win that could assist the battle to cut aviation emissions.

Pilots flying using artificial intelligence models to choose different altitudes were able to reduce contrails by 54%, with further improvements expected, Google said in a blog post on Tuesday night.

Labor is struggling to get its story straight on why it is helping fund a major expansion of the fossil fuel sector in the NT

Events in Canberra this week point to a significant political battleground for the next federal election.

More than 80 doctors converged on the capital to protest against government support for fossil fuel expansion in the Northern Territory. It might not sound like that many people, but it’s representative of a bigger movement backed by several crossbenchers, including David Pocock and Monique Ryan.

Scientists say Takakia, a 390m-year-old moss found in Himalayas, is at risk despite its ability to adapt to extreme weather

The world’s oldest moss, found in the Himalayas, may not be able to survive climate breakdown, scientists have said.

Takakia, which has been growing for 390m years, is one of the fastest-evolving species ever found, but that may not be enough to save it, the researchers warned.

Countries across the globe are facing a range of extreme weather events. In Germany, snowploughs were deployed in the middle of summer to shift ice from roads after a hailstorm. Severe flooding has affected parts of Europe including Sweden and Slovenia, with hundreds of houses submerged. Human-caused climate change is supercharging extreme weather across the world, driving more frequent and more deadly disasters, from heatwaves to floods to wildfires

• July was world’s hottest month on record, climate scientists confirm

• Extreme weather

Drone footage shows Russia's coldest city, Yakutsk, blanketed by smog as wildfires continue to burn in the region. Local residents explained how they 'annot open the windows at home or in the car to deal with the 'stuffiness' as it only exacerbates the problem. Hundreds of firefighters and dozens of vehicles have been deployed to tackle the wildfires raging in the area

Eight presidents including Brazil leader Lula fail to commit to end deforestation by 2030

Amazon leaders have called on rich countries to help them develop a Marshall-style plan to protect the world’s largest rainforest – but stopped short of committing to zero deforestation across the biome by 2030 amid divisions over oil extraction.

In a joint declaration at the end of a two-day summit in the Brazilian city of Belém on Wednesday, the eight South American countries that are home to the Amazon rainforest said ensuring its survival could not be solely up to them, as resources from the forest were consumed globally.

More than 300,000 homes and businesses in the eastern US were without power after storms passed over the region, killing at least two people and disrupting air travel. The National Weather Service highlighted the tornado risk for more than 29.5 million people across a region spanning Alabama to western New York state

• Two dead and hundreds of thousands without power as storm hits eastern US

Won’t someone think of the efficiency dividend?

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Research suggests behaviour may reflect evolutionary response to previous outbreaks of disease

Aerial surveys of the North Sea have revealed that seals practise social distancing – and the discovery may have profound implications for the spread of disease among the marine mammals.

In a paper published today by the Royal Society, researchers conducting censuses of grey and harbour seals detail new evidence that the two species not only maintain distances between their own kind (unlike walruses, for instance, who cluster close together) but also that this behaviour may “reflect an evolutionary response to viral susceptibility”.

Amazon nations' leaders have gathered in the Brazilian city of Belém for a rare summit about the future of the world's largest rainforest amid growing concern over the global climate emergency. The environmental summit convened by Brazil’s leftist president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, represents a handbrake turn in Brazilian government policy after four years of Amazon destruction under the country's previous leader, Jair Bolsonaro. In the run-up to the summit, thousands of Indigenous people gathered to protest and demand the government pledge a greater commitment towards protecting the rainforest. Activists have warned Brazil's ultra-right congress could prevent the president from carrying out his ambitious environmental agenda

• Brazilian president Lula pledges ‘new Amazon dream’ at rainforest summit

Global average temperature exceeded previous record by substantial margin

July has been confirmed as the hottest month on record globally after several heatwaves in parts of Europe, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).

The global average temperature was 16.95C last month, surpassing the previous record set in 2019 by a substantial 0.33C. Temperatures exceeded 40C last week in several countries across Europe including Greece, France, Italy and Spain.