The Guardian

Government criticised over list of potential countries for sourcing biomass, which also includes Afghanistan

A plan by the British government to burn biomass imported from countries including North Korea and Afghanistan has been described as “bonkers”, with critics saying it undermines the credibility of the UK’s climate strategy.

A bioenergy resource model, published in late summer, calculates that only a big expansion in the import of energy crops and wood from a surprising list of nations would satisfy the UK’s plan to meet net zero.

Analysis shows Gulf’s heat that worsened Helene 200-500 times more likely because of human-caused global heating

As Hurricane Milton bears down on Florida, fueled by a record-hot Gulf of Mexico, a new analysis has shown how the Gulf’s heat that worsened last month’s Hurricane Helene was 200 to 500 times more likely because of human-caused global heating.

Helene, one of the deadliest storms in US history, gathered pace over the Gulf before crashing ashore with 140mph winds.

Selected from a record-breaking 59,228 entries from 117 countries and territories, the winners of the Natural History Museum’s prestigious wildlife photographer of the year competition have been announced, with an exhibition opening on Friday 11 October. The Canadian marine conservation photojournalist Shane Gross was awarded wildlife photographer of the year 2024 for his image of tadpoles, The Swarm of Life, captured while snorkelling through lily pads in Cedar Lake on Vancouver Island, British Columbia

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IEA says faster clean energy rollout being led by solar power in China with country set to boast half of world’s renewables by 2030

China is expected to account for almost 60% of all renewable energy capacity installed worldwide between now and 2030, according to the International Energy Agency.

The IEA’s highly influential renewable energy report found that over the next six years renewable energy projects will roll out at three times the pace of the previous six years, led by the clean energy programmes of China and India.

Emma Pinchbeck will take over as chief executive of Climate Change Committee next month

The government’s official climate watchdog has appointed the head of the energy industry’s trade association to lead its work helping to drive the UK’s emissions to net zero by 2050.

Emma Pinchbeck, the head of Energy UK, will take up the role of chief executive of the Climate Change Committee (CCC) from early next month after four years at the helm of the trade association.

Record emissions, temperatures and population mean more scientists are looking into possibility of societal collapse, report says

Many of Earth’s “vital signs” have hit record extremes, indicating that “the future of humanity hangs in the balance”, a group of the world’s most senior climate experts have said.

More and more scientists are now looking into the possibility of societal collapse, says the report, which assessed 35 vital signs in 2023 and found that 25 were worse than ever recorded, including carbon dioxide levels and human population. This indicates a “critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis”, it says.

Tanya Plibersek claims Labor is protecting 52% of its ocean territory, but experts say that is ‘misleading’

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Scientists have challenged Tanya Plibersek’s claim that Australia is protecting more than half of its oceans and has “blitzed” a 30% target, arguing industrial longline fishing will still be allowed in some areas the government says it is conserving.

The environment minister told a “global nature-positive summit” in Sydney on Tuesday the government had quadrupled the size of the sub-Antarctic Heard Island and McDonald Islands Marine Reserve, a world heritage area about 4,000km south-west of Perth.

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Alexander Darwall, owner of Blachford estate in national park, is challenging the right to wild camping

Picnicking on Dartmoor is trespassing, according to the lawyers for a landowner who is challenging the right to wild camping on the moors.

The public should have no right to undertake any activities other than walking or horse riding in the Dartmoor national park without landowner permission, Timothy Morshead KC told a supreme court hearing on Tuesday.

Critically endangered flowers get stay of execution after local environmental group threatens legal action against Victorian government

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A critically endangered orchid has received a late reprieve after a local environmental group threatened legal action against the Victorian government, prompting officials to cancel a planned burn of its habitat.

The bald-tip beard orchid – a species with fewer than 10 plants remaining in the Australian wild – was thought extinct until rediscovered in 1968 at a site near Whroo, in central Victoria, where the last surviving wild population has persisted.

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Harvesting in Bulga state forest, inland from Port Macquarie, is just 400km from global nature-positive summit the government is hosting

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Forest campaigners have accused the federal government of hypocrisy for hosting a global nature-positive summit in Sydney while logging resumed in public forest 400km away in mid-north New South Wales.

The NSW Forestry Corporation has started its harvesting operations in Bulga state forest, inland from Port Macquarie. The area is a stronghold for threatened species including endangered koalas and the endangered greater glider – Australia’s largest gliding possum.

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Exclusive: Environment groups urge government to stick to its promises and refuse pesticide application

UK ministers are considering allowing the use of a bee-killing pesticide next year despite promising during the election to ban it.

Neonicotinoids are banned in the EU because they are toxic to bees, but have been authorised for use every year in the UK since 2021.

Items such as cables and old tech could contain £266m worth of metal vital for decarbonisation drive, study finds

Scientists have called for people to go “urban mining” after a study revealed that old cables, phone chargers and other unused electrical goods thrown away or stored in cupboards or drawers could stave off a looming shortage of copper.

The research found that in the UK there are approximately 823m unused or broken tech items hiding in “drawers of doom” containing as much as 38,449 tonnes of copper – including 627m cables – enough to provide 30% of the copper needed for the UK’s planned transition to a decarbonised electricity grid by 2030.

Wasps released on Nightingale Island have protected Wilkins’ bunting by halting spread of mould-causing insects

A tiny parasitic wasp has given a lifeline to one of the world’s rarest bird species by killing off an invasive insect that was threatening its survival.

The Wilkins’ bunting lives on Nightingale Island, part of the Tristan da Cunha group; the world’s most remote inhabited archipelago. It eats the fruit of the Phylica arborea, the island’s only native tree.

Demand for beef, soy, palm oil and nickel hindering efforts to halt demolition by 2030, global report finds

The destruction of global forests increased in 2023, and is higher than when 140 countries promised three years ago to halt deforestation by the end of the decade, an analysis shows.

The rising demolition of the forests puts ambitions to halt the climate crisis and stem the huge worldwide losses of wildlife even further from reach, the researchers warn.

Food Standards Agency says applications for cultivated steak, chicken and foie gras have already been submitted

Cell-cultivated meat could be on sale in the UK within a few years, the food regulator has said, with applications for lab-grown steak, beef, chicken and foie gras already submitted, while another 15 applications are expected in the next two years.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) was awarded £1.6m of government funding on Tuesday to develop an efficient safety assessment process for the novel foods. It said the UK was an attractive market as it had a high number of vegans, vegetarians and flexitarians, a higher openness to new foods than many other European countries and a large financial sector to back startup companies.

Research reveals ‘sea walnuts’ fuse together if they become injured, and nervous systems merge

It might not be what the Spice Girls envisaged when they sang 2 Become 1, but scientists have found comb jellies do actually fuse together if they are injured.

Researchers studying a species of the gelatinous marine invertebrates known as “sea walnuts” said they made the discovery after spotting an unusually shaped individual in the laboratory tank.

Sub-Antarctic marine park expansion welcomed but scientists say some areas important to penguins and seals missed out on sanctuary-level protection

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The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, has declared Australia will soon protect more ocean than any other country after the government finalises a more than 300,000 square kilometre expansion of a sub-Antarctic marine park.

Speaking ahead of what was billed as a global nature positive summit starting in Sydney on Tuesday, Plibersek confirmed the Heard and McDonald Island Marine Park about 4,000 km south-west of Perth would quadruple in size.

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Total declared salmon catch estimated at 5,399 fish, down from 6,952 in 2022 – and 20,000 in years up to 2017

Salmon numbers in England and Wales last year were the lowest on record, figures show, as pollution and climate breakdown are killing off the endangered fish.

A report from the Environment Agency and Cefas shows Atlantic salmon stocks in England and Wales have dropped to their lowest level since records began in 1997.

World Meteorological Organization says water is ‘canary in the coalmine of climate change’ and calls for urgent action

Rivers dried up at the highest rate in three decades in 2023, putting global water supply at risk, data has shown.

Over the past five years, there have been lower-than-average river levels across the globe and reservoirs have also been low, according to the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) State of Global Water Resources report.