The Guardian

Six KCs among more than 120 mostly English lawyers to sign pledge not to act for fossil fuel interests

Leading barristers have defied bar rules by signing a declaration saying they will not prosecute peaceful climate protesters or act for companies pursuing fossil fuel projects.

They are among more than 120 mostly English lawyers who have signed a declaration vowing to “withhold [their] services in respect of supporting new fossil fuel projects and action against climate protesters exercising their right of peaceful protest”.

Pie-in-the-sky fantasies of carbon capture and geoengineering are a way for decision-makers to delay taking real action

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, one of which dropped yesterday, are formidably researched and profoundly important, but they mostly reinforce what we already know: human-produced greenhouse gases are rapidly and disastrously changing the planet, and unless we rapidly taper off burning fossil fuels, a dire future awaits.

The message is far from hopeless – “Mainstreaming effective and equitable climate action will not only reduce losses and damages for nature and people, it will also provide wider benefits,” said the IPCC chair, Hoesung Lee, in the press release. “This Synthesis Report underscores the urgency of taking more ambitious action and shows that, if we act now, we can still secure a liveable sustainable future for all.”

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs, including a rescued sloth, a baby nutria and a patient frog

Some Greens want to pass the safeguard mechanism changes and keep fighting on fossil fuels while others want to attack it as a Coalition creation that can’t be redeemed

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The future of one of Labor’s signature climate policies – updating the safeguard mechanism to deal with industrial greenhouse gas emissions – hangs in the balance. The government held off pushing it through parliament this week while negotiations continued with the Greens and key independent senator David Pocock over a potential deal to strengthen it.

The design of the policy is not the Greens’ responsibility, but what happens next is largely up to its party room – with the Coalition opposed, the government can’t get its legislation through without their support. The minor party is divided. Its 15 members will meet through the weekend ahead of a potential decision by Monday. It could go either way. Given the party operates on a consensus model that allows time to find common ground, it could also remain unresolved into next week.

Innovation in agricultural sector is needed if cities are to solve air pollution problems, say scientists

A study reveals that farming is responsible for more than a quarter of the particle pollution in UK cities.

UK agriculture created 38% of the particle pollution in Leicester, 32% in Birmingham and 25% in London in 2019, according to the study. In each case the contribution from rural agriculture was greater than all of the sources within the cities themselves.

Report also suggests migration could help ensure UK has necessary skills to meet government’s 2050 net zero target

New climate visas should be created to allow victims of natural disasters to come to the UK, and to bring in skilled workers needed for the transition to net zero, a Conservative thinktank has argued.

Onward, whose co-founder Will Tanner recently became Rishi Sunak’s deputy chief of staff, is urging the government to prepare for the likely increase in global migration as a result of the climate crisis.

Accounts of global impact of floods, droughts and storms at New York meeting add to pressure to make water central to Cop28

Water is at the heart of the climate crisis, with an increasingly dire carousel of droughts, floods and sea level rise felt “making our planet uninhabitable” the secretary-general of the United Nations, António Guterres, has warned.

On the second day of the first UN water conference in almost half a century, countries lined up to describe how they are suffering from water disasters linked to human-made global heating. “We seem to either have too much water, or too little,” said Senzo Mchunu, South Africa’s water minister. “We will fail on climate change if we fail on water.”

Exclusive: People left to ‘swim in filth’ as Environment Agency turns down applications, say Lib Dems

Most applications for bathing water status to clean up rivers and coastal waters in England have been rejected by the government in the last 14 months, according to new data from the Liberal Democrats.

Local groups have been working for months to create bathing water areas, where the Environment Agency is forced to undertake more rigorous testing for faecal bacteria. Grassroots groups are focusing on inland waters in particular, in a push to stop the discharge of raw sewage by water companies and force a clean-up of English rivers, which all fail tests for chemical and biological pollution.

Fatal bloodstream illnesses driven by urinary tract infections could rise, warn scientists as research shows link to food-borne bacteria

Meat bacteria are the likely cause of over half a million urinary tract infections (UTIs) in the US every year, a new study has found, with one of its authors warning that deaths from UTI-driven bloodstream infections could be on the rise.

The study found that of the 6-8m UTIs caused by E coli bacteria in the US every year, between 480,000 and 640,000 could be linked to strains known as FZECs, or food-borne zoonotic E coli. Women are far more likely than men to suffer from UTIs. The British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (BSAC) estimates that about half of all women in the UK will have at least one UTI in their lifetime.

Being part of the People’s Plan for Nature, it was illuminating to see how people could reach consensus

The People’s Plan for Nature, launched on Thursday, sets out the public’s recommendations for reversing massive declines in Britain’s nature. One hundred people were invited to come together, in a citizens’ assembly, to agree on a plan for how to renew and protect nature. Their recommendations include calls for access to nature to be a human right, the urgent restoration of rivers, transparency from supermarkets and a cross-party commitment to farming for nature. One of the assembly members, Sara Hudston, here shares her views on taking part in the process.

I first heard of the People’s Plan for Nature early last autumn, but I didn’t intend to take part because I thought it looked too simplistic. It began with a national callout for ideas about how nature might be renewed, which I felt lacked urgency and wasn’t enough given the scale of biodiversity loss in the UK.

Watchdog finds PFBS toxicity value was altered in 2021 report, as scientists say episode part of ‘larger rot at the agency’

Trump administration appointees at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) meddled in agency science to weaken the toxicity assessment of a dangerous chemical, a new report by the US body’s internal watchdog has found.

In response to what it labeled “political interference”, the Biden administration in February 2021 pulled the assessment, republished it months later using what it said is sound science, and declared it had resolved the issue.

Community members react after a town meeting at the Menindee civic hall which was held to address concerns relating to the cleanliness and security of the water of the town following the deaths of millions of fish in the Darling-Baaka river.  'A lot of the people who were here wanted answer to why another fish kill occurred. Why solutions weren't put in place after the last fish kill,' says the NSW Greens MP Cate Faehrmann, who attended the meeting

• Menindee residents ask officials to drink town’s water as reassurance after massive fish kill
• Flood and heat: why millions of fish are dying in western NSW

England’s water woes have a solution. But trying to moving vast volumes of water from west to east is not it

It’s a classic end-of-pipe solution. Rather than addressing the problem at source, it piles one problem upon another. Yet, like so many disastrous schemes, it is now developing a momentum of its own. The political capital being invested in this project threatens to make it the next HS2.

The south-east of England is permanently threatened by water shortages. A shocking lack of planning and investment by the water companies, alongside their gross failure to reduce demand and conserve supplies, ensure that as drought looms again the stupidest of all solutions begins to look attractive. Rather than properly managing its supplies, Thames Water wants to pipe huge volumes across the country from another catchment: the Severn.

Greens in internal negotiations over backing down on demand for ban on new coal and gas projects in Labor’s climate policy

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Labor could agree to treat existing non-fossil fuel industries – such as cement, aluminium and steel – differently to new coal and gas developments in a bid to reach agreement with the Greens on a signature climate policy.

But it is unclear whether the possible compromise on the design of the safeguard mechanism would be enough to win support for the Albanese government’s plan, which requires major industrial polluting sites to reduce emissions intensity onsite cuts or buy carbon offsets.

The research group that first exposed the scandal say ‘it’s not over’ and that governments must act

Thirteen million diesel cars producing “extreme” levels of toxic air pollution are still on the roads in Europe and the UK, according to a report, seven years after the Dieselgate scandal first exploded.

The non-profit research group, the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), revealed in 2015 that many diesel cars were highly polluting, emitting far more nitrogen oxides on the road than in official testing. The scandal led to a more rigorous test being introduced in the EU in 2019.

Increasing ocean temperatures present ‘existential threat’ with knock-on effects for ecosystems and commercial fisheries, researchers say

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More than 500 common species of fish, seaweed, coral and invertebrates that live on reefs around Australia have declined in the past decade, a study has found, as experts warn “not all is well in the ocean”.

Global heating was likely the main driver of the falls, with marine heatwaves and a rise in ocean temperatures hitting species that live on rocky and coral reefs.

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The Australian Museum’s new multimedia exhibition, The Birds of Australia, traces the journey of the 19th-century naturalist and ornithologist John Gould and his wife, illustrator Elizabeth Gould, as they travelled through New South Wales and recorded the unique birdlife, identifying hundreds of species new to western science

• The Guardian and Birdlife Australia’s bird of the year returns later in 2023
• The common and scientific names in brackets reflect the current taxonomy

Dutch authorities try to tempt out animals, which dig setts under quiet and raised train embankments

Leaves on the tracks, signal failures and strikes can all cause train delay headaches, but commuters in the Netherlands are facing railway havoc caused by badgers burrowing under the lines, with authorities struggling to tempt the protected animals out.

In the densely populated country, there is limited natural space for the country’s 7,000 badgers. They often dig out their homes, or setts, under relatively “quiet” train embankments, which are ideally situated away from people and also slightly raised, which prevents the sett from flooding.

World Bank among those urging levy to fund climate action in developing world and encourage fleets to upgrade

Pressure is growing on the international shipping industry to accept a carbon levy on ships that would fund climate action in the developing world, with the World Bank among those pushing for the measure at a crucial international meeting this week, the Guardian has learned.

A levy on the greenhouse gas emissions produced from shipping would encourage companies to upgrade their fleets, run them more efficiently and seek cleaner fuels and technologies.

Funnel of south-westerly winds help push birds towards Irish coast and UK mainland as far north as Scotland

An “unprecedented” influx of alpine swifts has been reported by birdwatchers across Britain and Ireland.

Dozens of these migrating birds, which usually fly thousands of miles from sub-Saharan west Africa to southern Europe to breed at this time of year, have been spotted around the Irish coast as well as in parts of Wales, England and even as far north as Scotland.