The Guardian

Vast releases of gas, along with future ‘methane bombs’, represent huge threat – but curbing emissions would rapidly reduce global heating

• ‘We don’t feel safe’: US community in shock after record methane leak

More than 1,000 “super-emitter” sites gushed the potent greenhouse gas methane into the global atmosphere in 2022, the Guardian can reveal, mostly from oil and gas facilities. The worst single leak spewed the pollution at a rate equivalent to 67m running cars.

Separate data also reveals 55 “methane bombs” around the world – fossil fuel extraction sites where gas leaks alone from future production would release levels of methane equivalent to 30 years of all US greenhouse gas emissions.

As XR shifts away from radical action and the UK government restricts the right to protest, the climate movement is asking tough questions

On a bright, chilly morning in January, seven women – some young, some older, all condemned as guilty by the state – gathered at Southwark crown court.

The group had already been convicted of criminal damage following an Extinction Rebellion (XR) action in April 2021 that involved breaking windows at the headquarters of Barclays Bank: a financial institution responsible for more than £4bn of fossil fuel financing during that year alone. “In case of climate emergency break glass”, read stickers they stuck to the shattered panes. Now they were being sentenced. After a long preamble, the judge eventually handed down suspended terms, sparing the defendants jail for the time being. But he used his closing remarks to condemn their protest as a “stunt” that wouldn’t help to solve the climate crisis. “You risk alienating those who you look to for support,” he warned.

Calls for ministers to help industry cut emissions from items including washing-up liquid and laundry tablets

Chemicals used in everyday household items from washing-up liquid to laundry tablets are a huge hidden source of carbon emissions, according to a report.

The thinktank Green Alliance is calling on UK ministers to lead a green revolution in chemical manufacturing to cut the carbon footprint of everyday consumer products.

Investigation finds cases of the wellness product, hailed for its anti-ageing benefits, being derived from cattle raised on farms damaging tropical forest

• What is collagen and why is it so popular in the beauty industry?

Tens of thousands of cattle raised on farms that are damaging tropical forests in Brazil are being used to produce collagen – the active ingredient in health supplements at the centre of a global wellness craze.

The links between beef and soya and deforestation in Brazil are well known, but little attention has been given to the booming collagen industry, worth an estimated $4bn (£3.32bn).

This story was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforests Investigations Network

Hemsby residents say sea defences are crucial as beach is closed after high tides washed away large amount of sand

On the road into Hemsby, a quintessential British seaside resort on the east coast, flags proclaiming an abundance of new holiday homes for sale flap in the wind.

But the beach that has drawn generations of holidaymakers to the village has been closed by the local lifeboat team, after strong winds and high tides in recent weeks caused significant erosion.

Since 2019, Giulia Piermartiri and Edoardo Delille have travelled to places vulnerable to climate breakdown: California, the Maldives, Mozambique and the Mont Blanc massif. Using a slide projector, they impose images of possible future scenarios on to existing landscapes. ‘Photography usually depicts the present,’ they explain. ‘Our idea was to show the future in relation to the world we live in today.’ The Atlas of the New World project has four chapters covering four continents

With entries from 45 countries, the World Nature Photography awards 2022 have left no corner of the Earth unexplored in the quest to capture nature with a fresh perspective. The grand prize winner was the German photographer Jens Cullman who captured a crocodile lurking in the mud in Zimbabwe

• Wildlife Photographer of the Year – people’s choice award
• Wildlife photographer of the year 2022 – highly commended pictures
• Wildlife photographer of the year 2021 winners – in pictures

Will the Greens hate this policy and can we blame them for everything? Yes good tick

• Sign up here to get an email whenever First Dog cartoons are published
• Get all your needs met at the First Dog shop if what you need is First Dog merchandise and prints

Despite what some New Zealand right-wingers are arguing, adaptation will not help us in a world three degrees warmer

I cannot say how the world will look for our kids, but what I do know is that it will reflect the decisions we take today. The past two years we’ve witnessed a seemingly never-ending cascade of climate-turbocharged disasters. Canterbury, the West Coast, Nelson-Tasman, Tairāwhiti, Auckland, Waikato, and Northland. Aotearoa New Zealand knows clearer than ever the immediacy of the climate crisis. We simply cannot rest. Far from it: despite huge progress, we are still nowhere near where we need to be.

A slew of opportunistic right-wing voices is lining up to use recent disasters to argue that the government should shift its efforts away from cutting emissions towards adaptation. This is as unscientific as it is dangerous. It is also utterly out of touch with the needs of the people they purport to represent. It is a disingenuous, harmful and bad faith argument that distracts from the conversations we need to be having.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from livestock is vital. But the politics is fraught

Until relatively recently, Dutch farming prowess was hailed as one of the wonders of the global economy. In 2017, a National Geographic article headlined “This tiny country feeds the world” encapsulated a sense of national pride at the Netherlands’ status as the second-biggest exporter of agricultural products by value behind the United States.

These days, Dutch farmers are in the headlines for less upbeat reasons. As the climate emergency and a related biodiversity crisis belatedly take centre stage in policymaking, the prime minister, Mark Rutte, has committed to halving the country’s overall nitrogen emissions by 2030. A large proportion of these are generated by the manure and urine produced by more than 100m cattle, pigs and chickens. To reach the target, and protect biodiversity in the polluted countryside, the government has announced plans to reduce livestock numbers by a third. Reluctant farmers have been warned they could be subject to compulsory buyouts.

Rena Lee, the president of the Intergovernmental Conference on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, announced at the UN headquarters that a treaty to protect the high seas had finally been agreed, saying: 'Ladies and gentlemen, the ship has reached the shore.' The treaty, which has been almost two decades in the making, is crucial for enforcing the 30x30 pledge made by countries at the UN biodiversity conference in December, to protect a third of the sea (and land) by 2030

• High seas treaty: historic deal to protect international waters finally reached at UN

After almost 20 years of talks, United Nations member states agree on legal framework for parts of the ocean outside national boundaries

It has been almost two decades in the making but on Saturday night in New York, after days of gruelling round-the-clock talks, UN member states finally agreed on a treaty to protect the high seas.

The historic treaty, which will cover almost two-thirds of the ocean that lies outside national boundaries, will provide a legal framework for establishing vast marine protected areas (MPAs) to protect against the loss of wildlife and share out the genetic resources of the high seas. It will establish a conference of the parties (Cop) that will meet periodically and enable member states to be held to account on issues such as governance and biodiversity.

Chip shortages and years of government neglect mean the country is lagging well behind China, Europe and North America

• Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast

Surging sales of electric vehicles show the automotive revolution is coming, but its arrival is being held up by a fundamental problem: a lack of charging stations. This was apparent over the Australian summer when long queues formed at public chargers on holiday travel routes.

There are about 3,700 public chargers, at just over 2,100 locations, across Australia, according to an Electric Vehicle Council report published in October – a fraction of the number in many comparable countries. In Canada, drivers have access to more than 16,000 public chargers at about 7,000 locations.

Senior civil servants have issued the warning as government is way behind on net zero pledges, according to leaked documents

Cabinet ministers have been warned by senior civil servants that they face court action because of their catastrophic failure to develop policies for tackling climate change, according to secret documents obtained by the Observer.

The leaked briefings from senior mandarins – marked “official sensitive” and dated 20 February this year – make clear the government as a whole is way behind in spelling out how it will reach its net zero targets and comply with legal duties to save the planet.

The British government committed to achieving net zero by the middle of the century but all that has followed is inaction

In 2019, the government passed legislation that committed the nation to achieving a goal of net zero emissions of greenhouse gases by the middle of the century. It was one of the most ambitious targets set by any country in the battle to halt the worst effects of climate change. This is a nation committed to limiting global temperature rises, claimed Conservative party leaders.

Sadly those proud battle cries and that Churchillian rhetoric have not been matched by action. For the past four years, government departments have failed to put in place any coherent policies that could help limit carbon emissions.

More than a dozen counties declare state of emergency after heavy snowfalls, avalanches and freezing conditions

Back-to-back winter storms in California this week have brought strong winds and blizzard, and freeze warnings, causing a state of emergency to be declared across more than a dozen counties.

Palisades Tahoe ski resort in the Sierra Nevada mountain range received 3.6 metres (12 feet) of snow over the week, with 66 centimetres falling in a single day on Tuesday. This brings its cumulative total to 12.8 metres for this season, making it the snowiest since 1970.

Henry Dimbleby says suppliers struggling with rising costs while locked into fixed-price contracts

The government’s food tsar has blamed Britain’s “weird supermarket culture” for recent food shortages, calling it a “market failure”.

Experts have criticised ministers for “leaving food policy to Tesco”, and meeting large food chains rather than suppliers, who have been struggling with rising costs while locked into contracts with supermarkets.

Germany questions support for rules that would effectively make it impossible to sell combustion engine cars from 2035

European Union countries have delayed a planned vote next week on the bloc’s landmark law to end sales of new CO2-emitting cars in 2035 after Germany questioned its support for the rules.

No new date for the vote was given and a spokesperson for Sweden, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said EU countries’ ambassadors would return to the topic “in due time”.

Data also shows land sector will absorb more carbon than it emits from 2015 despite passage of laws that make land clearing easier

• Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast

Labor, the Greens and independent politicians have called on the New South Wales government to explain how emissions projections square with its 2050 net zero goal, after its own data showed pollution from coal and gas extending out to mid-century.

The figures, which are contained within the government’s emissions dashboard, also show the land sector growing as a sink for carbon emissions even after the government loosened land clearing laws allowing farmers to remove more vegetation.

Royal Horticultural Society links spread of orchard infections to heatwave with trees still at risk

The UK’s fruit trees are under threat as a result of the climate crisis because plant diseases that thrive in warm weather are becoming more common.

Each year, the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) compiles a list of the most common plant diseases identified by its almost half a million members. Gardeners take pictures or samples of afflicted trees, crops or flowers and send them in to the plant pathologists, who can identify the disease.