The Guardian

As prime minister Justin Trudeau trails in polls, opposition seek to persuade voters environmental policy is a burden

Mass hunger and malnutrition. A looming nuclear winter. An existential threat to the Canadian way of life. For months, the country’s Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has issued dire and increasingly apocalyptic warnings about the future. The culprit? A federal carbon levy meant to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

In the House of Commons this month, the Tory leader said there was only one way to avoid the devastating crisis: embattled prime minister Justin Trudeau must “call a ‘carbon tax’ election”.

Exclusive: Farmers still awaiting promised payments for uninsurable damage caused by Storm Henk

Labour may cut financial support for flooded farmers, the Guardian has learned, while money to compensate them for deluges in January has still not hit their pockets.

The previous Conservative government earlier this year promised up to £25,000 in payments for uninsurable damage from flooding caused by Storm Henk. However, the eligibility criteria for these grants has still not been set out, leaving farmers out of pocket. The scheme has been plagued with delays, with some affected farmers not being paid because they live too far from a river.

At least 14 people died in floods in Bosnia and Herzegovina on Friday and others were missing as torrential rain and landslides destroyed homes, roads and bridges across the centre of the country, officials said. Bosnia's presidency said it had requested military help for the wider Jablanica area, and engineers, rescue units and a helicopter were deployed, including to rescue 17 people from a mental health hospital. Neighbouring Croatia was hit by floods on Friday, though there were no reports of casualties. Authorities issued a severe weather warning for the Adriatic coast and central regions of the country

Prime minister suggests there will be more public money made available for new technologies

• What is carbon capture, usage and storage?

Keir Starmer has signalled his government will drastically increase its green investment plans in an attempt to avoid a rerun of 1980s-style industrial decline by safeguarding jobs in heartland manufacturing communities.

On a visit to a Merseyside glass factory on Friday to unveil billions of pounds in funding for carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects, the prime minister suggested there would be more public money made available for new technologies.

Recycling is, by its nature, complicated. The imperfections in the process don’t mean the whole system is a con

The process of recycling is, by its nature, complicated. We put our mix of rubbish in the right bins, and from that point onwards hope that those we entrust it to – be it local councils picking up rubbish or supermarket recycling schemes – will do the rest. If this is you, then you may be dismayed to learn that a recent Everyday Plastics report found that most soft plastics collected by two of Britain’s biggest supermarkets are not being recycled and are, instead, incinerated.

Soft plastics are anything flimsy that you can scrunch in your hand: think bread bags, pouches, clingfilm, chocolate wrappers and crisp packets. But as this latest report shows, they aren’t as easily recyclable as you might think. Here’s why.

James Piper is the co-host of the Talking Rubbish podcast and author of The Rubbish Book

Behind the violence of extreme weather is that of the fossil fuel industry, and Americans are suffering for it

The weather we used to have shaped the behavior of the water we used to have – how much and when it rained, how dry it got, when and how slowly the snow in the heights melted, what fell as rain and fell as snow. Climate chaos is changing all that, breaking the patterns, delivering water in torrents unprecedented in recorded history or withholding it to create epic droughts, while heat-and-drought-parched soil, grasslands and forests create ideal conditions for mega-wildfires.

Water in the right time and quantity is a blessing; in the wrong ones it’s a scourge and a destroying force, as we’ve seen recently with floods around the world. In the vice-presidential debate, Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor, noted that his state’s farmers “know climate change is real. They’ve seen 500-year droughts, 500-year floods, back to back.” Farmers around the world are dealing with flood, drought and unseasonable weather that impacts their ability to produce food and protect soil.

Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of Orwell’s Roses and co-editor with Thelma Young Lutunatabua of the climate anthology Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility

Exclusive: Study suggests people more willing to reduce own carbon footprint if they see leaders doing the same

Political leaders “walking the talk” on climate action by flying less or eating less meat could be a “crucial missing link” in fighting global heating, according to a study.

Researchers found that people are significantly more willing to reduce their own carbon footprint if they see leaders doing the same. The finding, by psychologists in the UK, was not a given, as green action by high-profile people can sometimes be dismissed as virtue-signalling.

Researchers tethered 50 long-spined and 50 short-spined urchins outside lobster den and sharks were observed ‘smashing the whole thing’

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An experiment designed to investigate lobster predation on sea urchins unexpectedly found that Port Jackson and crested horn sharks ate the spiky animals instead.

The research, led by University of Newcastle marine ecologist Jeremy Day, involved tethering sea urchins at the entrance to a lobster den – home to at least 20 large eastern rock lobsters – near Wollongong on the south coast of New South Wales.

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An experiment designed to investigate the role lobsters play in regulating sea urchin numbers unexpectedly found sharks were eating them instead. The research, led by the University of Newcastle marine ecologist Jeremy Day, involved 50 long-spined and 50 short-spined sea urchins tethered to the entrance of a lobster den on the south coast of NSW. Over the course of 25 nights, sharks ate 45 of the urchins, while lobsters ate only four. Sea urchins are native to NSW but have become are a pest in Tasmania, where they are threatening local ecosystems

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world

The stars of 367 Collins Street have welcomed baby birds to the nest. Two hungry chicks are taking meals after entering the world on a Melbourne skyscraper. Last year’s eggs were unable to hatch after the mother stopped incubating – likely due to a territorial dispute – making the stakes all the higher this year

• Good eggs: fans delighted as new peregrine falcon chicks hatch on Melbourne skyscraper

Kenneth Newcombe, formerly CEO of C-Quest Capital, indicted over allegations of carbon credit manipulation

A former carbon offsetting executive has been charged with fraud by US federal authorities, who allege that he helped to manipulate data from projects in rural Africa and Asia to fraudulently obtain carbon credits worth tens of millions of dollars.

Kenneth Newcombe, former CEO of C-Quest Capital LLC and a leading figure in the offsetting industry, was indicted on Wednesday in New York with commodities and wire fraud.

Bosses say cost of complying with zero-emission vehicle mandate is ‘astronomical, and unsustainable’

UK electric car sales hit a record high in September, even as bosses from big carmakers told the chancellor that government targets were putting too much pressure on the industry.

The British industry sold 56,300 electric cars during the month, the highest on record, according to preliminary data published by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), a lobby group.

Investment will fund two CCS clusters – but environmental campaigners have criticised plans

Rachel Reeves is paving the way for a multibillion-pound increase in public-sector investment at the budget after the government announced plans to commit almost £22bn over 25 years to fund carbon capture and storage projects.

In what is expected to be one of the biggest green spending promises of the parliament, the chancellor, prime minister and the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, will unveil the details on a visit to the Liverpool city region on Friday declaring a “new era” for clean energy jobs.

Hepworth in West Sussex replaces boiler with prototype generating 130C steam that could cut fuel costs by 40%

An independent brewery in West Sussex is poised to become the first in Britain to make its beer using an ultra-high-temperature heat pump in place of an oil boiler.

Hepworth Brewery expects to cut the emissions from wort boiling – an essential step in beer-making to extract flavour – by using a heat pump that can produce steam at a temperature of up to 130C.

Hundreds of arachnophiles flock to La Junta to watch the creatures emerge in droves and look for love on the plains

Love is in the air on the Colorado plains – the kind that makes your heart beat a bit faster, quickens your step and makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

It’s tarantula mating season, when male spiders scurry out of their burrows in search of a mate, and hundreds of arachnophiles flock to the small farming town of La Junta to watch them emerge in droves.

Nature was the painter’s ultimate muse, and he would have admired those seeking to protect it

• Nadya Tolokonnikova is the creator of the feminist art collective Pussy Riot and former political prisoner

I woke up to a call from Vincent van Gogh today. He told me he wants the Just Stop Oil protesters who threw soup on his Sunflowers to be released immediately. I nodded and promised to do everything I could to ensure Phoebe and Anna would be freed soon. Our conversation continued. “What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?” Van Gogh remarked. “We must try and keep courage alive.”

He sounded upset about the sentence given the other day to Just Stop Oil activists – two years in jail for Phoebe Plummer, 23; 20 months for Anna Holland, 22. I sympathise with him. He seemed crestfallen that two young women were being thrown behind bars because a judge deified him and his painting, which, in Van Gogh’s mind, was not meant to be venerated, but instead inspire young artists and activists to do exactly what Phoebe and Anna had done – to push the boundaries of life and art even further, and raise uncomfortable questions.

Nadya Tolokonnikova is the creator of the feminist art collective Pussy Riot and former political prisoner

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Study uncovers vivid and poignant accounts of reefs as high as houses off countries including UK, France and Ireland

Only a handful of natural oyster reefs measuring at most a few square metres cling on precariously along European coasts after being wiped out by overfishing, dredging and pollution.

A study led by British scientists has discovered how extensive they once were, with reefs as high as a house covering at least 1.7m hectares (4.2m acres) from Norway to the Mediterranean, an area larger than Northern Ireland.

Credibility ‘damaged’ by proposed 12-month delay, which followed lobbying from governments and firms around the world

A former top environment official has said the EU’s credibility on its climate commitments has been damaged by plans for a one-year delay to a law to combat deforestation that followed intense lobbying from companies and governments around the world.

Virginijus Sinkevičius, a Lithuanian MEP who was the environment commissioner until mid-July, said postponing the deforestation regulation would be “a step backward in the fight against climate change”.

Experts are calling for ‘rapid rescue package’ for nature to improve condition of protected sites

The amount of land that is protected for nature in England has fallen to just 2.93%, despite government promises to conserve 30% of it by 2030, new data reveals.

Campaigners are calling for a “rapid rescue package for UK nature”, as government delegates head to Cop16, the international nature summit, which will take place from 21 October in Colombia. They intend to ask other countries to stick to ambitious nature targets.