The Guardian

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs, including a green forest lizard, gentoo penguins and a wild beaver

Many of these record-breaking climate events go unnoticed because it’s too much for our tiny brains so nobody ‘clicks’ on them any more

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Number of house sparrows spotted has dropped by nearly 60% since 1979, according to RSPB annual survey

House sparrows are the most spotted bird in UK gardens for the 20th year in a row, according to new data. This comes despite the decline of the bird’s population, with nearly 22 million house sparrows lost from the country since 1966.

Roughly 1.5 million house sparrows were spotted in gardens between 27 and 29 January this year, according to people who took part in the Big Garden Birdwatch, the garden wildlife survey conducted by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).

Sandstorms whipped up from the Gobi desert have spread from northern China to Thailand and South Korea and as far east as Japan, causing a reduction in visibility and an increase in respiratory illness. There have been four sandstorms in the space of a month in China this year

The country depends overwhelmingly on secondhand cars from Japan, which makes barely any electric vehicles

New Zealand has long been known for its high ratio of sheep to people. But really what stands out on various per-capita lists is just how much we love to drive.

Exact comparisons are tricky and blurred by tiny countries, but we definitely have one of the highest rates of car ownership in the world, with something like nine cars for every 10 people, and each car driven over 8,000km a year. Given that a fifth of the population are children, this is a strikingly high rate of car ownership – and presents a key challenge to the country’s net zero goals.

Corallivorous fish were regarded as harmful to coral but research suggests their poo could be keeping reefs healthy

The faeces of coral-eating fish may act as “probiotics” for reefs, according to a study.

Previously it was thought that corallivore – fish such as pufferfish, parrotfish and butterfly fish that eat coral – weakened marine surfaces. But new research suggests that by eating some parts of the coral and then pooing in different areas of the reef, they are part of a cycle that redistributes beneficial microbes that can help coral thrive.

Data shows 48% of species declined between 2015 and 2020 with woodland birds faring worst

Bird populations in the UK continue to crash, new data shows, as campaigners predict the government will fail to meet its own nature targets unless radical changes are made.

Statistics released by the government show that bird populations continue to decline in the long and short term. In 2021, on average the abundance of 130 breeding species was 12% below its 1970 value. Though much of this loss was between the late 1970s and the late 1980s, caused mostly by relatively steep declines in woodland and farmland birds, there was still a significant 5% decrease between 2015 and 2020.

Exclusive: previous holder says loss is ‘disappointing’ and damages UK’s ability to spur global climate action

The UK government has axed its most senior climate diplomat post, the Guardian can reveal.

The last special representative for climate change, Nick Bridge, stood down recently after six years in post and is not being replaced.

Madeleine King says gas can help decarbonise the economy but not even big users of the fossil fuel are convinced

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The words from the resources minister, Madeleine King, must have felt like a comforting salve to Australia’s gas industry.

In a speech last week in Western Australia, King told resource industry figures in Perth that gas would be indispensable as Australia and the region decarbonised.

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Sadiq Khan to press on with plans for ultra-low emission zone despite challenge being allowed to proceed

A legal challenge to the expansion of London’s ultra-low emission zone will be heard in the high court later this year, after a judgment permitted councils to proceed.

The city’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, vowed to press on regardless with plans to extend the Ulez, which he has argued is needed to tackle toxic air that is responsible for thousands of premature deaths a year.

Analysis suggests government policies would achieve reduction less than half target of 30% by 2030

The UK is still well off track on meeting its international commitments to cut methane emissions, analysis has shown, despite moves to stop cows from belching out so much of it.

Ministers unveiled a host of initiatives to reduce UK greenhouse gas emissions in the government’s “green day” of energy announcements more than a week ago, including plans to introduce methane-suppressing feed for livestock from 2025, and to stop biodegradable waste going to landfill from 2028.

Report says revenues raised from a gradually imposed fuel tax could be used to transition to low-carbon fisheries

The EU lavished up to €15.7bn in fossil fuel subsidies on its fishing industry over the last decade but campaigners are calling for those funds to be redirected towards decarbonisation.

Fuel tax exemptions for the fishing industry save so much money that they could pay the salaries of 20,000 fishers every year – or pay for 6,000 new energy reduction and decarbonisation projects, according to an analysis.

Pembrokeshire couple intrigued to discover what was causing damage catches culprit on stealth camera

Creeping through the darkness, the midnight vandal fells yet another tree with “machete-like” skill.

On a hidden camera planted in their garden, a couple whose trees disappeared from their garden “overnight” have unmasked the unlikely culprit: the first wild beaver spotted in Wales in years.

Proposal expected to be unveiled on Wednesday would require at least 54% of new vehicles sold in US to be electric by 2030

The Biden administration will propose strict new automobile pollution limits requiring that all-electric vehicles account for as many as two of every three new vehicles sold in the US by 2032 in a plan that would transform the US auto industry.

Under the proposed regulation, expected to be released by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday, greenhouse gas emissions for the 2027 through 2032 model years for passenger vehicles would be limited to even stricter levels than the auto industry agreed to in 2021.

Greenpeace report finds heavy machinery made by South Korean firm contributing to destruction of Brazilian rainforest

Hyundai is being urged to prevent its heavy machinery products from being used in illegal mining and environmental destruction in the Brazilian Amazon.

A report published by Greenpeace on Wednesday found the South Korean conglomerate’s excavators and other heavy machinery are precipitating the destruction of the rainforest and putting the survival of Indigenous populations at risk.

Hybrid vehicle pollution and van traffic update adds 26 megatonnes of carbon emissions to Department for Transport decarbonisation plan

The UK’s net zero targets will be missed because of a planned “road-building spree” by the Department for Transport, campaigners have said.

Officials had to edit the department’s “transport decarbonisation plan” to add 26 megatonnes of carbon emissions because of an oversight regarding polluting hybrid vehicles, and projections for an increase in van traffic.

Depending on the plan, either California would be the most affected, or Arizona and Nevada would be parched

The federal government on Tuesday laid out options for saving the Colorado River in an effort to prevent it from falling to critically low levels and put an end to months-long negotiations between the seven western states and Indigenous nations that rely on it as a dwindling resource.

The Department of the Interior said it would either impose cuts to water allotments according to the water-rights priority system or evenly across the board.

Campaigners say potential energy plan would leave consumers bearing cost of building hydrogen economy

Blending hydrogen into the UK’s gas heating systems could raise consumer bills by almost £200 for an average household, analysis suggests.

The blending of natural gas with about 20% hydrogen, for use in home heating systems, is one of the key recommendations by the government’s hydrogen champion, Jane Toogood, in a report to ministers on how to produce and use hydrogen in the UK.

The climate crisis can seem overwhelming, but there are radical, pragmatic solutions – and they all begin with an idea

Is there any hope? Are we all doomed? I write books about the climate crisis, so I am often asked fearful questions like these. But I’m being asked them more and more often and by younger people, an alarming trend not unconnected to the number of scientific reports detailing how humans are pushing the Earth’s systems to dangerous extremes.

I write about planetary-scale ecosystem destruction but, importantly, I also focus on our species’ extraordinary capacity to adapt; this has been key to our success in the past – and it is key to surviving our future. There are radical, yet pragmatic, solutions to our crises. But fear of what will happen if we don’t act is imprisoning people in a mindset that makes alternatives seem unthinkable. I am frequently told my solutions are unrealistic and will never happen; that people would rather fight each other in wars than adapt to share food and land, for instance. We make our own future, even if it’s hard to see the process. So let me try to make the case for hope.

Gaia Vince is an author, journalist and broadcaster. Her latest book is Nomad Century: How To Survive The Climate Upheaval

They say the first step to recovery is recognising you have a problem, so it is with preserving our precious wildlife

You wouldn’t think there would be much to celebrate when a threatened species has its status uplisted because the risk of it becoming extinct has increased. To have nine Australian birds uplisted on a single day as happened last week may at first seem very bleak indeed.

These listings have not come out of the blue, sparked by a single catastrophic event. The nine uplistings follow the recommendations of the 2020 Action Plan for Australian Birds produced by BirdLife Australia and Charles Darwin University, drawing on the expertise of hundreds of researchers who have studied and catalogued both the threats facing Australia’s birds and the actions needed to recover those teetering on the edge of extinction.