The Guardian

Exclusive: Trees standing alone and in small groups worth billions to UK, which researchers say justifies spending to protect them

• Bid to save 130 trees facing chop by Plymouth council

The huge value of trees standing alone and in small groups in the UK has been revealed in a new report, which found they provide billions of pounds worth of benefits to people every year. The trees capture climate-heating CO2, reduce toxic air pollution and slow the flow of rainwater, cutting flood risks.

There are millions of such trees across the country, covering a combined 750,000 hectares, and making up 20% of all the nation’s trees. The value of woodland has already been estimated but the report is the first to calculate a value for trees in gardens, parks, fields and along streets across the UK.

Low pressure disrupts water and power supplies in Thessaloniki as meteorological winter begins

On Thursday night last week, an area of low pressure formed off the southern coast of France. During the course of Friday, low pressure deepened into a storm as it travelled south-eastwards towards Italy.

It brought heavy rain to much of Italy; however, the west coast received the brunt of the wet weather on Friday night with 197mm of rain recorded in 24 hours on the island of Capri. The island of Ischia, close to Capri, experienced flooding and a landslide early Saturday morning, which killed at least 10 people.

Campaigners cite previous court rulings against shareholders, such as in the case of Northern Rock bank

Parliament could renationalise the water industry in England without being obliged to compensate shareholders, according to previous UK court judgments cited by campaigners.

Activists are putting mounting pressure on the government and opposition parties to look again at the privatised water system after criticism that the industry is not acting in the public interest.

This year’s Environmental photographer of the year competition, from CIWEM, WaterBear, Nikon and Arup, showcases some of the most striking images of the natural world, providing an international platform to raise awareness for the issues that threaten our planet. Here’s a closer look at the winning photos

The best of this week’s wildlife pictures, including a singing robin, a swimming buck and a praying mantis

Lawyers for Deanna ‘Violet’ Coco, who stopped traffic for 25 minutes in April, say it is ‘outrageous’ their client was refused bail ahead of an appeal next year

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A climate protester who blocked a lane of traffic on Sydney Harbour Bridge has been sentenced to 15 months in prison with a non-parole period of eight months, with human rights advocates labelling the punishment “disproportionate”.

Magistrate Allison Hawkins in Sydney’s Downing Centre local court on Friday sentenced Deanna “Violet” Coco to prison for her role in the climate protest on 13 April this year, when the now 32-year-old parked a truck and stood holding a lit flare.

Ministers urged to act as study shows average block of cheese or loaf of bread makes farmers less than a penny

UK farmers are receiving negligible profits for many items as food prices rise and supermarkets boast record takings.

An average block of cheese or loaf of bread produces less than a penny for farmers, and fruit producers do not fare much better, making just 3p from each kilo of apples.

Shayleen Thompson of the Clean Energy Regulator had ‘robust’ exchange with Wentworth Group director

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The independent senator David Pocock has criticised a senior government official’s conduct as “troubling and inappropriate” after parliament heard she was involved in a “robust” conversation with a scientific group about its evidence to an independent inquiry into Australia’s carbon credit scheme.

Shayleen Thompson, the executive general manager of government agency the Clean Energy Regulator, told Senate estimates she contacted the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists to raise what she considered “factual issues” with its submission to the Chubb review into the carbon credit system.

Weeks before Cop15 in Montreal, leaked letter to EU shows host tried to water down deforestation regulations

The Canadian government has been accused of putting its domestic timber industry ahead of the global environment, following a leaked attempt to water down the world’s most ambitious regulations on deforestation-free trade.

Weeks before the United Nations biodiversity conference, Cop15 in Montreal, the host nation sent a letter to the European Commission asking for a reconsideration of “burdensome traceability requirements” within a proposed EU scheme that aims to eradicate unsustainably sourced wood products from the world’s biggest market.

Officials ‘scratching our heads’ over deaths of 40 bovines since October that lack telltale signs of wolf attacks

Investigators in Colorado have been left baffled after dozens of cattle inexplicably dropped dead in a remote corner of the state.

The mystery has triggered a wave of US press coverage, with the New York Post running a headline claiming: “Cattle slaughtered by mystery creature that left no tracks”.

Wearable devices powered by kinetic energy of cows will gather data to help track cattle wellbeing

Cows on farms could soon have their health, reproductive readiness and location monitored by smart technology powered by the kinetic energy of the animal’s movements.

Devices that monitor the health of each cow or keep them within invisible fences are already used on farms but these smart tools are often powered by chemical batteries, which add to energy used by an emissions-intensive industry.

Firm restoring nature on two estates hopes to provide ordinary investors 5% annual return over 10 years

Ordinary people are being invited to invest in projects to rewild the Scottish Highlands by a company that is restoring nature on two estates and seeking to expand its rewilding portfolio.

“Citizen rewilders” can invest a minimum of £50 and up to £200,000 in £10 shares in Highlands Rewilding, which hopes to provide a 5% annual return on the investment over 10 years.

Criticism of past 12 years comes as minister admits fresh delay to post-Brexit farm payment schemes

Landowners have told the environment secretary they are “running out of patience” with the Conservative government after 12 years of the rural economy being “stifled” and delays to nature-friendly farming payment schemes.

At a conference organised by the Country Land and Business Association (CLA), the largest rural landowner group in the country, Thérèse Coffey announced that the review into the new land payments schemes had concluded, but admitted that farmers and other land managers would remain in the dark with regards to detail on payment and standards until next year.

As participants arrive in Montreal to negotiate this decade’s targets for protecting biodiversity, two themes are getting the lion’s share of attention

After more than two years of delays, Cop15, the once-in-decade global biodiversity summit, is about to begin. More than 10,000 participants from across the planet will start arriving in Montreal at the weekend to negotiate crucial goals for protecting biodiversity.

There has been a coordinated push behind some targets, namely from a group of countries that want to protect 30% of land and sea for nature (30x30) by the end of the decade. The idea of “nature positive” is another theme being promoted in the pre-Cop15 rhetoric from NGOs and governments.

Opponents of meaningful action are trying to sidestep the immediacy of the threat to our planet

Expert opinion is settled and public opinion united on the urgency of climate action. If our politics or our discourse were in any way functional, there would be no confusion, no debate. We would simply be proceeding from one bold practical action to the next, following the blueprints laid out by the Climate Change Committee.

Instead, we have energy policies stitched together from reheated cliches, which on the one hand doesn’t matter, since no prime minister has been stable or focused enough to iterate them since Brexit, but on the other hand does matter. There is nothing more depressing than to go back to Amber Rudd’s “energy reset” speech of 2015: what if, instead of dismissing renewables incentives as “Blairite”, she’d actually taken them seriously and built on them? What if she’d pushed energy-efficient homes instead of the “unfettered market”, what if she’d made a plan to reduce dependence on gas from Vladimir Putin rather than increase it? “Spoiler alert,” wrote the renewables entrepreneur Bruce Davis at the time: “this doesn’t end well for bill payers.” And nor has it.

Customers pay on average 20% of their bill towards servicing debt and rewarding shareholders, says CMA

• Down the drain: how billions of pounds are sucked out of England’s water system
• England’s water firms respond to investigation into role of global investors

Ofwat is refusing to limit the soaring debts run up by water companies as research reveals the firms have outstanding borrowing of almost £54bn accrued since privatisation.

Customers are paying on average £80 or 20% of their water bill towards servicing debt and rewarding shareholders, according to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

Climate change minister tells parliament official projection of 40% cut does not factor in all Labor’s policy commitments

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Australia’s climate change minister, Chris Bowen, has declared the country on track to reach a 40% cut in climate pollution by 2030 – just short of the national target of 43% – but the government has been told a “big upward shift in momentum” is needed to tackle the problem.

Giving the country’s first climate statement to parliament, which is now required annually under legislation passed earlier this year, Bowen said the official projection of a 40% cut did not factor in all Labor’s policy commitments, and that those measures would “lift our result to at least 43%”.

The statement did not shed light on what the government would do to make deeper cuts in line with its goal of limiting global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, an expectation raised by a UN-backed report if the Great Barrier Reef is to avoid being nominated as a world heritage site “in danger”. It also did not mention the country’s vast coal and gas export industries.

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The Archeoplastica project exhibits more than 200 artefacts found on beaches, from retro toys to food packets to detergent bottles – some dating back to the 1960s. As countries finally gather to begin the first of five meetings to negotiate an international plastics treaty, the collection highlights the disturbing fact that plastic pollution does not perish

• All photographs by the Museum of Archeoplastica

Exclusive: one university cites the industry as a ‘fundamental barrier to a more just and sustainable world’

Three more UK universities have banned fossil fuel companies from recruiting students through their career services, with one citing the industry as a “fundamental barrier to a more just and sustainable world”.

The University of the Arts London, University of Bedfordshire, and Wrexham Glyndwr University join Birkbeck, University of London, which was the first to adopt a fossil-free careers service policy in September.

Tory backbenchers are among 40 parliamentarians who asked PM to ‘stand up for nature’ at talks

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Forty parliamentarians, including seven Conservative MPs, have privately written to Rishi Sunak imploring him to attend the Cop15 biodiversity conference, which starts next week.

In the letter, seen by the Guardian and organised by the all-party parliamentary group on the environment, the parliamentarians warn that a million species are facing extinction globally and that lack of high-level political buy-in could spell disaster for nature.