The Guardian

State attempts to push through plans to shut hundreds of factory farms to cut nitrogen oxide emissions

The Dutch government is offering to buy out up to 3,000 “peak polluter” farms and major industrial polluters in an attempt to reduce ammonia and nitrogen oxide emissions that are illegal under EU law.

The nitrogen minister, Christianne van der Wal, said farmers would be offered more than 100% of the value of their farms to quit. For the first time, the government has said that forced buyouts will follow next year if the voluntary measures fail.

Draft regulations would ban mini-shampoo bottles and throwaway cups, with push towards reuse over recycling

The EU executive wants to ban mini-shampoo bottles in hotels and the use of throwaway cups in cafes and restaurants, as part of sweeping legal proposals to curb Europe’s mountains of waste.

A draft EU regulation published on Wednesday also proposes mandatory deposit and return schemes for single-use plastic drinks bottles and metal cans, as well as an end to e-commerce firms wrapping small items in huge boxes.

Guardian unpicks complex web of investment firms, wealth funds and tax haven-based businesses that own most of sector

• England’s water: the world’s piggy bank
• Can global water investors be held to account?
• England’s water: is privatised model a fair system?
• England’s water firms respond to investigation into role of global investors

Foreign investment firms, private equity, pension funds and businesses lodged in tax havens own more than 70% of the water industry in England, according to research by the Guardian.

The complex web of ownership is revealed as the public and some politicians increasingly call for the industry to be held to account for sewage dumping, leaks and water shortages. Six water companies are under investigation for potentially illegal activities as pressure grows on the industry to put more money into replacing and restoring crumbling infrastructure to protect both the environment and public health.

Guardian analysis reveals more than 70% of English water industry in foreign ownership

• Revealed: more than 70% of English water industry is in foreign ownership
• England’s water: the world’s piggy bank
• Can global water investors be held to account?
• England’s water: is privatised model a fair system?

The water companies responded to the Guardian’s requests for comment as follows.

A Severn Trent spokesperson said: “Since privatisation, Severn Trent has invested £25bn in infrastructure, including £100m each year improving the rivers in our region.

Minister confirms pollution penalties will be ringfenced for environment rather than going to Treasury

Water company fines for pollution are to be used to pay for environmental improvements in England rather than given to the Treasury, the government has said.

Since 2015, the Environment Agency has concluded 56 prosecutions against water and sewerage companies, securing fines of more than £141m. Most of these were from one company, Southern Water, which received a record penalty of £90m last year.

Show omits massive challenges to the industry posed by climate crisis, bycatch and bottom trawling, claims Our Seas alliance of 350 organisations

Shot in fishing vessels on the high seas, amid crashing waves that threaten to sweep all on deck overboard, the long-running BBC documentary programme Trawlermen offers viewers an insight into how a crew navigates one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.

However, the new series, Trawlermen: Hunting the Catch, launched in October, fails to mention “even briefly” the environmental and climate crisis challenges or problems with bycatch faced by the fishing industry, according to the Our Seas coalition of 350 conservation and fishing organisations.

With digital bioacoustics, scientists can eavesdrop on the natural world – and they’re learning some astonishing things

Scientists have recently made some remarkable discoveries about non-human sounds. With the aid of digital bioacoustics – tiny, portable digital recorders similar to those found in your smartphone – researchers are documenting the universal importance of sound to life on Earth.

By placing these digital microphones all over Earth, from the depths of the ocean to the Arctic and the Amazon, scientists are discovering the hidden sounds of nature, many of which occur at ultrasonic or infrasonic frequencies, above or below human hearing range. Non-humans are in continuous conversation, much of which the naked human ear cannot hear. But digital bioacoustics helps us hear these sounds, by functioning as a planetary-scale hearing aid and enabling humans to record nature’s sounds beyond the limits of our sensory capacities. With the help of artificial intelligence (AI), researchers are now decoding complex communication in other species.

A submersible off the coast of Western Australia chanced upon an 45-metre-long deep-sea siphonophore arranged in a feeding spiral, trailing its deadly tentacles

In 2020, about 600 metres (2,000ft) down in an underwater canyon off the coast of Western Australia, scientists encountered a long gelatinous creature suspended in a giant spiral. “It was like a rope on the horizon. You couldn’t miss it,” says Nerida Wilson from the Western Australian Museum. “It was so huge.”

It was a deep-sea siphonophore, a relative of the portuguese man o’ war, or blue bottles, that bob like party balloons on the sea surface, trailing deadly tentacles through the water. This one was probably a new species from the genus Apolemia, a group that generally look like tangled feather boas.

Exclusive: Fatih Birol says claims that limit is dead are ‘factually incorrect and politically very wrong’

The world can still limit global heating to 1.5C, and to claim that the target is now out of reach is to play into the hands of fossil fuel proponents, the world’s leading energy economist has warned.

Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, the global authority on energy, slammed scientists and activists who have claimed that the recent Cop27 UN climate summit killed off hopes for the crucial 1.5C limit.

Fossil fuels, fisheries and farming: the world’s most destructive industries are protected – and subsidised – by governments

In every conflict over the living world, something is being protected. And most of the time, it’s the wrong thing.

The world’s most destructive industries are fiercely protected by governments. The three sectors that appear to be most responsible for the collapse of ecosystems and erasure of wildlife are fossil fuels, fisheries and farming. In 2021, governments directly subsidised oil and gas production to the tune of $64bn (£53bn), and spent a further $531bn (£443bn) on keeping fossil fuel prices low. The latest figures for fisheries, from 2018, suggest that global subsidies for the sector amount to $35bn a year, over 80% of which go to large-scale industrial fishing. Most are paid to “enhance capacity”: in other words to help the industry, as marine ecosystems collapse, catch more fish.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

The world’s largest active volcano has erupted for the first time in nearly 40 years on the Big island of Hawaii

• Mauna Loa is erupting. What do you need to know?

Buying out China’s stake was inevitable but the government still has the onerous task of finding committed investors

Another day, another “confirmation” that the government plans to build the Sizewell C nuclear power plant in Suffolk – surely the “most announced” project in UK infrastructure history. The latest update, though, contained a genuine sign of seriousness: the Chinese are being paid to go away.

China General Nuclear (CGN), a state-backed firm, owned a 20% stake in the fledgling project and had, in effect, a right to subscribe to maintain its holding through the various funding rounds – just as it did at Hinkley Point C in Somerset. In practice, any form of Chinese involvement in Sizewell has been impossible for at least a year.

The climate activists claim to have targeted 4x4 owners in eight European and US cities

Guerrilla climate activists Tyre Extinguishers have claimed their “largest ever night of action against SUVs”, with 900 of the vehicles targeted around the world.

“Last night (the evening of Monday 28 November and early morning of Tuesday 29 November), citizens in eight countries deflated tyres on nearly 900 polluting SUVs,” the activist group said in a statement.

The magistrate spoke of using Jan Goodey’s case as a ‘deterrent’ during court proceedings

A climate activist who disrupted traffic on the M25 has been sentenced to six months in prison.

Jan Goodey, 57, from Brighton, was jailed after pleading guilty to intentionally or recklessly causing a public nuisance after taking part in Just Stop Oil’s campaign of disruption on London’s orbital motorway earlier this month.

Chris O’Shea said the government handing energy companies money in advance presents a big risk

The chief executive of British Gas owner Centrica has warned that more energy suppliers could go bust this winter – with million of pounds of taxpayer cash on their balance sheets.

Chris O’Shea said he believed that some suppliers were “poorly capitalised”, and risked going bust and “taking taxpayer money with them”.

First global analysis follows discovery of toxic pollution particles in lungs and brains of foetuses

Almost a million stillbirths a year can be attributed to air pollution, according to the first global study.

The research estimated that almost half of stillbirths could be linked to exposure to pollution particles smaller than 2.5 microns (PM2.5), mostly produced from the burning of fossil fuels.

Free allowances ‘in direct contradiction with the polluter pays principle’, WWF report says

Big polluting industries have been given almost €100bn (£86bn) in free carbon permits by the EU in the last nine years, according to an analysis by the WWF. The free allowances are “in direct contradiction with the polluter pays principle”, the group said.

Free pollution permits worth €98.5bn were given to energy-intensive sectors including steel, cement, chemicals and aviation from 2013-21. This is more than the €88.5bn that the EU’s emissions trading scheme (ETS) charged polluters, mostly coal and gas power stations, for their CO2 emissions.

Culture secretary says potential ‘tweaks’ to levelling up bill will be considered because of MPs’ concerns

• UK politics live – latest news updates

Ministers will make an announcement on a ban on onshore windfarms in the coming days, including potential “tweaks” to the levelling up bill, in the face of a growing rebellion by Conservative MPs.

The culture secretary, Michelle Donelan, gave the strongest hint yet that the government is preparing to lift the de facto onshore wind ban after the number of public rebels grew to 34 on Monday night.

Number of homes at high risk likely to almost double by 2055, warns report by infrastructure commission

In England more than 600,000 properties face flooding in the future without investment in drainage, a report from the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) has found.

At the moment, 325,000 English properties have a 60% risk of flooding in the next decade, according to calculations by the NIC, due to a lack of investment in infrastructure.

National Highways has obtained an injunction to ‘prevent unlawful protests’ until November 2023

A high court injunction has been granted that would impose fresh penalties on Just Stop Oil activists for demonstrating on the country’s busiest motorway until November next year.

National Highways said it had secured the civil order to “prevent unlawful protests” on the M25, after a series of actions by the environmental group caused significant traffic disruption.