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Figure comes despite barely any rainfall during year and prompts call for environment secretary to resign

Raw sewage was spilled into English rivers 824 times a day last year – despite the fact there was barely any rainfall and most of the country was in drought.

Thérèse Coffey, the environment secretary, is facing calls from the Liberal Democrats to resign over failures to stop sewage spills, as the party argues she “doesn’t care” about the issue.

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs, including a baby egret, a newborn shark and a zebra on the loose

Ten-year project by English Heritage will see landscapes at sites including Stonehenge return to how they would have once looked

Meadows across 100 historic sites in England, from the panoramic ruins of Scarborough Castle to the chalk down landscape of Stonehenge, are to be created or enhanced in a 10-year project celebrating the king’s coronation.

English Heritage on Friday announced its ambition to return landscapes at 100 of its sites to how they once would have looked.

Environmentalists question high grade given to JBS and accuse it of deforestation in the Amazon and under-reporting emissions

The award of an A-minus sustainability grade to the world’s biggest meat company has raised eyebrows and kicked off a debate about the rating system for environmental and social governance.

Brazilian meat company JBS has previously been linked to deforestation in the Amazon, where its slaughterhouses process beef from ranches carved out of the Amazon, Cerrado and other biomes. But in the latest Climate Change Report by the influential rating organisation CDP, the multinational meatpacker got a grade of A- for its efforts to tackle climate change – up from B in the previous assessment – and was given a “leadership” status award.

The government has chosen oil and gas over renewables, increasing the climate threat

To say that Rishi Sunak’s government has chosen the “path of climate vandalism”, as Labour’s Ed Miliband did this week, is no exaggeration. The policies contained in the energy plan announced on Thursday are dangerous. They will significantly worsen the climate crisis that threatens to engulf us all, if the globally agreed target of limiting temperature rises to 1.5C is missed. Mr Sunak’s record on green policies in the Treasury was dismal. As prime minister, he is steering the UK even further away from the course towards speedy decarbonisation that we should be on. In the long term, climate will surely top the list of public policy failures during this long period of Tory government.

Hundreds of leading scientists wrote to Mr Sunak’s government this week, calling for an end to new oil and gas developments. The government is set to defy them with plans for a huge North Sea oilfield, which it attempts to justify on the grounds that it is investing £20bn (over 20 years) in carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, in order to limit the damage caused. The scientists are right. The politicians and their fossil fuel industry backers are wrong. It is devastating that the UK is now trashing its own reputation for pioneering climate laws, which made national emissions reductions compulsory. Ministers have chosen risky, dirty energy over clean.

Government admits its policies will achieve only 92% of cuts and experts think that is a ‘generous reading’

The UK government has said it is still on track to meet its international climate commitments under the Paris agreement, as analysis of its energy plans suggested more drastic policies would be needed to make the required carbon cuts.

Ministers announced the UK’s revamped net zero strategy on Thursday, with a raft of documents exceeding 1,000 pages, setting out policies on sectors from biomass to solar power, and from electric vehicles to nuclear reactors. It came as Rishi Sunak headed to Oxfordshire to visit a development facility for nuclear fusion, accompanied by Grant Shapps, the energy and net zero secretary.

Therésè Coffey may bring Food Standards Agency, now overseen by health department, under remit of Defra

The UK government is considering tightening control over the Food Standards Agency (FSA) after news that allegedly fraudulent pork products found their way on to supermarket shelves.

Therésè Coffey, the secretary of state for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), told the House of Commons on Thursday that she would look at bringing the FSA under her department’s control.

Scottish first minister's questions was disrupted five times on Thursday as Yousaf took questions from MSPs. When FMQs eventually got going, Douglas Ross, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, queried Yousaf's appointment of an independence minister, asking if it was a fair use of taxpayers' money. Yousaf hit back, telling MSPs that independence was a priority for the Scottish people. Yousaf said: 'I make no apology whatsoever for having a minister for independence because, my goodness, we need it more than ever before'

• Can Humza Yousaf unite the SNP? – Politics Weekly UK

• What challenges await the new SNP leader and first minister of Scotland?

• Postponing state pension age decision ‘not exactly a sign of strength’, Jacob Rees-Mogg tells Tories – UK politics live

Plants can produce staccato pops when they do not have enough water or suffer a sudden wound, which nearby creatures may respond to, scientists have discovered.

Humans cannot hear the ultrasonic sounds emitted from plants that might even help shape their ecosystems.

Scientists recorded sounds produced by tomato and tobacco plants raised in greenhouses. Healthy plants emitted clicks and pops, but the sounds came in far more rapid bursts when the plants were deprived of water or had their stems cut

Thirsty or damaged plants produce up to 50 staccato pops in an hour, which nearby creatures may respond to, researchers find

There comes a time in a plant’s life when the head sags, the leaves go pale and the body releases a barrage of sounds that are the ultrasonic equivalent of stamping on bubble wrap.

While any gardener is familiar with the wilting and discoloration that comes with drought, a shortage of water or a sudden wound can also prompt plants to produce staccato pops, which nearby creatures may respond to, scientists say.

Millions given to party and MPs last year came from entities linked to fossil fuels, high-polluting industries and climate denial

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The Conservative party received £3.5m from individuals and entities linked to climate denial, fossil fuels and high-pollution industries last year, according to new analysis.

The climate website DeSmog analysed Electoral Commission records, which show that the party and its MPs received funds from the aviation and construction industries, mining and oil interests, and individuals linked to the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), a thinktank which has denied the legitimacy of climate science.

Creating more green areas could also save up to £40m a year in costs linked to mental health issues, say researchers

An ambitious push to create more green spaces in Barcelona – a city with one of the highest population and traffic densities in Europe – could improve the health of more than 30,000 people, reduce the use of antidepressants and save up to €45m (£40m) annually in costs associated with mental health issues, research suggests.

It builds on a growing body of evidence that has linked urban green spaces to better mental wellbeing as well as the prevention of depression, anxiety and insomnia.

I haven’t eaten octopus in years, yet being smart shouldn’t make them exceptions. All animals need protection from unnecessary suffering

The collective noun for a group of octopuses, in case you were wondering, is a consortium – not, as some wags might tell you, a seafood buffet.

I myself don’t eat octopus, and have made a lot of noise about why: they’re as smart as parrots, their brain is spread over their arms, they are many millions of years older than we are – don’t you know that, of all the species on Earth, only they and we share a high-resolution camera eye?

Elle Hunt is a freelance journalist

Deal between Labor government and Greens requires total emissions from big industrial sites to come down, not just be offset

Australia’s parliament has passed the country’s most significant emissions reduction legislation in more than a decade after the government won backing from Greens and independent MPs for a plan to deal with pollution from major industrial sites.

After weeks of closed-door negotiation, a deal was brokered between the Labor government and Greens, a minor party with 15 parliamentarians, that included legislating an explicit requirement that total emissions from major industrial facilities must come down, not just be offset.

UK tops all league tables for highly polluting form of travel, with a flight taking off every six minutes last year

The UK is the private jet capital of Europe, with more flights than anywhere else on the continent, analysis has found.

Last year, a private jet set off from the UK once every six minutes, putting the country ahead of the rest of Europe when it comes to the extremely polluting form of travel. Many of these journeys have been called “polluting and pointless” by Greenpeace, as they are so short they could have easily been taken by train – and in one case, cycled in 30 minutes.

Changes to the safeguard mechanism take us a step closer to net zero by 2050 – the goal consecutive governments have signed up to

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At some stage, policies that governments put forward to reduce emissions need to do exactly what they say on the tin.

This week’s deal between Labor and the Greens to improve a policy covering Australia’s biggest polluters does, finally, achieve that.

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Evidence that drought cut late-summer hatchings raises fears that delayed effect of caterpillar die-off will be seen this year

The heat and drought of last summer caused British butterfly populations to crash later in the year, according to a new study.

Common butterfly species including the brimstone, small tortoiseshell, peacock, green-veined white and small white appeared in good or average numbers during the spring and early summer of 2022 but numbers in subsequent late-summer generations were greatly reduced.

Controversial technology is at centre of ‘powering up Britain’ strategy, but critics argue it has ‘little merit’ and ‘delays real cuts in emissions’

The UK government will defy scientific doubts to place a massive bet on technology to capture and store carbon dioxide in undersea caverns, to enable an expansion of oil and gas in the North Sea.

Grant Shapps, the energy and net zero secretary, will on Thursday unveil the “powering up Britain” strategy, with carbon capture and storage (CCS) at its heart, during a visit to a nuclear fusion development facility in Oxford.

New guidelines for $2bn carbon offsetting industry aim to guide buyers towards high-quality credits

New quality standards for the $2bn carbon offsetting industry have been published to help guide buyers to high-quality credits following widespread concern that many are just hot air.

On Thursday, new guidelines for a “good” carbon credit programme were announced by the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM), an initiative that aims to reassure buyers about the quality of offsets they are buying for climate commitments and help them avoid credits that do nothing to mitigate climate change or might be linked to human rights violations.

Incident at Saltburn-by-the-Sea occurs in same area as number of die-offs reported in 2021 and 2022

Thousands more dead or dying shellfish have washed up on a beach on the same stretch of coast that saw a number of crustacean die-offs in autumn 2021 and last year.

Visitors to Saltburn-by-the-Sea, a few miles south-east of the River Tees, were met by the sight of hundreds of thousands of dead mussels on the shoreline, as well as starfish, crabs and razor clams.