The Guardian

Environment committee chair says crab die-offs in north-east having ‘profound impact on fishing communities’

The chair of the House of Commons environment select committee has called for an urgent investigation into whether dredging around a freeport development in Teesside has caused mass die-offs of crabs on the north-east coast.

In a letter sent on Tuesday, Sir Robert Goodwill told Thérèse Coffey, the environment secretary, his committee had heard evidence that the repeated mass deaths were having a “profound and long-lasting impact … on fishing communities”.

Fewer than 2,000 farms have applied to sustainable farming scheme replacing EU system in England

Farmers may miss out on thousands of pounds after government chaos over the post-Brexit nature-friendly farming schemes caused them not to apply.

These schemes were developed to replace the EU’s old subsidy system for farmers, which paid according how much land they managed. The new English system would instead pay for public goods such as improving the environment and enriching biodiversity.

Blue whales consume up to 1bn particles over a feeding season with as-yet-unknown impacts on health

Filter-feeding whales are consuming millions of particles of microplastic pollution a day, according to a study, making them the largest consumers of plastic waste on the planet.

The central estimate for blue whales was 10m pieces a day, meaning more than 1bn pieces could be ingested over a three- to four-month feeding season. The weight of plastic consumed over the season was estimated at between 230kg and 4 tonnes.

Petition signed by 300,000 people demands Home Office drops ‘attempt to overthrow democracy’

• UK politics live – latest news updates

Civil rights campaigners and environmentalists have called on peers to kill a public order bill targeting radical climate protesters, as it comes before the House of Lords for its second reading. The bill will make “locking on” – where protesters cuff themselves to a target – a criminal offence, among other measures.

A petition signed by more than 300,000 people and coordinated by Liberty and Greenpeace was handed into the Home Office, demanding it drops its “attempt to overthrow democracy”.

Ellekan, an islet in Marshall Islands, has been reduced to a pile of sand in the middle of the reef. Those who loved it have already held its funeral

• Before it is lost is series of essays from the Pacific islands

On a trip to the islet of Kalalen, eight years ago, a man named Yoster Harris ran out to meet me.

Yoster is married to the alap, or landowner, of Kalalen and he took my hand and led me to point out Ellekan, a neighbouring islet at the very end of the Majuro atoll lagoon, in my home of the Marshall Islands in the north Pacific.

Calls by countries such as UK and US to halt auction for drilling permits in the world’s second-largest rainforest branded ‘galling’

• Sale of oil and gas permits casts shadow over world’s second-largest rainforest

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has criticised the west for pressuring it to halt oil and gas exploration in the Congo basin rainforest, while continuing to search for fossil fuels in their own countries.

The Congo basin, more than half of which is located in DRC, is the last rainforest on Earth that sucks in more carbon than it releases and is second only to the Amazon in size. The DRC announced in July that oil and gas permits in parts of the rainforest would be auctioned off. The blocks up for sale include areas in Virunga national park, as well as critically endangered gorilla habitats and the world’s largest tropical peatlands, which store the equivalent of three years of the world’s fossil fuel emissions.

Activist among 30 people in three states and ACT to report visits from officers at request of NSW police ahead of mining forum

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Counter-terror police in Queensland have visited the home of an environmental activist following a request from New South Wales ahead of planned protests at a mining conference in Sydney.

The activist is one of about 30 people across four jurisdictions to report visits from police in the past week ahead of the International Mining and Resources Conference, which starts on Wednesday.

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‘Polluting elite’ responsible for same amount of carbon dioxide in a year as poorest 10% are in a decade, data shows

The top 1% of earners in the UK are responsible for the same amount of carbon dioxide emissions in a single year as the bottom 10% over more than two decades, new data has shown.

The findings highlight the enormous gaps between what have been termed “the polluting elite”, whose high-carbon lifestyles fuel the climate crisis, and the majority of people, even in developed countries, whose carbon footprints are far smaller.

Merged Australian-UK firm will convert Porsche 911s, Mini Coopers, Land Rovers and Land Rover Defenders into EVs

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An Australian startup adding modern technology to classic Land Rovers will become part of one of the biggest electric vehicle conversion companies in the world this week after merging with a British firm.

Melbourne-based Jaunt Motors will partner with Zero EV to create Fellten, which will operate across Australia, the UK and North America.

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Before Cop27, Lee White also says broken promises on funding leave sense of betrayal

The world will only take meaningful action on the climate crisis once people in rich countries start dying in greater numbers from its effects, Gabon’s environment minister has said, while warning that broken promises on billions of dollars of adaptation finance have left a “sense of betrayal” before Cop27.

Lee White said governments were not yet behaving as if global heating was a crisis, and he feared for the future he was leaving to his children. He said the $100bn of promised climate finance from rich nations was not reaching poor countries, which was driving distrust in the UN climate process.

The prime minister may have little impact in Sharm el-Sheikh, but skipping it would do political damage much closer to home

So the gentleman is for turning. Well, maybe, anyway: after an outcry, Rishi Sunak may now attend the Cop27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh after all. It would be easy to be churlish about this, given it follows reports that Boris Johnson was planning to go and hog the limelight instead, while doubtless giving the impression of caring so very much more deeply about the planet than his successor (imagine being out-serioused by Johnson, who made Kermit the Frog jokes during a rambling keynote address last year to the UN on the climate emergency, and a U-turn becomes easier to understand). But in this freakishly balmy autumn, amid apocalyptic warnings about just how far the world is from containing the global temperature rise to 1.5C, I’m mostly grateful for small mercies. Although even more so for big ones.

Last weekend’s presidential elections in Brazil were described as one of the most consequential sets of elections in the world for the climate. The ejection of another toxic populist – Jair Bolsonaro goes the way of Donald Trump and Australia’s culture warrior Scott Morrison, hopefully quietly – and the return of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva despite a corruption scandal some thought had finished him does at least bring some hope for the survival of the Amazon rainforest.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

Climate change, invasive species and military expansion have formed an unholy trinity that threatens our small but ancient civilization

• Before it is lost is series of essays from the Pacific islands

For about as long as I’ve been alive, there have been no sihek on the island of Guam.

The sihek, or the Guam kingfisher, is a beautiful blue-gold songbird that’s been extirpated in the wild since the 1980s. Like most of Guam’s native birds – 10 out of 12 native species – the sihek rapidly declined after the introduction of the invasive brown tree snake brought to the island after the second world war as a stowaway on military ships.

They are weather balloons and they look like hundreds of miniature moons

If there were no moon, our days would be short – between half and a quarter of the length they are now – and our nights would be dark. The Earth’s tilt would change, which would change the seasons. The seas, the oceans, the lakes would not fall flat, but they would be flatter, milder: lower high tides, higher low tides.

This makes me think of the Jorie Graham lines: “And the black ocean shows itself in infinite detail because of the moon. / No matter that all is not lit. Much remains because much remains hidden.” Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s moon is, “suffused o’er all the sapphire Heaven, / Trees, herbage, snake-like stream, unwrinkled Lake, / Whose very murmur does of it partake.”

Assam, Nagaland and Manipur officials also confiscate catapults and nets to ensure birds can recuperate

Officials in north-east India have banned the use of guns and airguns and confiscated catapults and nets in an effort to safeguard the small Amur falcons that make an autumn pit stop on their way to sunny South Africa.

Forest officers were patrolling areas of Assam, Nagaland and Manipur states to make sure no one disturbs the long-distance travelling raptors who stop briefly in India.

Resort offers sparkling new buses and a shiny new shopping mall – and a single, designated protest area

Across Sharm el-Sheikh, a slim strip of manicured resorts, asphalt and concrete near the southern tip of the Sinai peninsula, teams of workers are putting the finishing touches to preparations for the UN’s Cop27 climate conference.

Sparkling new buses are ready to drive down the enlarged highways that cut across desert landscape, flanked by smooth shiny new walkways adorned with angular sculptural arches. A field of glittering solar panels run by a company with ties to the Egyptian military will be online in time for the conference, as well as a new shopping mall.

Sixteenth tropical cyclone to affect the Philippines this season caused deadly floods and landslides

Tropical Storm Nalgae swept through the Philippines on Saturday with sustained winds of 60mph.

Heavy rain caused the most damage, with significant flooding and landslides. Dozens of people have died and 170,000 sought shelter in evacuation centres.

Birds showing most self-control score higher in cognitive tests, suggesting they are more intelligent

The old saying states a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush but it appears Eurasian jays may beg to differ: researchers have found the corvids shun an immediate reward for a tastier, but delayed, treat.

What’s more, the team found the birds that showed the most self-control scored higher on a variety of cognitive tests, suggesting they were more intelligent.

From a close up crocodile to a crab fishing in a cave, and a lizard navigating plastic waste, here is a look at the winning images, runners up and some commended entries in the Mangrove Photographer of the Year Awards

Swedish climate activist says the UN’s climate conference will be ‘used as an opportunity for leaders and people in power to get attention’

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has said she will skip next month’s Cop27 talks in Egypt, criticising the global summit as a forum for “greenwashing”.

“I’m not going to Cop27 for many reasons, but the space for civil society this year is extremely limited,” she said during a question and answer at the launch of her latest book at London’s Southbank Centre.