The Guardian

Two workers in an abattoir in Catalonia alleged to have suffered unwanted sexual advances and are now appealing court decision

A court in Spain has acquitted a manager accused of sexual advances and using the threat of dismissal to demand sex, in a blow to a landmark legal challenge that sought to cast a spotlight on sexual abuse in the country’s meat processing industry.

The behaviour was alleged to have taken place at an abattoir north of Barcelona, a region that has helped transform Spain into Europe’s largest pork producer.

Locals forced to rely on emergency bottled water as pipes leak and burst after recent rapid thaw

Tens of thousands of households in parts of south-east England face the prospect of a Christmas without running water as suppliers struggle with burst pipes after a rapid thaw from last week’s freezing temperatures.

South East Water admitted that it could not guarantee all customers in Kent and East Sussex that water would be restored by the Christmas weekend, after a threefold increase in leaks.

The Way of Water is a movie for our times – a rallying cry to make us cherish and protect the oceans that are so vital to life on Earth

The original Avatar was more than a movie. It was an event.

It was reportedly pulled from some theatres by the Chinese government for fear it could incite land revolts; slammed by the Christian right for its “anti-Americanism”; used eagerly by anti-extractivism and anti-colonialism protesters; elicited depression among those who left cinemas to face the impoverished Earth of our cityscapes; and I personally heard that it led some viewers to sell their 4x4s, leave the army and much, much more. This was no ordinary film.

The holidays as we know them can be bad for us and the planet. Here are some ideas to make your winter celebrations joyful

Christmas may look like it’s beyond redemption. Very few people in the UK are genuinely celebrating the birth into abject poverty of a refugee boy who they believe was God become human. And as for Saint Nick and the invitation to deceive young children, that’s equally dubious. Adults don’t usually lie to children – it’s not kind.

The whole day/week/month/two months is hopelessly lost in consumer capitalism. It’s all anticipated with dread by many of us who don’t have the perfect family, the perfect living conditions and the money to spare, or aren’t able to look away from both the obscene overconsumption and the poverty crisis. So how can we start to redeem the season? I have a few ideas.

Isabel Losada is the author of The Joyful Environmentalist: How to Practise without Preaching

Sherif Osman, an Egyptian-American citizen, was detained in Dubai where he was visiting family

The United Arab Emirates is preparing to deport an Egyptian-American citizen detained in Dubai who called for protests during the Cop27 climate conference in Egypt, sparking fears about the treatment of civil society during next year’s Cop28 in the Emirates.

Sherif Osman, a former Egyptian army officer who has lived in the United States for decades, was detained at a restaurant in Dubai, where he had travelled with his fiancee to see family.

An investigation into the pipeline’s largest spill is under way in Kansas as a recent report points to a deteriorating safety record

The Keystone pipeline, which traverses 2,600 miles from western Canada through the central US, leaked an estimated 14,000 barrels of oil, more than half a million gallons, into a creek in Washington county, Kansas on 7 December. The incident was the largest onshore oil spill since at least 2013, the Keystone pipeline’s third major spill in the last five years, and the largest since it began operating in 2010.

It is also the case that previous estimates from earlier spills on the pipeline have turned out to be much larger than the initial estimates.

Provision allows Maine’s lobster industry to continue using fishing gear that maims the species, often fatally, until 2028

Animal protectionists are accusing Democrats in the US Senate of selling out the critically endangered northern right whale by including a provision in a year-end funding bill that would allow Maine’s lobster industry to continue using fishing gear that maims the species, often fatally, until at least 2028.

According to the Center for Biological Diversity, an unprecedented right whale policy rider inserted by Democratic senators Chuck Schumer of New York and Patrick Leahy of Vermont into the omnibus funding budget released on Tuesday effectively condemns the right whale to extinction.

Inger Andersen said we must not ‘pause for a second’ as we ‘change the relationship between people and nature’

The UN’s environment chief has urged citizens, businesses and governments to “not pause for a second” in implementing the new once-in-a-decade deal to halt the destruction of nature, calling for changes in consumption patterns and attitudes.

“[With the new agreement] we are acknowledging that protecting the natural world represents a sum of linear efforts by governments, by businesses and by us – each one of us as individuals and consumers,” said Inger Andersen, the executive director of the UN environment programme.

The talking is over, and a text has been agreed on the next decade of targets to save the natural world. Here are the highs and lows of the Convention of Biological Diversity’s (CBD) agreement

The term “nature positive”, which scientists had said would be the biodiversity equivalent of “net zero”, did not make the final document. Many will see this as a missed opportunity – a unifying idea similar to keeping global heating to within 1.5C. However, the 2030 goal to “take urgent action to halt and reverse biodiversity loss” is still considered a relatively strong call to action.

The Montreal biodiversity conference set some ambitious targets. It’s now up to nations – including the UK – to step up

I don’t normally finish United Nations Cop meetings with a smile on my face. Yet as the sun sets on the UN biodiversity conference, Cop15, in Montreal with a global agreement for nature’s recovery, I’m walking away feeling rather more optimistic than I did only a fortnight ago.

In the early hours of Monday morning in Montreal, Canada, nearly 200 countries agreed and adopted a new “global biodiversity framework” containing various goals and targets. The pact requires all nations – particularly the UK – to dramatically up their game on protecting and restoring nature.

We knew the flood waters were coming, but no one could prepare for what struck our NSW town

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A month after a wall of water hit my farm and smashed through Eugowra, the level of trauma and destruction in our community remains difficult to describe.

There were 159 official rescues reported by the New South Wales State Emergency Servicein a town of 700. Everyone who could help did, so including those saved by locals it’s probably more like 300-400 rescued. We lost two of our loved people.

Lawyer in a civil lawsuit launched by towns in hurricane-hit Puerto Rico describes why it is using laws used to target mob bosses

The same racketeering legislation used to bring down mob bosses, motorcycle gangs, football executives and international fraudsters is to be tested against oil and coal companies who are accused of conspiring to deceive the public over the climate crisis.

In an ambitious move, an attempt will be made to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for “decades of deception” in a lawsuit being brought by communities in Puerto Rico that were devastated by Hurricane Maria in 2017.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of the world’s most biodiverse countries, and its objections raised the prospect of legal challenges

A once-in-a-decade deal to halt the destruction of Earth’s ecosystems finally won full support at Cop15 in Montreal on Monday after the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) dropped its opposition.

Earlier on Monday, Ève Bazaiba, the DRC’s environment minister, threatened to throw the integrity of the historic UN biodiversity agreement into doubt just hours after it was signed, when China’s summit president appeared to ignore her country’s objections to the text and forced it through.

In her book, Forty Farms, the photographer has documented rural life across Cumbria, from the mountains of the Lake District to coastal salt marshes, over 12 months during Covid lockdown

UN secretary general, António Guterres, during his final press conference this year said, 'This is not a time to sit on the side-lines, it is a time for resolve, determination, and – yes – even hope.' Speaking to journalists in New York, Guterres said, 'Despite the limitations and long odds, we are working to push back against despair, to fight back against disillusion and to find real solutions.' Despite his outlook on global heating, one positive development, he pointed out, was that on Monday at 3am, 'delegates at the Cop15 UN biodiversity conference in Montreal agreed on a new global biodiversity framework'

• Climate goal of 1.5C is ‘gasping for breath’, says UN head
• The Guardian view on the Cop15 agreement: nations must do more for nature

Democratic Republic of the Congo’s environment minister says country has not agreed to ‘30 by 30’ deal

The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s environment minister has said her country has not agreed to a deal to halt the destruction of the Earth’s ecosystems, prompting behind-the-scenes diplomatic efforts to keep the agreement alive just hours after it was adopted.

Ève Bazaiba, the DRC’s environment minister, said her country would be writing to the UN secretary general, António Guterres, and the Convention on Biological Diversity to express the DRC’s position on the final text. It comes after the Chinese Cop15 president, Huang Runqiu, appeared to force through the agreement in the final plenary just moments after the DRC negotiator had said did not support the deal, which is typically negotiated by consensus. His interventions prompted further objections from Uganda and Cameroon.

International cooperation is the only way to halt biodiversity losses. But the action promised so far isn’t enough

The 23 targets in the Cop15 biodiversity agreement announced in Montreal on Monday are insufficient to prevent further irrecoverable losses, including among the many species threatened with extinction. The deal is not legally binding, leading to concerns about the prospects for implementation. The track record of global biodiversity plans is terrible. Every one of 20 targets set at Aichi in Japan in 2010 was missed.

The new agreement was finalised despite complaints from African countries including the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), home to one of the world’s largest rainforests, which is threatened by oil and gas exploration. The description of the US’s role as “an interesting asterisk” by the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, was too mild. It is shaming and alarming that the US was at the talks as an “influencer” and not a participant, because the Senate has refused to ratify the UN convention on biological diversity.

Bottlenose dolphin, a long-finned pilot whale and a third species found to have markers of the degenerative disease

Three species of cetacean stranded off the coast of Scotland, including a bottlenose dolphin and a long-finned pilot whale, have been found to have the classic markers of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study.

Although types of dementia have been fairly widely detected in other animals, Alzheimer’s disease has not been found to occur naturally in species other than humans.

Wasps seen piercing the mouth or other parts of tree frogs with their sharp weapon when being attacked

Kipling might well have believed that the female of the species is more deadly than the male, but when it comes to mason wasps, the latter have quite the weapon.

Researchers in Japan have discovered that male mason wasps use sharp spines on their genitalia to resist being swallowed by predators.

António Guterres announces a climate ambition summit to confront ‘existential threat’ facing the planet

The goal of limiting global heating to 1.5C is “gasping for breath”, the UN secretary general has said as he announced a “climate ambition summit” for September.

António Guterres said the summit would challenge leaders of governments and businesses to come up with “new, tangible and credible climate action to accelerate the pace of change” and confront the “existential threat” of the climate crisis.