The Guardian

Carbon capture and storage isn’t working close to a scale that would significantly lower emissions – despite billions in taxpayers’ cash thrown at it

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Scott Morrison’s loving embrace and financial backing of the gas industry has been a defining feature of his prime ministership.

Hit with a historical pandemic, Morrison chose gas – not renewables – to fire an economic recovery.

If national emissions data is incorrect then Australia less likely to be on track to meet Coalition’s target of a 26-28% cut by 2030

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Queensland forests are being cleared at almost twice the rate reflected in national greenhouse gas emissions, new analysis suggests, prompting questions about the climate data that Australia reports to the United Nations.

The study of data from Queensland’s statewide landcover and tree study (Slats) shows 455,756 hectares of forests were cleared across the state in 2018-19.

Scientists compare findings of tree study to mass coral bleaching in Great Barrier Reef

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Australia’s tropical rainforest trees have being dying at double the previous rate since the 1980s, seemingly because of global heating, according to new research that raises concerns tropical forests could start to release more carbon dioxide than they absorb.

The study, published in the journal Nature, found the average life of tropical trees in north Queensland had been reduced by about half over the past 35 years . The finding was consistent across different species and rainforests.

The #everydayclimatecrisis visual petition is a collection of more than 1,000 photographs taken by women and non-binary people across Australia showing the impact of the climate crisis on their lives. The images of fires, floods and environmental destruction will be tabled to parliament in Canberra in June in a call for leaders to do more. The women hope that if a picture is worth 1,000 words, then 1,000 pictures can be a catalyst for change

All that the energy giants are interested in is profit. Public ownership – as in France – is the only answer

Our energy system is crucial to two of the biggest issues facing the British public: the cost of living crisis and the climate and environment emergency. Yet we are leaving this sector to be inefficiently and exploitatively run by private companies.

Electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels or by renewable technology such as wind turbines; then it is distributed along the national and regional grids, and finally sold to us by energy suppliers. In the UK, there is no public sector role in this: every part of the process is privatised.

David Hall is a visiting professor and former director of the Public Services International Research Unit at the University of Greenwich

Fields in Trust charity finds about one in 24 people in Britain live 10 minutes walk from nearest park

Nearly 2.8 million people in the UK live more than 10 minutes walk from a public park, garden or playing field, according to research.

Fields in Trust, which protects and campaigns for public green spaces, found just four out of the 11 regions in Great Britain met its “six-acre standard” for green space provision.

Latest analysis adds to evidence that the impacts of human-caused global heating are already damaging many lives around the world

Record-breaking heatwaves in north-west India and Pakistan have been made 100 times more likely by the climate crisis, according to scientists. The analysis means scorching weather once expected every three centuries is now likely to happen every three years.

The region is currently suffering intense heat, with the Indian capital New Delhi setting a new record on Sunday above 49C and the peak temperature in Pakistan reaching 51C. Millions of people are suffering from crop losses, and water and power outages.

Gump was the last lizard of her kind when she died in 2014, and her demise should be ‘a scar on our conscience’

The last Christmas Island forest skink was named Gump. She lived in a spacious cage filled with rocks, soil, logs and a ready supply of fresh invertebrate food in the island’s national park. She wasn’t particularly active, but then again it’s impossible to know what goes on in the mind of a skink. Her namesake was Forrest Gump – they were both solitary individuals who, despite being mild and unassuming, experienced momentous events while remaining quite unaware of the exceptional courses their lives had taken.

The Christmas island forest skink (or whiptail skink) used to thrive on its island home, an Australian territory off the coast of Indonesia. In 1979, researchers documented that they were its most abundant skink. These lizards were, visually, fairly nondescript. Not too small, but by no means large, they averaged about 20cm (8in) in length, with a slim body covered in brown-yellow scales. They were practically the default image that comes to mind when you think “lizard”.

Stockholm institute calls for ‘bold science-based decision-making’ to tackle climate, social and economic crises

The world is at “boiling point” and humanity needs to redefine its relationship with nature if it is to address a web of crises, from rising prices to extreme heat and floods, according to a report released ahead of a landmark UN conference.

The research from the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and the Council on Energy Environment and Water says the solutions to the interlinked planetary and inequality crisis exist, but calls for “bold science-based decision-making” to “completely rethink our way of living,”.

Replacing GDP as the single metric to measure progress and instead focus on indicators that take “inclusive wealth” and the caring economy into account.

Establishing a regular UN forum on sustainable lifestyles.

A global campaign on nature-based education for children.

Transforming people’s everyday relationship with nature by integrating it in cities; protecting animal welfare and shifting to more plant-based diets. It also says policymakers should draw on indigenous local knowledge.

World Meteorological Organization says extreme weather wreaked heavy toll on human lives

Critical global indicators of the climate crisis broke records in 2021, according to a UN report, from rising oceans to the levels of heat-trapping emissions in the atmosphere.

The UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said these were clear signs of humanity’s impact on the planet, which was bringing long-lasting effects. Extreme weather, which the WMO called the day-to-day face of the climate emergency, wreaked a heavy toll on human lives and led to hundreds of billions of dollars in damages, the agency said.

Scientists hail breakthrough that could maximise catches while reducing damage caused by fishing

An unusual technique for catching scallops that was stumbled upon accidentally by scientists could potentially reduce some of the damage caused to our seabeds by fishing.

The marine scientist Dr Rob Enever and his team at Fishtek Marine, a fisheries consultancy based in Devon, designed small underwater “potlights” to help protect fish stocks by replacing the need to use fish to bait crab and lobster pots.

Toxic air, water and soil are ‘existential threat to human and planetary health’, says global review

Pollution is killing 9 million people a year, a review has found, making it responsible for one in six of all deaths.

Toxic air and contaminated water and soil “is an existential threat to human health and planetary health, and jeopardises the sustainability of modern societies”, the review concluded.

Report tells of 20-hour shifts for £3.50 an hour, racism and sexual abuse under cover of transit visa loophole

A third of migrant workers on UK fishing vessels work 20-hour shifts, and 35% report regular physical violence, according to new research that concludes there is rampant exploitation and abuse on British ships.

“Leaving is not possible because I’m not allowed off the vessel to ask for help,” one migrant worker told researchers at the University of Nottingham Rights Lab, which focuses on modern slavery. They found fishers reported working excessive hours, with few breaks, on an average salary of £3.51 an hour.

The climate crisis is giving trees a bigger window to spread their pollen, but cleaner air and better early warning forecasts can help protect us

If you have sneezed your way through the last few days, you are not alone. About a quarter of the UK population are thought to suffer from hay fever, with numbers continuing to grow. And the latest research suggests that the climate crisis is going to make the hay fever season a whole lot longer and more intense, with up to three times as much pollen wafting around by the end of the century. Hold on to your antihistamines.

For people with lung conditions such as asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pollen bursts are a serious risk that can be deadly in the most extreme cases. In November 2016, a pollen outbreak caused by a thunderstorm fragmenting pollen into smaller pieces in Melbourne, Australia, overwhelmed the emergency services and resulted in at least nine deaths.

Kate Ravilious is a freelance science journalist based in York, UK; she writes on Earth, climate and weather-related issues

Pascal Lamy to lead commission exploring how methods to tackle global heating could be governed

Countries must urgently agree a way of controlling and regulating attempts to geoengineer the climate, and consider whether to set a moratorium on such efforts, as the danger of global heating exceeding the 1.5C threshold increases, the former head of the World Trade Organisation has warned.

Pascal Lamy, a former director general of the WTO and a former EU trade commissioner, now president of the Paris Peace Forum, said governments were increasingly likely to explore the possibilities of geoengineering, as efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions have so far been inadequate.

Exclusive: Nearly half existing facilities will need to close prematurely to limit heating to 1.5C, scientists say

Nearly half of existing fossil fuel production sites need to be shut down early if global heating is to be limited to 1.5C, the internationally agreed goal for avoiding climate catastrophe, according to a new scientific study.

The assessment goes beyond the call by the International Energy Agency in 2021 to stop all new fossil fuel development to avoid the worst impacts of global heating, a statement seen as radical at the time.

Promises of jobs and investment are doing little to convince a remote Lincolnshire community to agree to hosting the country’s nuclear waste

On the unspoilt Lincolnshire coast, where dog walkers enjoy the five miles of golden sandy beach and families take holidays in the caravan parks beyond the dunes, the efforts of British politicians to persuade the public nuclear energy is green, safe and clean do not seem to be gaining traction.

A skull glowers down from the sand dunes on to Mablethorpe Beach, a portent of death and destruction, and a throwback to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament protests of the 1980s.

Reasons behind drop include people being more conscious of energy use during cost of living crisis, says CPRE

Light pollution has decreased as a result of fears over soaring energy costs, a survey by the countryside charity CPRE has suggested.

Stargazers have been enjoying the best view of the night sky since 2011, as light pollution sharply dropped during the pandemic lockdowns and the levels continue to fall despite restrictions having been lifted.

Non-native bugs will be first attempt at using biocontrol on floating pennywort, after years of research

South American weevils have been released into Britain’s waterways by the government in order to tackle the invasive species floating pennywort.

The industrious bugs are being heralded as a hope to cut back the weed, which grows rapidly and blankets rivers and canals, drowning out the light and choking the life within.

Despite the magnitude of Australia’s environmental decline, we still have the opportunity and ability to turn things around

It’s 1996 and I’m in my last year of undergraduate studies at James Cook University, in Townsville. World coral expert Prof Terry Hughes cautions our class that on current trajectories, climate change and coral bleaching threaten destruction of the Great Barrier Reef. In another class, rainforest expert Prof Stephen Williams shares his concerns that increasing temperatures will force highly climate-sensitive animals – including the golden bowerbird and lemuroid ringtail possum – to move higher and higher up mountains in the ancient rainforests of the Wet Tropics, to cling to survival in cooler refuges. Of course, once trapped on a mountain top, there’s nowhere further for many wildlife species to retreat to.

As an optimistic 21-year-old, their warnings are unsettling, but I’m not panicked. I’m still hopeful science will help provide answers to the challenges at hand, and naively, I trust that our political leaders will act swiftly. In doing so we’ll avoid any genuinely dire outcomes for the wildlife and ecosystems so many Australians, and indeed people globally, hold so dear. After all, we are entwined with and completely dependent upon nature, so allowing its demise would be genuinely reckless, right?