The Guardian

Mount Isa Mines responsible for 91% of emissions in the outback city despite having an ‘industry-leading air quality management framework’

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Mount Isa has been named the most polluted postcode in Australia in a new report from the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF).

The ACF said the outback city is one of four Queensland locations listed among the Top 10 most polluted postcodes in the country, alongside Gladstone, Stanwell and Tarong.

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Ministers instead urged to focus on reducing flights and halting airport expansion to cut carbon emissions

The UK government’s “jet zero” plan to eliminate carbon emissions from aviation relies on unproven or nonexistent technology and “sustainable” fuel, and is likely to result in ministers missing their legally binding emissions targets, according to a report.

The study from Element Energy, which has worked for the government and the climate change committee in the past, says instead of focusing on such unreliable future developments, ministers should work to reduce the overall number of flights and halt airport expansion over the next few years.

Friends of the Earth says there will be no market for Whitehaven coal as Europe’s steelmakers move to ‘green steel’

A new coalmine proposed for Cumbria is likely to be redundant before it even opens because the steelmakers that are its target market are moving so rapidly away from fossil fuels, analysis from green campaigners claims.

Steelmakers across Europe are moving to “green steel”, which uses renewable energy and modern techniques to avoid the need for coking coal of the type that the proposed mine in Whitehaven would produce.

EU concern over ‘cruel’ practice of taking blood from mares to create hormone products that increase reproduction in farmed animals

Iceland is under pressure to ban the production of a hormone extracted from pregnant horses, a practice that has been described as “cruel” and “animal abuse”.

The hormone is used by farmers across the UK and Europe to increase reproduction in pigs, cows and other female farm animals.

Pregnant Mare Serum Gonadotropin (PMSG) is extracted from pregnant horses in Iceland during the summer at “blood farms”, before being converted into powder and shipped around the world.

Conservationists and Inuit community relieved at decision on Canadian iron mine that threatened ‘extirpation’ of cetacean

The expansion of an iron ore mine in the Arctic that would have increased shipping and led to the “complete extirpation of narwhal” from the region has been blocked.

After four years of consultations and deliberations, the Nunavut Impact Review Board rejected a request from Baffinland Iron Mines Corp asking to significantly increase mining on the northern tip of Baffin Island in Nunavut, Canada. The area is home to one of the world’s richest iron ore deposits, and the densest narwhal population in the world.

$20m permit buyback aims to help recovery of jackass morwong, redfish, john dory and silver trevally

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The federal government will spend $20m to buy out fisheries in Australia’s south-east in part because the climate crisis is affecting population numbers of some species, making current fishing levels unsustainable.

The Australian Fisheries Management Authority will buy back vessel permits in the south-east trawl fishery, which is the largest commonwealth-managed fin fish fishery in Australia.

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More than 200 barriers were taken down last year, helping to restore fish migration routes and boost biodiversity and climate resilience

At least 239 barriers, including dams and weirs, were removed across 17 countries in Europe in 2021, in a record-breaking year for dam removals across the continent.

Spain led the way, with 108 structures taken out of the country’s rivers. “Our efforts to expand dam removals across Europe are gathering speed,” said Pao Fernández Garrido, project manager for the World Fish Migration Foundation, who helped produce Dam Removal Europe’s annual report.

Alok Sharma says global crises should increase, not diminish, nations’ determination to cut greenhouse gases made in Glasgow climate pact

Failure to act on the promises made at the Glasgow Cop26 climate summit last year would be “an act of monstrous self-harm”, the UK’s president of the conference will warn today in Glasgow.

Alok Sharma, the cabinet minister who led the UK-hosted summit that ended with agreement to limit global heating to 1.5C, will say that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and rising energy and food prices, have changed the global outlook drastically in the six months since.

Man ‘lucky to have escaped with his life’ after reptile latched on to his arm while swimming in the gorge at Adel’s Grove

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A man has been airlifted to hospital after wrestling himself free from a crocodile that latched on to his arm at a waterfall in remote north-west Queensland.

The RACQ LifeFlight Rescue helicopter flew the man from Lawn Hill national park to a Mount Isa hospital where he remains in a stable condition with puncture wounds to his arm, hands and leg.

Think of the images that defined our understanding of war or protest. Similar ones can tell the truth about this disaster

Open a British newspaper as a heatwave looms and you’ll likely see headlines about the unprecedented nature of the upcoming heat, the cost to lives and livelihoods, and even deaths caused by the extreme heat. But accompanying the same story you’ll also likely see images of people having fun in the sun – kids splashing in city fountains, crowded beaches, blue seas, azure skies and holiday happiness.

How the media communicates about climate breakdown reflects and shapes how societies engage with the issue. Behind every picture that makes it into the news is a person mirroring and perpetuating how society thinks about climate breakdown. Images are a key part of any media communication: they are often vivid and colourful, drawing readers in and helping them to remember a story.

They also shape news production: compelling visuals help stories rise up the media agenda. Think about the image of the man blocking a line of tanks in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, a young girl fleeing her village after being burned by napalm in the Vietnam war, smoke billowing from the twin towers. These images become part of our collective psyche – through them we remember the power of protest, the horror of war, and the moments everything changed. Images of the climate crisis can hold the same power, something the Guardian recognised in its sector-leading 2019 editorial decision to rethink the images accompanying climate stories.

Saffron O’Neill is an associate professor in geography at the University of Exeter

From a tiny home in Tasmania to a sprawling multigenerational manor inspired by camping, the Houses awards have chosen a shortlist of this year’s most sustainable architecture

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What to the rest of us has been an aberrant few years has to this new generation been their whole life

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The car was packed lightly as we drove to the ocean. Just towels, water bottles and a couple of buckets and spades. In the back seat, our two girls were fighting over the solitary pair of goggles we had remembered to bring. But we were happy. It was school holidays. We were going to the beach.

We arrived and the sky above us was so thick with blue it was as though we could wrap ourselves in it. It had been a long, wet summer. The wettest start to a year ever in Sydney. The children had barely made it to the water all season, but in the lingering afterglow of summer we hoped to grasp a last chance at a swim. The girls ran through the sandy path cutting the bush scrub towards the ocean. Blue water, white water and golden yellow sand.

Poseidon Water sought to turn seawater into drinking water but activists said plan would devastate ecosystem on Pacific coast

A California coastal panel on Wednesday rejected a longstanding proposal to build a $1.4b seawater desalination plant to turn Pacific Ocean water into drinking water as the state grapples with persistent drought that is expected to worsen in coming years with climate change.

The state’s Coastal Commission voted unanimously to deny a permit for Poseidon Water to build a plant to produce 50m gallons of water a day in Huntington Beach, south-east of Los Angeles.

Group commissioned by mayor Sadiq Khan in early stages of move to bring nature back to capital

London will be “rewilded” with new nature reserves, pocket parks and a mass community movement to bring nature back to the capital, the Guardian can reveal.

A group of rewilding experts commissioned by the mayor, Sadiq Khan, are in the early stages of drawing up the proposal. The idea came from Ben Goldsmith, a financier and environment campaigner who is on the board of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Just a handful of mink breeders in Denmark express an interest in re-entering fur industry, even if the current ban is lifted next year

Danish mink breeders have turned their backs on the industry en masse after being forced to cull their animals over fears a Covid-19 mutation could pose a risk to human health.

In November 2020, Denmark, at that point the world’s largest mink producer, controversially announced it would cull approximately 15 million animals due to fears a Covid-19 mutation moving from mink to humans could jeopardise future vaccines.

Environment agency says initial investigation into all 10 water firms suggests possible ‘serious non-compliance’ with law

A criminal investigation into water companies in England has uncovered suspected widespread illegal sewage discharges from treatment plants, the Environment Agency has revealed.

The investigation into more than 2,200 water treatment plants run by all 10 water companies is examining whether the firms breached legal regulations about when and how frequently they are allowed to release raw sewage into waterways.

Brutal heatwave in India and Pakistan also certain to have been exacerbated by global heating, scientists say

The massive and deadly floods that struck South Africa in April were made twice as likely and more intense by global heating, scientists have calculated. The research demonstrates that the climate emergency is resulting in devastation.

Catastrophic floods and landslides hit the South African provinces of KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape on 11 April following exceptionally heavy rainfall.

Hi-tech UK laboratory launched to save trees from threats including oak processionary moth, emerald ash borer and citrus longhorn beetle

The public are being urged to keep an eye out for any signs of disease in local trees, as the UK launches a hi-tech, £5.8m tree laboratory to fight the spread of pests and diseases.

The UK is especially vulnerable to the growing spread of plant pathogens because of warmer, wetter winters, and because it is a hub for global trade. The new research laboratory is set to address these threats by clamping down on pests in the UK and abroad, including the oak processionary moth, emerald ash borer and citrus longhorn beetle.

Analysis: Queensland flash floods have cut off communities and killed one woman, swept away in her car

Torrential rain has been hitting eastern Australia since Monday, with rainfall totals on the north-east coast widely achieving in excess of 100mm. In Yabulu, north of Townsville, there was major flooding on Tuesday as 196mm of rain fell within 24 hours. This was not the highest total recorded, however, with 244mm of rain falling on Tuesday at Mourilyan, near Innisfail on the Cassowary Coast.

The threat of heavy rain sank south across Queensland to the south-east, reaching Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast on Wednesday; stations in the south-east recorded up to 100mm, with a station in Dayboro recording 161mm. A further 100-150mm of rain fell on Friday across the south-east.

The climate crisis has exacerbated drought across Mexico. But female-led projects to build harvesting and filtration tanks are helping communities conserve what rain there is, and make it safe to drink
Words and photographs by Matteo Bastianelli