The Guardian

Environment groups welcome long-awaited deal to curb harmful subsidies but say key measures to curb overfishing were dropped

After 20 years of failed negotiations, the World Trade Organization has secured a deal to curb harmful subsidies that contribute to overfishing. Conservationists and campaign groups welcomed last week’s agreement as historic, despite criticism of “big holes” in the agreement.

The deal was the first concluded in Geneva for all 164 member states of the WTO with “environmental sustainability” at its core, the organisation’s director general, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said in her closing speech.

Gas stations are environmental liabilities and hugely expensive to remediate. Electric cars are making gas stations obsolete

Whether or not we’ve all realized it, the era of gasoline-powered cars is rapidly winding to a close – and with it, gas stations and the pollution they bring to communities.

People are tired of being forced to pay obscene amounts of money for fuel every time there’s an international incident. Meanwhile, the cost of battery tech is just 10% of what it was a decade ago, and is expected to continue dropping as the decade wears on. And just this month the Biden administration announced its plan for making EV charging stations accessible across the US.

Nathan Taft is the digital and communications lead for Stand.earth’s Safe Cities initiative

Faroese firm Bakkafrost claims direct flights to US will cut carbon but critics say air transport is not the answer

A salmon farming company has bought a Boeing 757 in a race to get its fresh fish on to the plates of diners in Manhattan in less than 24 hours.

The Faroese firm Bakkafrost, which also owns the Scottish Salmon Company, argues it can cut its carbon footprint by flying its own jet across the Atlantic and minimise waste by getting its fish to its US customers faster.

Experts warn ambitious targets for nature must be agreed at UN meeting, moved from China to Canada after two-year wait

The date for a key UN nature summit has finally been confirmed after more than two years of delays and amid fears momentum to halt biodiversity loss across the globe has been lost.

Ahead of the latest round of negotiations in Nairobi this week, the UN convention on biological diversity confirmed that the Cop15 biodiversity conference will now take place in Montreal, Canada, from 5 to 17 December, after it became clear China would not be able to host the event in Kunming due to the country’s zero-Covid policy.

Bureau of Meteorology says winter will be wetter than average and a rare three-in-a-row La Niña is still on the cards

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The Australian Bureau of Meteorology has announced an end to the 2021-22 La Niña in the tropical Pacific – but it could return with the BoM changing its status to “watch”.

La Niña, which involves warming ocean temperatures in the western Pacific, typically delivers increased rainfall across much of Australia along with cooler daytime temperatures south of the tropics and warmer night-time temperatures in the north.

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Five claimants aged 17-31 want their governments to exit the energy charter treaty, which compensates oil and gas firms

Young victims of the climate crisis will on Tuesday launch legal action at Europe’s top human rights court against an energy treaty that protects fossil fuel investors.

Five people, aged between 17 and 31, who have experienced devastating floods, forest fires and hurricanes are bringing a case to the European court of human rights, where they will argue that their governments’ membership of the little-known energy charter treaty (ECT) is a dangerous obstacle to action on the climate crisis. It is the first time that the Strasbourg court will be asked to consider the treaty, a secretive investor court system that enables fossil fuel companies to sue governments for lost profits.

The world's largest ever freshwater fish has been caught in Cambodia's Mekong River, according to US and Cambodian scientists. The giant stingray measured almost 4 metres from snout to tail, and weighed in at just under 300kg (660lb). The previous world record was a 293kg (646lb) Mekong giant catfish, caught in Thailand in 2005.

The stingray was snagged by a local fisher on the night of 13 June, south of the town of Stung Treng

• Largest freshwater fish ever recorded caught in Cambodia

Ohio State University researchers gauged responses to climate science versus scepticism and suggest facts bear repeating

People’s views of the climate crisis can be influenced by the media, according to new research. But accurate scientific reporting only has limited impact on people who already have a fixed political viewpoint, particularly if that is opposed to climate action.

Scientists ran an experiment in the US to find out how people responded to media reporting on the climate and found that people’s views of climate science really were shifted by reading reporting that accurately reflected scientific findings on the climate. They were also more willing to back policies that would tackle the problem.

Researchers estimate that carbon emissions from transporting food are about 6% of the global total, with fruit and vegetables the largest contributor

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Transporting food from where it is produced to our dinner plates creates at least triple the amount of greenhouse gas emissions as previously estimated, a new study suggests.

So called “food miles” are likely responsible for about 6% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, the authors of the study found after calculating that 3bn tonnes of CO2-equivalent was produced in transporting food for human consumption each year.

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Ban on manufacture and import of six popular types of items will begin in December 2022, and sales a year later

Canada laid out its final regulations on Monday spelling out how it intends to apply a ban on plastic bags, straws, takeout containers and other single-use plastics.

“Only 8% of the plastic we throw away gets recycled,” said federal health minister Jean-Yves Duclos in French, adding that 43,000 tonnes of single-use plastics a year find their way into the environment, most notably in waterways.

Giant stingray snagged by local fisher in Mekong River weighs nearly 300kg

The world’s largest recorded freshwater fish, a giant stingray, has been caught in the Mekong River in Cambodia, according to scientists.

The stingray, captured on 13 June, measured almost four metres from snout to tail and weighed just under 300kg, according to a statement on Monday by Wonders of the Mekong, a joint Cambodian-US research project.

Guardian given details about next generation of marine nature reserves where all fishing is banned

Five highly protected marine areas (HPMAs) will this week be created by the government to ban all fishing and rewild the sea, the Guardian has learned.

The new generation of marine nature reserves, which are governed by tougher regulations to allow decimated sea life to recover, are being set up close to the coast of Lindisfarne in Northumberland and at Allonby Bay, Cumbria, and at three offshore sites, two in the North Sea and one at Dolphin Head in the Channel.

Campaigners say nature in England faces ‘perfect storm of threats’ with eight promised bills yet to appear

Nature faces a “perfect storm of threats”, campaigners say, after eight wildlife bills promised by Boris Johnson since coming to power have so far failed to see the light of day.

The government has been accused of reneging on commitments by failing to deliver policies on nature-friendly farming, the use of peat and pesticides, reintroducing beavers and other lost species, and protecting rare marine life.

Post-Brexit farming reforms – The government has broken its promise to reform farming post-Brexit. In its national food strategy for England published earlier this month the government’s commitment to provide a third of its farming budget for landscape recovery has been abandoned.

Ban on horticultural peat use – The government has consulted on the ban on the sale of peat and products containing peat in England and Wales after the failure of voluntary targets. Over 12 weeks (the usual time limit for responding) have passed and the government has yet to respond to the consultation. There was also no clear legislative vehicle in the recent Queen’s speech to enact the ban.

Beaver reintroductions – Last year, the government consulted on further reintroductions of beavers in England following the successful River Otter beaver trial. The government has yet to publish its response to the consultation or announce its approach to the reintroduction of beavers in England. This was part of the secretary of state’s announcement at Delamere Forest in May 2021.

Species reintroduction taskforce – Also part of that announcement was the commitment to establish an England species reintroduction taskforce to consider reintroductions of lost species such as wildcats, as well as the release of declining species such as the curlew, into areas from which they have been lost to help populations recover.

National action plan on the sustainable use of pesticides – The UK government consulted on the draft national action plan in December 2020 but has yet to publish the final version of its plan to replace the 2013 version.

Landscapes review – Despite responding to the landscapes review, the government has yet to legislate for the recommendations it accepted, such as amending the statutory purpose to ensure the core function of protected landscapes should be to drive nature recovery in England.

Integrated pest management – The government has yet to confirm whether key components of the new agricultural system, such as integrated pest management, will be included in the new sustainable farming incentive from next year.

Bycatch mitigation initiative – A policy to protect rare marine life from being unintentionally caught by fishers was approved in March but has not come to fruition, after being expected in May.

Forecast models are already hinting at area of significant heat taking hold across Iberia next week

Thankfully, the heatwave is coming to an end this week across western Europe, with temperatures returning nearer to normal. But this may only be a temporary reprieve, as forecast models are already hinting at an area of significant heat taking hold across Iberia by the start of next week.

The extent of the recent heatwave across parts of central and western Europe has been widely reported. Temperature records have been broken and, in France and parts of Spain, it is the earliest point in summer during which a heatwave of this magnitude has been recorded. A temperature of 39.2C (102.6F) observed in Cottbus, Germany, also came within 0.4°C of the June record. Large fires, resulting from parched vegetation, are ravaging parts of Spain. The observed heat is very much in line with the predictions of scientists in that heatwaves in Europe will occur earlier and with greater ferocity due to climate change.

From 2001 to 2021, Nigeria lost 1.14 million hectares of forest, equivalent to a 11% decrease in tree cover and equal to 587 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, according to Global Forest Watch. Cutting down trees for logging, opening up farmland or to feed energy demand for a growing population is putting pressure on Nigeria’s natural forests

Advice that allowed farmers to spread manures in a way that risked polluting waters has been changed by Defra

Guidance that would have allowed farmers to spread manures and slurry on land in a way that would overload it with nutrients and risk pollution of rivers, lakes and coastal waters has been changed by Defra, after a challenge over its lawfulness.

Manures, which include sewage sludge, abattoir waste and slurries, are a leading source of water pollution. Their application is strictly controlled under what are known as the Farming Rules for Water. But Defra’s guidance had directed the Environment Agency not to enforce a breach of the rules if a farmer produced its own manures or used imported manures that could lead to nutrient overload.

From Somerset to Derby, councils are rewilding rivers, parks and golf courses, despite claims by some that it is only for wealthy landowners

One in five county councils have embraced rewilding on public land in Great Britain, with a growing number setting aside former golf courses, post-industrial scrubland and recovering waterways for nature.

From Rhondda Cynon Taf to Brighton, 43 councils in England, Wales and Scotland have launched rewilding schemes or are planning to do so in rural and urban areas, a joint investigation by the Guardian and the wildlife magazine Inkcap Journal found.

The government pretends that farming and the countryside are synonymous – and our environment suffers as a result

We have a problem. The environment secretary, George Eustice – the highest green authority in the land – is, in a crucial respect, a climate denier. In an interview with the Telegraph, he claimed that “livestock, particularly if you do it with the right pastoral system, has a role to play in tackling climate change”.

Though such claims are often made, there is no evidence to support them. A wide-ranging review of the data by the Oxford Martin School found no case of a livestock operation sequestering more greenhouse gases than the animals produce. Moreover, because of the very large land area required for grazing livestock, pastoral systems carry a massive carbon opportunity cost (this means the carbon that would be captured if the land were returned to wild ecosystems). According to the government’s Climate Change Committee, “transitioning from grassland to forestland would increase the soil carbon stock by 25 tonnes of carbon per hectare (on average across England) … This is additional to the large amounts of carbon that would be stored in the biomass of the trees themselves.”

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

Exclusive: state budget funds to go towards boosting number of charging points in apartment blocks and on streets

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The New South Wales government will invest $38m to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles by building more charging sites, including for apartment buildings and roadsides.

The extra funds, to be unveiled in Tuesday’s budget, will bring to $633m the money being spent on NSW’s strategy aimed at ensuring half of all car sales by 2030-31 are electric.

Solar Victoria fielded 50% higher than usual number of inquiries into power storage amid cold snap across eastern states

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Demand for batteries linked to rooftop solar panels has soared in the past month amid energy price rices and the coldest start to winter in decades.

According to Solar Victoria chief executive, Stan Krpan, inquiries into battery rebates in Victoria have spiked in the past two weeks.