The Guardian

Lemon shark ‘kept tugging and tugging, and I could feel its teeth in my ankle’ said Heather West, who was snorkeling off Dry Tortugas

A woman punched a 6ft shark in the face until it let go of her foot, which it bit while she snorkeled off the Dry Tortugas, islands off the coast of Florida.

Heather West, 42 and from Texas, told the Daily Mail the lemon shark “kept tugging and tugging, and I could feel its teeth in my ankle”.

The best of this week’s wildlife pictures, including a patient great tit, a hungry lemur, and a lucky escape for one humpback whale

A comprehensive study confirms that oil companies are largely all talk and no action when it comes to clean energy initiatives

This week a peer-reviewed study confirmed what many have suspected for years: major oil companies are not fully backing up their clean energy talk with action. Now the PR and advertising firms that have been creating the industry’s greenwashing strategies for decades face a reckoning over whether they will continue serving big oil.

The study compared the rhetoric and actions on climate and clean energy from 2009 to 2020 from the world’s four largest oil companies – ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and BP. Writing in the journal Plos One, researchers from Tohoku University and Kyoto University in Japan conclude that the companies are not, in fact, transitioning their business models to clean energy.

Taskforce will ‘listen to local people’s concerns’, as government plans to release more than 1m tonnes

A UN nuclear taskforce has promised to prioritise safety as it launches a review of controversial plans by Japan to release more than 1m tonnes of contaminated water into the ocean from the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Japan’s government announced last April that it had decided to release the water over several decades into the Pacific Ocean, despite strong opposition from local fishers and neighbouring China and South Korea.

As Australia’s largest coal-fired plant announces an early closure, groups say government intervention in market ‘undermines confidence’

• Get our free news app; get our morning email briefing

Clean energy companies have asked the federal government “not to get in the way” of the private sector by investing in another publicly owned gas-fired power station to replace Australia’s largest coal-fired plant.

Angus Taylor, the energy and emissions reduction minister, said on Friday the government had shown it would “look at all options” to ensure there was enough “dispatchable” capacity in the electricity market after the Eraring coal plant, on the shore of Lake Macquarie in New South Wales, closes from 2025.

Even if the optimists are right and the picture is brighter than the ONS suggests, there’s still a long way to go

The government has big plans for the green economy. There are targets galore: 2m skilled jobs by 2030, sale of petrol and diesel cars to be phased out by 2035, a net zero carbon economy by 2050.

Having been the birthplace of the first industrial revolution in the 18th century, the idea is that the UK can again lead the way in the next phase of technological development. There is a 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution as a statement of intent.

A young surf lifesaver killed during a crowded carnival was one of 10 people who lost their lives during the city’s ‘shark era’

• Follow our Australia news live blog for the latest updates
• Download the free Guardian app; get our morning email briefing

A “catastrophic” shark attack that claimed the life of a Sydney swimmer on Wednesday was the city’s first fatality in 60 years – but it was far from unprecedented.

A century ago, Sydney experienced a spate of deadly encounters that continued for a decade and left authorities scrambling for answers.

The shift to a grid that runs on renewables is a manageable transformation, but the federal government’s approach still frustrates

Angus Taylor was refreshingly upfront on Thursday about the extent to which he was sidelined from a major decision affecting the future of Australia’s electricity grid.

Speaking to Ray Hadley on Sydney’s 2GB, the federal energy minister said he did not find out about Origin Energy’s decision to shut Australia’s biggest electricity generator, the Eraring coal-fired power plant, seven years earlier than scheduled until the night before.

Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning

Montague Island (known as Barunguba to the local Yuin people) off Narooma is teeming with wildlife. Guardian Australia photographer Jessica Hromas travelled there to document the unique environment, home to hundreds of Australian and New Zealand fur seals as well as sea lions and more than 90 bird species

The mayor was joined by Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah at the Clean Air summit, who urged leaders ‘to be bold’

Air pollution is a social justice issue, the mayor of London has said, as he convened a summit of regional and national health leaders to tackle toxic emissions that are damaging the health of Londoners.

“For me the issue is very simple: it’s one of social justice,” Sadiq Khan said, opening the meeting at the Royal College of Physicians in London. “It’s the poorest people, least likely to own a car, least likely to cause the toxic air problems, who are most likely to suffer the consequences.”

Research into samples of 30,000 men in China suggests ability of sperm to swim in right direction could be affected

Air pollution may affect semen quality, specifically sperm motility — the ability of sperm to swim in the right direction — according to a new study analysing the sperm of over 30,000 men in China.

The research, published today in the journal JAMA Networks, also suggests that the smaller the size of the polluting particles in the air, the greater the link with poor semen quality.

Office for National Statistics finds ‘no significant change’ in turnover and jobs in low-carbon and renewable energy sector

The UK’s low-carbon and renewable energy economy has failed to grow since 2014, according to official data showing a fall in the number of green jobs.

In a blow to the government’s pledge to boost net-zero employment opportunities, the Office for National Statistics said its latest figures, covering 2020, showed “no significant change” in turnover and job numbers in the sector compared with six years earlier.

Scientists plan a vast global store of aquatic noises to help monitor marine life, identify species – and even uncover regional dialects

From the “boing” of a minke whale to the “drum” of a red piranha, scientists are documenting more sounds in our world’s oceans, rivers and lakes every year. Now, a team of experts wants to go a step further and create a reference library of aquatic noise to monitor the health of marine ecosystems.

The Global Library of Underwater Biological Sounds, “Glubs”, will include every “thwop”, “muah” and “boop” of a humpback whale as well as human-made underwater sounds and records of the geophysical swirl of ice and wind, according to a paper in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.

Further links emerge between Craig Mackinlay’s Net Zero Scrutiny Group and Global Warming Policy Foundation

A Tory MP who leads a group which campaigns against the government’s net zero measures has recruited two members of staff from a controversial organisation that questions climate science.

After the Guardian revealed links between members of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, run by the MP Craig Mackinlay, and the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), further ties between the two organisations have been found.

Experts say shock at rare shark attack is understandable but no ‘heightened swimming risk’

• Follow our Australia news live blog for the latest updates
• Get our free news app; get our morning email briefing

Leading shark scientists have called for calm after the tragic death of a male swimmer at a beach in Sydney’s east on Wednesday.

Dr Vanessa Pirotta, a marine predator researcher at Macquarie University, said the incident at Little Beach had shaken the community because of its sheer randomness.

New alliance from 14 nations pledges to fight latest EU curbs on ‘indefensible’ practice of scooping up fish from the sea floor

An EU action plan to deal with fishing practices that trawl the ocean floor is set to trigger a row between conservationists and a new industry alliance that says it is fighting for Europe’s culture and identity.

About 32% of Europe’s fish are caught by industrial fishing vessels that rake the sea floor with enormous nets in a process called bottom trawling. Studies indicate that these nets can suck up to 41% of all invertebrate life from the sea floor and cause grave damage to marine environments such as cold water coral reefs and seagrass beds.

Research prompts warnings humanity is ‘financing its own extinction’ through subsidies damaging to the climate and wildlife

The world is spending at least $1.8tn (£1.3tn) every year on subsidies driving the annihilation of wildlife and a rise in global heating, according to a new study, prompting warnings that humanity is financing its own extinction.

From tax breaks for beef production in the Amazon to financial support for unsustainable groundwater pumping in the Middle East, billions of pounds of government spending and other subsidies are harming the environment, says the first cross-sector assessment for more than a decade.

Marine police crews and surf lifesavers search Little Bay in south-eastern Sydney, where a swimmer died on Wednesday afternoon after being attacked by a shark. They later located human remains in the water. The death is the first fatal shark attack in the city since 1963

► Subscribe to Guardian Australia on YouTube

• Little Bay shark attack: Sydney beaches closed as lifeguards patrol for further sightings
• Shark attacks increased around the world in 2021 after years of decline

Grattan Institute energy experts say News Corp’s eye-watering figures on the projected costs and job losses of an improbable moratorium are ‘inflated’

• Temperature Check is a weekly column examining claims about climate change made by governments, politicians, business and in the media. See the latest column and follow the series here

Would a moratorium on new coal and gas projects – even one with almost no chance of actually happening – really cost Queensland $85bn and “shaft” New South Wales to the tune of $19bn?

These were the eye-watering claims made in two stories in News Corp Australia mastheads in Brisbane and Sydney on the same day last week.

Most comprehensive scientific analysis to date finds words are not matched by actions

Accusations of greenwashing against major oil companies that claim to be in transition to clean energy are well-founded, according to the most comprehensive study to date.

The research, published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, examined the records of ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP, which together are responsible for more than 10% of global carbon emissions since 1965. The researchers analysed data over the 12 years up to 2020 and concluded the company claims do not align with their actions, which include increasing rather than decreasing exploration.