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An alliance of political groups is harnessing real fears about the local impact of renewables projects across Australia – and using them to spruik nuclear power

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The entrance is marked by an AI-generated image of a dead whale, floating among wind turbines. On the first floor of the East Maitland Bowling Club, dire warnings are being shared about how offshore wind may impact the Hunter region – but also a feeling of not being consulted, of being steamrolled.

“Environment and energy forums” like this one in late November have been held up and down the east of Australia, aiming to build a resistance to the country’s renewable energy transition.

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Energy company’s deal with Japan’s Jera will allow it to focus on exploiting oil and gas assets

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BP has agreed a deal worth up to £4.5bn to build offshore windfarms with Japan’s biggest power producer, in a shift that will allow it to gain some access to zero-carbon wind energy while focusing on fossil fuels.

The FTSE 100 company will create a 50-50 joint-venture with the Japanese power generator Jera to combine their offshore wind assets, the companies announced on Monday.

Conservation groups join those who helped plant woodland in opposing expansion of bottling plant

Harrogate Spring Water, which is owned by the multinational Danone,is planning to cut down a wood planted by schoolchildren in order to expand its bottling factory in the North Yorkshire town.

Two primary schools, along with other local volunteers, helped to plant 450 trees in a project organised by the Rotary Club of Harrogate almost 20 years ago.

An area nearly a third larger than India turned permanently arid in past three decades, research shows

An area of land nearly a third larger than India has turned from humid conditions to dryland – arid areas where agriculture is difficult – in the past three decades, research has found.

Drylands now make up 40% of all land on Earth, excluding Antarctica. Three-quarters of the world’s land suffered drier conditions in the past 30 years, which is likely to be permanent, according to the study, by the UN Science Policy Interface, a body of scientists convened by the United Nations.

Average global temperature in November was 1.62C above preindustrial levels, bringing average for the year to 1.60C

This year is now almost certain to be the hottest year on record, data shows. It will also be the first to have an average temperature of more than 1.5C above preindustrial levels, marking a further escalation of the climate crisis.

Data for November from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) found the average global surface temperature for the month was 1.62C above the level before the mass burning of fossil fuels drove up global heating. With data for 11 months of 2024 now available, scientists said the average for the year is expected to be 1.60C, exceeding the record set in 2023 of 1.48C.

Male players must step up and add their voice to the campaign to stop our sport being sold out to the big polluters causing climate change

At the Cop29 climate conference last month Sofie Junge Pedersen and Katie Rood again called for Fifa to drop its sponsorship deal with the Saudi Arabian state oil company Aramco. They were among more than 130 female players who signed an open letter in October that described the partnership as a “middle finger to women’s football” that will do real damage to people and our planet.

After the letter was published, I spoke out in support of their initiative. I hoped other professional male players would join me. The women were widely applauded for speaking out but their male counterparts have not followed suit. On Wednesday, Fifa is poised to confirm Saudi Arabia as the host of the 2034 men’s World Cup.

Hot, dry conditions bring numerous species into contact with people and pets, and not just in the bush. It’s good to know which is which

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The quickest way to tell the difference between an eastern brown snake and a copperhead is to nearly step on it. If it strikes, it’s an eastern brown. If it stays still as you jump back, it’s a copperhead.

Thankfully, the snake I nearly stood on this week as I walked distractedly through the horse yard was a copperhead. Lowland copperheads are the seventh most venomous snake in Australia, but they are also shy and only bite when severely provoked. They are pretty common here in the Macedon Ranges. This is the second time I’ve nearly stepped on this particular snake. I also didn’t see it when carrying washing out to the line last month. Both times it skedaddled.

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The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world

Here are some of the standout images from the 2024 Nature Conservancy Oceania Photo Contest.

The 2024 contest saw close to 2,000 entries from photographers in Australia, New Zealand, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea

• Dead native birds and flying foxes found in SA town home to one of world’s largest lead smelters

Exposure to these toxic compounds, found in everyday items, could be elevating cancer risk in young women

More than 400 chemicals regularly used in everyday plastic products are linked to breast cancer, and the dangerous compounds could be a driver of increasingly elevated cancer rates in young women, new research finds.

Many of the toxic chemicals – such as PFAS, phthalates, parabens and aromatic amines – are added to food packaging, personal care products and single-use plastics, making exposures nearly ubiquitous.

Flash flooding and widespread disruption on Greek islands, while Australians experience unusually wet start to summer

Greece was hit hard by Storm Bora last weekend, with torrential rain, gale-force winds and intense thunderstorms affecting the islands of Rhodes and Lemnos in particular.

The storm formed on Friday 29 November and rapidly intensified by Saturday, with wind speeds reaching up to 80mph (129km/h). Rhodes had 300mm of rain, which caused flash flooding and widespread disruption. Three people were killed and power outages, school closures, overturned vehicles and collapsed bridges were reported.

The overwhelming majority of Europeans support climate action, but they must be compensated for its costs in tangible ways

This year was not an easy time to be Green. Green parties took a beating in June’s European elections, with their seat count plummeting from 71 to 53. In national elections they haven’t fared much better. The Green party was nearly wiped out in last week’s general election in Ireland, losing all but one of its seats after having been part of a coalition government.

At the same time, climate-sceptic parties framing environmental policies as elitist and unfair have surged across the continent. In Germany, for instance, the far-right AfD owes some of its electoral success to its rallying cry against an emerging “eco-dictatorship”.

Björn Bremer is an assistant professor of political science at Central European University and a John F Kennedy Memorial fellow at Harvard University. Jane Gingrich is a professor of social policy at the University of Oxford. Hanna Schwander is a professor of political sociology and social policy at the Humboldt University of Berlin. They are all co-conveners of the Progressive Politics Research Network, whose findings are published here

The forests are home to eagles, smelly lichen and fungus that looks like intestines, say conservationists battling to save them

Britain’s rare rainforests are home to wildlife from eagles to the world’s largest slugs and lichen looks like dragon skin, say conservationists battling to save them.

The Woodland Trust has unveiled a list of 11 “weird and wonderful” species that make their home in and around temperate rainforests found in the south-west and north-west of England, Wales and Scotland.

Some media outlets are already offering forecasts nearly three weeks out – but the BoM advises people to check in on 18 December

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Wondering whether to pack a poncho or sunhat for carols? Locking in plans for a picnic or pool party on 25 December?

Some media outlets are already offering a Christmas Day forecast – nearly three weeks out from the festivities – but is it too early to rely on the festive weather forecast?

‘Tight correlation’ between premium rises and counties deemed most at risk from climate crisis, experts say

Concern over the climate crisis may evaporate in the White House from January, but its financial costs are now starkly apparent to Americans in the form of soaring home insurance premiums – with those in the riskiest areas for floods, storms and wildfires suffering the steepest rises of all.

A mounting toll of severe hurricanes, floods, fires and other extreme events has caused average premiums to leap since 2020, with parts of the US most prone to disasters bearing the brunt. A climate crisis is starting to stir an insurance crisis.

New liquefied natural gas projects could produce 10 gigatonnes of emissions by the end of the decade, close to the annual emissions of all coal plants

A $200bn wave of new gas projects could lead to a “climate bomb” equivalent to releasing the annual emissions of all the world’s operating coal power plants, according to a report.

Large banks have invested $213bn into plans to build terminals that export and import gas that is chilled and shipped on ocean tankers. But a report has warned that they could be more damaging than coal power.

US says current climate rules are satisfactory, prompting condemnation from activists and vulnerable countries

Climate justice campaigners have condemned the US after the world’s largest historic greenhouse gas emitter argued against countries being legally obliged to combat the climate crisis.

The US intervention came on Wednesday as part of the historic climate hearing at the international court of justice (ICJ) in The Hague, where island nations and other climate-vulnerable countries are calling for wealthy polluting nations most responsible for climate breakdown to be held legally responsible.

Mary Lawlor criticizes US’s failure to respond to concerns after Alex Connon and John Mark Rozendaal charges

A leading UN human rights expert has expressed dismay after the US government failed to respond to questions about the criminal crackdown on peaceful climate protesters.

Mary Lawlor, the UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders, on Tuesday published a letter sent to US authorities raising concerns about the potential violation of international human rights law after two climate activists, Alex Connon and John Mark Rozendaal, were charged with crimes that carried lengthy jail terms.

Carrboro officials say Duke Energy broke state laws waging decades-long ‘deception campaign’ about fossil fuels

A small North Carolina town has launched the nation’s first-ever climate accountability lawsuit against an electric utility.

The litigation, filed by officials from Carrboro, North Carolina, on Wednesday morning, accuses Duke Energy of waging a “deception campaign” to obscure the climate dangers of fossil fuels. Those efforts resulted in delayed action to curb planet-heating pollution, which has pushed up the costs of climate action today, the lawsuit says.

EDF extends life of reactors to ‘boost energy security’ and bridge gap before new Somerset project starts up

Four of Britain’s oldest nuclear power plants will continue running for more than a decade longer than initially planned to help bridge a gap before the delayed Hinkley Point nuclear station starts up.

The owner of Britain’s nuclear plants, the French energy company EDF, said it had agreed to extend the lifetime of its reactors yet again to “boost energy security and reduce dependence on imported gas”.