The Guardian

Focus turns to criminal investigation after NSW Environment Protection Authority completes its trawl through the supply chain

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Mulch contaminated with asbestos has been found at 75 sites across greater Sydney, with the New South Wales environmental watchdog turning focus to its criminal investigation after the completion of contact tracing.

The NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) will on Thursday announce it has finished tracking mulch through the complex supply chain after asbestos was first discovered by a parent in mulch at a park in the inner west more than two months ago.

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The Long Table in Gloucestershire is a not-for-profit that rescues food waste, sources local produce and pays the real living wage

A Gloucestershire restaurant is rethinking relationships with customers, suppliers and the entire food economy to fuel an ambitious “pay as you can” model that feeds allcomers, regardless of ability to pay.

In the past year, The Long Table has fed about 20,000 people at below-cost price – many for no charge at all, no questions asked – while rescuing 3.4 tonnes of food destined for the bin and paying local suppliers fair prices for the rest.

Report links rise in birds trapped for human consumption to cuts in anti-poaching resources in area of British military base

More than 400,000 songbirds were trapped and killed in Cyprus last autumn as part of a recent increase in wildlife crime, according to a new report.

Organised crime networks use decoys and speakers playing birdsong to lure these small birds – including garden favourites such as robins and sparrows – to nest in bushes or orchards, where they catch them with “mist” nets or branches covered in glue. They are then sold via the hidden market to restaurants to be eaten as a local dish called “ambelopoulia”, which consists of pickled or boiled songbirds.

We are buying more electric and plug-in hybrid cars – 8.5% of all new sales last year – and no one’s weekend has ended. But that’s barely half of the global sales proportion

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The number of electric vehicles sold in Australia is increasing, but let’s be blunt: battery power cars are still unattainable for most people. Most models are expensive, and there are often long waiting lists.

Nearly 100,000 EVs and plug-in hybrid cars were sold across the country last year – 8.5% of all new sales. The good news is it was more than double the figure the previous year, and no one’s weekend ended as a result. But it was still barely half of the global sales proportion of 15.8%. In climate terms, we’re not pulling our weight.

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Mass dieoff in Klamath River caused by extreme changes in water pressure amid largest dam removal project in US history

As many as hundreds of thousands of newly hatched Chinook salmon released into the Klamath River have died due to “gas bubble disease” caused by extreme changes in water pressure.

The young salmon fry were released amid the largest dam removal project in US history along the 257-mile-long river, which flows across Oregon and California. Four hydropower dams are being removed, reconnecting the lower and upper portions of the Klamath River for the first time in a century and allowing fish free passage along the river.

Finding comes as public consultation for the proposed fuel efficiency standard closes, with advocates warning of a loophole for SUVs

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Cars sold in Australia by just five companies emitted as much carbon dioxide in 2023 as 156 standard coalmines, analysis shows, as advocates eager for the government’s proposed fuel efficiency standard warn of a loophole for SUVs.

However as the Albanese government considers the views of industry players on its proposed fuel efficiency standard, tensions are firming between auto manufacturers and environmental groups about how strict the new rules should be.

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Exclusive: Electric car company says Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries is running a ‘concerted public campaign’ by suggesting plan would push up price of popular cars

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Tesla has launched a scathing attack on Australia’s main auto industry lobby group, accusing it of attempting to delay climate action by repeatedly making “plainly false” claims to the public about an Albanese government clean car policy.

In a submission to the government about the design of a vehicle efficiency standard, Tesla sharply criticised the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI), an organisation in which it holds a board seat and is an active member.

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Exclusive: Wildlife groups welcome promise to ban pesticides approved by government against scientists’ advice

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Labour will end exemptions for bee-killing pesticides that have already been outlawed in the EU but which the UK government has approved for four years in a row, the shadow environment minister has said.

This week, the government authorised the use of thiamethoxam, also known as Cruiser SB, on sugar beet crops – against the advice of its scientists, who said it would pose a threat to bees.

Rural households led by women lose about 8% more income to heat stress than male-led families, data shows

Women in rural areas suffer substantially greater economic losses from the impacts of climate breakdown than men in developing countries, research has shown, and the gap is likely to widen further.

Households headed by women in rural areas lost about 8% more of their income to heat stress than male-headed households, and their reduction in income when floods struck was about 3% greater than the loss to men, according to data released by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on Tuesday.

Britain spent about £26bn in three years on low-carbon measures, less than Italy, Germany, France and Spain, Greenpeace finds

The UK spends less on low-carbon energy policy than any other major European economy, analysis has shown, despite evidence that such spending could lower household bills and increase economic growth more than the tax cuts the government has planned.

Spending on low-carbon measures for the three years from April 2020 to the end of April 2023 was about $33.3bn (£26.2bn) in total for the UK, the lowest out of the top five European economies, according to an analysis by Greenpeace of data from the International Energy Agency.

BBC presenter defends climate activists’ right to target MPs’ homes amid debate over politicians’ safety

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Downing Street has accused the BBC presenter Chris Packham of being “irresponsible” after he said Just Stop Oil had a right to protest outside the homes of MPs despite fears over politicians’ safety.

Rishi Sunak’s official spokesperson said the police would consider such demonstrations “intimidatory” and use their powers to move on protesters under a policing protocol agreed last week.

Invasive species could be worse than rabbits, cane toads, foxes, camels, wild dogs and feral cats combined, committee hears

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A Senate inquiry into the spread of fire ants in Australia has heard that the government program tasked with their elimination is an “absolute shambles” and that an independent eradication body is urgently needed.

The highly invasive insect is believed to have entered Australia in the 1990s and was discovered at Brisbane port in 2001. A program spanning state, territory and federal governments was created to eradicate red imported fire ants and it has received more than $1.2bn of federal and state funding. Of that, $593m covers 2023 to 2027.

Leaks are driving 30% of the climate crisis and MethaneSat will provide the first first near-comprehensive global view

A washing-machine-sized satellite is to “name and shame” the worst methane polluters in the oil and gas industry.

MethaneSat is scheduled to launch from California onboard a SpaceX rocket on Monday at 2pm local time (22:00 GMT). It will provide the first near-comprehensive global view of leaks of the potent greenhouse gas from the oil and gas sector, and all of the data will be made public. It will provide high-resolution data over wider areas than existing satellites.

Permission granted for judicial review after Planning Inspectorate overturned local council’s decision to reject plan

Campaigners have been given permission to challenge plans for a new oilfield in an area of outstanding natural beauty – which they say threatens one of England’s “hidden rural treasures”.

The proposed oil-drilling operation is in Biscathorpe in the Lincolnshire Wolds, an important habitat for nature and wildlife that has been officially designated an area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB).

As part of the state-sponsored programme to restore arctic fox populations, Norway has been feeding the animals for nearly 20 years, helping boost numbers from as few as 40 in Norway, Finland, and Sweden, to about 550 across Scandinavia today. ‘Without these conservation measures, the arctic fox would surely have become extinct in Norway,’ said Bjørn Rangbru, a senior adviser on threatened species with the country’s environment agency

Exclusive: Ex-employees of Australian Agribusiness Group allege dozens of injuries occurred as blue gums cleared for agricultural use, claims which the company rejects

WARNING: contains images some viewers may find distressing

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Dozens of koalas have been killed or injured and left for dead during logging of blue gum plantations in South Australia, according to former employees of the harvesting company and a conservation organisation that tried to save the marsupials.

Ex-employees of the company managing the plantation estate Australian Agribusiness Group said they tried to save at least 40 injured koalas and saw about 20 that had been killed as plantations on Kangaroo Island were cleared for agricultural use.

City of Sydney lord mayor reveals testing of potentially contaminated mulch has cost $200,000 with remediation costs likely to be ‘substantial’

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Sydney’s lord mayor, Clover Moore, has accused the New South Wales government and the state’s environment watchdog of a “massive” and “costly” regulatory failure over the ongoing asbestos contamination crisis.

City of Sydney councillors gathered at an extraordinary general meeting on Monday to discuss how contaminated mulch came to be used across numerous city parks. Moore revealed testing alone had already cost the council more than $200,000.

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Four-metre shark euthanised after becoming beached on shore at Kingscliff on Tweed Coast

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A great white shark washed up on to a beach on the New South Wales north coast, shocking locals and attracting a crowd of beachgoers.

The 4m shark was seen swimming close to shore near Kingscliff beach on the Tweed Coast on Monday morning, with lifeguards tracking its progress until it was beached.

On a planet getting hotter and drier by the year, governments are wilfully ignoring a looming crisis

There’s a flaw in the plan. It’s not a small one: it is an Earth-sized hole in our calculations. To keep pace with the global demand for food, crop production needs to grow by at least 50% by 2050. In principle, if nothing else changes, this is feasible, thanks mostly to improvements in crop breeding and farming techniques. But everything else is going to change.

Even if we set aside all other issues – heat impacts, soil degradation, epidemic plant diseases accelerated by the loss of genetic diversity – there is one which, without help from any other cause, could prevent the world’s people from being fed. Water.

A mystery paralysis syndrome is afflicting lorikeet populations in south-east Queensland and northern NSW at a rate scientists say they have never seen

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Dr Tim Portas pulls the patient from a cardboard box, wraps him in a towel and touches a cotton bud on his eye to see if he can blink.

Patient number 1,433,093 is one of about 3,500 Rainbow lorikeets that have come into the RSPCA’s wildlife hospital near Brisbane since the beginning of the year with a mystery paralysis.

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