The Guardian

Speaking at a Fridays for Future march in Milan, the environmental activist lambasted ministers for their inaction over the climate emergency. 

Thunberg has been in Italy's financial capital to participate in a Youth4Climate event where environment ministers and young people are trying to figure out a working framework before the Glasgow Cop26 meeting in November

The best of this week’s wildlife pictures, including Siberian wolves, a long-tailed hummingbird and a hungry polar bear

Roundabouts blocked near Heathrow and Brent Cross as climate activists stage 10th day of protests

The climate campaign group Insulate Britain is staging its 10th day of protests in the past three weeks.

The organisation said about 30 activists have blocked roundabouts at junction 3 of the M4 near Heathrow airport, west London, and junction 1 of the M1 at Brent Cross, north London.

Thousands of metres below the ocean’s surface, diverse aquatic species, from octopuses to coral, thrive in extreme darkness and cold. Amid plans to mine the seabed’s mineral riches, experts warn of the threat to lifeforms still to be documented

More in this series
• Race to the bottom: the disastrous, blindfolded rush to mine the deep sea
• ‘False choice’ – is deep sea mining required for an electric vehicle revolution?
• Covid tests and superbug killers: how the deep sea is key to fighting pandemics

Campaigners hail ruling preventing TTR dredging 50m tonnes of iron-sands from South Taranaki coast, though mining firm says it will try again

• Race to the bottom: the disastrous, blindfolded rush to mine the deep sea

A New Zealand offshore mining company has lost its supreme court bid to overturn a decision preventing it from mining millions of tonnes of iron-sand off the coast of South Taranaki, on New Zealand’s North Island.

Thursday’s unanimous ruling by New Zealand’s supreme court, which upheld previous high court and appeal court decisions revoking Trans-Tasman Resources’ (TTR) permission to mine, was welcomed by environmentalists and the mining company, albeit from opposing perspectives.

National Trust says people are turning into ‘leaf peepers’ with more noticing trees than at start of pandemic

The nights are drawing in and there is a chill in the air but research commissioned by a conservation charity suggests British people are increasingly finding solace at what can be a tricky time of year in the joy of autumn colour.

About a third of people questioned said enjoying the burst of gold, red, purples russet and orange that accompanies autumn was their favourite thing about the season, ahead of looking forward to Bonfire Night, the television schedule or even Christmas.

Louis favours the sulphur-crested cockatoo, the lorikeet is Leon’s choice, while the all-embracing Matilda loves ‘any bird’

• Australian bird of the year poll 2021

The bird of the year competition is a rewarding, yet divisive time for many Guardian readers, and employees.

Tensions fly high on social media as debates rage over the deserved victor: should it be the majestic, yet not-in-any-way threatened Australian pelican? The ACT’s beloved Gang-gang cockatoo, endangered in the wake of destructive bushfires?

I spend all day at home in lockdown in a state of revulsion. When I’m not cleaning, I’m sneezing

Is it Covid or is it dust? Since I moved into this apartment, I frequently wake up with a runny nose, an inflamed throat and watery eyes.

I’ve never lived in a place that’s so dusty. The amount of dust I must deal with each day is confounding. I am constantly dusting, only for it to return an hour later. Where does it come from? Why is it here? Can we cohabitate or will I inhale so much of it that I’ll eventually choke?

The UN must urgently appoint a special rapporteur on climate change and human rights to galvanise action on the biggest threat to fundamental freedoms

Climate breakdown is making a mockery of human rights.

Start with the most fundamental right of all: the right to life, liberty and security. Two million people have died as a result of a five-fold increase in weather-related disasters in our lifetimes. And given that 90% of these deaths have occurred in developing countries, which have contributed the least to global heating, the climate crisis is also making a mockery of the notion that we are all born equal – as the UN Declaration of Human Rights and numerous national constitutions assert.

A Guardian investigation reveals exploitation is rife in the meat industry, while also being a major source of greenhouse gases. Yet we still subsidise it

The case for cutting meat consumption is so compelling that you would think politicians would be less shy about making it. Yet while campaigners warn with increasing urgency that global livestock production is accelerating climate breakdown and causing devastating damage to nature and human health, governments remain reluctant to tackle meat-eating.

Industrial livestock systems designed to extract ever greater commercial value from farmed animals have repeatedly been shown to depend on cruelty to animals and the armies of workers processing them.

Oil and gas producers could reduce emissions at low cost or even at a profit by staunching leaks, says thinktank

Sharp cuts in methane from leaking gas drilling platforms and production sites could play a major role in the greenhouse gas emissions reductions necessary to fulfil the Paris climate agreement, and should be a key aim for the Cop26 UN climate talks, new research suggests.

Cutting global emissions of methane by 40% by 2030 is achievable, with most cuts possible at low cost or even at a profit for companies such as oil and gas producers. It would make up for much of the shortfall in emissions reductions plans from national governments, according to the Energy Transitions Commission thinktank.

From grieving pet owners to TV shows and major museums, demand for taxidermists remains strong. And birds are a mainstay

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For Lauren Hundloe, bringing dead birds “back to life” is all in a day’s work.

The former public servant turned taxidermist used to stuff animals of all sizes, from mice to elk and everything in between. Now she deals almost exclusively with birds in her Brisbane studio.

Judge blocks Teal Cedar Products’ extension request and says police conduct on Vancouver Island has put court at risk

A provincial court in Canada has refused to extend an injunction against protesters demonstrating against old-growth logging, ruling that police conduct has been so troubling that to extend the order would place the court’s own reputation at risk.

Related: Rescue of trapped Ontario miners involved gruelling climb to surface

French experts say the mountain has lost an average of 13 centimetres in height every year since 2001

French experts say they have measured Mont Blanc, the tallest mountain in western Europe, at almost a metre lower than its previous official height.

Geographical experts said that after an expedition in mid-September the mighty mountain in the heart of the French Alps was 4,807.81 metres (15,773.65ft) high, lower than their last published estimate of 4,808.72 metres (15,776.64ft ) in 2017.

Factors behind disappearances include too much development, water pollution, logging and competition from invasive species

The ivory-billed woodpecker and 22 more birds, fish and other species are expected to be declared extinct by the US Fish and Wildlife Service on Wednesday.

It’s a rare move for wildlife officials to give up hope on a plant or animal, but government scientists have exhausted efforts to find these 23 species and warned that the climate crisis, on top of other pressures, could make such disappearances more common.

Police arrest 11 after climate crisis protesters defy court injunction and glue themselves to road

Police have arrested 11 people after activists from Insulate Britain blocked a roundabout at a junction with the M25 by glueing themselves to the road on Wednesday morning.

The protest, which started at about 7.30am, was the seventh similar action to be taken by the Extinction Rebellion splinter group – and the second since the granting of a court injunction that threatened imprisonment or unlimited fines if they did not stop.

Government removes costs and red tape in go-ahead for more trials of gene edited crops

The prospect of genetically modified foods being grown and sold in the UK has come a step closer after changes to farming regulations that will allow field trials of gene edited crops in England.

Companies or research organisations wishing to conduct field trials will still have to notify the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the government announced on Wednesday, but existing costs and red tape will be removed so more trials are likely to go ahead.

UK photographer Anup Shah won the competition with his photograph of a gorilla walking through a cloud of butterflies in the Central African Republic

Data highlights urgent need for government action to introduce low-carbon heat pumps, researchers say

The millions of gas boilers in the UK’s homes produce twice as much climate-heating carbon emissions as all the nation’s gas-fired power stations combined, according to an analysis.

The finding highlighted the urgent need for a strong government policy to rapidly introduce low-carbon heating such as heat pumps, the researchers said.

Pledge comes after a Guardian investigation found allegations of widespread exploitation suffered by meat plant workers across Europe

Read more: ‘The whole system is rotten’: life inside Europe’s meat industry

UK and European leading supermarkets say they would cut ties with any suppliers that did not meet their ethical standards after a Guardian investigation found allegations of widespread exploitation suffered by workers in meat plants across Europe.

The British Retail Consortium (BRC), a representative body for UK retailers, including supermarkets and food-to-go restaurants, said companies carry out ethical audits of the suppliers they work with and would act on any information received through whistleblowers and investigations.