The Guardian

As Covid continues to curb visits to see our iconic wildlife, now is the time to move away from western-led funding models

That African governments have failed to mobilise funds to conserve their vast protected areas is not in doubt. Countries were just about managing to pay basic salaries to rangers who barely had enough to put fuel in their patrol vehicles. Covid has exacerbated this already dire situation, with the loss of income from foreign tourism.

The continent has more than 8,500 protected areas, described by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as government-led national parks, areas jointly governed by state agencies, communities, privately owned wildlife reserves, and public-private partnerships between governments, companies and NGOs. Included too, are what the IUCN calls “indigenous peoples and communities conserved territories and areas”.

Government urged to relax UK immigration rules after one in six jobs left unfilled since EU departure

The British Poultry Council has said food producers are facing serious staff shortages because of Brexit as this week’s partial closure of the Nando’s chain threw the spotlight on problems made worse by the fallout from Covid.

The trade association said its members, which include 2 Sisters Food Group – the country’s largest supplier of supermarket chicken, said one in six jobs were unfilled as a result of EU workers leaving the UK after Brexit.

Effective action against climate breakdown is near impossible while governments are vulnerable to lawsuits

The human tragedy is that there is no connection between what we know and what we do. Almost everyone is now at least vaguely aware that we face the greatest catastrophe our species has ever confronted. Yet scarcely anyone alters their behaviour in response: above all, their driving, flying and consumption of meat and dairy.

During the most serious of all crises, the UK elected the least serious of all governments. Both the Westminster government and local authorities continue to build roads and expand airports. An analysis by conservation charity WWF suggests that, while the last UK budget allocated £145m for environmental measures, it dedicated £40bn to policies that will increase emissions.

New analysis finds chemicals tested on animals in moisturisers, lipsticks, hair conditioner and sunscreen, despite ban

Hundreds of cosmetic products sold in the UK and Europe contain ingredients that have been tested on animals, despite bans that outlawed such testing years ago, a new analysis has shown.

Banned tests were performed on ingredients used in products including moisturisers, lipsticks, sunscreen and hair conditioner, the analysis found, with more than 100 separate experiments performed on animals including mice and rabbits.

Vote. Divest. Plant trees. Recycle. Remove fossil fuel subsidies. Go renewable. We don’t need to accept the inevitable demise of life on the planet

Imagine if scientists had just informed the world that there was a huge meteor heading our way that would likely wipe out life as we knew it. Or if the sun started doing really dangerous and frightening things that were likely to fry us. What would we do? Party like there was really no tomorrow? Or just crawl under the doona to wait out the inevitable?

The silver lining to the climate change catastrophe is that it’s not caused by a meteor, or the sun. It’s us. And because we’ve caused it, and we know how, we can fix it – or at least slow it down a lot.

CFC chemicals once used in refrigerators would have driven 2.5C of extra warming by 2100 if they had not been outlawed, researchers claim

The ozone-wrecking chemicals once commonly used in refrigerators would have driven 2.5C of extra global heating by the end of the century if they had not been banned, research has found.

Modelling by climate scientists found that the 1987 Montreal protocol curbing chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) gave humans a fighting chance of limiting global heating to 1.5C as set out by the Paris agreement.

Tearing down old structures and throwing up new ones is how we usually make our streetscapes. It’s also ruinous for the climate

A new and highly swanky hotel lands in Edinburgh, a mass of shimmering bronze-coloured coils, and all anyone can think to say is: doesn’t that look like a giant poo emoji? Londoners are confronted with plans for a giant burning-red orb, which will supposedly serve as a concert venue, and it brings on the shudders.

New buildings can amuse or repulse us, induce awe or yawns, but there is a case for thinking of them less as objects to walk around and more as processes to worry about – because the process of building is one of the most wasteful and carbon-hungry engaged in by humanity. We tear down old houses or shops, and to create new ones, we cover the Earth with materials that have gobbled up fossil fuels: Concrete, of which the world pours enough each year to patio over every park and mountain and back garden, every square inch, in England; steel, of which every tonne produced emits nearly two tonnes of carbon dioxide; plastics. While Conservative MPs argue over who is going to foot the bill for green energy for our homes, hardly anyone in Westminster discusses the upfront carbon costs of building houses and office blocks and shopping malls. Yet construction directly accounts for about 10% of our carbon emissions. Turning approximately 50,000 buildings to rubble every year creates two-thirds of all the waste produced in this country. If the UK is ever to translate its net zero ambitions into reality it will need to change the entire building industry.

This year there will be a special focus on the species many of us are likely to see in lockdown

Bird of the year is back! The Guardian/BirdLife Australia poll for 2021 will begin on 27 September with a list of 50 shortlisted species.

In 2017 the magpie fought off strong support for the white ibis to win. In 2019 the highly endangered black-throated finch, which is under threat from the expansion of the Adani Carmichael coalmine, triumphed after backing from a highly organised online campaign.

Country’s vice-president’s remarks after investigation highlighted concerns about ExxonMobil deal

Guyana will seek much better terms for any future oil deals than their contract with ExxonMobil, the country’s vice-president said on Tuesday.

The tiny South American country has become one of the most desired oil exploration spots after an ExxonMobil-led group, which also includes the US-based exploration firm Hess Corp and the Chinese oil company CNOOC, discovered about 9bn barrels of recoverable oil and gas off the coast.

Hundreds of dead fish have appeared along shores of one of Europe’s largest saltwater lagoons

Prosecutors in the southern Spanish region of Murcia have launched an investigation after hundreds of dead fish began washing up along the shores of one of Europe’s largest saltwater lagoons.

Residents in the area sounded the alarm this week, posting footage on social media that showed scores of small fish and shrimp littering the beaches of the coastal lagoon known as Mar Menor in south-east Spain.

Cop15 negotiations to set this decade’s targets on nature to be split into two, with face-to-face meetings delayed until 2022

A key United Nations biodiversity summit has been delayed for a third time due to the pandemic, the Chinese environment ministry has announced, as environmentalists pledged the delay would “not mean taking our foot off the pedal”.

In a statement, the Chinese ministry of ecology and environment confirmed that Cop15, the biggest biodiversity summit in a decade, would be delayed, and that negotiations for this decade’s targets will be split into two phases so that governments can meet face-to-face in Kunming, China, in the first half of 2022.

More than any other legislation in US history it will transform our energy system away from fossil fuels and into sustainable energy

The latest International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report is clear and foreboding. If the United States, China and the rest of the world do not act extremely aggressively to cut carbon emissions, the planet will face enormous and irreversible damage. The world that we will be leaving our children and future generations will be increasingly unhealthy and uninhabitable.

But we didn’t really need the IPCC to tell us that. Just take a look at what’s happening right now: A huge fire in Siberia is casting smoke for 3,000 miles. Greece: burning. California: burning. Oregon: burning. Historic flooding in Germany and Belgium. Italy just experienced the hottest European day ever. July 2021 was the hottest month ever recorded. Drought and extreme weather disturbances are cutting food production, increasing hunger and raising food prices worldwide. Rising sea levels threaten Miami, New York, Charleston and countless coastal cities around the world in the not-so-distant future.

Mayors such as Newham’s Rokhsana Fiaz say they do not have the investment or powers they need

• Retrofitting: why carbon-reducing renovations are going to be big business

The government is failing to provide local leaders with the investment and resources they need to achieve net zero, according to the mayor of Newham.

Rokhsana Fiaz, the first woman to become a directly elected mayor of a London borough, said her council’s “appetite [to achieve net zero] is high: we’ve got the knowhow and we know where the problems are” but, she said, the government isn’t providing local leaders with what they need.

Environmentalists call for fisheries to move away from carbon-spewing engines and harmful practices

Half the UK’s fishing fleet is at least 30 years old and uses fuel oil that is particularly polluting, according to a report that examines the outsized impact of British ships on the climate crisis.

UK fisheries are estimated to have emitted 914.4 kilotons of CO2 over a one-year period, equivalent to the annual energy use of more than 110,000 homes, the report by the Marine Conservation Society (MCS), WWF and RSPB says.

The bittern is a ridiculous looking creature. With bonus bittern sounds!

• Sign up here to get an email whenever First Dog cartoons are published
• Get all your needs met at the First Dog shop if what you need is First Dog merchandise and prints

Extreme weather events widen existing inequalities and traumatise victims while climate anxiety affects mental health

Medical students are demanding their schools include the climate crisis as a core component of the curriculum, as the intensifying climate emergency highlights the corresponding health crisis.

Hannah Chase, a final year medical student at Oxford said the sense of urgency hit home recently when a fellow student confessed they didn’t believe in climate change. “It just shows that we make such assumptions,” said Chase. “It’s needed, this education.”

The fate of a planned line from Uganda to Tanzania will be the first test of whether anyone was listening to António Guterres’ call to end fossil fuels

If there is one world leader trying to look out for the planet as a whole, not just their own nation, it’s the UN secretary general. Last week, António Guterres was resolute in the wake of the damning report from the IPCC on the perilious climate crisis. It should, he said, sound “a death knell for coal and fossil fuels, before they destroy our planet”.

He called for an end to “all new fossil fuel exploration and production”, and told countries to shift fossil fuel subsidies into renewable energy.

Experts warn of potential for disaster as Exxon pursues 9bn barrels in sensitive marine ecosystem

ExxonMobil’s huge new Guyana project faces charges of a disregard for safety from experts who claim the company has failed to adequately prepare for possible disaster, the Guardian and Floodlight have found.

Exxon has been extracting oil from Liza 1, an ultra-deepwater drilling operation, since 2019 – part of an expansive project spanning more than 6m acres off the coast of Guyana that includes 17 additional prospects in the exploration and preparatory phases.

Flooding, droughts and wildfires will worsen as global heating disrupts the planet’s water cycle

Water problems – drought, with its accompanying wildfires, and flooding – are likely to become much worse around the world as climate breakdown takes hold, according to the biggest assessment of climate science to date.

Global heating of at least 1.5C is likely to happen within the next two decades, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Temperature rises will be accompanied by big changes in the planet’s water cycle, with areas that are already wet becoming much wetter, and already arid areas becoming prone to greater drought. Extreme rainfall intensifies by 7% for each additional 1C of global heating, the report found.

Protected area delivered a tenfold return on investment, with benefits for fishing, biodiversity and tourism

A marine protection area established off the coast of Mallorca is proving beneficial not just for the environment but for business, too, according to a study that appears to confirm the long-term benefits of MPAs for both habitats and economies.

According to the study, carried out by the non-profit Marilles Foundation, the protected area has generated €10 in benefits for each euro of the €473,137 (£402,000) invested in the scheme.