The Guardian

The American Petroleum Institute receives millions from oil companies – and works behinds the scenes to stall or weaken legislation

When Royal Dutch Shell published its annual environmental report in April, it boasted that it was investing heavily in renewable energy. The oil giant committed to installing hundreds of thousands of charging stations for electric vehicles around the world to help offset the harm caused by burning fossil fuels.

On the same day, Shell issued a separate report revealing that its single largest donation to political lobby groups last year was made to the American Petroleum Institute, one of the US’s most powerful trade organizations, which drives the oil industry’s relationship with Congress.

Lockdown has highlighted the versatility of this everyday material, while creating a mountain of waste

Every time you do a lateral flow coronavirus test, you throw away around 10g of plastic. If every adult and secondary school student in the UK did the recommended two tests a week, it would produce more than 1,000 tonnes of rubbish every seven days. In less than a month this would fill an Olympic-size swimming pool.

Those of us who before the pandemic were involved in campaigns to cut our dependence on plastic, encouraging our communities to become “plastic free”, may feel like criticising such consumption. Should we stop these tests, knowing what we do about the plastic pollution crisis?

Information should serve as ‘wake-up call’ that action on climate change is needed to protect people and their children

• Download the free Guardian app; get our morning email briefing

New patient resources warning of the dangers of air pollution and bushfire smoke to pregnant people or those planning to conceive have been issued by the Royal Australian College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG), in what is thought to be a world-first.

Patients are warned to avoid exposureto air pollution on heavily trafficked roads, bushfire smoke or indoor smoke from things such as cigarettes, unflued fireplaces or incense.

Tian Xuejun rejects Australia’s ‘groundless accusations’ that China influenced the finding to score political points

The Chinese host of a United Nations world heritage committee has defended a proposal to label the Great Barrier Reef as “in danger”, and rejected Australian government suspicion that China influenced the finding for political reasons.

It came as the Morrison government sought to use a new report by Australia’s marine science agency to argue there had been widespread coral recovery on the reef.

As temperatures rise and pollution increases, wildfires, floods and extreme winds have battered many parts of the world in the last six months

New alliance urges governments to work together to deliver a just transition to a green economy

People around the world need a “global green deal” that would tackle the climate crisis and restore the natural world as we recover from the Covid-19 pandemic, a group of politicians from the UK, Europe and developing countries has said.

The Global Alliance for a Green New Deal is inviting politicians from legislatures in all countries to work together on policies that would deliver a just transition to a green economy ahead of Cop26 UN climate talks in Glasgow this November.

Animal Rebellion activists began blockade of Scunthorpe site on Thursday over fast food chain’s meat products

Four activists have been arrested at a protest that began more than 48 hours ago at a McDonald’s burger factory in Scunthorpe.

About 50 activists from Animal Rebellion have been preventing meat products leaving the factory, urging the fast food chain to move to a meat- and dairy-free menu by 2025.

Former Bank chief says governments must act as free markets will not reduce emissions alone

Governments must step up their regulation of businesses to tackle the climate crisis, the former Bank of England governor Mark Carney has urged, because the financial free markets will not reduce greenhouse gas emissions alone.

Carney, who left the Bank of England last year before the first Covid-19 lockdown, is now one of the most influential figures working on Cop26, the vital UN climate talks to be held in Glasgow in November. He is a UN envoy on climate change and Boris Johnson’s finance adviser on the climate.

Rule changes aimed at making room for more household solar systems and batteries on the grid would be unfair to current owners, some say

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

Michael Streatfeild was an early solar adopter. About a decade ago he withdrew $15,000 from his mortgage to install a 3.6kW system of panels on a north-east facing section of his roof in western Sydney.

Three years ago, in a bid to wipe out his reliance on coal-fired grid electricity, he added a 4kW system and positioned it to catch sun later in the day, when it comes from the north-west.

Severe flooding has caused devastation in Germany and Belgium, where the death toll has risen to more than 120 as emergency services continued their search for many hundreds more still missing. No loss of life has been reported in Switzerland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, but flash floods swept through the Swiss villages of Schleitheim and Beggingen, several towns in the Grand Duchy were evacuated and thousands were told to leave their homes in the southern Dutch city of Maastricht

• More than 100 dead as flood ‘catastrophe’ hits Germany and Belgium
• Climate scientists shocked by scale of floods in Germany
  
• Flash floods cause havoc across Europe – in pictures

Campaigners criticise European Commission strategy that allows continued burning of trees for fuel

The EU executive has been accused of “sacrificing forests” after it published proposals that would allow trees to continue to be burned for fuel.

The charges of “accelerating climate breakdown” through wood-burning were made on Friday as the European Commission unveiled its forest strategy, which includes a goal to plant 3bn trees across the EU by 2030.

The National Food Strategy has rightly declared war on junk food, but bypasses the crucial issue of how our diet harms the climate

I’ve spent a long time waiting for the UK to produce a proper and detailed plan to reform its dysfunctional relationship with food. The problems are numerous: we don’t properly count the cost of our poor diets, both to our own health and to our environment, and we have dietary guidelines that basically no one follows. Lots of our eating habits – particularly a preference for huge chunks of meat and lots of sugar – were formed in a time when food was less plentiful and more expensive. We now consume these foods on a massive scale while falling short on the fruit and vegetables that would help us avoid diseases in later life.

For the first time, the plan released by the National Food Strategy combines all the sectors involved in our food system – from farming to government procurement, education to industry and trade. No single solution will fix our food system alone, so this kind of comprehensive approach is really welcome. As is the government’s recent announcement of a ban on junk food advertising before 9pm. This new independent report continues the war on junk food by proposing the world’s first tax on sugar and salt for use in processed foods, catering businesses and restaurants. The tax – with some of resulting revenue ringfenced for providing fruit and veg to low-income families – should have big health benefits, building on those of the sugary drinks levy introduced a few years ago.

Judge says demonstration was ‘peaceful’ but impacted Murdoch, Mail, Telegraph and Standard titles

Six Extinction Rebellion protesters on trial for blockading the printing press of some of the UK’s major newspapers have been found guilty.

The activists appeared at St Albans magistrates court on Friday accused of obstructing the highway outside Newsprinters printing works in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, on 4 September 2020.

At least 110 people have died in devastating floods across parts of western Germany and Belgium. Search and rescue operations are continuing with hundreds still unaccounted for

• More than 100 dead as flood ‘catastrophe’ hits Germany and Belgium

The best of this week’s wildlife pictures, including endangered vultures, a baby beaver and a spectacular wingnut tree

Britain has broken the promises Boris Johnson made before the G7 – a change of tack is necessary to make Cop26 a success

Covid and the climate crisis are the two defining global crises of our time and Britain has a crucial role to play in addressing them both. As the Cop26 host, it will be responsible for overseeing a successful outcome at the UN climate talks in Glasgow in November.

Only a few weeks ago, before the prime minister hosted the G7, Boris Johnson promised the group of wealthy nations would vaccinate the world by the end of the year.

Deluge raises fears human-caused disruption is making extreme weather even worse than predicted

The intensity and scale of the floods in Germany this week have shocked climate scientists, who did not expect records to be broken this much, over such a wide area or this soon.

After the deadly heatwave in the US and Canada, where temperatures rose above 49.6C two weeks ago, the deluge in central Europe has raised fears that human-caused climate disruption is making extreme weather even worse than predicted.

Public urged to join world’s biggest butterfly count to help collect data on impacts of climate crisis

Butterflies across the UK have been hit hard by unseasonably cold and wet spring weather, conservationists have warned.

April was the sunniest on record but it also had a record number of frosts followed by the wettest May for England in 54 years. Native butterflies such as the small tortoiseshell, large white, and red admiral have been badly affected, with numbers down compared with 10-year averages, according to the wildlife charity Butterfly Conservation.

At least 42 people have died in Germany and dozens were missing on Thursday as swollen rivers caused by record rainfall across western Europe swept through towns and villages. Eighteen people died and dozens were unaccounted for around the wine-growing region of Ahrweiler, in Rhineland-Palatinate state, police said, after the Ahr river that flows into the Rhine broke its banks and brought down half a dozen houses

• At least 42 dead in Germany as heavy rains bring catastrophic flooding
  

Its favourite thing to do is to crawl inside a flower, where petals turn light pink, yellow or red

A small girl is eating ice cream. She is at a lake, “Zoo Lake”, in the middle of a city. People who live nearby hear the Zoo’s lions roaring at night. (A world and a century away, in Innisfree, Yeats lives “alone in the bee-loud glade”.)

The principal activities at this lake are learning to ride bikes, riding bikes, and walking. Ice-cream sellers pedal their cooler boxes round and round the water. Bees hover over the rubbish bins full of ice-cream wrappers.