The Guardian

Sudden cut in pollution in 2020 meant less shade from sun and was ‘substantial’ factor in record surface temperatures in 2023, study finds

The slashing of pollution from shipping in 2020 led to a big “termination shock” that is estimated have pushed the rate of global heating to double the long-term average, according to research.

Until 2020, global shipping used dirty, high-sulphur fuels that produced air pollution. The pollution particles blocked sunlight and helped form more clouds, thereby curbing global heating. But new regulations at the start of 2020 slashed the sulphur content of fuels by more than 80%.

The Nationals MP is against RM Williams owner Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest’s renewables projects – so why wear Ariats?

• Sign up for the Rural Network email newsletter
• Join the Rural Network group on Facebook to be part of the community

Earlier today, as I was reverse Google image searching a picture of Barnaby Joyce’s feet, I wondered if I was perhaps taking this too seriously.

The National party MP has been attending parliament without his habitual RM Williams boots in protest against the owner of the classic Australian fashion brand, Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, whose company Squadron Energy is building wind and solar developments across New South Wales and Queensland, including in Joyce’s electorate of New England.

Sign up to receive Guardian Australia’s fortnightly Rural Network email newsletter

The bipartisan proposal that would remediate farms affected by toxic PFAS contamination is gaining speed in Congress

The US may soon bail out farmers whose livelihoods were destroyed by toxic PFAS “forever chemical” contamination.

The proposal for a $500m fund aims to head off a crisis for the nation’s growers and is moving through Congress amid increasing evidence that PFAS-contaminated sewage sludge used as a cheap fertilizer alternative poisoned crops and livestock. Separately, around 4,000 farms nationwide have been contaminated by PFAS from neighboring military bases.

Analysis of the carbon offset projects used by top corporations including Delta, Gucci and ExxonMobil raises concerns around their emission cuts claims

Some of the world’s most profitable – and most polluting corporations – have invested in carbon offset projects that have fundamental failings and are “probably junk”, suggesting industry claims about greenhouse gas reductions were likely overblown, according to new analysis.

Delta, Gucci, Volkswagen, ExxonMobil, Disney, easyJet, and Nestlé are among the major corporations to have purchased millions of carbon credits from climate friendly projects that are “likely junk” or worthless when it comes to offsetting their greenhouse gas emissions, according to a classification system developed by Corporate Accountability, a non-profit, transnational corporate watchdog

Broadscale treatment under way after nests found at Nirimba in Queensland’s south-east

• Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates
• Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast

Fire ants have been found on the Sunshine Coast as the super pest continues to spread beyond a containment zone in Queensland’s south-east corner.

It’s the latest in a series of so-called outlier detections of the hyper aggressive invasive species that Australia has been fighting to eradicate for decades.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Big tech is playing its part in reaching net zero targets, but its vast new datacentres are run at huge cost to the environment

• Mariana Mazzucato is professor of economics at UCL, and director of the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose

When you picture the tech industry, you probably think of things that don’t exist in physical space, such as the apps and internet browser on your phone. But the infrastructure required to store all this information – the physical datacentres housed in business parks and city outskirts – consume massive amounts of energy. Despite its name, the infrastructure used by the “cloud” accounts for more global greenhouse emissions than commercial flights. In 2018, for instance, the 5bn YouTube hits for the viral song Despacito used the same amount of energy it would take to heat 40,000 US homes annually.

This is a hugely environmentally destructive side to the tech industry. While it has played a big role in reaching net zero, giving us smart meters and efficient solar, it’s critical that we turn the spotlight on its environmental footprint. Large language models such as ChatGPT are some of the most energy-guzzling technologies of all. Research suggests, for instance, that about 700,000 litres of water could have been used to cool the machines that trained ChatGPT-3 at Microsoft’s data facilities. It is hardly news that the tech bubble’s self-glorification has obscured the uglier sides of this industry, from its proclivity for tax avoidance to its invasion of privacy and exploitation of our attention span. The industry’s environmental impact is a key issue, yet the companies that produce such models have stayed remarkably quiet about the amount of energy they consume – probably because they don’t want to spark our concern.

Mariana Mazzucato is professor of economics at UCL, and director of the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose

Exclusive: Five facilities named in documents tabled in NSW parliament defend practices, as independent experts question whether testing system is failing consumers

• Recycling fill sold in Sydney stores tests positive for asbestos
• Big waste companies broke rules on testing for contamination
• Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast

Facilities belonging to some of the leading commercial laboratory companies in Australia were among those that retested samples of landscaping products at the request of their waste company clients, after initial tests found contamination not compliant with NSW laws.

Guardian Australia revealed earlier this year the testing regime meant to limit toxic chemicals in landscaping material known as “recovered fines” had been compromised by the practice of waste companies asking private laboratories to retest samples until they passed.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

New study published in Cell Reports Sustainability finds emission reductions provided $249bn of climate and health benefits

By increasing its use of renewable energy, the US has not only slashed its planet-warming emissions but also improved its air quality, yielding hundreds of billions of dollars of benefits, a new report has found.

The study, published in Cell Reports Sustainability on Wednesday and based on publicly available data, focuses on uptick of renewable energy in the US from 2019 to 2022.

Hundreds of Indian farmers who have been camping for more than 100 days between the Punjab and Haryana states to demand better prices for their crops have been enduring a savage heat wave sweeping swathes of northern India.

Temperatures in Delhi, not far from the protest, have hit a record high of 49.9C (121.8F), as authorities warned of water shortages in the capital

• Delhi temperature hits 49.9C as India’s capital records hottest day

• Record breaking heat hits Delhi – in pictures

Officials are now incentivizing testing, but experts say workers need protective equipment and paid sick leave to prevent further spread

On a US dairy farm, working in the milking parlor can mean seven-day weeks, 12-hour shifts and intimate contact with cows and everything they expel.

“When you disconnect the machine from the udder, it can shoot milk in your face,” said José Martínez, a former dairy worker and United Farm Workers advocate based in Washington state. “And there’s no time or place to eat. So we ate our tacos in spare moments with cow shit on our hands.”

Widening government-run scheme would counter mistrust among householders, says consumer group

The next government should force all tradespeople who install home heat pumps, solar panels and insulation to sign up to a mandatory accreditation scheme to counter mistrust in the industry, a leading consumer group is demanding.

A report from Which? found that households face “significant anxiety” in choosing tradespeople to fit low-carbon heating systems, such as heat pumps, and insulation after “press stories about poor work and rogue traders”.

Minister says ‘it’s illegal’ after Guardian revelations of contaminated products on sale in stores, but Greens say it’s ‘obvious’ new laws not enough

• Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates
• Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast

The NSW government is “very concerned” that asbestos has been found in landscaping soil bought in Sydney, the environment minister has said.

A Guardian Australia investigation revealed this week that contaminated soil fill products were on sale at landscape and garden stores, a decade after NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) investigators first raised concerns about potential contamination.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

US agency found PFOS and other types of PFAS in pesticides but failed to disclose those results, watchdog group alleges

Documents obtained from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) indicate the agency may have presented false information to the public about testing for harmful contaminants in pesticides, according to allegations being made by a watchdog group and a former EPA research fellow.

The claims come almost a year to the day after the EPA issued a May 2023 press release that stated the agency found no per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in testing of samples of certain insecticide products. The press release contradicted a published study by the former EPA researcher that had reported finding PFAS in the same pesticide products.

This story is co-published with the New Lede, a journalism project of the Environmental Working Group

Labour and Liberal Democrats dominated list of MPs who were rated as very good in backing environmental policies

No elected Tory MPs have been rated as voting positively on climate issues, under a survey of parliamentary voting patterns since the Conservatives took power in 2010.

Only a single sitting Conservative was rated as “good” on climate votes in the ranking, but that was Lisa Cameron, the MP for East Kilbride, who defected from the Scottish National Party in October.

Campaigners urge Australians not to buy Tasmanian farmed salmon to avoid ‘extinction event’ for Maugean skate

• Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates
• Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast

Campaigners working to save the critically endangered Maugean skate – a ray-like fish species found only on Tasmania’s west coast – have brought the battle to the door of the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, in inner-city Sydney.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Scalloped hammerhead and greeneye spurdog among at-risk shark discovered in genetic testing of fillets

• Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates
• Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast

One in 10 fillets of shark meat bought by Australians at fish and chip shops and markets – often labelled as flake – is from a threatened species, according to a study that has uncovered widespread mislabelling of shark sold to the public.

Nine of 91 fillets were found to be either scalloped hammerhead, greeneye spurdog or school shark – all considered threatened in Australia – after scientists at Macquarie University used DNA analysis to check what they were sold.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Exclusive: Facilities owned by Bingo Industries and Aussie Skips Recycling among more than 20 named in NSW parliament for breaching regulations

• Recycling fill sold in Sydney stores tests positive for asbestos
• Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast

Some of the best-known waste companies in New South Wales are among those that broke safety rules that led to potentially contaminated soil fill being supplied to backyard landscapers, schools, childcare centres and parks across the state.

As part of an investigation into soil contamination, Guardian Australia can reveal that Bingo Industries, Aussie Skips Recycling, Benedict Recycling and KLF Holdings breached state regulations for testing a type of cheap soil made from recycled construction and demolition waste.

Companies found in the 2019 investigation to have asked private laboratories to keep retesting samples when they exceeded contaminant thresholds were: Bingo Industries in Auburn, four Benedict Recycling facilities in Sydney, Breen Resources in Kurnell, South Coast Equipment Recycling at Warrawong, Hi-Quality Waste Management at St Marys and Brandown Pty Ltd at Cecil Park. The 2013 investigation also found two Benedict Recycling facilities were retesting samples.

Twenty-one facilities were found in the 2019 investigation not to have been meeting EPA sampling rules such as the frequency with which samples should be collected and tested and what they were tested for: eight sites owned by Bingo Industries, four owned by Benedict Industries and one each by Aussie Skips Recycling, KLF Holdings, Breen Resources, Brandown, Hi-Quality Waste Management, Budget Waste Recycling, Rock & Dirt Recycling, South Coast Equipment Recycling and Builders Recycling Operations. Aussie Skips Recycling and Hi-Quality Waste Management were also among 11 facilities found in 2013 to be breaching testing rules.

Following the 2019 investigation, the EPA issued prevention notices to six facilities after it detected asbestos in their recovered fines. In at least two instances the product had already been removed for use in the community.

In one case identified in the 2019 EPA investigation, 16 tonnes of asbestos-contaminated soil produced by KLF Holdings was supplied to an apartment complex in Bankstown, and the regulator was forced to order a clean-up.

The Coalition has no climate policy. But Labor’s positions are undermined by its confused stance on gas and the delay of new environmental laws

• Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates
• Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast

Federal parliament is back for the next fortnight and I have a wishlist. Not for things that will happen – let’s not get ahead of ourselves – but for questions that could be addressed if the country is to treat the climate and extinction crises as seriously as our leaders claim they do.

There is no shortage of discussion about nuclear energy due to the Coalition’s much-hyped but yet-to-appear plan to overturn a national ban and bring it to Australia. The issue won plenty of attention after a CSIRO-led assessment that it would be far, far more expensive than wind and solar backed by energy storage and new transmission lines.

Reduce emissions, build resilience, repair ecosystems, remove greenhouse gases: these are the four Rs that can save us

• David King is chair of the global Climate Crisis Advisory Group

In 2008, the late American climate scientist Wally Broecker warned of the global repercussions of polar ice loss. Today, his predictions echo louder than ever as Greenland ice haemorrhages at an alarming rate, threatening rapid sea-level rise. Over the past 15 years, the Arctic Circle region has been heating up at four times the global average; it’s now more than 3C above levels in the 1980s. In 2023, we witnessed a staggering loss of Antarctic Sea ice.

Over the past year, land and ocean temperatures have soared, far beyond what was anticipated for an El Niño year. Global average temperatures have breached the 1.5C mark, indicating that climate transition has been unleashed. From record-breaking wildfires across continents to catastrophic floods threatening to submerge major cities, extreme climate events have become the new norm, causing massive loss of life and economic damage worldwide.

David King is the founder and chair of the global Climate Crisis Advisory Group

Studies find red, blue and green plastic decomposes into microplastic particles faster than plainer colours

Retailers are being urged to stop making everyday products such as drinks bottles, outdoor furniture and toys out of brightly coloured plastic after researchers found it degrades into microplastics faster than plainer colours.

Red, blue and green plastic became “very brittle and fragmented”, while black, white and silver samples were “largely unaffected” over a three-year period, according to the findings of the University of Leicester-led project.