The Guardian

Experts concerned young people’s mental health particularly hit by reality of the climate crisis

Over the past few weeks Clover Hogan has found herself crying during the day and waking up at night gripped by panic. The 20-year-old, who now lives in London, grew up in Queensland, Australia, cheekbyjowl with the country’s wildlife, fishing frogs out of the toilet and dodging snakes hanging from the ceiling.

The bushfires ravaging her homeland over the past few weeks have taken their toll. “I’ve found myself bursting into tears … just seeing the absolutely harrowing images of what’s happening in Australia – it is overwhelming and terrifying.”

Without urgent action, rising sea levels by end of century could leave cities under water

A series of detailed maps have laid bare the scale of possible forest fires, floods, droughts and deluges that Europe could face by the end of the century without urgent action to adapt to and confront global heating.

An average one-metre rise in sea levels by the end of the century – without any flood prevention action – would mean 90% of the surface of Hull would be under water, according to the European Environment Agency.

512,452 megalitre deluge across all the city’s catchments equivalent of nine months’ worth of water in less than a week

• NSW floods and weather: rain eases but chaos continues – live

The water level in Sydney’s dams has risen by more than 20 percentage points in one day after torrential rain on Sunday brought the best inflows for nearly three years.

More than 363,681 megalitres flowed into Warragamba Dam alone on Sunday as the dam rose from 43.8% to 61.8% of capacity. Across all of Sydney’s catchments, 512,452 megalitres poured in.

Wolf known as OR-54 left home in Oregon in search of a mate, and scientists tracked her progress – until she died last week

A young female gray wolf bid goodbye to her family, left home and crossed the state line into California to find love.

Related: Succulent mania: the perfect fad for a rootless generation | Alice Vincent

Halima Aden, born in a refugee camp in Kenya, is now a catwalk regular who is using her position to change preconceptions about modest fashion

The orange and black insect makes an astonishing 3,000-mile annual migration but the recent deaths of two conservationists in Mexico have highlighted the dangers facing the species

The annual migration of monarch butterflies from the US and Canada is one of the most resplendent sights in the natural world – a rippling orange and black wave containing millions of butterflies fluttering instinctively southward to escape the winter cold.

The spectacle when they reach their destination in central Mexico is perhaps even more astonishing. Patches of alpine forest turn from green to orange as the monarchs roost in the fir trees, the sheer weight of butterflies causing branches to sag to the point of snapping. Tens of thousands of the insects bounce haphazardly overhead, searching replenishment from nearby plants.

The ‘safeguard mechanism’ promised to limit industry’s carbon pollution, but in two years has approved more than 7m tonnes of extra emissions

Mining and heavy industry companies, including BHP and Alcoa, have again been allowed to lift their greenhouse gas emissions without penalty under a climate change policy that the Australian government promised would prevent national pollution increasing.

Under changes posted online on Thursday, BHP coalmines in Western Australia and Queensland, Alcoa’s Portland aluminium smelter in Victoria and a Boggabri coalmine in New South Wales were each given the green light to emit more under the scheme known as the “safeguard mechanism”.

The pick of the world’s best flora and fauna photos, including a baboon with a lion cub and Devon beavers

He has a history of ‘not getting’ global heating but his desire for Britain to be a world leader could be the planet’s hope

Will Boris Johnson please listen to his own father, rather than Jeremy Corbyn’s climate sceptic brother, on the subject of climate change? It may go against the prime minister’s instincts, but it is the best hope for Britain to live up to its responsibilities in a crucial year for our species.

Johnson cannot do this on his own. That much was clear this week during the shambolic London launch of the COP 26 UN climate summit, which will take place in Glasgow in November. This will be the most important international conference in five years and as host the UK will play a leading role in deciding whether it ends in success or failure.

Former UN climate envoy joins list of experts frustrated at Britain’s lack of leadership

The UK is showing a “lack of coherence” in its leadership of vital UN climate crisis talks this year and giving the damaging impression that the talks are not a high priority, one of the world’s leading voices on the climate crisis has said.

Mary Robinson, a former UN climate envoy and Ireland’s first female president, also said the perception that major British politicians, including the ex-prime minister David Cameron and former foreign secretary William Hague, were unwilling to take on the role of leading the COP 26 summit was damaging.

Lighting industry’s exemption from 2011 ban may jeopardise climate goals, says Sweden

A row over lamps is emerging as a first major test of the EU’s commitment to its much-vaunted European Green Deal and the bloc’s target of carbon neutrality by the middle of the century.

A debate over the continued use of mercury in fluorescent lighting has split the 27 member states with Germany’s industrial interests being pitted against the environmental concerns of Sweden, according to leaked correspondence.

Lawsuits are pending from groups who have challenged the constitutionality of shrinking Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante

Plans finalized on Thursday for two national monuments in Utah downsized by Donald Trump would ensure that lands previously off-limits to energy development will be open to mining and drilling.

The move comes despite pending lawsuits from conservation, tribal and paleontology groups, who have challenged the constitutionality of the president’s action. The Trump administration slashed the size of Bears Ears national monument by 85% and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monument by nearly half in December 2017, in what represented the largest elimination of public lands protections in US history.

Conservation groups criticized the Trump administration on Thursday for spending time on management plans they believe will become moot when the court sides with their assertion that Trump misused the Antiquities Act to reverse decisions by previous presidents.

Announcement comes after Trump administration reversed plans to ban chlorpyrifos and rejected scientific conclusions of experts

The world’s largest manufacturer of chlorpyrifos, an agricultural pesticide linked to brain damage in children, has announced that it will stop producing the chemical by the end of the year.

The announcement on Thursday by Corteva, the corporation formed from a Dow Chemical and DuPont merger, comes after the Trump administration reversed regulatory plans to ban the pesticide and rejected the scientific conclusions of US government experts.

Police say Rising Up report was commissioned as group had a ‘large following’ and concluded XR was not a threat

Counter-terrorism chiefs ordered a formal assessment of whether Extinction Rebellion was a national security threat one year ago and then sent a secret report about the group to police forces, the Guardian has learned.

The revelation shows that counter-terrorism police’s interest in the non-violent climate emergency group began earlier and was more extensive than previously thought.

Populations disappearing in areas where temperatures are getting hotter, scientists say

Bumblebees are in drastic decline across Europe and North America owing to hotter and more frequent extremes in temperatures, scientists say.

A study suggests the likelihood of a bumblebee population surviving in any given place has declined by 30% in the course of a single human generation. The researchers say the rates of decline appear to be “consistent with a mass extinction”.

Climate, extreme weather, biodiversity, food and water crises could lead to ‘systemic collapse’

The world is facing a series of interlinked emergencies that are threatening the existence of humans, because the sum of the effects of the crises is much greater than their individual impacts, according to a new global study.

Climate breakdown and extreme weather, species loss, water scarcity and a food production crisis are all serious in themselves, but the combination of all five together is amplifying the risks of each, creating a perfect storm that threatens to engulf humanity unless swift action is taken.

Two dead 5ft snakes were discovered at a nature reserve within a month of each other

A python has been found dead, slit open along the length of its body, while another was found in pieces, prompting an investigation at a nature reserve in Scotland.

The 1.5-metre (5ft) snakes were discovered within a month of each other at Den of Maidencraig in Skene Road, Aberdeen. A member of the public found the slit-open snake on 7 January, while the second was found on 31 January.

Environment Agency boss calls for more funding to help public embrace the outdoors

Growing pressure to clean up Britain’s rivers to meet bathing water quality is a “game changer” that will require more government funding as the public embrace the outdoors, the head of the Environment Agency has said.

A growing number of river users are calling for action to tackle the routine and legal discharge of untreated sewage into Britain’s waterways, which they say amounts to treating them like an open sewer.

From soap to reusable cutlery, green products are overwhelmingly marketed to and bought by women. Does this discourage men from taking responsibility?

It was not long ago that, if you wanted to reduce the impact of your consumer choices on the environment, your only option was to use your own shopping bag. These days, the eco-minded shopper is overwhelmed with “green” choices. With the rise of reusable pads and menstrual cups, your period can now be plastic-free. Cosmetics increasingly come in glass and aluminium containers. Even hosiery brands are swapping nylon for more eco-friendly material.

Given the devastating toll of consumer waste on the health of the planet, you may find this visible drive towards sustainability on supermarket shelves cheering. But if you are a man, you may not have even noticed it: most eco-friendly products are marketed to women.

Floating villages and an ‘amphibious house’ are among some of the solutions as architecture adapts to the growing problem of urban flooding

• Sea Change: flood resilient architecture for the 21st century is at the Roca London Gallery, 1 February–16 May 2020