The Guardian

Greta Thunberg hit back at critics including Donald Trump on Friday before she marched in a climate strike in Montreal, saying their mockery of children shows her message has become ‘too loud to handle’. The 16-year-old climate activist said: ‘We are having so much impact that people want to silence us. We’ve become too loud for people to handle so they try to silence us. So we should also take that as a compliment.’ Thunberg invited aboriginal Canadians to lead the march with her because ‘they are often the ones who are at the front line’ of global warming

• Climate crisis: 6 million people join latest wave of global protests

Teen has private meeting with Canadian prime minister, who later says he ‘agrees with her completely’

• Climate crisis: 6 million people join latest wave of global protests

The teen activist Greta Thunberg has urged Justin Trudeau and other world leaders to do more for the environment as she led half a million protesters in Montreal as part of a global wave of “climate strikes.”

The 16-year-old Swede met privately with the Canadian prime minister but later told a news conference with local indigenous leaders that he was “not doing enough” to curb greenhouse gases responsible for global warming.

There are plenty of large whites and red admirals still around – and some unexpected new arrivals

Lots of people have commented on all the butterflies this summer and it certainly feels like a return to the good old days of, say, 1995, rather than recent years when late-summer flowers were depressingly bereft of butterflies.

The Big Butterfly Count results support these perceptions with sightings of 1.1m of the most common five species combined, compared with 660,000 in 2018.

Week of strikes and demonstrations is ‘only the beginning’, say organisers

Six million people have taken to the streets over the past week, uniting across timezones, cultures and generations to demand urgent action on the escalating ecological emergency.

A fresh wave of climate strikes swept around the globe on Friday with an estimated 2 million people walking out of schools and workplaces.

An award-winning seal in a seaweed garden, a hippo in drought-hit Botswana and a sable

Hundreds of thousands of people around the world are taking part in the latest wave of climate strikes to demand urgent action on the emergency

• Fresh wave of climate strikes

Ash, elm and rowan among trees threatened by pests and pollution, says biodiversity report

More than half of Europe’s endemic trees are threatened with extinction as invasive diseases, pests, pollution and urban development take a growing toll on the landscape, according to a study.

Ash, elm and rowan trees are among those in decline, says the assessment of the continent’s biodiversity, which could complicate efforts to tackle the climate crisis through reforestation.

With more strikes planned this Friday, we look at readers’ suggestions on how those in power can tackle the climate crisis

Hundreds of thousands hit streets across continents to demand action on climate

Hundreds of thousands of people around the world are taking place in the latest wave of climate strikes to demand urgent action on the escalating ecological emergency.

Last week, millions walked out of schools and workplaces, uniting across timezones, cultures and generations in the biggest climate protests in history before a special UN conference in New York.

Prime minister says Joyce has done his job as he announces a further $100m in drought funding

Scott Morrison has defended Barnaby Joyce’s performance as his drought envoy, saying he was not asked to “write a book”, but provide “candid feedback” and any criticism was from people caught up in “semantics”.

Morrison, who hopped off the plane from the United States following his official visit and on to another one to visit a drought-stricken Queensland community to announce a further $100m in drought funding, said Joyce had done his job and the issue had been “over-analysed”.

New guidelines could save councils money and lead to 400bn more wildflowers

Britain could enjoy 400bn more flowers if road verges were cut later and less often according to guidelines drawn up by wildlife charities, highways authorities and contractors.

The national guidance for managing roadside verges for wildflowers calls for just two cuts a year – instead of four or more – and only after flowers have set seed, to restore floral diversity and save councils money. It would also provide grassland habitat the size of London, Birmingham, Manchester, Cardiff and Edinburgh combined.

Lobbyists are giving millions to help Trump win in 2020, after reaping a regulatory windfall that benefited their bottom lines

Robert Murray, a coal magnate who forged ties in 2016 with Donald Trump as he championed reviving the beleaguered coal industry, hosted a fundraising dinner this July in West Virginia that hauled in an estimated $2.5m for the president’s re-election coffers.

Texas lobbyist Jeff Miller, who has several big fossil fuel clients and ran energy secretary Rick Perry’s 2016 presidential campaign, raised about $1m in this year’s second quarter for the Trump Victory Committee, campaign filings show.

Education minister from new coalition says schools should see absences as ‘justified’

Young environmental activists in Italy are planning to miss school as thousands join climate crisis protests in major cities on Friday.

Some 475,000 people took part in the first global climate strike in Italy on 15 March and a similar number are expected to join the latest demonstrations in cities including Rome, Milan, Turin, Florence, Naples, Bologna and Bari. But only if they are allowed to skip school. Earlier this week the education minister, Lorenzo Fioramonti, urged schools to consider as “justified” the absence of children taking part in the mobilisation against the climate emergency.

Tens of thousands turn out for protests as activists deliver letter calling on parliament to declare climate emergency

Tens of thousands of children and adults in New Zealand have stopped work and school on Friday to take part in the country’s third climate strike, billed as the biggest yet and the first display of “intergenerational” action.

More than 40 towns around the country were holding marches with 260 businesses involved, including most of the country’s tertiary institutions.

Though air quality appeared to improve, measuring the precise impact of car-less days is difficult

Last Sunday peace and tranquillity descended on city centres across the world as many went car-free for the day.

This annual event started in the UK, in Bath, in 1994 with a road closure and street party for the Environmental Transport Association’s Green Transport Week. In 1997 it spread to France with En Ville Sans Ma Voiture (In Town Without My Car) in La Rochelle, and by 2007 it spanned 2,000 cities in 35 countries.

Exclusive: taxpayers risk subsidising ‘a foreign-owned unregulated monopoly asset’, the Australia Institute says

Queensland taxpayers risk subsidising “a foreign-owned unregulated monopoly asset” if the state government signs a royalties agreement with Adani before securing access to the company’s rail line, the Australia Institute says.

The state government has set a self-imposed deadline of 30 September to finalise the terms of a royalty deferment with Adani. Both parties say negotiations over royalties are ongoing and confidential.

It’s a race against time and one we are losing’, says Harry as he visits reforestation project in Botswana

Prince Harry has said the science on the climate crisis is undeniable as, led by Greta Thunberg, the “world’s children are striking” to force action.

The Duke of Sussex is in Botswana helping to create a new forest habitat after decades of deforestation because of locals gathering firewood and through elephant activity.

Swedish environment activist’s campaign began with solo climate protest and attracted 4 million students on latest day of strikes

The Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has become known globally for her campaign over the environment. In August 2018, aged 15, Thunberg began a solo climate protest by striking from school. She has since been joined by tens of thousands of school and university students in more than a dozen countries, in school climate strikes that have become regular events. A global strike in March drew more than a million people, surpassed in September by the biggest yet with at least 4 million.

Thunberg has described the rapid spread of the strikes around the world as amazing. “It proves you are never too small to make a difference,” she said. Her protests were inspired by US students who staged walk-outs to demand better gun controls in response to multiple school shootings.

Future of Poland’s Bełchatów power station under scrutiny as grassroots groups and NGOs take radical action

It is Europe’s biggest coal plant, with annual CO2 emissions roughly equivalent to those of the whole of New Zealand – but the future of the Bełchatów power station in central Poland has been called into question after a global environmental charity announced a legal challenge designed to eliminate the facility’s carbon footprint by 2035.

ClientEarth, an international NGO that seeks to protect the environment through legal action, announced on Thursday that it was taking PGE GiEK, a subsidiary of Polish state-owned power giant Polska Grupa Energetyczna, to court over emissions at the Bełchatów plant, which is notorious for its burning of highly polluting lignite, or brown coal.

Related: Can Poland wean itself off coal?

Checking the claims: the PM trumpets Australia’s policies as ‘responsible and achievable’. But what do experts say?

Speaking in the US, Scott Morrison said he would drastically reduce plastic pollution and strongly defended Australia’s position on climate change. Does what he said stack up?

CLAIM: Australia will ban exports of plastic, paper and glass waste starting in 2020 and is leading on practical research and development into recycling.