The Guardian
EIB plans to cut all funding for fossil fuel projects by 2020
EU’s lending arm financed oil, gas and coal projects in 2018 with more than €2.4bn
The European Investment Bank has vowed to end its multibillion euro financing for fossil fuel projects by the end of next year in order to align its strategy with climate targets.
The EU’s lending arm has drafted plans, seen by the Guardian, which propose cutting support for energy infrastructure projects which rely on oil, gas or coal by barring companies from applying for loans beyond the end of 2020.
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures
This week: a swimming adder, feeding polar bears and stranded whales
Continue reading...V&A to display collection of Extinction Rebellion artefacts
London art and design museum praises environmental group’s distinctive visual identity
A year ago, the climate activist movement Extinction Rebellion did not even exist. Now, just nine months after its first public action, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London has acquired a number of artefacts associated with the group, saying the visual impact of its campaigns can be compared to that of the suffragettes.
A green, blue and pink flag printed with the movement’s distinctive extinction symbol, two printing blocks used by activists early in the campaign to make their own protest banners and an already rare pamphlet from the first print run produced by the group will join the V&A’s permanent collections as part of its “rapid response” programme to put contemporary and newsworthy objects on display.
Continue reading...180,000 tonnes of recycling heading to landfill as Victoria's SKM teeters on the brink
The company, which handles about half of the state’s recycling, is in financial crisis and has told local councils it can no longer accept material
More than half of the Victorian rubbish usually handled by stricken recycling operator SKM will be sent to the tip after the company told 30 local councils it could no longer collect material from them.
Victorian minister for the environment, Lily D’Ambrosio, said other operators had the capacity to absorb about 40% of the approximately 300,000 tonnes of recycling handled by SKM every year, leaving about 180,000 tonnes destined for landfill.
Continue reading...James Lovelock at 100 says asteroids pose key threat to humanity
Creator of Gaia theory recalls how it nearly had another name and says the age of AI is nigh
James Lovelock has spent a lifetime pondering the forces that shape Earth. It was a pursuit that brought about his most famous creation: a view of the world where life maintains the conditions for life, which he niftily named Gaia theory.
The hypothesis, as it was back then, was wholeheartedly embraced by the fledgling green movement of the 1970s. But for Lovelock, who turned 100 on Friday, more pressing threats to the planet come from nature, not humans. In particular, he’s worried about asteroids.
Continue reading...The Guardian joins a major media initiative to combat the climate crisis
More than 60 news outlets worldwide have signed on to Covering Climate Now, a project to improve coverage of the emergency
For a week this September, dozens of news organizations in the US and around the world will join forces to devote their front pages and airwaves to a critical but under-covered story: the global climate emergency.
This unique media collaboration, timed to coincide with landmark UN Climate Action Summit in New York, is the first initiative of Covering Climate Now, a project co-founded by The Nation and the Columbia Journalism Review, in partnership with The Guardian, which aims to kickstart a conversation among journalists about how news outlets can improve their coverage of the climate crisis.
Continue reading...Climate more pressing than Brexit, say 71% of Britons – poll
Christian Aid poll finds climate emergency should be Boris Johnson’s top priority
Most Britons believe climate change is more important in the long term than Brexit and say it should be a top priority for Boris Johnson’s government, according to an opinion poll.
Women and young people are more likely to say that action over climate change is a more pressing priority than issues around Brexit.
Continue reading...Low-carbon energy makes majority of UK electricity for first time
Rapid rise in renewables combined with nuclear generated 53% in 2018
Low-carbon energy was used to generate more than half of the electricity used in the UK for the first time last year, according to official data.
A rapid rise in renewable energy, combined with low-carbon electricity from nuclear reactors, made up almost 53% of generation in 2018, the government’s annual review of energy statistics revealed.
Continue reading...EU acts to protect future of bird facing extinction in UK
European commission moves to halt loss of habitat for migrating turtle doves
The European commission has launched legal action that could protect one of the best-known birds of the English countryside from extinction.
The turtle dove – once a familiar sound of summer in south-east England – has been in steep decline since the 1970s because of intensive farming across Europe.
Continue reading...More than £1bn of food wasted before reaching supermarkets – study
Wrap report finds 3.6m tonnes of food is thrown away or fed to animals each year in the UK
More than £1bn of food destined for UK supermarkets is thrown away or fed to animals before it leaves farms every year, according to a study highlighting the scale of the country’s waste problem.
Crops rejected by retailers because they do not meet quality standards, fluctuations in demand or problems during storage or packing all contribute to 3.6m tonnes of waste in primary production, more than 10 times the amount thrown away by retailers, says a report by Wrap, the waste-reduction body.
Continue reading...Sharks at increasing risk of becoming fishing bycatch
Researchers call for urgent action to protect large species in international waters
The world’s shark populations are at increasing risk of becoming bycatch of international fishing fleets, which harvest them in open oceans where no legal protections exist, Australian researchers have said.
Prof Rob Harcourt, from Macquarie University, said large sharks were more vulnerable to longline fishing and called for urgent action to protect them by implementing management strategies on the high seas.
Continue reading...French journalists' bail conditions after Adani arrest labelled 'abuse of police power'
Queensland Council of Civil Liberties says banning them reporting near Carmichael mine ‘entirely inappropriate’
Bail conditions imposed on four French journalists – banning them from reporting near Adani’s Carmichael mine site – are an “abuse of police power” and “entirely inappropriate”, says the head of the Queensland Council of Civil Liberties.
Michael Cope, a lawyer in Queensland for more than 30 years, says he has never heard of the sorts of bail conditions imposed after protests at Adani’s Abbot Point coal terminal on Monday.
Continue reading...It’s climate enablers we want, not heroes | Letters
Although former Unilever boss Paul Polman is rightly acknowledged as a pioneering champion of corporate sustainability, his call for a team of “heroic chief executives to tackle climate change and inequality” (Report, 22nd July) may be a case of trying to solve problems with the same thinking that created them. The complex and interconnected challenges of building an equitable society and economy that meets the needs of nine billion people while living within our finite planetary resources is likely to require a different kind of leadership in business and politics.
Rather than people who see themselves as the heroes of the story, these challenges call for leaders who can make heroes of others by enabling and empowering them to achieve change.
Ian Bretman
London
Make environmental damage a war crime, say scientists
Call for new Geneva convention to protect wildlife and nature reserves in conflict regions
International lawmakers should adopt a fifth Geneva convention that recognises damage to nature alongside other war crimes, according to an open letter by 24 prominent scientists.
The legal instrument should incorporate wildlife safeguards in conflict regions, including protections for nature reserves, controls on the spread of guns used for hunting and measures to hold military forces to account for damage to the environment, say the signatories to the letter, published in the journal Nature.
Continue reading...The smell, the noise the dust: my neighbour, the factory farm | Tom Levitt
Industrial farms are spreading across Europe. Greenpeace campaigners went to talk to the people who live close by
Warning: readers may find one of the images below upsetting
What is life like for people living next door to an industrial-scale livestock farm, and how does it affect their daily lives? Greenpeace campaigners visited animal farms and their surrounding communities in France, Denmark, Spain and Italy between December 2018 and March 2019 to find out.
There are more than 330m cows, sheep and pigs in the EU, with a further several billion chickens reared and slaughtered every year. The growth of Europe’s animal farming sector has seen it exceed what scientists have claimed are safe bounds for greenhouse gas emissions, nutrient flows and biodiversity loss. This has lead to calls from campaign groups for a halving of meat and dairy production by 2050.
Continue reading...‘It carried our dog away’: are the UK’s seagulls getting more aggressive?
A slight ripple in the wind behind me, the briefest graze of my hair and, within a split second, the ice-cream cone had been snatched from my hand. One second I was holding a mint choc chip, the next I wasn’t. It was so fast, and the raid so precise, I didn’t really see it happen – just a vision of the gull’s tail feathers as it took to the sky.
I share my south-coast town with the gulls and you learn to be wary of them. Once, one landed on our table outside a fish and chip shop and made off with half our dinner. They nest noisily on our roof and like to wake us up at 5am every morning; they rip open the rubbish sacks people leave on the streets and creep close on the beach, looking for snacks.
Continue reading...Fecal bacteria found at more than half of US beaches last year, report says
Beaches were deemed unsafe on at least a quarter of days tested and climate crisis will likely increase the pollution
Before diving into the waves this summer, beachgoers in the US might like to do some homework on what they will be diving into, according to a new report.
The Environment America Research and Policy Center (EARPC) found that more than half of American beaches were home to potentially dangerous levels of fecal bacteria at some point last year.
Continue reading...Berkeley became first US city to ban natural gas. Here's what that may mean for the future
The California city on Tuesday voted to ban natural gas hook-ups in new buildings, in a historic move
Berkeley this week became the first city in the United States to ban natural, fossil gas hook-ups in new buildings.
The landmark ordinance was passed into law on Tuesday, after being approved unanimously by the city council the previous week amid resounding public support.
Continue reading...Extinction Rebellion protesters confront politicians at US Capitol
Climate crisis group members gluing themselves to doorways to block members of Congress from attending evening vote
Protesters from the climate crisis group Extinction Rebellion are causing disruption at the US Capitol in Washington, confronting politicians and glueing themselves to doorways in order to block them.
Six protesters blocked two doorways connecting the Cannon building to the US Capitol in an attempt to stop members of Congress from attending an evening vote.
Continue reading...Specieswatch: the ‘UK rainforest’ threatened by gardeners
Sphagnum moss is a vital carbon store but peat bogs are being dug up to fuel our love of horticulture
Left to its own devices, Sphagnum fallax, together with a large number of close relatives, will form dense mats of plants on wet ground and become deep peat bogs. These bogs create a habitat for a vast number of creatures, the most prominent of which are dragonflies and frogs but there are literally thousands of others, mostly microscopic.
Related: Plantwatch: is sphagnum the most underrated plant on Earth?
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