The Guardian

Rebecca Long-Bailey questions how much authority the government has on issue

Boris Johnson has been challenged by Labour to clearly disavow his previous denial of climate science, after several other Conservative leadership hopefuls said they accept there is a climate emergency.

A dividing line between the candidates opened up on the issue after Andrea Leadsom, a Brexit-supporting former cabinet minister, Sajid Javid, the home secretary, and Rory Stewart, the international development secretary, told a One Nation group hustings on Tuesday night they would tackle the climate emergency as a global crisis.

Every year nearly 5,800 people are expected to die in New York, 2,500 in Los Angeles and more than 2,300 in Miami

Thousands of heat-related deaths in major US cities could be avoided if rising global temperatures are curbed, new research has found.

On current global heating trends, thousands of people are set to perish due to the heat every year across 15 major US cities, in an analysis by a team of British and American researchers.

Beauty label to sell moisturiser with recyclable refill pod in attempt to cut plastic waste

The beauty brand Olay has become the first major global skincare label to test refillable packaging to reduce plastic waste, in a three-month trial in the US and UK starting in October.

The brand, owned by the consumer goods company Procter & Gamble, will sell each jar of its Regenerist Whip moisturiser with a recyclable refill pod that can be placed inside. They will be sold and shipped in a container made of recycled paper rather than cardboard, and without a cellophane wrapping.

New policy expected to see larger farms created in deeper water further off Scottish coast

Scottish salmon farmers will be allowed to create supersized farms in return for accepting much stricter controls on parasites and marine pollution.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) has said it will no longer restrict the size of salmon farms as long as they meet tougher standards limiting chemical, faecal and organic waste pollution in surrounding seas.

Britons are more worried about climate crisis than economy, crime and immigration

Public concern about the environment has soared to record levels in the UK since the visit of Greta Thunberg to parliament and the Extinction Rebellion protests in April.

The environment is now cited by people as the third most pressing issue facing the nation in tracking data from the polling company YouGov that began in 2010. Environment was ranked after Brexit and health, but is ahead of the economy, crime and immigration.

Agency seeking seven men for crimes including ivory smuggling and illegal logging

International police ahave asked for help in tracking down the world’s most wanted environmental criminals.

Interpol made a public appeal on Wednesday, to coincide with World Environment Day, to boost its efforts to find seven people responsible for wide-ranging environmental crimes.

Health effects of ingestion of microplastics via food, water and breathing still unknown

The average person eats at least 50,000 particles of microplastic a year and breathes in a similar quantity, according to the first study to estimate human ingestion of plastic pollution.

The true number is likely to be many times higher, as only a small number of foods and drinks have been analysed for plastic contamination. The scientists reported that drinking a lot of bottled water drastically increased the particles consumed.

Labour accuses UK government of ‘actively dismantling’ solar power industry

The Labour party has accused the government of “actively dismantling” the UK’s solar power industry after new installations by households collapsed by 94% last month.

Rebecca Long-Bailey, the shadow business secretary, used prime minister’s questions to challenge the government’s record on climate action after scrapping subsidies for domestic solar panels from April.

President told Prince Charles US has ‘among the cleanest climates there are’. Here’s a reminder of some facts he may have overlooked

Donald Trump believes the US has a “clean climate”, telling the interviewer Piers Morgan on ITV’s Good Morning Britain that he had informed Prince Charles in a 90-minute conversation that the US “right now has among the cleanest climates there are based on all statistics, and it’s even getting better because I agree with that we want the best water, the cleanest water”.

There are a few important details the president may have overlooked in presenting a clean bill of health for the US environment, so here is a handy reminder.

Investors’ network warns of serious risk to aquaculture from global heating as well as over-reliance on medicines

The climate crisis, drug use and feeding farmed fish with wild stocks risks “sinking” the $230bn (£180bn) aquaculture industry, according to an ethical investment network.

Fish farms now surpass wild fisheries as the main provider of seafood on our plates, but combined risks from global heating, excessive use of antibiotics, a dependence on wild stocks for feed, and poor governance threatens the lucrative and fast-growing sector, warned Farm Animal Investment Risk and Return (Fairr), a $12trn-backed network.

Perth is just one of three zoos in Australasia breeding the critically endangered species in a bid to prevent extinction

A newborn white-cheeked gibbon, one of the world’s rarest apes, has made its public debut at Perth zoo before keepers have had the chance to determine its gender.

The infant was born 21 days ago to mother Jermei, whose calm nature has allowed zoo visitors to get a glimpse of the new addition.

More than half a million plastic items reach oceans from waterway network each year

Abandoned plastics now account for 59% of the litter found in canals in England and Wales, according to new research which also reveals that more than half a million plastic items reach the oceans every year from the waterway network.

The new findings are from the Canal & River Trust – the charity that looks after 2,000 miles of canals and river navigations – and which says that with the support of local communities both figures could be cut drastically.

5 June 1956: Investment in coal mining should be carried out on a massive scale argues the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation

The OEEC has delighted Mr Aubrey Jones, the Minister of Fuel and Power, with its report on the future of fuel supplies in Europe (summarised on page 4). The main conclusion of the report is that nuclear energy is only going to make a small contribution to the increased supply of energy that will be needed in the next twenty years.

Related: The demise of UK deep coal mining: decades of decline

Expert says it’s unusual the company has declined to make a specific promise about ongoing employment

It’s been presented as a jobs bonanza for Queensland, but there are fresh questions about Adani’s Carmichael project and the employment it will create in regional Queensland.

It comes after the reemergence of an interview with the Nationals MP, Bridget McKenzie, now the agriculture minister, on Sky News.

Environmentalists fear 2019 will be one of worst years for deforestation in recent memory

Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon surged last month to the highest May level since the current monitoring method began, prompting concerns that president Jair Bolsonaro is giving a free pass to illegal logging, farming and mining.

The world’s greatest rainforest – which is a vital provider of oxygen and carbon sequestration – lost 739sq km during the 31 days, equivalent to two football pitches every minute, according to data from the government’s satellite monitoring agency.

Readings from Hawaii observatory bring threshold of 450ppm closer sooner than had been anticipated

The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by the second highest annual rise in the past six decades, according to new data.

Atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse gas were 414.8 parts per million in May, which was 3.5ppm higher than the same time last year, according to readings from the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii, where carbon dioxide has been monitored continuously since 1958.

Finning is still rampant in many countries due to diners’ appetite for the delicacy, despite attempts to shut down the trade

A rising demand for shark fin soup is wiping out more than 73 million sharks every year, fuelling a practice labelled the marine “gold rush”.

Finning, when a shark’s fin is sliced off while at sea and the body dumped back into the ocean, is rampant in many regions – fins are one of the most expensive seafood items, ending up mostly in soup. The delicacy had been particularly popular in China but a nationwide conservation campaign saw consumption drop 80% since 2011.

The suit accuses the federal government of violating young people’s constitutional rights by contributing to the climate crisis

Twenty-one youth activists will face off with the US government in an Oregon courthouse on Tuesday, where their attorneys will petition a panel of judges to let their climate case go to trial. Until it does, their attorneys will also argue, fossil fuel development should be halted on public lands.

The case of Juliana v the US charges the federal government with violating the constitutional rights of youth by perpetuating systems that contribute to climate breakdown. Those young people – who range in age from 11 to 23 and hail from all corners of the nation – argue that the constitution gives them and future generations a right to an environment free of climate catastrophe.

Exclusive: Midnight Oil, Cloud Control, Vance Joy and Regurgitator join FEAT., a new platform encouraging their industry to back sustainability

In the spring of 2017, immediately after the release of the Australian band Cloud Control’s third album, Zone, the band’s keyboard player, Heidi Lenffer, was contemplating what the their upcoming tour would cost. But this time she wasn’t just thinking about the money; she was thinking about emissions. Independent bands are used to running on a shoestring budget – a carbon-conscious Lenffer wanted Cloud Control to run a more environmentally efficient operation, too.

She began asking climate scientists in the field, and connected with Dr Chris Dey from Areté Sustainability. Dey crunched the numbers for Cloud Control’s two-week tour, playing 15 clubs and theatres from Byron Bay to Perth.

During the 1990s, workers were told not to worry about breathing in the poison, but years later they suffer debilitating illnesses

Robert Paul Sharman remembers how the smell of the gas would linger.

Outside the fumigation chambers it hung around, bonded to the tropical North Queensland air, amid the hottest November on record. When Sharman went home, and nursed his baby son to sleep, the odour of the gas was still there.