The Guardian

António Guterres returns to Katowice to urge China to intervene as world is ‘running out of time’

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has made a dramatic intervention to revive flagging climate talks in Katowice, Poland, by flying back to the conference and preparing a personal call to the Chinese president, Xi Jinping.

Related: US accused of obstructing talks at UN climate change summit

New Zealand urges others not to meet emissions pledge with ‘dodgy accounting’, but UN rules unlikely to prohibit using carryover credits

Australia appears likely be allowed to exploit a controversial climate loophole, using carryover carbon credits from the Kyoto protocol to meet its Paris agreement targets.

New Zealand has already ruled out using the carryover credits, saying it would discourage other countries from the practice.

Tropical insect uses lethal speed of its spring-loaded mandibles to stun or kill prey

Move aside cheetah and peregrine falcon, there is a new contender for the title of fastest animal on Earth: the Dracula ant. Scientists have discovered that the small tropical insect can snap its mandibles at up to 90 metres a second (more than 200mph), the fastest animal movement on record.

The ants use the explosive motion to attack, stun and kill prey, which is then fed to their larvae.

Vanuatu’s foreign minister says worst offenders on global warming are blocking progress

The United States and other high carbon dioxide-emitting developed countries are deliberately frustrating the UN climate summit in Katowice, Poland, Vanuatu’s foreign minister has said. His warning came as Pacific and Indian ocean states warned they faced annihilation if a global climate “rule book” could not brokered.

In a bruising speech before ministers and heads of state, Vanuatu’s foreign minister, Ralph Regenvanu, singled out the US as he excoriated major CO2-emitting developed countries for deliberately hindering negotiations.

List of waterways land users must obtain permits to pollute to be scaled back, which could also allow pollution in drinking water

The Trump administration is planning to strip Obama-era pollution protections from thousands of US streams and millions of acres of wetlands, in a move environmentalists warn will harm vital wildlife and could allow pollution into drinking water.

Related: Ex-EPA chief Scott Pruitt used personal email for government work

• Seismic air guns could harm dolphins and whales
• ‘This action is unlawful and we’re going to stop it’

Environmental groups have sued the Trump administration over offshore drilling tests, which could harm hundreds of thousands of marine mammals such as dolphins and whales.

The lawsuit filed in federal court in Charleston, South Carolina, claims the National Marine Fisheries Service violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act when it issued five permits for the use of seismic air guns.

Minor quake near Cuadrilla site is on par with one in 2011 that led to moratorium

Residents of Blackpool have reported feeling tremors from a minor earthquake from nearby fracking operations that restarted two months ago.

The 1.5-magnitude earthquake occurred 1km underground at around 11.20am on Tuesday, after shale gas company Cuadrilla resumed fracking after a month-long hiatus. The site is about one mile south-east of Blackpool.

Gilet jaunes protests cast shadow as concerns raised over backlash against rapid change

Scientists have laid down the gauntlet for political leaders as the UN climate summit in Katowice, Poland, wrestles with the challenge of cutting emissions without sparking social tensions like those seen recently in France.

The UN climate talks – known as COP24 and the most important since the Paris agreement was signed in 2015 – aim to set a new rulebook for governments to reduce greenhouse gases and to raise ambitions, after warnings of dire consequences if global warming rises more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

A woman walking near the coast on Lynstone Road in Bude, Cornwall, captures the moment part of a cliff collapses on to the beach

WWF says exemptions undermine landing obligation taking full effect next month

The use of exemptions to EU restrictions on fish discards by EU trawlers has risen by 300% in the last year, according to research released three weeks before a ban is due to take full effect.

The dispensation allowing fishing fleets to discard up to 7% of their catches will continue after January 1 2019, undermining the “landing obligation” on boats to retain and bring to port all seafood catches, according to a report by WWF Europe.

Broken bones and other injuries are common for sheep and cattle held on ships for weeks in cramped pens. Photojournalist Jo-Anne McArthur tracked the 22,000 arrivals on one boat in Israel’s Haifa port

Hundreds of thousands of live animals are transported each year on ships from Australia and Europe to the Middle East. The route from Australia to Israel is particularly long – the journey is three weeks at sea, where cattle and sheep are often kept in cramped pens for the duration.

It’s estimated this year Israel will import 114,040 animals (cattle and sheep) from Australia, and 409,123 sheep and 169,991 cattle from Europe. Though these figures are lower than the previous year, in general live imports have been on the rise. Israel is expected to import 700,000 live animals this year – up from 200,000 in 2012.

Coalition ‘holding Adani’s hand’ through mine approvals, Greens senator says

The federal environment department had 40 meetings in six months with Adani representatives to discuss the Carmichael coalmine project, according to responses to a Senate estimates committee.

The department met Adani executives in person at the company’s Brisbane offices, as well as conducting teleconferences, on matters including Adani’s groundwater management plans, the mine’s progress and proposals for the management of the threatened black-throated finch.

Investment minister touts ‘once-in-a-generation opportunity’ but until now government criticised for lack of engagement

The federal government wants to seize a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to position Australia as a world leader in the rapidly developing lithium-ion battery manufacturing sector.

Releasing a new strategy document from Austrade on Tuesday, the investment minister, Simon Birmingham, said the time was right to capitalise on growing global demand.

Exclusive: A secretive organisation based in a German village has amassed one of the world’s largest collections of rare parrots. How did Martin Guth, a former nightclub manager, persuade governments to authorise the export of so many endangered species?

It’s an unlikely spot for a zoo – down an unmade, dusty road, amid a wood to the east of the German capital Berlin.

But here in the village of Tasdorf, hundreds of the world’s most endangered and rare parrot species are said to be housed at the headquarters of the Association for the Conservation of Threatened Parrots (ACTP).

Exclusive: government issued export permits for more than 200 rare and endangered parrots, despite concerns they were being offered for sale rather than exhibited

The Australian government has permitted the export of hundreds of rare and endangered parrots to a German organisation headed by a convicted kidnapper, fraudster and extortionist, despite concerns the birds could be sold at a huge profit.

An investigation by Guardian Australia has revealed that the Berlin-based Association for the Conservation of Threatened Parrots received permission to export 232 birds between 2015 and November 2018 – more than 80% of all the live native birds legally exported from Australia in the same period.

Diving tours run by former fishermen have lifted the villagers out of poverty and given new protection to overfished marine life

Fishermen-turned-entrepreneurs who have been financing the protection of endangered whale sharks in the Philippines have hit on a successful scheme to help lift their coastal community out of poverty, new research has found.

A group of 58 fishermen from the town of Oslob who were struggling to feed their families turned to the world’s largest fish species to set up a community based dive company in 2011. It has since become an international hotspot for tourists to swim with the sharks, attracting more than 750,00 visitors in the first five years and amounting to $18.4m (£14.7bn) in ticket sales over the same period.

Official event praising coal, oil and gas met with laughter and chants of ‘shame on you’

A Trump administration presentation extolling the virtues of fossil fuels at the UN climate talks in Poland has been met with guffaws of laughter and chants of “Shame on you”.

Monday’s protest came during a panel discussion by the official US delegation, which used its only public appearance to promote the “unapologetic utilisation” of coal, oil and gas. Although these industries are the main source of the carbon emissions that are causing global warming, the speakers boasted the US would expand production for the sake of global energy security and planned a new fleet of coal plants with technology it hoped to export to other countries.

Researchers discover urban male túngara frogs call more, and with more complex vocalisations, than rural peers

Living in a forest might sound romantic, but city life makes males more attractive to the opposite sex – at least if you are a túngara frog.

Researchers have discovered that urban males of the species have more attractive calls than their rural peers.

‘Ecological memory’ shows cumulative impact of climate change, say scientists

Great Barrier Reef corals that survived bleaching in 2016 were more resistant to a second marine heatwave the following year, “astonished” scientists have observed.

A study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, outlines how a process called “ecological memory” emerged in the northernmost reefs during back-to-back heatwaves in 2016 and 2017.

Hitachi’s £16bn Wylfa station on Anglesey is next proposed project after Hinkley Point C

Fresh doubts have been raised over prospects for the UK’s new nuclear power programme after a report that Hitachi is considering axing plans for a plant in Wales.

The Japanese conglomerate’s mooted 2.9GW nuclear power station on Anglesey is next in line in the UK’s nuclear plans after EDF Energy’s 3.2GW Hinkley Point C scheme in Somerset.