The Guardian

Adani’s plans to get started quickly on a scaled-down version of its Queensland mega-mine still face numerous obstacles

The Indian mining giant Adani could be left in limbo until September – well after the federal election – before learning whether its controversial Carmichael coal project will be allowed to access the Queensland freight rail network.

Adani announced on Thursday it would self-finance the Carmichael mine and that construction would begin “imminently”. But the company still has to gain several regulatory approvals and negotiate access for its coal trains to use the Aurizon network.

Airgun testing in search for oil and gas could harm hundreds of mammals such as dolphins and whales off the Atlantic coast

The Trump administration is to allow marine creatures such as whales and dolphins to be harmed by companies as they search for potential oil and gas reserves off the Atlantic coast.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) has granted five operators permission to “incidentally but not intentionally harass marine mammals” while conducting surveys for fossil fuels in the seabed.

Red fody, beached whales and wildlife rescued from an Australian heatwave in this week’s gallery

Trial is notable for highlighting land and nature defender murders that ordinarily go unpunished

The sentencing on Thursday of seven men accused of murdering the Honduran environmentalist Berta Cáceres is only partial justice, but it should inspire anyone committed to ending the slaughter of land and nature defenders around the globe.

A court in Tegucigalpa handed down guilty verdicts on all but one of the eight accused, including two employees of the hydro-electric dam company that the indigenous Lenca woman had been campaigning against before her assassination on 2 March 2016.

Windfarms supplied third of UK’s electricity this week, with output hitting 14.9GW high

Storm Diana brought travel chaos to road, rail and airports, but the clouds did have a silver lining: the strong winds helped set a renewable energy record.

Windfarms supplied about a third of the UK’s electricity between 6pm and 6.30pm on Wednesday, a time of peak energy demand. Output hit a high of 14.9GW, beating a previous record of 14.5GW.

I’m six years out of school, nearly graduated from university, and I’ve never seen a protest like this

The kids couldn’t believe it. The adults couldn’t believe it.

Martin Place hadn’t seen anything like it for years, and Elly and her sister had never seen anything like it – ever.

Elly, 14, and Aidan, 10, had come thinking the strike would be “a small thing”. Elly said she didn’t know many people from her school who were coming. She found a thousand others.

Australian students have gone on strike from school and have converged on urban and regional centres demanding the government take action on climate change

Children may have skipped school to campaign on climate change - but taught a lesson or two on how to write a protest banner

Some were witty, some were rude and some – for older people at least – were incomprehensible.

The thousands of children who left class on Friday to protest inaction on climate change brought with them a dazzling array of protest banners and posters.

Report says Australia will fall short of meeting its nationally determined contributions under the Paris agreement

Australia’s carbon emissions have again continued to increase, according to official government figures released on Friday.

The results show emissions are rising much faster than in recent years – the quarterly growth trend is the highest it has been since 2004.

‘Strike 4 Climate Action’ will involve students in capital cities and 20 regional centres such as Ballarat and Newcastle

Thousands of schoolchildren across the nation plan to walk out of class to demand federal government action on climate change.

The ‘Strike 4 Climate Action’, inspired by 15-year-old Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg, will involve children in capital cities and 20 regional centres such as Ballarat and Newcastle.

Use of tropical plywood from Malaysia and Indonesia risks destruction of orangutan habitat, say NGOs

Wood from threatened south-east Asian rainforests has been used to build venues for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, according to complaints filed with organisers.

At least 134,000 large sheets of tropical plywood from Malaysia and Indonesia have been used as concrete moulds to build stadiums, causing what campaigners say is irreversible harm to precious biodiversity reserves.

WWF rates Australia a zero due to the absence of biodiversity measures in our Paris climate change commitments

Australia has been named as one of the worst performers among a group of 100 nations due to the absence of biodiversity measures in our climate change commitments, according to a new report by WWF.

The report, published this week during the conference of parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Egypt, examines whether climate commitments from countries under the Paris agreement also offer benefits for nature and biodiversity.

‘As far as we know, [the spectacled flying fox] has never suffered heat deaths before,’ ecologist says

Thousands of threatened flying foxes have dropped dead due to heat stress brought on by extreme temperatures in far north Queensland this week.

Conservationists and wildlife volunteers estimate more than 4,000 have perished this week during the record heatwave, which has seen temperatures in Cairns reach all-time highs of 42.6C.

Leah Kennedy is an artist and photographer based in Perth who has spent the past year taking aerial photos for a series called Salis. ‘Salis is latin for salt,’ she says. ‘There is a duality to salt it has both negative and positive connotations.’ The abstract beauty of the images is in stark contrast to the huge environmental problems that salinisation causes.

More images from the Salis body of work can be found here

• Look after the soil, save the Earth: farming in Australia’s unrelenting climate

Delegates at UN biodiversity conference turn to Beijing to avoid point of no return

China must play a leading role if the world is to draw up a new and more effective strategy to halt the collapse of life on Earth, according to senior delegates at the close of this week’s UN biodiversity conference.

With the US absent, Europe distracted and Brazil tilting away from global cooperation, the onus has shifted towards Beijing, the diplomats said after two weeks of slow-moving talks on how to maintain the natural infrastructure on which humanity depends.

But many people still don’t agree with the consensus science that shows humans are the dominant cause of climate change

Americans, including Republicans, are becoming more convinced that climate change is causing extreme weather and sea-level rise, according to a new poll from Monmouth University.

Nearly two-thirds of Republicans, 64%, now think climate change is happening, compared to 49% three years ago. And more of the general population, 78% compared to 70% three years ago, acknowledge climate change.

World running out of time to combat climate change, warns meteorological organisation

Global temperatures have continued to rise in the past 10 months, with 2018 expected to be the fourth warmest year on record.

Average temperatures around the world so far this year were nearly 1C (33.8F) above pre-industrial levels. Extreme weather has affected all continents, while the melting of sea ice and glaciers and rises in sea levels continue. The past four years have been the hottest on record, and the 20 warmest have occurred in the past 22 years.

Verdict against eight men accused in the murder of Honduran indigenous environmentalist will be handed down on Thursday

The verdict against eight men accused over the murder of Honduran indigenous environmentalist Berta Cáceres will be handed down on Thursday after a controversial five-week trial plagued by allegations of negligence and cover-ups.

Cáceres – who won the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize – was shot dead in March 2016, after a long battle against the internationally financed Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam project on the Gualcarque river, territory sacred to the indigenous Lenca people.

Charity warns against complacency as levels of plastic remain ‘shocking’

Record numbers of volunteers turned out this year to help clear litter from the UK’s beaches, in the 25th annual Great British Beach Clean.

But the Marine Conservation Society (MCS), which organises the event, warned there were still shocking amounts of plastic litter on UK beaches, despite a 16% decrease compared with last year. It said the average of 16 glass and plastic bottles and drinks cans retrieved on every 100-metre stretch of beach (330ft) surveyed strengthened the case for the urgent introduction of a deposit return system in all parts of the UK.

Despite announcement construction is to begin within weeks, Guardian Australia has confirmed regulatory approvals are still needed

The Indian mining giant Adani has announced it will self-finance its controversial Queensland coal mine project and says major works are due to start “imminently”.

Adani has made a string of announcements in recent months that indicated the company would scale back its mine, rail and port plans plans, having been unable to find an outside investor.