The Guardian

Business and political leaders commit to make more vehicles emissions-free – and plan to bypass US government to do so

Political and business leaders gathering in San Francisco for a major climate change summit have committed to moving towards what was once a fantastical thought – the demise of the internal combustion engine in cars, trucks and other vehicles.

A group of 26 city, business and regional or state leaders, representing a 122m people around the world, have used the Global Climate Action Summit to call for car makers to quicken the pace of electric vehicle rollout. Twelve cities, including Santa Monica, Tokyo and Greater Manchester, have pledged to deploy only zero emission buses from 2025.

Some of the finalists in this year’s competition, sponsored by the Born Free Foundation and designed to raise awareness of the natural world

US states, cities and businesses forge ahead with strategies to cut carbon emissions to 24% below 2005 levels by 2025 despite Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris accord

America’s governors, mayors and CEOs are forging ahead with climate change initiatives despite the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and commitment to reviving the coal industry. But a report published today sets out a roadmap that could quicken that pace and cut carbon emissions to 24% below 2005 levels by 2025 in the absence of federal leadership.

Related: Climate change activists defy Trump’s inaction with their own summit

Exclusive: inaction on pollution standards leads to 63% rise in transport-related carbon emissions since 1990, report finds

Australia is lagging behind other developed nations in the race to curb greenhouse gas emissions from transport, according to a new report.

The report from the Climate Council, due to be released on Thursday, finds that Australia’s transport-related emissions have continued to rise because of policy inaction.

A new study finds that warming in the Atlantic Ocean is changing rain patterns in the Amazon

Global warming means truly global warming. The atmosphere, the oceans, and the ground are all warming. As a result, ice is melting, seas are rising, storms are getting more severe, and droughts are getting worse. But these things are not happening in isolation. The tricky thing about the climate is that things are connected all across the globe. And those connections are revealing changes that may not be obvious at first glance.

One such change was exposed in a recent paper published in the journal Environmental Research Letters by a team of top scientists from China and Brazil, an instructive video is available here. The scientists focused their study on the Amazon rainforest. There, the year is broken into “wet” and “dry” seasons. The researchers wanted to know how rainfall has changed during the wet seasons over the past few decades.

Runners will not be able to refill bottles, with water distributed in pouches made from seaweed instead

The capital’s first marathon event pledging to be completely free of “single use” plastic drinks bottles is to take place in north-west London.

The Harrow half marathon on Sunday 16 September will be the first time that London has staged a single use plastic-free running event.

Melting ice sheets are a major cause of sea level rise, but they might not work in the way you expect

Global average sea level is currently rising at a rate of about 3mm per year.

Greenland poet Aka Niviana’s way of life is disappearing as her country thaws, while the subsequent meltwater threatens Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner and her fellow Marshall Islanders thousands of miles away. Their joint trip to the melting glaciers inspired a climate call to arms

High up on a melting Greenland glacier, at the end of this summer from climate hell, two young women shout a poem above the roar of the wind. Aka Niviana, grew up on the northern coast of Greenland; as its ice inexorably thaws, her traditional way of life disappears. And the water that melts off that ice sheet is drowning the home of Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner and everyone else in her home nation, the Marshall Islands of the Pacific. One poet watches her heritage turn to water; the other watches that same water sweep up the beaches of her country and into the houses of her friends. The destruction of one’s homeland is the inevitable destruction of the other’s.

Gove’s agriculture bill prioritises environmental issues over food production, says head of NFU

Food production in the UK will be put at risk without government commitments to safeguard farmers after Brexit, and food scares could be the result, the head of the UK’s biggest farming organisation has warned as ministers announced the biggest shake-up to farming in decades.

The agriculture bill was hailed by Michael Gove, environment minister, as a “historic moment” heralding a “brighter future”, but swiftly came under attack from farming leaders for prioritising environmental issues over food production.

World’s carbon sinks are at risk because the law will count energy from burning trees as carbon neutral, say climate scientists

Senior climate scientists say that the world’s carbon sinks could be facing a grave threat from a wholly unexpected source: the EU’s renewable energy directive.

The climate law could suck in as much imported wood as Europe harvests each year because it will count energy created from the burning of whole trees as “carbon neutral”, according to several academics including a former vice-chair of the UN IPCC.

Supporters of the new sanctuary say it would have addressed conservation issues beyond whaling, such as ship strikes

A proposal to create a whale sanctuary in the South Atlantic was defeated at a meeting in Brazil of the International Whaling Commission, amid a clash between countries that think whales can be hunted sustainably and others that want more conservation measures.

Pro-whaling nations, including Japan, Korea, Norway and Russia, argued the science didn’t support the case for a sanctuary and said that it wasn’t necessary because there isn’t any commercial whaling occurring in the South Atlantic.

Adani says bores at planned mine site were within its permits and were for monitoring

The Australian government will investigate allegations Adani has drilled illegal groundwater bores at its Carmichael mine site.

Environment group Coast and Country has said it obtained aerial footage showing dewatering bores that were sunk without approval.

The Woodland Trust is asking people to make their voices heard over rail company’s plans to cut down thousands of trees

The Woodland Trust is calling on the public to raise its voice over the management of the trees along Network Rail lines to stop thousands being cut down without good reason.

Dr Nick Atkinson, senior conservation advisor for the trust, says the rail company must be held to account for the way it manages the millions of trees along its routes and that concerns had been raised by the public about how many were being felled.

Tree-planting, restoring wetlands and use of chemicals to remove CO2 from air needed, as well as cutting new emissions, say scientists

Tree-planting, restoring wetlands and using chemicals to take carbon dioxide from the air will all be needed to reduce the UK’s greenhouse gases in line with government plans, scientists have said.

If these measures are taken urgently, they could make enough of a contribution to make the UK “net zero” in terms of carbon emissions by 2050. However, a major programme to bring them into effect would be needed as a matter of urgency.

Leaders of US states, cities and businesses will convene in San Francisco to fight environment crisis, and rebuke Trump’s stance

Senior figures representing US states, cities and businesses rebelling against Donald Trump’s denial of climate change are swarming San Francisco this week to proclaim their own efforts to meet US commitments to cut greenhouse gases.

The two-day Global Climate Action Summit beginning Thursday will also feature diplomats and mayors from around the world. As well, chief executives of Fortune 500 companies and celebrities ranging from actor Harrison Ford to primatologist Jane Goodall all plan to be there.

Rainfall forecasts also suggest ‘limited’ prospects for summer crops

Crippling drought conditions in eastern Australia are expected to wipe millions of tonnes off winter crop production this year and rainfall forecasts suggest “limited” prospects for summer crops, a new report has warned.

On Tuesday a report from the federal agricultural department revealed the winter crop production in New South Wales would be almost cut in half on the year before.

Fungi are vital to life on Earth but little studied – new species of mould were found on baby-carrier backpack and an oil painting

New species of porcini, chanterelle and portobello mushrooms were among 2,000 new species of fungi discovered in 2017, which scientists say shows how little is known about the organisms.

More than £30bn of edible fungi are sold each year, according to the State of the World’s Fungi report published on Wednesday by scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew in the UK. But the lifeforms are even more vital to plants – 90% rely on fungi to thrive – and many human medicines such as penicillin derive from fungi.

Payments under EU’s CAP will be replaced by subsidies based on environmental protections

The UK’s biggest landowners will see the payments they receive from the public purse fall sharply from 2021 in what would be the biggest shake-up of farming for decades.

From 2021, a new system rewarding farmers for the public goods they provide will be phased in until 2027 when the last payments based on the amount of land farmed will be made. In place of the £3bn a year farmers currently receive under the EU’s common agricultural policy (CAP), farmers will be expected to sign environmental land management contracts detailing their commitments to protecting habitats, improving flood management and enhancing air and water quality.

• Obama-era rules targeted climate change gas from oil wells
• EPA: move ‘may degrade air quality and adversely affect health’

The Trump administration moved closer on Tuesday to rolling back Obama-era rules reducing oil and gas industry leaks of methane gas.

Related: Jerry Brown: Trump's 'gross ignorance' main obstacle in climate change fight

Retired farmer Sylvia Wilson’s husband died before they could do their dream road trip. She decided to go anyway

Sylvia Wilson drove around Australia in an electric car. It cost her $150.90.

Wilson, 70, a retired farmer from near Biloela in central Queensland, had planned the trip of a lifetime with her husband, Rod. One impulsive evening in mid-2016 they went online and, sight-unseen, bought a Tesla S75 electric car for the journey.