The Guardian

Insects are vital to ecosystems but will lose almost half their habitat under current climate projections

Global warming is on track to cause a major wipeout of insects, compounding already severe losses, according to a new analysis.

Insects are vital to most ecosystems and a widespread collapse would cause extremely far-reaching disruption to life on Earth, the scientists warn. Their research shows that, even with all the carbon cuts already pledged by nations so far, climate change would make almost half of insect habitat unsuitable by the end of the century, with pollinators like bees particularly affected.

Threat is not a possible future one but one endangering Australia now, parliament told

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Climate change is a “current and existential national security risk” to Australia, a Senate inquiry has told parliament, one that could inflame regional conflicts over food, water and land, and even imperil life on Earth.

The Senate committee inquiry into the implications of climate change for Australia’s national security recommended an increase in foreign aid to be dedicated to climate change mitigation and adaptation in the region, as well as a government white paper on climate security, Department of Defence emissions targets and a dedicated climate security post within the Department of Home Affairs.

The Guardian’s picture editors round up their favourite photos of the past 24 hours

UK demand for fruit increased by 27% last year alone, prompting accusations that growers are illegally diverting rivers and leaving locals without water

British supermarkets are selling thousands of tonnes of avocados produced in a Chilean region where villagers claim vast amounts of water are being diverted, resulting in a drought.

Major UK supermarkets including Tesco, Morrisons, Waitrose, Aldi and Lidl source avocados from Chile’s largest avocado-producing province, Petorca, where water rights have been violated.

Photographer Dougie Wallace turns his lens away from the pampered dogs of the world to its antithesis: the beach dogs of Goa. In doing so, Wallace has produced a wildlife project from a street photographer’s perspective, shot from a dog’s eye view

• Goan to the Dogs will be on display at his Well Heeled exhibition at the Hospital Club, Covent Garden, as part of Photo London, 17-20 May
• Signed copies of Well Heeled available at Dewi Lewis 4pm on 18 May

‘Exploratory drilling will be as easy as building a garden wall or conservatory’ – Greenpeace

Fracking opponents have reacted with anger after ministers unveiled measures to help projects through the planning system, which campaigners said would make drilling a shale well as easy as building a conservatory.

Shale gas explorers will be able to drill test sites without applying for planning permission and fracking sites could be classed as nationally significant infrastructure, meaning approval would come at a national rather than local level.

European court of justice can impose multimillion euro fines if the UK and five other countries do not address the problem

The UK and five other nations have been referred to Europe’s highest court for failing to tackle illegal levels of air pollution.

The European court of justice has the power to impose multimillion euro fines if the countries do not address the problem swiftly. The nations - the UK, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Romania - had been given a final warning by the European commission in January. Toxic air results in hundreds of thousands of early deaths across Europe each year.

Magpies know meanings of different noisy miner calls and are able to eavesdrop to find out if predators are nearby

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Australian magpies can understand what other birds are saying to each other, a new study has found.

The research, published in the journal Animal Behaviour, says the wily magpie has learned the meanings of different noisy miner calls and essentially eavesdrops to find out which predators are near.

A new study has found that the Australian magpie has learned to understand what noisy miner birds are saying to each other. The research, published in the journal Animal Behaviour, says the wily magpie can tell the difference between different calls and essentially eavesdrops to learn which predators are near

Photographer Klaus Thymann has been exploring the underwater cave system of the Yucatán peninsula, diving 1km underwater to where salt and freshwater meet. By mapping areas that have been untouched by modern civilisation, he hopes to raise awareness of the natural and human heritage of this unique ecosystem that will hopefully result in greater protection. He talks to Eric Hilaire about making his journey into a film, Flows, featuring music by Radiohead’s Thom Yorke

I am about to climb down a 10-metre rope ladder into a manhole-sized gap in the floor of the Mexican jungle on the Yucatán peninsula, to dive an underwater cave system, exploring paths where no one has ever been in modern history.

You may be familiar with cenotes, or sink holes, the beautiful wells filled with tempting blue water, but this hole does not look like that. Why would anyone want to head down there is a good question but we are exploring places where no one has been since the Mayans. This place doesn’t exist on any maps. My objective is to explore places with the view to bringing about environmental awareness, hopefully resulting in protection.

Russia captured the dolphins in 2014 and says the trained mammals refused both to interact with their coaches, and to eat

Ukraine is home to some of the more adventurous military blue-sky thinking, mostly hangovers from the Soviet era. As well as a 160-metre high, 500-metre long radar that was supposed to be able to warn of nuclear attack, it also has a secret programme that trains sea mammals to carry out military tasks. Ukraine has a dolphin army at the Crimean military dolphin centre, trained and ready for deployment.

Or at least it did, but after the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, the dolphins were captured. Ukraine demanded their return, but Russian forces refused. Some believed the Russians were planning to retrain the dolphins as Russian soldiers, with a source telling Russian agency RIA Novosti that engineers were “developing new aquarium technologies for new programmes to more efficiently use dolphins underwater”.

Romaldkirk, Teesdale: Lithe and lethal, the stoat emerged into a patch of bare ground, sniffed the air, then vanished into a dense patch of wild garlic

The warm weather arrived, and with it willow warblers. Soon their song would merge into the background sounds of summer but this was the first of the year, so we stopped to listen.

The warbler was delivering its liquid cadences, exultant, then dying away to a subdued ending, from a hawthorn on the embankment of the disused railway line that now forms part of the Tees Railway Path. Its perch, just a bare twig a week ago, was rapidly coming into leaf. The ground at the bottom of the slope was clothed in lush new growth of meadowsweet, nettles, thistles and ground elder foliage, a knee-high mosaic of leaf shapes.

CFCs have been outlawed for years but researchers have detected new production somewhere in east Asia

A sharp and mysterious rise in emissions of a key ozone-destroying chemical has been detected by scientists, despite its production being banned around the world.

Unless the culprit is found and stopped, the recovery of the ozone layer, which protects life on Earth from damaging UV radiation, could be delayed by a decade. The source of the new emissions has been tracked to east Asia, but finding a more precise location requires further investigation.

Freshwater supplies have already seriously declined in 19 global hotspots – from China to the Caspian Sea – due to overuse, groundbreaking study shows

Water shortages are likely to be the key environmental challenge of this century, scientists from Nasa have warned, as new data has revealed a drying-out of swaths of the globe between the tropics and the high latitudes, with 19 hotspots where water depletion has been dramatic.

Areas in northern and eastern India, the Middle East, California and Australia are among the hotspots where overuse of water resources has caused a serious decline in the availability of freshwater that is already causing problems. Without strong action by governments to preserve water the situation in these areas is likely to worsen.

Winning images from the prestigious annual competition held by the Society of German Wildlife Photographers (Gesellschaft Deutscher Tierfotografen – GDT) which showcases talent from within the EU. This year’s winner is German photographer Maximilian Hornisch with his image of a golden eagle

Influential committee says collapse in low-carbon investment is endangering jobs and threatening climate commitments

Investment in the UK’s low-carbon economy has fallen dramatically, endangering jobs and putting in doubt the government’s commitments on climate change, an influential committee of MPs has warned.

Funds going into renewable energy, the mainstay of the low-carbon economy, fell more than 50% in 2017, having dropped by 10% in 2016, bringing annual investment in the sector to its lowest since the financial crisis in 2008.

Garrett Fisher spent much of his summer in 2015 flying over places like Yellowstone taking stunning pictures of retreating glaciers

After hearing that the glaciers of the Rocky Mountains are rapidly vanishing, financial consultant Garrett Fisher took a novel course of action – he flew a light aircraft, built in 1949, low and alone over the mountains in order to photograph them.

Fisher spent much of his summer in 2015 flying over places such as Yellowstone, Glacier National Park and Grand Teton National Park, taking stunning pictures of retreating glaciers for a new book.

Iceland is among the first supermarkets to introduce the new ‘trust mark’ that shows shoppers which food packaging has no hidden plastic in it

A new plastic-free “trust mark” is being introduced today, allowing shoppers to see at a glance whether products use plastic in their packaging.

The label will be prominently displayed on food and drink products, making it easier for consumers to choose greener alternatives.

Study on rats said to show that the chemical, found in Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller, poses ‘a significant public health concern’

A chemical found in the world’s most widely used weedkiller can have disrupting effects on sexual development, genes and beneficial gut bacteria at doses considered safe, according to a wide-ranging pilot study in rats.

Glyphosate is the core ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide and levels found in the human bloodstream have spiked by more than a 1,000% in the last two decades.

Government-commissioned report says proposed site at Sambor reach is the ‘worst possible place’ for hydropower due to impact on wildlife

A Chinese-backed plan to build Cambodia’s biggest dam could “literally kill” the Mekong river, according to a confidential assessment seen by the Guardian which says that the proposed site at Sambor is the “worst possible place” for hydropower.

The report, which was commissioned by the government in Phnom Penh, has been kept secret since it was submitted last year, prompting concerns that ministers are inclined to push ahead regardless of the dire impact it predicts on river dolphins and one of the world’s largest migrations of freshwater fish.