The Guardian

Artificially low fuel prices are the root of the problem

Last week, Trump’s EPA announced that it will repeal the vehicle fuel efficiency standards set under the Obama administration and replace them with weaker requirements. EPA also threatened to revoke California’s ability under the Clean Air Act to impose its own greenhouse gas standards. If they do so, California’s attorney general will sue the EPA.

The Trump Administration’s assault on clean car standards risks our ability to protect our children’s health, tackle climate change, and save hardworking Americans money. We’re ready to file suit if needed to protect these critical standards: https://t.co/AqwDR9Js18 https://t.co/qBalA25Z2l

WWF-Australia wants to buy 600m net, which would effectively end gillnetting in area

Conservationists plan to establish a commercial fishing net-free zone in the northern Great Barrier Reef by buying and retiring the area’s last remaining licence.

WWF-Australia will launch a crowdfunding campaign to buy the 600m net operating out of Princess Charlotte Bay in the far north, which would effectively end gillnetting in an area spanning 700km from Cooktown to the Torres Strait.

Supermarket’s customers will still be able to claim free drink if they bring a reusable cup

Waitrose plans to remove all disposable coffee cups from its shops by this autumn as part of efforts to reduce plastic and packaging waste and stop millions going into landfill.

Customers who belong to the myWaitrose loyalty scheme will still be able to get free tea or coffee from the stores’ self-service machines but will be instead be asked to use a refillable cup, the company said.

Raja Ampat is the global epicentre of marine biodiversity – and the species count is still rising, thanks in large part to two scientists ...

I’m at five metres, clutching a rock outcrop on the seabed when the manta ray fixes me with its gaze. I’m free diving so there are no distracting bubbles - just the undulation of wings – four metres from tip to tip – as it passes close enough to touch, with a look that feels…nuanced. We stare at each other for a couple of moments before it wheels round, showing me a white belly scattered with dark spots and a couple of remora fish hitching a ride. Being that close to a manta is thrilling – but it’s the look that stays with me.

An archipelago of 1500 odd islands scattered over 40,000 square kilometres off the coast of West Papua, Indonesia, Raja Ampat is a great place to see manta rays – and indeed sea creatures in general. For one, these waters are home to more marine species than anywhere else on the planet: there are single reefs in Raja Ampat that contain more species than the entire Caribbean. And then there’s the fact that the entire region was declared a sanctuary for sharks and rays back in 2010 – a move that four years later led to the whole of Indonesia becoming a manta ray sanctuary – easily the world’s largest.

Frozen food specialist will reformulate own-label range to be free of controversial ingredient which drives deforestation by the end of 2018

Iceland is to become the first major UK supermarket to pledge to remove palm oil from all its own-brand foods, in a bid to halt the ongoing destruction of tropical rainforests in south-east Asia.

The frozen food specialist will reveal on Tuesday that the controversial ingredient has already been taken out half of its own-label range, with the rest being reformulated by the end of 2018.

Light-coloured roads and rooftop gardens are planning measures being employed to combat rising urban temperatures

With summer still apparently a long way off, it seems premature to be worrying about heatwaves but they are becoming as great a threat to life as winter cold. Predictions are that, in summer, most European cities could become as much as 10C hotter by the end of this century, testing the old and very young who both have trouble regulating body temperature.

Related: Urban heat islands: cooling things down with trees, green roads and fewer cars

Securing rights to cultural flows would provide employment and skills for Indigenous communities along river system

• Murray-Darling: when the river runs dry

When the water levels of the Darling river fall, local elders in Wilcannia, New South Wales, say, the crime rate spikes, particularly juvenile crime.

It seems like an odd correlation until the elders explain just how important the river is to their everyday lives.

Analysis shows 94% of the 5,000 estimated koala deaths due to habitat loss from 2012 to 2016 occurred outside the state’s heavily developed south-east

Environmentalists estimate that tree clearing in regional and rural Queensland is now 15 times more destructive to the state’s koala populations than urban sprawl.

Development, and the loss of koala habitat for housing and infrastructure, was considered a key reason why the koala was added to the “vulnerable” species list in 2012.

The A’I Cofan in the Amazon fight back against small-scale miners invading their land and new, large-scale concessions upriver

Three A’I Cofan men were staring down at a pit of rocks, dead foliage and filthy water where two gold-panners were working. Beyond was a sluice and hoses running down to the rushing, green waters of the River Aguarico. To the right, there was mud, more rocks, more equipment, a makeshift tent and camp. Behind, to the left, a Hyundai excavator and a track running downriver.

No more than two weeks before, no track had existed and all this had been primary forest. Now that was gone. Only an area about 110 x 50 metres, you might say, but this is how gold rushes start.

Official files show government expects 973,000 households to face increased daytime noise

More than 2 million people would be exposed to additional aircraft noise if Heathrow builds a third runway, according to a government analysis.

Ministers have argued that Britain’s biggest airport will affect fewer people with noise in future, due to quieter planes. But government calculations suggest a new runway would still have a negative impact on nearly a million households, or 2.2 million people.

Next stage of planning process for Anglesey site postponed as effect on tern colonies is assessed

Plans for a nuclear power station on the Welsh island of Anglesey have been delayed by concerns over the plant’s impact on colonies of protected seabirds.

The proposed twin reactors at Wylfa were given the green light by the UK’s nuclear regulator in December, with backers hoping to win financial support from the government. The Welsh plant would have a capacity of 3GW, similar to the 3.2GW of the nuclear power station being built at Hinkley Point in Somerset.

Ofcom says interviewer failed to challenge controversial claims including that there had been no increase in extreme weather events

BBC Radio 4 broke impartiality rules by failing to sufficiently challenge climate change denier Nigel Lawson’s controversial claims in an interview, the broadcasting watchdog has ruled.

Lord Lawson appeared on a Radio 4 programme last summer denying the concept of climate change, which prompted complaints from the Green party, and prominent scientists Brian Cox and Jim Al-Khalili, who said it was “irresponsible and highly misleading” to imply there was still a debate around the science supporting it.

Tip turkey, dumpster chook, rubbish raptor – the Australian white ibis goes by many unflattering names. But it is a true urban success story, scavenging to survive in cities across Australia as wetlands have been lost. Wildlife photographer Rick Stevens captured them in Sydney

• See the rest of our Australian cities week series here

Report warns carbon footprint of heavy emitter cement companies must be reduced sharply in order to meet Paris climate goals

Greenhouse gas emissions from cement production must be reduced sharply if the world is to meet the climate change goals set out in the Paris agreement, a new report has suggested.

Making cement and concrete, which is the most consumed product in the world after water, entails substantial emissions of carbon dioxide, from the chemical processes involved. While manufacturers have for years been seeking ways to reduce this or capture the carbon produced, and to make cement production more energy efficient, the results have failed to keep pace with the need to cut carbon emissions.

Illegal pigeon hunting across Samoa is risking the extinction of the country’s national bird: the little dodo or manumea. Will this little-known island pigeon suffer the same fate as its namesake?

Nearly two hundred years after the extinction of the dodo, Sir William Jardin – a Scottish naturalist and bird-aficionado – described another odd, bulky, island pigeon. From the island of Samoa, this one was distinguished by a massive, curving bill that sported tooth-like serrations on its lower mandible. Given the strangeness of the creature, Jardine set it in its own genus and dubbed it Didunculus – the little dodo. Genetic evidence has since confirmed that the tooth-billed pigeon – or little dodo – is one of the closest living relatives of its long-deceased namesake. Today, the little dodo is at the very precipice of extinction, but it remains nearly as cryptic and little known as it did when Jardin gave it a scientific name in 1845.

The little dodo “is the last surviving species in its genus,” Rebecca Stirnemann said. “The Fijian and Tongan species [of the little dodo] are both extinct. It is the national bird of Samoa and appears in many of the stories often in association with chiefs.”

A UK startup making water containers from seaweed is one of many businesses thinking of food-based answers to the global problem of plastic. Can they catch on?

Who hasn’t occasionally considered whether you could just chomp on your water bottle once you have finished drinking from it? That is a reality with Ooho water pouches – from Skipping Rocks Lab, a UK-based “sustainable packaging” startup – made from seaweed for an esoteric post-beverage snack.

Of course, eating them is not really the point – the reason they received the thumbs up from French president Emmanuel Macron in December is that they offer a glimpse of a plastic-free future. With the tide turning against plastics and everyone from David Attenborough to the Queen seeking bans, these containers could help save the oceans. Ooho pouches encase a serving of water in a thin membrane made from brown algae. They were developed in London by Pierre-Yves Paslier and Rodrigo García González, who claim seaweed is safe to eat and regrows quickly, too.

Airedale, West Yorkshire: Shy birds break cover in spring. What we call personality is really a calculation of risk and need

The little grebe jackknifes out of sight almost before I have time to register that it’s there: a flash of chestnut cheek, a plop, and a fading pattern of concentric ripples on the water. The bird books invariably characterise Tachybaptus ruficollis as “shy” or “secretive”, and it’s not hard to see why – but in reality, these things are as changeable as the seasons.

Water in Queensland’s Darling Downs was polluted so much it was unfit for stock, court hears

A failed Queensland energy company has been found guilty of causing serious environmental harm by polluting the Darling Downs with hazardous contaminants despite warnings from scientists.

Linc Energy has been on trial for weeks at Brisbane district court, where the jury was told that toxic gas leaked from its operations between 2007 and 2013.

Expected charges against Norman Farming likely to throw spotlight on poor federal and state administration of Murray-Darling funds

Fraud charges are expected to be laid against one of Queensland’s biggest cotton irrigators, John Norman, within a matter of weeks.

If the trial of the owner-operator of Norman Farming, and former “cotton farmer of the year goes ahead, it is likely to draw attention to the links between the irrigator’s family and that of the federal minister for agriculture and water resources, David Littleproud.

The echoes of Scotland’s predator prince faded into silence three centuries ago. The wolf was once lord of these Sutherland slopes and the forest floors beneath and now a voice in the wilderness is calling him home.

Paul Lister acquired the Alladale estate, 50 miles north of Inverness, in 2003 and immediately set about creating a wilderness reserve according to his perception of what these wild and beautiful places ought to look like. He can’t imagine them without the packs of wolves that once roamed free here.