The Guardian

Analysis from EU’s scientific risk assessors finds neonicotinoids pose a serious danger to all bees, making total field ban highly likely

The world’s most widely used insecticides pose a serious danger to both honeybees and wild bees, according to a major new assessment from the European Union’s scientific risk assessors.

The conclusion, based on analysis of more than 1,500 studies, makes it highly likely that the neonicotinoid pesticides will be banned from all fields across the EU when nations vote on the issue next month.

The prime minister’s attack focuses on Labor’s policy shift on Carmichael mine and renews attempts to paint Labor leader as ‘not fair dinkum’

Malcolm Turnbull has blasted Bill Shorten for going “snorkelling” on the Great Barrier Reef courtesy of the Australian Conservation Foundation, and for selling blue-collar jobs down the river “to get Green votes” in the Batman byelection.

The prime minister went on the political offensive against Shorten after the businessman and environmentalist Geoff Cousins revealed a series of conversations with the Labor leader over the past three months about stopping the controversial Adani coal project in Queensland.

Pyramid teabags made from a plant-based material will go on sale next week, with company’s other teabags set to follow suit by end of 2018

The UK’s biggest tea brand is switching to fully biodegradable tea bags free from synthetic materials to cut down on plastic pollution caused by the nation’s favourite hot drink.

The first of the new eco-friendly pyramid teabags from PG tips – made from a plant-based material that is 100% renewable and biodegradable – will go on sale in UK supermarkets next week, it was announced on Wednesday.

There is no logic in wrapping perishable food in indestructible plastic, say campaigners hailing today’s launch in Amsterdam

Today the world’s first plastic-free aisle was launched in Amsterdam by environmental campaign group A Plastic Planet and Dutch supermarket Ekoplaza. The aisle enables shoppers to choose from 700 everyday products that are free from plastic packaging. Before the end of the year, Ekoplaza plans to roll the plastic-free aisle out across each of its 74 stores.

Plastic packaging has no place in food and drink. There is no logical basis for wrapping something as perishable as food with something as indestructible as plastic. With recycled plastics today accounting for just 6% of total plastics demand in Europe, it’s clear that we cannot recycle our way out of the plastic problem. Food and drink plastic packaging does not belong in a circular economy given that it is difficult to reclaim, is easily contaminated, and all too often proves valueless.

Campaigners hail progress as Amsterdam store offers dedicated aisle of more than 700 products, with plans for a national roll-out

• Letter: Plastic-free aisle is an example for others to follow
  

Shoppers in the Netherlands will get the chance to visit Europe’s first plastic-free supermarket aisle on Wednesday in what campaigners claim is an turning point in the war on plastic pollution.

The store in Amsterdam will open its doors at 11am when shoppers will be able to choose from more than 700 plastic-free products, all available in one aisle.

Sahara snow and volcanic colours are among the images captured by Nasa and the ESA last month

Rare snowfall in north-west Algeria, on the edge of the Sahara desert. Despite the desert at times being one of the hottest places on Earth, the snow was reported to be up to 40cm thick in some places. Although temperatures plummet during the night, snowfall is very unusual in the Sahara because the air is so dry. It is only the third time in nearly 40 years that this part of the desert has seen snow.

Wenlock Edge, Shropshire: The chaffinch’s chest is dawn-lit, his head grey, the heraldry of his flash-feathers signalling the breeding season to come

For a brief moment, a cock chaffinch owns the world: a handful of seeds on a metre-square of concrete at the cold end of February. Watch the fighter’s forward shuffle, pushing towards the ropes of his entitlement; the eye-contact with invisible opponents. In a scattering of wild bird food, harvested somewhere else, bagged for the supermarket and broadcast here to rekindle a bond between person and bird, he asserts his antique right to gleanings.

He selects a seed the way a waller lifts the perfect stone to fill a gap. The precision instrument of his beak applies just enough pressure along the ridges to split its seam, then he rolls it crosswise to crack and separate the case, which he drops. This empty husk is the chaff, and the chaffinch’s skill is in the threshing of each grain, the winnowing that separates the germ of life from the box it comes in. Chaffinch do not eat the chaff but create it, a litter cast for others; I suppose the bird’s name comes from its foraging the rubbish of harvest. The chaffinch swallows the seed, and the future of wheat, maize, millet or oat plants becomes the future chaffinch.

Opposition leader assured environmentalist he would commit Labor to revoking the licence for the controversial coal project, but then faltered

The businessman and environmentalist Geoff Cousins is absolutely unequivocal.

He said the federal Labor leader Bill Shorten called him, just before Christmas last year, looking for help in how Labor might strengthen its policy on the controversial Adani coalmine – and then Shorten followed up several times since, asking to be given more time to convince colleagues to support the shift in position.

Record warmth in the Arctic this month could yet prove to be a freak occurrence, but experts warn the warming event is unprecedented

An alarming heatwave in the sunless winter Arctic is causing blizzards in Europe and forcing scientists to reconsider even their most pessimistic forecasts of climate change.

Although it could yet prove to be a freak event, the primary concern is that global warming is eroding the polar vortex, the powerful winds that once insulated the frozen north.

Analysis shows just 20 battery models on sale in Europe against more than 400 conventional ones

The rise of electric cars in Europe is being hampered by a lack of models for consumers to choose from rather than a lack of public recharging points, according to energy companies and carmakers.

Some motoring groups and insurers have warned over the past year that the number of chargers is putting the switch to electric transport at risk. But an analysis by the Platform for Electromobility – whose 31 members include Tesla, Renault-Nissan, Brussels-based campaign group T&E and industrial groups Siemens and Alstom – found there are already enough points in Europe.

Landmark ruling could cause traffic chaos and dramatically hit the value of diesel vehicles

One of Germany’s top courts has ruled that heavily polluting vehicles can be banned from the urban centres of Stuttgart and Düsseldorf, a landmark ruling that could cause traffic chaos on the country’s roads and dramatically hit the value of diesel cars.

Environmental campaigners had sued dozens of German cities, arguing they have a duty to cut air pollution to protect people’s health.

Faster melting of ice sheets is speeding up sea level rise

As humans emit heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide, the planet warms, and over time consequences become more apparent. Some of the consequences we are familiar with – for instance, rising temperatures, melting ice, and rising sea levels. Scientists certainly want to know how much the Earth has changed, but we also want to know how fast the changes will be in the future to know what the next generations will experience.

One of the classic projections into the future is for sea level rise. It is expected that by the year 2100, the ocean levels will rise a few feet by the end of the century. This matters a lot because globally, 150 million people live within three feet of current ocean levels. We have built our modern infrastructure based on current ocean levels. What happens to peoples’ homes and infrastructure when the waters rise?

This year, in collaboration with Global Witness, the Guardian aims to record the deaths of all people killed while protecting land or natural resources. At the current rate, about four defenders will die this week somewhere on the planet

A Senate estimates hearing has been told how little auditing takes place on such projects. But no big deal, it’s just the environment, right?

Imagine spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a project and not being able to demonstrate whether or not you’ve achieved what you set out to.

Such is the case for programs aimed at helping Australia’s threatened plants and animals, which the government has boasted it is funding to the tune of $255m.

Allendale, Northumberland: One of their main predators is the domestic cat; an ermine will be particularly vulnerable once the snow has gone

I’m eating my breakfast when I see a flash of white hurtling down the garden path. Reaching for the binoculars that are always on the kitchen table, I see it’s a stoat, part ermined, starkly revealed now the snow has gone. Its fur is a rich red-brown with white patches, the brilliant winter coat contrasting with the jet black tip to its tail. Flowing lightly over dormant flower beds, it streaks over a wall and disappears into the field.

Minutes later, I see the stoat again, a limp vole in its mouth. It runs around the square of the garden keeping to the inside of the boundary before slipping between the stones of one of the drystone walls. It emerges without the vole, which it has cached, storing the surplus food for later. For the next half hour I watch it hunting, undulating along coping stones, its neat little face popping out from under the topiary, as the sun comes up, a mistle thrush sings and backlit winter gnats take to the air.

Declining fertility and rising mortality, exacerbated by fishing industry, prompts experts to warn whales could be extinct by 2040

The dwindling North Atlantic right whale population is on track to finish its breeding season without any new births, prompting experts to warn again that without human intervention, the species will face extinction.

Scientists observing the whale community off the US east coast have not recorded a single mother-calf pair this winter. Last year saw a record number of deaths in the population. Threats to the whales include entanglement in lobster fishing ropes and an increasing struggle to find food in abnormally warm waters.

Development of new material for supercapacitors has potential to raise range to that of petrol cars

Researchers have claimed a breakthrough in energy storage technology that could enable electric cars to be driven as far as petrol and diesel vehicles, and recharge in minutes rather than hours.

Teams from Bristol University and Surrey University developed a next-generation material for supercapacitors, which store electric charge and can be replenished faster than normal batteries.

Minette Batters, the National Farmers’ Union’s new president, says good quality, safe food is ‘a public right’ and staying part of a customs union is vital

British farmers will not accept lower welfare and hygiene standards under any post-Brexit trade deals, and will fight to remain as part of a customs union, the new president of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) has pledged.

Minette Batters, the first woman to head the powerful farmers’ lobby since its foundation 110 years ago, set out a vision of farming as a unifying force across the UK, providing high-quality but low-cost food to consumers on a tight budget while safeguarding the environment and providing one in eight of the UK’s jobs.

Exclusive: Watchdog’s new report will say agency’s prosecutions and compliance statistics were seriously overstated

The New South Wales ombudsman is investigating whether WaterNSW – the body responsible for compliance with the state’s water laws – has misled it when it provided data last year on the number of prosecutions and enforcement actions it had taken in the 15 months prior.

The ombudsman confirmed a second special report will be tabled in the first week of March, but declined to outline its contents. Special reports are a last resort when the ombudsman deems that a report to the minister is insufficient.

Climate change and overfishing could push the region’s king penguin populations to the brink of extinction, a new study shows

Rising temperatures and overfishing in the pristine waters around the Antarctic could see king penguin populations pushed to the brink of extinction by the end of the century, according to a new study.

The report, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, found that as global warming transforms the environment in the world’s last great wilderness 70% of king penguins could either disappear or be forced to find new breeding grounds.