The Guardian

Representatives at the Cop16 summit in Colombia negotiated against a backdrop of extreme weather and ecosystem collapse

As world leaders gathered in Colombia this week, they also watched for news from home, where many of the headlines carried the catastrophic consequences of ecological breakdown. Across the Amazon rainforest and Brazil’s enormous wetlands, relentless fires had burned more than 22m hectares (55m acres). In Spain, the death toll in communities devastated by flooding passed 200. In the boreal forests that span Siberia, Scandinavia, Alaska and Canada, countries were recording alarming signs that their carbon sinks were collapsing under a combined weight of drought, tree death and logging. As Canada’s wildfire season crept to a close, scientists calculated it was the second worst in two decades – behind only last year’s burn, which released more carbon than some of the world’s largest emitting countries.

In global negotiations, climate and nature move along two independent tracks, and for years were broadly treated as distinct challenges. But as negotiations closed at the Cop16 biodiversity summit in Cali on Saturday, ministers from around the world underscored the crucial importance of nature to limiting damage from global heating, and vice versa – emphasising that climate and biodiversity could no longer be treated as independent issues if either crisis was to be resolved. Countries agreed a text on links between the climate and nature, but failed to include language on a phase out of fossil fuels.

More than 130 organisations take part in protest demanding government action over country’s sewage crisis

Thousands of blue-clad protesters have told the government to “stop poisoning Britain’s water” as they marched through London calling for action on the country’s contaminated coastal waters and rivers.

A coalition of more than 130 nature, environmental and water-sport organisations called supporters out on to the streets of the capital on Sunday afternoon, aiming to create the country’s biggest ever protest over water.

Letter by 61 Labour MPs supports ‘cheapest and most pragmatic’ plan for new electricity infrastructure

More than 60 Labour MPs have formed a bloc to push back against anti-pylon lobbying by Conservative and Green MPs, saying they back plans to build the pylons despite local opposition in several areas.

MPs, particularly in rural areas, have come under mounting pressure from anti-pylon activists to oppose the infrastructure. The Tories found themselves forced to commit to hold a “rapid review” of overhead pylons in their July manifesto.

It turns out long-held resentments exist even in the animal kingdom. Does that mean they hold an evolutionary advantage?

The best thing that happened to me during the whole of the pandemic was a story on the internet. An Oregon resident, furloughed, saw on a daytime nature documentary that, if you fed crows, they would bring you small gifts. Curious, they tried it, and were delighted to find themselves in effective possession of a 15-strong crow family – but then things took a dark turn. The crows became an army, fiercely protective of their leader’s property. If neighbours came near, the crows would dive-bomb them. “To be clear,” the person wrote on Reddit, “they’re not aggressive 100% of the time. If just the neighbours are out [on their own porch], they are friendly, normal crows. They only get aggressive when someone gets close to me or my property.”

It’s such a lovely phrase, “friendly, normal crows”; it’s just a pity that it’s an oxymoron. Crows are the most prodigious grudge-holders, which a professor of wildlife at Washington University, John Marzluff, discovered by capturing seven of the birds while wearing an ogre mask in 2006. A full 17 years later, crows were still regularly attacking him. Even if you were to query the ethics of his original experiment, you’d have to admit that he paid a high price. How such a thing is possible when the lifespan of a crow is only 12 years is this: not only can they hold a grudge, they can also pass it on to one another. Originally, even birds that witnessed the ogre-trap attacked Marzluff, then over time they transmitted the hostility to their offspring, creating a multigenerational grudge.

Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist

Brutal economic situation has inflicted misery on farmers who struggle to turn a profit and forced some to look for alternative streams of revenue

• Revealed: billionaires are ‘ultimate beneficiaries’ linked to €3bn of EU farming subsidies

When Coen van den Bighelaar first spoke to school friends about taking over their parents’ dairy farms, he was the only one of the four to voice serious doubts. Fresh out of university, he was making more money in a comfortable office than his father did toiling for twice as long in the field.

But six years later, Bighelaar has followed in his parents’ footsteps, while his friends’ enthusiasm has waned. One quit farming to take a job in logistics. Another opened a daycare centre to supplement the income from selling milk. A third is thinking about buying land and moving to Canada.

Thousands of small farms have closed according to analysis of official but opaque data from EU member states

• ‘We didn’t realise how hard it is’: small farmers in Europe struggle to get by

The European Union gave generous farming subsidies to the companies of more than a dozen billionaires between 2018 and 2021, the Guardian can reveal, including companies owned by the former Czech prime minister Andrej Babiš and the British businessman Sir James Dyson.

Billionaires were “ultimate beneficiaries” linked to €3.3bn (£2.76bn) of EU farming handouts over the four-year period even as thousands of small farms were closed down, according to the analysis of official but opaque data from EU member states.

Plant’s owners hope analysis of tiny sample will help to establish how to safely decommission facility

A piece of the radioactive fuel left from the meltdown of Japan’s tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has been retrieved from the site using a remote-controlled robot.

Investigators used the robot’s fishing-rod-like arm to clip and collect a tiny piece of radioactive material from one of the plant’s three damaged reactors – the first time such a feat has been achieved. Should it prove suitable for testing, scientists hope the sample will yield information that will help determine how to decommission the plant.

Concerned students press for their high schools – some with $1bn endowments – to reinvest in clean energy

A high school in California has decided not to invest in coal, oil or gas, instead pledging to put money into clean energy. It’s the latest win in a new fossil fuel divestment campus campaign launched by high schoolers across 11 countries that is gaining support in the US.

The Nueva School, an elite private school outside San Francisco, pledged in spring 2024 to invest a portion of its $55m endowment in renewable power. The commitment followed months of pressure from students.

California lawsuit demands Carefree and parent company Edgewell remove chemicals or add warning label

Carefree menstrual pads are contaminated with toxic PFAS “forever chemicals”, which presents a threat to the reproductive health of women using the products, a new lawsuit filed in California state court alleges.

The suit demands Carefree and its parent company, personal care product giant Edgewell, remove PFAS from the products or put a warning label on its packaging.

Use of bird hand-puppets to rear young among innovative methods unveiled as part of project to restore species

Sea eagles were last seen soaring over the shimmering mud flats and brackish tidal waters of the Severn estuary more than 150 years ago. Now wildlife charities have unveiled innovative plans to bring the raptor back to the estuary, which flows into the Bristol Channel between south-west England and south Wales, by 2026.

“Sea eagles used to be common in these regions. But they were wiped out through human persecution,” says Sophie-lee Williams, the founder of Eagle Reintroduction Wales, which is leading the project. “We strongly believe we have a moral duty to restore this lost native species to these landscapes.”

The steep and stark environmental decline was not supposed to happen under the common agricultural policy

The Rhine overflowed last winter, covering fields miles from the river and in some places leaving just the tops of trees visible.

But Thomas Bollig, who farms just a few miles from the banks of the Rhine, was not worried. Even as floods inundated the fields of his neighbours, making sowing impossible, his holdings were largely unaffected. Bollig farms organically, and the natural methods he uses to improve his soil allow his fields to hold more water when it rains, and release it gradually, coping well with floods and droughts.

More than 200 deaths and widespread destruction in Valencia are the latest sign of danger in a warming world

The death toll from floods in Spain’s Valencia region has topped 200. A huge clean-up is under way amid desperate conditions, with severe weather warnings still in place. The storms which caused this devastation – with roads turned into muddy rivers, thousands of homes deluged and cars swept into piles – were unprecedented. The gota fría, or “cold drop”, is a regular occurrence when cold autumnal air moves over the warm Mediterranean, causing dense clouds to form. But this rain, according to the Spanish weather service, was 10 times stronger than a normal downpour.

Extreme weather in Spain, and the rest of southern Europe, is more commonly understood to mean dangerous heat, drought and wildfires. The regional government is under attack regarding the lack of sufficient warnings and there is no doubt that the severity of these floods came as a terrible shock.

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Conservationists warn actions and ambitions of two super powers could lead to overexploitation of vital food source for whales, penguins and seals

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China and Russia are working together to block new Antarctic marine parks and loosen krill fishing restrictions, undermining a major international convention designed to protect the region from overexploitation, according to analysts and conservationists.

With the support of Russia, China reportedly used its veto rights at a meeting of the 26-nation Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) in Tasmania to prevent the renewal of an agreement restricting krill fishing.

More than 200 people have died in Valencia and neighbouring provinces after floods hit the east of Spain. According to the country’s national weather agency, Valencia received a year’s-worth of rain on 29 October, causing flash floods that destroyed homes and swept away vehicles

António Guterres says treaty will endure but urges US to remain amid reports of Republican plan to withdraw from the climate negotiating framework entirely

The world needs the US to remain in the international climate process to avoid a “crippled” Paris agreement, the UN secretary general has warned, amid fears that Donald Trump would take the country out of the accord for a second time.

António Guterres said the landmark 2015 agreement to limit global heating would endure if the US withdrew once again, but compared the prospective departure to losing a limb or organ.

First-of-its-kind research highlights need for change to regulation, as humans almost always exposed to mixtures

Mixtures of different types of PFAS compounds are often more toxic than single chemicals, first-of-its-kind research finds, suggesting humans’ exposure to the chemicals is more dangerous than previously thought.

Humans are almost always exposed to more than one PFAS compound at a time, but regulatory agencies largely look at the chemicals in isolation from one another, meaning regulators are probably underestimating the health threat.

Heightened risk Cádiz river could overflow, with yellow and orange rainfall warnings for southern regions

The low-pressure system responsible for Spain’s most devastating floods in decades in Valencia also set new rainfall records across south-eastern Spain. In Jerez de la Frontera, 115mm of rain fell in 24 hours on Wednesday – the wettest day on record for the southern Spanish city. The deluge caused widespread flooding and road closures, and there is a heightened risk that the River Barbate in Cádiz could overflow as more rain is forecast through Friday and into the weekend.

While the rare red warning issued on Thursday for Valencia has expired, Spain’s national meteorological service, Aemet, has maintained yellow and orange rainfall warnings for southern and Mediterranean regions as storms continue to push in.

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world

Sydney’s jacaranda trees are in full bloom, blanketing the city in purple and attracting crowds of people trying to capture that perfect frame

• Australia’s best photos of the month – October 2024
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Decline over 2023, helped by switch to renewable power, means greenhouse gas pollution is now 37% below 1990 levels

The EU’s greenhouse gas emissions fell 8% last year, the European Environment Agency (EEA) has found, as the continent continues to close down coal-fired power plants and make more electricity from sun and wind.

The steep drop in planet-heating pollution in 2023 is close to the fall recorded in Europe at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, when travel restrictions grounded planes and shuttered factories.