The Guardian

Environmental pledges are being shredded to please agribusiness and appease extremists. It’s a terrible mistake

The EU’s great green deal cave-in has been nothing less than spectacular. As aggressive lobbying and violent farmers protests ramped up in the last year, Brussels has killed plans to cut pesticide use by half, to green farming practices, to ban toxic “forever” chemicals, to rein in livestock emissions and, last week, to restore nature to 20% of Europe’s land and seas.

The aim may have been to create breathing space. Predictably, that hasn’t worked. The bloc’s anti-deforestation regulation seems likely to be the next green reform for the chop, with 20 agriculture ministers reportedly calling for it to be pared back and suspended on Monday, citing “administrative burdens”.

Increase in fairtrade sales to £13m shows shoppers still prioritising environment and workers’ wellbeing

British consumers might have faced the sharpest increase in living costs for four decades, but despite the cost of living crisis, concerns over the environment and the treatment of farmers in poorer countries has fuelled a steady increase in ethical shopping.

As households across the country rein in their spending to deal with rising bills, Michael Gadney, the chief executive of the Fairtrade Foundation trade body, said consumers were still prioritising ethical products.

Woman has a narrow escape after falling into a flooded drain in Daylesford, as central Victoria and western Melbourne hit by flooding and building damage

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Victoria’s emergency services fielded almost 500 requests for help as thunderstorms, damaging winds and heavy rain pummelled Melbourne’s western suburbs and the centre and east of the state.

There were close to 250 reports of building damage and 110 food-related incidents across the state in the 24 hours to 7am, the State Emergency Service said.

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CAP scheme, which pays more to farms that occupy more land, drives ‘perverse outcomes for a food transition’, says study

The EU has made polluting diets “artificially cheap” by pumping four times more money into farming animals than growing plants, research has found.

More than 80% of the public money given to farmers through the EU’s common agriculture policy (CAP) went to animal products in 2013 despite the damage they do to society, according to a study in Nature Food. Factoring in animal feed doubled the subsidies that were embodied in a kilogram of beef, the meat with the biggest environmental footprint, from €0.71 to €1.42 (61p to £1.22).

Dutch court ruling that KLM misled customers ‘wakeup call’ that decarbonisation plans should be credible, climate advocacy group says

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Australian airlines could be found to have misled consumers in the way they present their net zero goals and market offset options during flight bookings, climate advocates have claimed, following a landmark legal decision on aviation “greenwashing”.

The warning from Climate Integrity, a new Australia-based advocacy group, follows a Dutch court late last month ruling that airline KLM misled customers with vague environmental claims, and that its affirmation to the goals of the Paris Agreement was “misleading and therefore unlawful”.

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Hot and dry conditions could force measures despite country experiencing wettest 18 months since records began

• Why is the UK facing water shortages despite record rainfall?

The UK could face water shortages and hosepipe bans if this summer is hot and dry, despite having experienced the wettest 18 months since records began.

Leading scientists have said that because the UK is not storing its water properly, the country is vulnerable to the “all or nothing” rain patterns being experienced more frequently due to climate breakdown.

Charity publishes survey findings as it calls for youngsters to be no more than a 15-minute walk from green spaces

More than three-quarters of children want to spend more time in nature, the National Trust has found, as the conservation charity pushes ministers to ensure youngsters are no more than a 15-minute walk from green spaces.

Nearly two-thirds – 63% – of parents are able to take their children to nature spaces only once a week or less, citing accessibility as the main barrier, the survey of 1,000 children aged seven to 14 and 1,000 parents by the trust and the children’s newspaper First News found.

Other endangered animals rescued in 2023 included a burrowing parrot, an African spurred tortoise and a blood-eared parakeet

Specialist wildlife police in eastern Spain have rescued an exotic list of endangered animals over the past year, including a pair of Nile crocodiles, an African spurred tortoise weighing 25kg and a two-metre Burmese python.

The Seprona division of the Guardia Civil said in a statement on Sunday that its officers had recovered “numerous examples” of species protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora during 2023.

Former UN climate chief warns of global impact of a possible regression in US green policies

Victory for Donald Trump in the US presidential election this year could put the world’s climate goals at risk, a former UN climate chief has said.

The chances of limiting global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels are already slim, and Trump’s antipathy to climate action would have a major impact on the US, which is the world’s second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases and biggest oil and gas exporter, said Patricia Espinosa, who served as the UN’s top official on the climate from 2016 to 2022.

Smalltooth sawfish are behaving oddly, eliciting a first-ever plan to rescue and rehabilitate species from wild

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is launching what the agency described as an emergency response effort in south Florida after emerging reports of smalltooth sawfish spinning, whirling and displaying other abnormal behaviors.

In a statement released last Wednesday, NOAA said that in addition to the abnormal behaviors, there have been reports of fish deaths in the lower Florida Keys, including more than 28 smalltooth sawfish as of 24 March.

Labour party analysis of figures since 2010 shows raw sewage was discharged for more than 3.6m hours last year

Waterborne diseases such as dysentery and Weil’s disease have risen by 60% since 2010 in England, new figures reveal.

Analysis of NHS hospital admissions by the Labour party has found that the number of people admitted to hospital with diseases transmitted via waterborne infection has increased from 2,085 in 2010-11 to 3,286 in 2022-23.

Germans want to ban ‘torture breeding’ for extreme characteristics. Plus: don’t even think about swimming in British waters this Easter

I’ll say this for the Germans: when they’re right, they’re so right. Word reaches us that dachshunds are to be banned in Germany.

Descendants of enslaved miners who dug up gold, silver and emeralds worth billions call on Colombia to halt plan to lift cargo

Indigenous communities in Bolivia have objected to Colombia’s plans to recover the remains of an 18th-century galleon believed to be carrying gold, silver and emeralds worth billions, calling on Spain and Unesco to step in and halt the project.

Colombia hopes to begin recovering artefacts from the wreck of the San José in the coming months but the Caranga, Chicha and Killaka peoples in Bolivia argue that the excavation would rob them of their “common and shared” heritage.

Exclusive: Satellite analysis revealed to the Guardian shows farms devastated and nearly half of the territory’s trees razed. Alongside mounting air and water pollution, experts says Israel’s onslaught on Gaza’s ecosystems has made the area unlivable

In a dilapidated warehouse in Rafah, Soha Abu Diab is living with her three young daughters and more than 20 other family members. They have no running water, no fuel and are surrounded by running sewage and waste piling up.

Like the rest of Gaza’s residents, they fear the air they breathe is heavy with pollutants and that the water carries disease. Beyond the city streets lie razed orchards and olive groves, and farmland destroyed by bombs and bulldozers.

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

Poor harvests in extreme weather conditions have led to a tripling of cocoa prices – but farmers have seen no benefit

Around the world this holiday weekend, people will consume hundreds of millions of Easter eggs and bunnies, as part of an annual chocolate intake that can exceed 8kg (18lb) for every person in the UK, or 5kg in the US and Europe. But a global shortage of cacao – the seed from which chocolate is made – has brought warnings of a “chocolate meltdown” that could see prices increase and bars shrink further.

This week, cocoa prices rose to all-time highs on commodity exchanges in London and New York, reaching more than $10,000 a tonne for the first time, after the third consecutive poor harvest in west Africa. Ghana and Ivory Coast, which together produce more than half of the global cacao crop, have been hit by extreme weather supercharged by the climate crisis and the El Niño weather phenomenon. This has been exacerbated by disease and underinvestment in ageing plantations.

Activists say plan to remove 200 felines near Old San Juan fortress within six months is not enough time and worry cats will be killed

A non-profit organization said Thursday that it sued the US National Park Service over a plan to remove Puerto Rico’s famous stray cats from a historic district in the US territory.

The lawsuit filed by Maryland-based Alley Cat Allies comes four months after the federal agency announced it would contract an animal welfare organization to remove an estimated 200 cats that live in an area surrounding a historic seaside fortress in Old San Juan.

World’s fossil-fuel producers on track to nearly quadruple output from newly approved projects by decade’s end, report finds

The world’s fossil-fuel producers are on track to nearly quadruple the amount of extracted oil and gas from newly approved projects by the end of this decade, with the US leading the way in a surge of activity that threatens to blow apart agreed climate goals, a new report has found.

There can be no new oil and gas infrastructure if the planet is to avoid careering past 1.5C (2.7F) of global heating, above pre-industrial times, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has previously stated. Breaching this warming threshold, agreed to by governments in the Paris climate agreement, will see ever worsening effects such as heatwaves, floods, drought and more, scientists have warned.

The World Nature Photography award winners have been announced from a pool of entries from all corners of the globe – including a baby elephant in Kenya and an owl-like plant in Thailand. The top award and cash prize of $1,000 went to Tracey Lund from the UK for her image of two gannets under the water off the coast of the Shetland Islands. Lund and her fellow winners were drawn from thousands of images

Environment minister Tanya Plibersek’s reforms are running so late there’s speculation the government will weaken them at the expense of the environment

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After less than two years in power, the Albanese government is showing signs of getting comfortable. Consultation, transparency and coherent policy appear to be out. Cosiness with powerful stakeholders and policy on-the-run appear to be in.

Parliament is now debating amendments to the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act, which, if passed, could carve out oil and gas approvals from Australia’s environmental law.

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