The Guardian

The Leuser ecosystem spans 2.6m hectares into the Indonesian provinces of Aceh and North Sumatra. It’s the only place in the world where tigers, orangutans, rhinos and elephants coexist in the wild. But it’s under threat from agricultural industries, including palm oil

• ‘The last place on Earth’: how Sumatra’s rainforest is being cleared for palm oil

Survey of 11 European countries reveals huge government subsidies to the transport sector and for fuels such as gas

Governments of 11 European nations are providing subsidies totalling more than £80bn a year to fossil fuel industries, green campaigners have claimed.

Transport fuels account for the lion’s share of the support to fossil fuels. Many of the 11 countries surveyed encourage drivers to use diesel as it produces less carbon per mile than petrol, despite the fuel’s effects on air pollution which is particularly harmful to children. For many years, governments had incentives to prioritise the use of diesel, as it helped them meet internationally-set carbon reduction targets.

Clissold Park, London Folded in on itself, the grey heron is still, only slightly moving its head to watch the water for an eel or frog

Old Spear-Face crouches in the rushes. The great grey heron has folded itself, all beak and eye, wing and leg, invisibly for such a large bird, into the watery edge of bulrushes in a park busy with people. Perhaps the people pretend not to notice the heron so the heron believes it really is invisible; they may steal a glance at each other from different realities in the same place but their gazes never meet.

Old Spear-Face is still, only slightly moving its head to watch the water for an eel or frog, while the surface reflects the finest autumn afternoon, high clouds and rumours of change in the trees. The bird’s eye, with its golden ring, has a determined look, like that of self-conscious cyclists, sellers of socialist papers, wedding photographers, proprietors of food stalls. Its wings cloak its body in plumy tassels of grey, and the scaly stick of its one leg (or so it seems) is jammed into the mud of the New river.

The new data is a welcome sign of progress in the battle against global warming but many challenges remain, including methane from cattle

Global emissions of climate-warming carbon dioxide remained static in 2016, a welcome sign that the world is making at least some progress in the battle against global warming by halting the long-term rising trend.

All of the world’s biggest emitting nations, except India, saw falling or static carbon emissions due to less coal burning and increasing renewable energy, according to data published on Thursday by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (NEAA). However other mainly developing nations, including Indonesia, still have rising rates of CO2 emissions.

A team of scientists and reef managers say it’s time to consider ‘riskier’ and unconventional ways to save the world’s coral habitats.

As the metaphorical canary in the global warming coalmine goes, the planet’s coral reefs are hard to beat.

Swathes of corals in all tropical basins have been hit by the longest mass bleaching event yet recorded that kicked off in 2014 and ended, at least officially, in June.

Family rivalry and Brazil’s Catholic church helped miners devastate an indigenous territory that was once a leader in the fight against deforestation. Climate Home reports

The Paiter-Suruí are a tribe of roughly 1,400 people, uncontacted until 1969, who live in the Amazon forest on the border between the Brazilian states of Rondônia and Mato Grosso.

In 2013, they became the first indigenous population in the world to sell carbon credits under the UN’s major anti-deforestation scheme. Then, last year, they discovered the earth beneath their forest was rich with diamonds, and all hell broke loose.

Capital is given emergency warning as polluted air from the continent combines with toxic air at home

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has triggered the capital’s emergency air quality alert as polluted air from the continent combines with toxic air in London to create dangerous levels of pollution.

The alerts will see warnings displayed at bus stops, road signs and on the underground. Khan has also asked TV and radio stations across the capital to warn their viewers and listeners in news bulletins.

As usual, conservative media outlets distorted a climate science paper to advance the denialist agenda

Last week, Nature Geoscience published a study suggesting that we have a bigger remaining carbon budget than previously thought to keep global warming below the 1.5°C aggressive Paris climate target. Many scientists quickly commented that the paper’s conclusion was based on some questionable assumptions, and this single study shouldn’t be blindly accepted as gospel truth.

Conservative media outlets did even worse than that. They took one part of the paper’s analysis out of context and grossly distorted its conclusions to advance their anti-climate agenda.

‘Clean growth’ report steps into scrapping of green deal void and reinstates all new homes be zero carbon by 2020

Progress in making Britain’s homes more energy efficient has stalled, but the government could salvage billions in wastage by taking a few key steps, a new report with wide backing has found.

Ministers are preparing a new “clean growth” plan after the scrapping of the green deal, which left the UK without a government policy on making homes more energy efficient and tackling fuel poverty.

Conservationist and 1,461 other scientists release statement describing Australia’s oceans as a ‘global asset’ that must be protected

Growing global momentum to protect the world’s oceans from overfishing could be undermined by Australia, warns renowned conservationist David Suzuki and more than 1,461 other scientists.

Australia is currently considering the world’s biggest downgrading of a protected area with a reduction in the size of its network of marine reserves.

The pub chain’s decision to do away with straws is expected to stop 70m of them ending up in landfill or the sea every year. Here are some other plastics we perhaps could do without

Drinkers heading to Wetherspoon’s for a tipple will have to do without plastic straws from the end of this year as the cheap (and occasionally cheerful) high-street pub chain does its bit to tackle the problem of global plastic pollution.

Following on the heels of companies such as Tesco, which last month announced it would stop selling its 5p single-use plastic bags, Wetherspoon’s senses the tide is turning against unnecessary plastics and claims that the move will stop 70m plastic straws finding their way into landfill or the world’s oceans every year.

Campaigners welcome U-turn on Renca reserve but threat still exists as Brazil president has close ties to mining industry

Amazon conservation groups have hailed a victory as the Brazilian government announced a U-turn on plans to open up swaths of the the world’s biggest forest to mining corporations.

President Michel Temer had sparked outrage in August when he announced a decree to abolish the Renca reserve, an area of 17,800 square miles – roughly the size of Switzerland – that is an important carbon sink and home to some of the world’s richest biodiversity.

• Trump administration reversed ban in August despite environmental protest
• Activists say plastic is biggest threat to environment after climate change

A ban on bottled water in 23 national parks prevented up to 2m plastic bottles from being used and discarded every year, a US national park service study found. That is equivalent to up to 326 barrels of oil worth of emissions, 419 cubic yards of landfill space and 111,743lb of plastic, according to the May study.

Despite that, the Trump administration reversed the bottled water ban just three months later, a decision that horrified conservationists and pleased the bottled water industry.

Neglected by most conservation groups, the Burmese python has a champion in Shariar Caesar Rahman.

Here’s a fact that illuminates many of the realities of global conservation: we know more about Burmese pythons in Florida – where they are a destructive invader – than about their lives in their natural range in Southeast Asia, where their numbers are plummeting and their very long-term survival may be up in the air.

Armed with a shoestring budget and a love for mega-snakes, Shariar Caesar Rahman is trying to rectify this incongruent reality by doing something no one has done in Bangladesh before. He’s attaching radio transmitters to snakes – really, really big snakes.

Plant and animal species that are the foundation of our food supplies are as endangered as wildlife but get almost no attention, a new report reveals

• Comment: Chips, chocolate and coffee – our food crops face mass extinction too
  

The sixth mass extinction of global wildlife already under way is seriously threatening the world’s food supplies, according to experts.

“Huge proportions of the plant and animal species that form the foundation of our food supply are just as endangered [as wildlife] and are getting almost no attention,” said Ann Tutwiler, director general of Bioversity International, a research group that published a new report on Tuesday.

It’s not just animals, many seed crops are also endangered. So why is agrobiodiversity so overlooked? This valuable source of affordable, nutritious food could disappear if we don’t act

• Read more: Sixth mass extinction of wildlife also threatens global food supplies

A “sixth mass extinction” is already under way, scientists are now warning us. Species such as the Bengal tiger and blue whale are vanishing at an alarming rate, and mournful eulogies are being written on how those born in 20 years’ time may never see an African elephant. But who is writing the eulogy for our food? Huge proportions of the plant and animal species that form the foundation of our food supply – known as agrobiodiversity ­– are just as endangered and are getting almost no attention.

Take some consumer favourites: chips, chocolate and coffee. Up to 22% of wild potato species are predicted to become extinct by 2055 due to climate change. In Ghana and Ivory Coast, where the raw ingredient for 70% of our chocolate is grown, cacao trees will not be able to survive as temperatures rise by two degrees over the next 40 years. Coffee yields in Tanzania have dropped 50% since 1960.

Sandy, Bedfordshire Once full of lambs, today the field is a thigh-high forest of vegetation and saplings rise above the jungle

Down by the river is a place that five springs ago was a field full of lambs. I had spent a couple of years there acting as “lookerer” (or volunteer shepherd) for a flock of Southdown sheep, and on one blossom-filled morning of cuckoo flowers and lesser celandines, I helped the shepherd with a difficult birth.

Related: Country diary: Sandy, Bedfordshire: The best midwife in his field – a shepherd gets to grips with lambing

We should use our collective purchasing power to send a clear message to businesses threatening communities across the globe, says Ruth Chambers

John Vidal shines a light on communities across Africa, Latin America and Asia fighting to protect their land, water and livelihoods (Land defenders call on UN to act against violence by state-funded and corporate groups, theguardian.com, 21 September). The efforts of these land rights defenders benefit us all. The forests and land they fight to protect provide globally important carbon stores, havens for wildlife, life-saving medicines and clean water for millions. But these lands are often sacrificed to grow crops or mine metals that end up in our everyday lives. As consumers, we should use our collective purchasing power to send a clear message to businesses that these lands – and their people – matter, and they should be protected.
Ruth Chambers
London

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A Highway Code prompt aimed solely at cyclists – not to the road users that caused more than 99% of deaths on UK roads last year – has nothing to do with improving safety

On Friday, transport minister Jesse Norman wrote to cycling leaders asking them to remind their members to follow the Highway Code. The letter came less than 48 hours after the announcement of a review on whether the law should be changed to tackle dangerous cycling.

Right-wing media outlets like Breitbart, Fox News, and Rush Limbaugh echoed the Mail’s “significantly misleading” and now censured climate story

Back in February, the conservative UK tabloid Mail on Sunday ran an error-riddled piece by David Rose attacking Noaa climate scientists, who had published data and a paper showing that there was never a global warming pause. The attack was based on an interview with former Noaa scientist John Bates, who subsequently admitted about his comments:

I knew people would misuse this. But you can’t control other people.