The Guardian

French farmers have been getting closer to Paris as they continue to block highways in protest against price pressures, taxes and green regulation. Dozens of tractors occupied a motorway near the city of Beauvais leading to the French capital. In Belgium, farmers blocked highways in the south of the country and parked tractors near the European parliament in Brussels

• French farmers paralyse routes into Paris in tractor protest

Draft rules follow the ‘polluter pays principle’ and will mean companies cover 80% of extra clean-up costs

Beauty companies will have to pay more to clean up microplastic pollution after EU negotiators struck a new deal to treat sewage.

Under draft rules that follow the “polluter pays principle”, companies that sell medicines and cosmetics will have to cover at least 80% of the extra costs needed to get rid of tiny pollutants that are dirtying urban wastewater. Governments will pay the rest, members of the bloc said, in an effort to prevent vital products from becoming too expensive or scarce.

With confirmed or suspected cases in two Antarctic penguin species, researchers fear highly contagious virus could rip through colonies

At least one king penguin is suspected to have died from bird flu in the Antarctic. If confirmed, it will be the first of the species killed by the highly contagious H5N1 virus in the wild.

Researchers have previously raised alarm about “one of the largest ecological disasters of modern times” if bird flu reached remote Antarctic penguin populations. The birds are currently clustering together for breeding season, meaning the disease could rip through entire colonies if it continues to spread through the region.

Existing production destroys more value than it creates due to medical and environmental costs, researchers say

A shift towards a more sustainable global food system could create up to $10tn (£7.9tn) of benefits a year, improve human health and ease the climate crisis, according to the most comprehensive economic study of its type.

It found that existing food systems destroyed more value than they created due to hidden environmental and medical costs, in effect, borrowing from the future to take profits today.

Strong waves and sediment-laden freshwater pushed out from river catchments may have damaged parts of reef system, experts say

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Back-to-back cyclones crossing the Great Barrier Reef have experts concerned vast flood plumes and heavy waves may have damaged parts of the world’s biggest coral reef system.

Reef scientists and conservationists went into the summer worried that an El Niño weather pattern would elevate the risk of mass coral bleaching.

A year after Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, declared a humanitarian crisis among the Yanomami and vowed zero tolerance for illegal mining, environmental enforcers have said the progress since the ousting from the reservation of 80% of the wildcat miners is in jeopardy. As the military has rolled back its support for the crackdown, the miners have made fresh incursions into Yanomami land, they say

National Trust says it hopes to establish 50 hectares across three sites close to surviving pockets of rainforest

More than 100,000 trees are being planted in north Devon as part of efforts to boost temperate or Celtic rainforests, some of the UK’s most magical but endangered environments.

The trees are being planted close to surviving pockets of rainforest at two spots close to the coast and one inland.

Two environmental protesters hurled soup on to the Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris, calling for 'healthy and sustainable food'. The painting, which was behind bulletproof glass, appeared to be undamaged. Gallery visitors looked on in shock as two women threw the yellow-coloured soup before climbing under the barrier in front of the work and flanking the splattered painting. One of the two activists removed her jacket to reveal a white T-shirt bearing the name of the activist group Riposte Alimentaire (Food Response)

• Protesters throw soup at Mona Lisa painting in Paris

Restore Trust’s insidious campaign to get its preferred candidates on to the body’s board could set a dangerous precedent

Ah! The turning of the seasons! Once it was always early summer, as swifts swooped from gables, when the private limited company Restore Trust would announce the “anti-woke” candidates it hoped to parachute on to the National Trust board. As the elephant hawk-moths emerged in the simmer dim, Restore Trust would unveil would-be guardians of our heritage such as the evangelical Christian Stephen Green, who has supported the death penalty for some homosexuals in Uganda, and the pliable biographer Andrew Gimpson, who is even worse, having described Boris Johnson as “a statesman of astonishing political gifts… impelled by a deep love of his country and a determination to serve it to the uttermost of his powers”. I wouldn’t trust Gimpson with a single Jammie Dodger, let alone our national scones. Either way, Restore Trust’s declaration of war on the woke National Trust has become an annual event as comforting, in its own way, as the once reliable blooming of the daffodils. But suddenly, like that yellow splash of colour, it seems to happen earlier every year.

Nostalgia is an illness. But it always seemed important to my mother that the daffodils were out by my birthday in the first week of April. Perhaps, because my earliest birthdays were skewed by the uncertainties of orphanages and foster homes, it mattered to her that something as permanent as the daffodils, and by association the apparently endless cycle of seasons, should mark the anniversary of my arrival on your Earth. I still think of all daffodils as mine, and resent Wales’s cultural appropriation of my flower. Especially when it already has the leek, Dafydd ap Gwilym, Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci and Pot Noodle’s “too gorgeous” Peter Baynham.

Stewart Lee appears with Celya AB, Fern Brady, Rob Brydon, Rob Delaney, Kevin Eldon, Rosie Holt, Athena Kugblenu and Nish Kumar in Belter for the Shelter, in aid of Hackney Night Shelter, at the Hackney Empire, London, on 1 February

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The cost of decarbonising is vast. Something like the privatisations of the 80s may be needed to raise enough funds

If Labour forms the next government, as polls suggest, it must provide the private sector with the kind of incentives that will lift investment in Britain’s economy, making it more productive and environmentally friendly. Joe Biden has done it for the US. Why not Keir Starmer in the UK?

Transforming the economy will come at an outsize cost. Worse, it’s an escalating cost that is way beyond the public finances of Britain and possibly even the EU.

Farnborough airport submits plans to increase number of flights amid calls for a ban on private jets

The climate activist Greta Thunberg has marched alongside local residents and Extinction Rebellion activists to protest against an airport’s expansion plans.

Farnborough Airport Ltd has submitted a planning application to Rushmoor borough council to increase the number of flights from 50,000 to 70,000 a year. The Swedish climate activist joined the march from Farnborough town centre, in Hampshire, to Farnborough airport.

Glen Affric in the Highlands has joined more than 10 rivals in bidding to gain the new status – and the benefits that go with it

Glen Affric in the Highlands is home to deer, ospreys, otters and one of Scotland’s largest Caledonian pine woods. Often described as one of the country’s most beautiful glens, its scenic landscapes and diverse wildlife are such that it is protected as a national nature reserve.

Now, local community groups have launched a bid for it to become Scotland’s third national park, in a race which has so far seen more than 10 other areas also submit their interest.

Tens of millions have been spent on human-made defences over the years, but the impact of the climate crisis means flooding is inevitable

When Jo Bloom saw the monitoring station on the River Severn above Shrewsbury register water levels of 6.5 metres as Storm Henk struck in early January, she began preparing for the worst. Bloom, who runs the Bewdley Flood Group, a local initiative to disseminate information to the community, was crouched over her computer checking Environment Agency alerts on river levels as the storm battered southern and central Britain, bringing with it heavy rain on to already saturated ground.

“We have had one peak, we are all watching Crew Green gauge above Shrewsbury, which is 10cm off its 2000 record level,” she told the flood group.

It’s time to stand up for nature and say no to the projects that damage the wildlife and places we love

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Imagine being an endangered migratory bird that is hardwired to fly 10,000km every year, from a coastal wetland in Victoria or Queensland to Arctic Siberia, and back again.

Then imagine being that bird, returning exhausted after your epic flight from the northern hemisphere, to find your wetland feeding grounds have been turned into an industrial facility.

Farmers across France have been using tractors to create road blocks in a wave of protests. Major French motorways were blocked near Paris and Bayonne, close to the Spanish border. Farmers said anger was growing for several reasons. Many feel abandoned in the face of the climate crisis, with droughts and severe weather conditions, but there is also fury at impossibly low prices for their products, the difficulty of red tape, complex environmental norms, and green policies – such as on water use – which they say are affecting profits. Further protests took place in Germany and Romania ahead of the European elections in June

• French farming protests: mother and daughter die after car hits road blockade

Exclusive: Head of government taskforce calls for evidence not anecdote in debate over the beaver, white-tailed eagle and others

Culture wars by ministers over the reintroduction of animals such as the beaver and the lynx must end if we are to restore nature in England, the head of the government’s taskforce on the issue has said.

Dr Andy Clements, an ornithologist who helped establish the government regulator Natural England, runs the species reintroduction taskforce, and he’s well placed to do so. He was one of those behind the hugely successful reintroduction of red kites into England.

Claims that Icon of the Seas, the vast new ship described as ‘human lasagne’, runs on clean fuel have been labelled greenwashing as LNG’s methane emissions are a more potent climate gas than CO2

The largest cruise ship in the world, which embarks on its first commercial voyage from Miami on Saturday, was launched amid a fanfare of superlatives. Longer than the Eiffel Tower is tall, the Icon of the Seas towers 20 decks above the waves, can accommodate more than 7,000 passengers and crew, and, at a quarter of a million gross tonnes, could swallow five Titanics for breakfast.

Coloured slides on its upper deck mark out “Thrill Island”, the largest waterpark at sea, and it boasts a 17-metre (55ft) indoor waterfall. The president of Royal Caribbean, Jason Liberty, told reporters it was the “biggest, baddest ship on the planet”, though it quickly became known on social media as “human lasagne”.

Exclusive: Actors and musicians condemn ‘harsh deportation’ of Dartford Crossing protester Marcus Decker

Leading actors and musicians including Bob Geldof, Olivia Colman and Emma Thompson are calling on the Home Office to reconsider the “harsh deportation” of a climate activist who is serving one of the longest prison sentences in modern British history for peaceful protest.

Along with the musicians Brian Eno and Jacob Collier, they are among about 600 artists who are urging James Cleverly to withdraw the deportation order issued to Marcus Decker.

Cyclone downgraded after dense fog hits parts of the US and India while drought affects Philippines and southern Africa

Tropical Cyclone Kirrily made landfall on the coast of Queensland on Thursday night (local time). Kirrily originated as a tropical low over the Coral Sea, and gradually intensified over several days. The tropical cyclone then quickly intensified on Thursday, reaching a category 2 system by 10am AEST, and category 3 by 3pm, producing gusts of 170 km/h (105mph). As Kirrily moved inland five hours later, it left more than 34,000 homes and business without power in Townsville. However, the cyclone was quickly downgraded back to a category 1 by midnight.

Earlier in the week, dense fog developed from Montana all the way south to the Gulf of Mexico, reducing visibility on Tuesday to less than a quarter mile for many. The combination of last week’s arctic blast, followed by the introduction of warmer air from the south this week, allowed water vapour to condense closer to the surface, which is also known as advection fog. Dense fog reappeared on Thursday morning, affecting just under 99 million people from North Dakota across to central Pennsylvania, and as far south as New Orleans.

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