The Guardian

Australian Institute of Marine Science says reef’s capacity to recover under threat from climate change and pollution

Parts of the Great Barrier Reef not regularly affected by problems such as cyclones have demonstrated the reef still has the ability to regenerate, with a survey showing sharp declines in coral cover in the north but increases elsewhere.

However, the latest results from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (Aims), collected by divers visiting 243 individual reefs, do not include the losses caused by bleaching this year, or the effects of cyclone Debbie, both of which killed coral in the central section.

Deputy PM departs from official Coalition line, saying ‘to speculate on what Donald Trump might do is insanity’ and I’m going to ‘see what happens’

Barnaby Joyce has declined to say whether Australia should remain within the Paris climate accord if the United States pulls out, in a departure from the official government line that Australia will stay the course.

While Australia’s energy and employment ministers have said this week Australia will honour its Paris commitments regardless of what Donald Trump decides, the Nationals leader and deputy prime minister was more guarded on Thursday.

Intensive farming cited as main reason for destroying natural barriers to deluge and making low lying areas more vulnerable to floods

Only a tenth of England’s extensive floodplains are now fit for purpose – 90% no longer function properly – with the shortfall putting an increasing number of homes and businesses at risk of flooding, according to a new report.

Floods are more likely due to climate change and will claim higher economic costs unless action is taken to halt the damage to floodplains and restore some of their functions, warned the authors of the 12-month study – the first to paint a comprehensive view of England’s floodplains and their capabilities.

“We have ignored our floodplains,” said George Heritage of Salford University, co-author of the study the Changing Face of Floodplains, published by Co-Op Insurance on Thursday. “The changes to them mean water [from heavy rainfall] can flow much faster downstream, and can flow at the same speed as the water in the rivers.”

This accelerated flow has led to sudden and unstoppable deluges in recent years. For instance, Storm Desmond in 2015 affected more than 6,000 homes as rivers and streams burst their banks and spread water over floodplains. As these natural floodplains had been altered by man-made features, they no longer had the ability to store water, leading to rapid flows into urban areas which led to the devastation.

Storm Desmond caused more than £500m in damages, and misery for families excluded from their homes sometimes for months. The UK’s flooding bills are on the rise, with scientists warning of rocketing numbers of cloudbursts and periods of sudden and intense rainfall as climate change takes effect.

Floodplains act as natural “sponges”, soaking up excess water in their vegetation, forming natural buffers that hold back or divert rushing water after rain, and providing areas where rivers can breach their banks and wetlands can be replenished.

RepuTex says ceasing all land clearing would save between 300m and 650m tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions each year

Ending land clearing in Australia by 2030 would cut Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by about as much as completely shifting the electricity sector to renewable energy, a new report has found.

Queensland has been clearing about 300,000ha of land a year since the Newman government weakened restrictions on land clearing there and the Palaszczuk government failed to tighten them.

• Beijing and Brussels to set up new alliance to reduce global carbon emissions
• ‘Now is the time to further strengthen these ties’ – EU climate commissioner

China and the EU will forge an alliance to take a leading role in tackling global warming in response to Donald Trump’s expected decision to pull the US out of the historic Paris agreement.

Amid growing fears that the US will soon join Nicaragua and Syria on the small list of countries refusing to back the climate accord signed in 2015, Beijing and Brussels have been preparing to announce their intention to accelerate joint efforts to reduce global carbon emissions.

Reef conservation must not be an attempt to restore reefs of the past, but to identify the parts essential to their continued existence, and protect those

The survival of coral reefs requires a radical rethink of what conservation means, as well as embracing some of the changes they are undergoing, according to a paper by leading coral reef scientists.

“Helping coral reefs to safely navigate the Anthropocene is a profound challenge for multiscale governance,” the scientists say in a paper published today in the journal Nature.

• Trump tweets that he will be announcing decision ‘over the next few days’
• Withdrawal would sorely weaken landmark deal by nearly 200 countries

Donald Trump is poised to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, according to multiple reports on Wednesday, in a move that would profoundly undermine the landmark agreement by nearly 200 nations to curtail global warming.

Trump tweeted on Wednesday that he would reach a final decision in a few days, shortly after a wave of reports said he was about to exit from the deal. The reports follow his refusal to express support for global efforts to combat climate change at a G7 summit with European leaders last week.

The president has reportedly made his decision on the landmark climate deal, as exasperated world leaders get ready to move on with or without the US

Donald Trump’s Twitter pledge to make a decision on whether to remain in the Paris climate agreement this week promises resolution to months of fevered lobbying over US involvement in the global accord.

Related: The top five worst things Trump has done on climate change – so far

A ‘faceless’ fish has been rediscovered by scientists on an expedition in the depths of a massive abyss in waters south of Sydney. The 40cm fish was found 4km below sea level. It was last seen in waters off Australia in 1873

• ‘Faceless’ fish missing for more than a century rediscovered by Australian scientists
  

Environmental lawyers who have defeated ministers twice return to court in a bid to remove ‘major flaws’ from air quality plans

Environmental lawyers are taking the government to the high court for a third time in a bid to remove “major flaws” from minister’s plans to tackle the UK’s illegal levels of air pollution.

ClientEarth has inflicted two humiliating defeats on the government over previous plans, which were ruled not to meet legal requirements. Lawyers from ClientEarth had requested improvements to the latest plan from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) but were refused, prompting the new court action.

Peter Wohlleben’s book has become bestseller in Germany but he tells Hay festival audience it has annoyed scientists

Trees are social creatures that mother their young, talk to each other, experience pain, remember things and have sex with each other, a bestselling author has said.

If that persuades you to go and hug the nearest tree, then great, said Peter Wohlleben. Just avoid a birch: “It is not very sociable. Try a beech.”

Expedition leader says the deep-sea fish had not been seen in waters off Australia since 1873

A “faceless” deep-sea fish not seen for more than a century has been rediscovered by scientists trawling the depths of a massive abyss off Australia’s east coast, along with “amazing” quantities of rubbish.

The 40cm fish was rediscovered 4km below sea level in waters south of Sydney by scientists from Museums Victoria and the Australian government’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) on the weekend.

As the US president weighs up whether or not to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, we look at his most frightening actions on global warming

In March, Scott Pruitt infamously said about carbon dioxide that “I would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see”, in contradiction to climate scientists, including those at his own agency. Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief has deep ties to fossil fuel interests and joined with them on numerous occasions to challenge EPA pollution rules while attorney general of Oklahoma. He has opined that the EPA has become distracted from its core mission by climate concerns and has begin the process of ripping up Obama-era emissions regulations.

St Dominic, Tamar Valley Pennywort and mosses add to the verdure of the shadiest lanes, now green tunnels overhung by ash flowers

Rain enhances the growth of luxuriant ferns that dominate hedge banks and undergrowth in the woods. Beside narrow lanes, fronds of male ferns and soft shield ferns overwhelm the pink, white and blue of campion, stitchwort and bluebell, masking the eroded earth of rabbit burrows.

Foxglove, sorrel and bracken emerge through the leafy tops of these old banks, where, despite the annual cutback with mechanical flails, diverse woody shrubs are covered in fresh leaves interwoven with new shoots of rose, honeysuckle and bramble.

Minister says Australia’s view clear to US although departmental secretary unable to point to ‘particular discussion’

The employment minister, Michaelia Cash, says Australia’s national interest is best served if Donald Trump stays the course with the Paris climate agreement.

With the US president expected to make a decision this week about whether America will pull out of the Paris accord, officials were asked during Senate estimates hearings whether Australia had made diplomatic representations to the Trump administration encouraging the president to remain in the agreement.

António Guterres says exiting landmark accord would threaten US economy and society: ‘If someone leaves a void, I guarantee someone will fill it’

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, warned on Tuesday that if the US exits the Paris climate agreement, there could be negative economic, security and societal consequences for the country.

Karla Way-McPhail, who runs mining labour and equipment companies, will not say whether she will recuse herself from Carmichael decision

A director of the independent board due to provide recommendations regarding a $900m taxpayer loan to Adani publicly declared she was “very supportive” of its “vital” coal project, a day after she was accused of allowing a perceived conflict of interest to develop.

Karla Way-McPhail, who runs mining labour and equipment hire companies, last week told a central Queensland newspaper that Adani’s Carmichael mine project would be “a huge boost” for the region.

Exclusive: ice cores and records from the Black Death show lead entered the air from human activity – and scientists claim “natural background” levels are zero

Analysis of an ice cores taken from the Swiss Alps together with records dating from the time of the Black Death have revealed that there is no “natural” level of lead in the air, researchers have claimed.

Once in the body, lead is known to have harmful impacts on health, from behavioural to neurological, reproductive and cardiovascular effects.

Actor’s efforts to persuade Temple Guiting to generate its own electricity captured in BBC4’s Great Village Green Crusade

Robert Llewellyn is not a typical eco-activist. “Oh, I’m absolutely un-green,” says the actor and TV presenter. “I’m as un-green as a corporate exec. I fly a lot. Though I have hugged a tree. Actually, I’ve lent against one while I was having a wee in the woods, I’m not sure if that counts?”

You don’t need to wear an environmental hairshirt, however, to believe it’s possible to live in a different, more sustainable way. For the actor, who presented Scrapheap Challenge on Channel 4 and is best known for playing Kryten on BBC2’s Red Dwarf, that belief stemmed from a longstanding passion for new technologies, particularly renewable energy.

New Noaa research shows that strict conservation measures in Hawaii have not spared corals from a warming ocean in one of its most prized bays

Some of America’s most protected corals have been blighted by bleaching, with scientists warning that US reefs are on course to largely disappear within just a few decades because of global warming.

Related: Coral bleaching on Great Barrier Reef worse than expected, surveys show