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Australia’s list of threatened species grows as ecosystems show signs of collapse due to climate crisis and habitat loss, report finds

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The health of Australia’s environment is poor and has deteriorated over the past five years due to pressures of climate change, habitat loss, invasive species, pollution and mining, according to a government report that warns the natural world holds the key to human wellbeing and survival.

The state of the environment report – a review completed by scientists last year but held back by the Morrison government until after the federal election – found abrupt changes in some Australian ecosystems over the past five years, with at least 19 now showing signs of collapse or near collapse.

Since 2016, 202 animal and plant species have been listed as threatened matters of national environmental significance, following 175 being added to the list between 2011 to 2016. This has happened while the rate of discovery and description of new species has slowed considerably over the past decade. There remain many more species that are unknown than those known.

While a government threatened species strategy had improved the trajectories of 21 priority species, many others did not show improvements. The list would increase substantially in coming years as the impact of the catastrophic 2019–20 bushfires – which killed or displaced between 1 billion and 3 billion animals – became clearer.

Australia has lost more mammal species than any other continent, and has one of the highest rates of species decline in the developed world. More than 100 Australian species have been listed as either extinct or extinct in the wild. The major causes of extinction were introduced species and habitat destruction and clearing.

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With the country melting I can no longer distract myself from my fears about global heating. But speaking to activists has shown me how to counter this terror

I was chairing a Zoom event last week about carbon bombs, and how to defuse them. All over the world, as governments broadcast warm words to a warming planet, corporations are planning and lobbying for fossil fuel projects, which, if they get off the ground, will sail us casually past our carbon targets – almost as if democracy itself were just a beach-body diet that everybody talked about and nobody intended to stick to. How to stop this nihilistic corporate greed? Legal avenues, direct action, political routes, or everything all at once?

As I was doing this, a message popped up in the chat from Kjell Kühne, an academic and activist and one of the panellists: “Stop biting your nails please.” “Huh,” I thought, “weird thing to say to 846 people. How does he know they’re all biting their nails?” Then I realised it was a private message just to me. I considered messaging back: “Chum, when you stop making this incredibly compelling case about the climate apocalypse, I’ll stop biting my nails.” Then I remembered I was supposed to be chairing and got my head back on task.

Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist

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The European Commission is set to propose temporary exemptions to pollutant and CO2 emissions obligations for power plants and refiners under a far-reaching effort to spare gas ahead of winter, according to a leaked draft communication seen by Carbon Pulse on Monday.

António Guterres issued a dire warning that the global warming limit of 1.5C agreed under the 2015 Paris climate accord was slipping further out of reach as more people around the world are hit by extreme floods, droughts, storms and wildfires. The UN secretary general made his remarks at the 12th Petersberg Climate Dialogue conference, which started on Monday in Berlin

• Humanity faces ‘collective suicide’ over climate crisis, warns UN chief
  

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MP joins the four other candidates in saying they would not unpick UK’s environmental commitments

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Kemi Badenoch has backed the government’s target of reaching net zero emissions by 2050 and vowed not to unpick current climate commitments in an apparent U-turn at the Tory leadership environment hustings.

The MP for Saffron Walden had previously likened the target to “unilateral economic disarmament” but under questioning from Alok Sharma, the Cop26 president, at the hustings in parliament on Monday she said she backed it.

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Activists file formal complaint alleging government has breached international law in signing deal

Environmental campaigners have launched a last-ditch legal bid to prevent or delay the UK’s trade deal with Australia, owing to concerns over its impacts on the climate and the natural world.

A group of seven environmental and farming organisations has filed a formal complaint alleging that the UK government breached international law in signing the deal, which they fear is about to pass into law without any further in-depth parliamentary scrutiny.

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Government criticised over ‘indefensible’ proposal that could undermine climate efforts while yielding benefit of only £1.38m

The UK government may be undermining its commitments to end deforestation overseas because of conflicts over trade policy, the Guardian has learned.

A war of words is raging within the government over deforestation and trade, with green campaigners warning that a proposed policy could have dire consequences for efforts to stop illegal logging.

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Dangerous heat will become the norm, even in the UK. Systems need to urgently change – and the silence needs to be broken

Can we talk about it now? I mean the subject most of the media and most of the political class has been avoiding for so long. You know, the only subject that ultimately counts – the survival of life on Earth. Everyone knows, however carefully they avoid the topic, that, beside it, all the topics filling the front pages and obsessing the pundits are dust. Even the Times editors still publishing columns denying climate science know it. Even the candidates for the Tory leadership, ignoring or downplaying the issue, know it. Never has a silence been so loud or so resonant.

This is not a passive silence. It is an active silence, a fierce commitment to distraction and irrelevance in the face of an existential crisis. It is a void assiduously filled with trivia and amusement, gossip and spectacle. Talk about anything, but not about this. But while the people who dominate the means of communication frantically avoid the subject, the planet speaks, in a roar becoming impossible to ignore. These days of atmospheric rage, these heatshocks and wildfires ignore the angry shushing and burst rudely into our silent retreat.

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The UK government has outlined plans to reform the country’s power market for the first time in a decade to try and reduce the influence of surging gas prices by shifting the focus of a new system to clean energy sources, in a consultation launched Monday.

Governments from tropical forest countries are poised to issue more than a hundred million sovereign carbon credits, which are slated to hit the voluntary carbon market (VCM) this autumn – adding significant weight to a forest credit inventory that historically derived from a scattering of smaller-scale projects.

Internal documents explain why oil and gas interests would benefit from a key Indigenous declaration being ‘defeated’

A US-based libertarian coalition has spent years pressuring the Canadian government to limit how much Indigenous communities can push back on energy development on their own land, newly reviewed strategy documents reveal.

The Atlas Network partnered with an Ottawa-based thinktank – the Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI) – which enlisted pro-industry Indigenous representatives in its campaign to provide “a shield against opponents”.

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EUA prices remained rangebound on Monday amid a generally quiet market, as carbon traders speculated over the progress of negotiations on reform of the EU ETS, while attention focused on growing concerns over a major German utility's financial health.

A well-funded US firm that tokenises nature-based credits has decided to postpone its product launch amid turmoil in the crypto markets and downturn in on-chair carbon credits prices, according to media reports.

The Met Office estimates that the extreme heat we will be seeing over the next couple of days has been made ten times more likely because of it.

Experts call on UK officials to prepare for periods of extreme heat or risk thousands of excess deaths

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The UK is no longer a cold country, scientists have said, as climate breakdown means “previously impossible heatwaves are killing people”.

This week temperatures of 40C (104F) have been predicted for the first time by the Met Office, but climate models show these weather events are expected to become more common.

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China has marked the first anniversary since the official launch of its long-awaited national emissions trading scheme, though while officials celebrate some significant achievements questions linger over the path forward for the market.

The global aviation sector would need to invest an annual average of around $175 billion between 2022 and 2050 to realise its net zero ambition by mid-century, according to analysis sponsored by a coalition of business stakeholders across the supply chain of several industries, including aviation, whose emissions are hard to abate.

China has introduced a set of standards for companies to evaluate their carbon credits and solvency, marking the country's latest step to encourage the development of green finance, the Shanghai Environment and Energy Exchange (SEEE) announced Saturday.

António Guterres tells governments ‘half of humanity is in danger zone’, as countries battle extreme heat

• UK heatwave: latest updates

Wildfires and heatwaves wreaking havoc across swathes of the globe show humanity facing “collective suicide”, the UN secretary general has warned, as governments around the world scramble to protect people from the impacts of extreme heat.

António Guterres told ministers from 40 countries meeting to discuss the climate crisis on Monday: “Half of humanity is in the danger zone, from floods, droughts, extreme storms and wildfires. No nation is immune. Yet we continue to feed our fossil fuel addiction.”

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Wild bison have returned to the UK for the first time in thousands of years. Three bison were released into the Kent countryside, in the hope that their natural behaviour will transform a dense commercial pine forest into a vibrant natural woodland.

Thriving woodlands also absorb more carbon, helping to tackle the climate crisis. Global heating was evident as the bison were released, with England in the grip of a heatwave, and the early timing was to allow the bison to reach the shade of the woods before temperatures started to climb

• Wild bison return to UK for first time in thousands of years
  

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