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Gupta expands solar rollout to more than 1GW in South Australia alone, advances plans for his own big battery and pumped hydro storage, and makes offer to 6,000 employees in Australia to install solar and batteries in their homes.

Matt Canavan uses global "energy future" stage to poke fun at the Tesla Big Battery, embarrassingly for Australia. In other news, Coalition MPs also hate EVs.

Sydney Markets adds another 2.2MW PV array to take total rooftop solar capacity to more than 3MW, says there’s room to go bigger.

They might be disparaged as bin chickens now but in ancient Egypt they were revered

In Australia they’re reviled as bin chickens. But in ancient Egypt, ibises were revered and offered as gifts to the gods.

Two mummified ibises have given researchers at the University of Sydney a riveting insight into their ancient appeal.

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German battery storage specialist VARTA enters Australia market, attracted by huge solar uptake and growing push to “aggregated” systems.

Two separate reports illustrate the vital role communities will play in the success or failure of Australia’s shift to a renewable powered grid.

Mike Pompeo is ex Tea Party, a climate science denier, opponent of Paris climate deal, and biggest recipient of Koch Industries dollars.

Conservationists say planned clearing would make sediment problems on the reef – which funding is designed to prevent – much worse

A property in Queensland with one of the biggest tree-clearing proposals in Australia, and which is specifically identified by experts as a risk to Great Barrier Reef water quality, is one of the beneficiaries of a $4m federal government reef water quality program.

Australian Conservation Foundation campaigner Andrew Picone said that it showed the federal government “isn’t taking its reef commitments seriously” since the proposed clearing would exacerbate the very problem the funding is meant to mitigate.

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A think tank warns of the risk of unintended consequences from the current concern over plastics.

From the Amazon to Africa, WWF report predicts catastrophic losses of as much as 60% of plants and 50% of animals by the end of the century

The world’s greatest forests could lose more than half of their plant species by the end of the century unless nations ramp up efforts to tackle climate change, according to a new report on the impacts of global warming on biodiversity hotspots.

Mammals, amphibians, reptiles and birds are also likely to disappear on a catastrophic scale in the Amazon and other naturally rich ecosysterms in Africa, Asia, North America and Australia if temperatures rise by more than 1.5C, concludes the study by WWF, the University of East Anglia and the James Cook University.

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Committee says government should have got stronger commitments on bank’s future

MPs have accused the government of a “deeply regrettable” failure to put in place strong guarantees that the UK’s green investment bank will continue to support renewable energy after its privatisation.

The public accounts committee said it was unclear whether the bank would continue to support the government’s energy policy or climate change goals, because the bank’s new owner is not legally bound to stick to its green aims.

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Government should have got binding commitments a private owner would continue to invest

The government’s £1.6bn sale last year of the Green Investment Bank (GIB) to the Australian financial outfit Macquariewas a shambles, it was argued here at the time, and now the public accounts committee agrees. The rough summary of its report runs as follows: in their eagerness to trim a few quid from the national debt ministers accepted a few airy pledges from Macquarie about future investment and called them commitments.

The MPs’ verdict makes a nonsense of the government’s claim that a sale would deliver “the best of both worlds” – value for money and a new owner that would definitely use GIB to support UK energy policy and invest in low-carbon infrastructure. The price tag looks OK since the Treasury made a profit of £186m, but the boast about Macquarie’s good intentions has been exposed as an exercise in hopeful assumptions. The Aussie financiers may decide to play ball, but, if they don’t, there is little the government will be able to do.

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Energy-savvy Queenslanders with home battery storage can put $50 in their pocket from today by signing up to Australia’s first battery storage database.

The liquid tinkling of this tiny finch adds to the springtime chorus in Spain but can we expect to see the bird in Britain?

Under a fiercely blue sky, the sun shines down on groves of oranges and almond blossom. I am in the mountain village of Sella, in Spain’s Alicante province, enjoying a sneak preview of spring – a month or more before it arrives in Britain.

The migrant birds are not yet back, but half a dozen different butterflies are on the wing and birdsong fills the air. The scratchy sound of Sardinian warblers, the metallic song of the black redstart, and, from every little bush and tree, the liquid tinkling of serins.

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There has been some progress in the war against the toads with Queensland scientists using their own song and their own poison to trap them.

Wind is just air moving from one place where there is high pressure to another place where there is low pressure. Andrew B. Watkins, Manager of Climate Prediction Services, Australian Bureau of Meteorology Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

The famous winged dinosaur Archaeopteryx, once thought of as the first bird, could fly, research shows.

New bill will be first step by ministers to protect and restore soil as fears grow over a future soil fertility crisis

A new bill will be brought before parliament this year mandating, for the first time, measures and targets to preserve and improve the health of the UK’s soils, amid growing concern that we are sleepwalking into a crisis of soil fertility that could destroy our ability to feed ourselves.

The UN has warned that the world’s soils face exhaustion and depletion, with an estimated 60 harvests left before they are too degraded to feed the planet, and a 2014 study in the UK found matters are not much better, estimating 100 harvests remaining.

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Scientists found a strong link between high temperatures near the pole and unusually heavy snowfall and frigid weather farther south.

The sort of severe winter weather that has rattled parts of the US and UK is becoming more common as the Arctic warms, with scientists finding a strong link between high temperatures near the pole and unusually heavy snowfall and frigid weather further south.

A sharp increase in temperatures across the Arctic since the early 1990s has coincided with an uptick in abnormally cold snaps in winter, particularly in the eastern US, according to new research that analyzed temperature data from 1950 onwards.

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Phllip Hammond accused of delaying action after he announces consultation

Everyday single-use plastic items such as disposable coffee cups, takeaway boxes and polystyrene packaging could be hit with charges akin to the 5p levy on plastic bags, the government has warned.

The Treasury said it was looking at changes to taxation and new levies to tackle plastic waste, but campaigners and politicians accused the government of delaying action.

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