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On Pormpuraaw beach on the west coast of Cape York peninsula, plastic fishing nets have been washing up on shore – some kilometres long. Killing hundreds of species of marine life, the ‘ghost nets’ threaten a valuable food source for the local community. So Pormpuraaw artists are fighting back, gathering other refuse from a local tip dubbed ‘Bunnings’ and weaving it through the nets to create stunning large-scale sculptures of ocean-dwelling totems. The art, which carries on tradition and raises awareness of the plight of local animals, also provides a valuable export industry. The film-maker David Varga spent time with the artists involved. Watch his full-length video here

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The Trocaz pigeon is a vital seed-disperser in one of the world’s rarest forest ecosystems, but its taste for cabbage has put it in direct competition with humans. Guess who wins?

As we hike through the cool, low-canopied forest along a levada – a centuries-old water canal carved out of the mountainside – our guide talks effusively of a pigeon.

It’s the “guardian of the forest” the guide with MB Tours tells me and the other hikers. Known as the Trocaz pigeon, or alternatively the laurel pigeon or the long-toed pigeon, it’s only found here: on the Portuguese island of Madeira. We halt under an ancient laurel tree and the guide explains that the endemic pigeon is vital to Madeira because it disperses many of the plants found in this unique forest ecosystem: the laurisilva.

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While butterflies are ubiquitous from stationery to fashion, we have forgotten how to appreciate these humble, hungry, miraculous creatures

• Patrick Barkham is a Guardian writer

Butterflies are ubiquitous in our culture, via dresses, prints, cards and tattoos, but the humble caterpillar is surely overdue a revival. Whenever I’ve paused by a sizeable nettle patch this year, I’ve found them – writhing balls of black peacock caterpillars and black-and-fluorescent-lime small tortoiseshells. Less conspicuous are red admirals, which neatly stitch together two sides of nettle leaf and live inside a little tent.

I’ve seen Twitter pictures of freshly flailed nettle patches that had harboured hundreds of caterpillars, which will now never become butterflies. Enhanced caterpillar-consciousness would halt such destruction.

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AEMO boss Audrey Zibelman cautious about level of storage required for new wind and solar farms, but keen to push forward with energy market reforms. "We don't want to waste this crisis," she said.

A whale appears to play with a pod of dolphins off the coast of Western Australia.

Acting prime minister Barnaby Joyce begins construction of 20MW White Rock solar farm, as first turbines from neighbouring 175MW wind farm starts production.

West Sussex Over a few short weeks the peregrine chicks have grown from ungainly youngsters into aerobats like their parents

The piercing calls coming from above, high up on the chalk cliff, reveal that there are still peregrine falcons at home. Four chicks have fledged, and over the course of a few short weeks I’ve been watching them grow from ungainly youngsters, flapping in short, clumsy flights across the cliff face, to become stronger aerobats like their parents. The mother soars overhead, her tail fanned out, and slowly banks and turns back towards the cliff, calling again, the sun catching her grey and white face. The young birds – brown with heavily streaked breasts – answer, their voices sounding more like squeaks than the piercing shrieks of the adult.

In the past week, both parents have been enticing the chicks to follow them by carrying prey in their talons, which they give to the young mid-air. When they all leave the nest site, probably some time in the next few weeks, the adults will teach them how to hunt live prey – birds in flight – over the Downs.

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Fossil fuels once had little to fear from renewable energy, but that’s no longer the case.

Erdoğan says other G20 countries have a “problem” with Paris and “are not renewing their full support.”

It is amazing how much is happening, even in Australia. There may yet be hope for Australia to become a low-carbon, successful 21st century economy!

South Australia company develops systems to use anaerobic digestion technology to turn waste plastics into energy and fertiliser.

Queensland becomes latest states to commit to target of zero net emissions by 2050, putting further pressure on federal government’s unambitious climate goals.

The Tesla big battery storage array in South Australia signals a major pivot point for Australia's energy future, but the response of conservatives shows they are not having a bar of it, and their renewable energy target remains 100 per cent ignorance.

Custodians of world heritage-listed sites should aim to keep global temperature increases to just 1.5C, UN agency says

Countries with responsibility over world heritage-listed coral reefs should adopt ambitious climate change targets, aiming to cut greenhouse gas emissions to levels that would keep global temperature increases to just 1.5C, the UN agency responsible for overseeing world heritage sites has said.

At a meeting of Unesco’s world heritage committee in Krakow, Poland, a decision was adopted that clarified and strengthened the responsibility of countries that have custodianship over world-heritage listed coral reefs.

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The World Health Organization sees developing a vaccine as vital in stopping "super-gonorrhoea".

Galaxy Zoo is one of the most successful citizen science projects ever conceived. We look back at what it's achieved over 10 years.

Most Australian politicians want to solve the climate crisis — but in America climate debate and democracy has been 'hacked' by big money, says Al Gore.

The Federal Government welcomed UNESCO's decision to leave the Great Barrier Reef off the list.

We don't know what the car of the future will look like – but that's no excuse to delay transport reform. www.twin-loc.fr/Flickr, CC BY-SA

France has set its car manufacturers the goal of halting sales of diesel and petrol cars by 2040. The announcement last week came a day after the Swedish manufacturer Volvo declared it will build only hybrid and electric cars from 2019.

Moving away from highly polluting cars is an urgent global priority. Worldwide, transport accounts for 26% of humanity’s carbon dioxide emissions and, of these emissions, 81% comes from road transport.

Our latest research, published in the International Journal of Sustainable Transportation, shows that car ownership and the total distance travelled by cars are both likely to keep growing, globally and in Australia.

But just because there will be more cars, covering more ground, that doesn’t necessarily mean CO₂ emissions will continue to rise. It depends on a complex mix of population trends, income growth and the impacts of new policies and technologies.

It might therefore seem sensible to delay policy decisions until we can see what type of future emerges. However, our research found that a “wait and see” approach will dramatically increase our economic, social and environmental vulnerability.

Lower-income Australians are particularly at risk. This is because transport accounts for a greater proportion of their household income and they tend to live on the urban fringe where daily travel distances are necessarily higher.

Future-proofing our transport policy means we must engage with uncertainty, not ignore it. That means choosing policies that allow us to adapt to a range of technological or social developments.

We modelled different policy options in Western Australia, looking for options that reduced CO₂ emissions without creating social vulnerabilities. The most effective approach requires simultaneously improving fuel standards, making cars more efficient, and increasing city density to reduce both car ownership and the total distance we need to travel in cars.

However, CO₂ emissions alone don’t provide the full picture. Our model found that encouraging biofuels, for example, could mean increasing our agricultural footprint to grow feedstock.

Similarly, electric and hydrogen-fuelled vehicles require energy supplied by the electricity sector. As this sector itself decarbonises, technologies such as solar, hydro and wind will require greater areas of land than coal and gas technologies.

However, managing carbon dioxide emissions and demand on land is not necessarily mutually exclusive. Wind turbines can co-exist with grazing, and decentralised solar panels are already common on existing buildings. Offshore wind farms and solar installed on otherwise unproductive land can lessen impact. Targeted investment in technological efficiency can further reduce this impact.

Using land for both agriculture and energy production could actually give farmers greater economic resilience. Alternative fuels that use waste products or are low-impact (such as biofuel made from algae) are also promising avenues.

The economic case for expensive changes

Although the implementation of stringent transport policy will be costly – it requires massive changes in capital infrastructure and behaviour – it will open up other benefits and saving.

Vehicle emissions are recognised as the source of more air pollution than any other single human activity. These emissions cause hundreds of preventable deaths in Australia every year. (As well as saving lives, we’d also save billions of dollars in related costs.)

Well-designed, more compact urban spaces encourage more biking and walking. This, in turn, reduces chronic diseases that also cost Australians billions every year.

J G/Flickr, CC BY-NC

Research shows that compact cities reduce infrastructure costs by 11%; a 2015 report found gridlock alone could cost Australia A$53 billion by 2031. Curbing urban sprawl can reduce the clearing of native vegetation, which benefits the rivers and animals that live around our cities.

Changing the type of fuel used by cars, improving vehicle efficiency and increasing city density are all policy levers that can reduce the footprint of urban cars, but these must occur in tandem. To minimise costs and realise the potential savings, policymakers need to collaborate on finding policies that are flexible enough to adapt to an uncertain future.

Should we have the leadership to implement such sophisticated policy, we might accidentally design a future in which we are healthier and happier too.

Bonnie McBain received funding from the Australian Research Council to undertake this research.

Newly-discovered fossil suggests birds evolved very rapidly after the dinosaurs went extinct.