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How Stockholm is getting smarter by going greener.

The Australian Government has announced an independent review of governance of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. The review will focus on the role and composition of the Authority’s Board in supporting the functions of the Authority.

Every year tens of millions of Christmas Island red crabs migrate from the island’s dense forest to the cliffs to spawn. It’s a phenomenon that literally stops traffic and draws tourists from around the world to the tiny Australian territory.

But while there are still tens of millions of red crabs on the island, in recent years their numbers have dipped by around a third as they compete for space with (and struggle to fend off) a recently introduced pest: the yellow crazy ant.

The ants are having a significant impact on the island’s biodiversity, which relies on the red crab to maintain the forest understorey and keep the forest floor clean.

So what can be done to save Christmas Island’s biodiversity from yellow crazy ant supercolonies?

For the past few years a team of scientists have been hatching a plan to introduce a parasitical wasp to the island to cut the ant’s food supply. And in December they got the ball rolling on the delicate process of tipping the scales back in the crabs’ favour.

La Trobe University’s Matt Smith speaks with Peter Green, Head of the Department of Ecology, Environment and Evolution at La Trobe, about the impact of the yellow crazy ant and how his team’s plan to save the Christmas Island red crab is working in the first few months of its implementation.

Subscribe to The Conversation’s Speaking With podcasts on iTunes, or follow on Tunein Radio.

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Peter Green receives funding from the Department of Environment and Energy.

Patrick Barkham’s remarks on garden decking and wildlife loss (Notebook, 7 March) chime with research we undertook on the changes to garden vegetation in London over an eight-year period. We found that between 1998-99 and 2006-07, 3,000 hectares of vegetation disappeared from gardens, replaced by hard standing and decking. This loss, equivalent to 2.5 Hyde Parks each year, was compounded by the loss of 1m trees from gardens.  This period of change coincided with Ground Force’s time on television. Whether or not decking is now the culprit in gardens it once was, there’s evidence that artificial lawns – largely made from fossil fuels – are becoming the “new black”, again to the detriment of wildlife and the city’s ability to adapt to climate change.
Mathew Frith
Director of Conservation, London Wildlife Trust

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Move needed to drive orderly transition to low-emissions power sources, Investor Group on Climate Change says

The Turnbull government needs to put a price on carbon to unlock new investment in the electricity sector and drive an orderly transition to low-emissions power sources, according to the Investor Group on Climate Change.

The group, which represents major institutional investors in Australia and New Zealand, has used its submission to the Finkel review to argue that the government’s oft-repeated concerns about network reliability, energy affordability and emissions reductions will be addressed if concrete steps are taken to unlock new investment.

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UK leads Europe for solar growth despite drop in installations after government cut subsidies

The amount of solar power added worldwide soared by some 50% last year because of a sun rush in the US and China, new figures show.

New solar photovoltaic capacity installed in 2016 reached more than 76 gigawatts, a dramatic increase on the 50GW installed the year before. China and the US led the surge, with both countries almost doubling the amount of solar they added in 2015, according to data compiled by Europe’s solar power trade body.

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The Sentinel-2B spacecraft will take pictures to help create a complete map of Earth.

Report warns of catastrophic consequences and blames manufacturers for ‘systematic denial of harms’ and ‘aggressive, unethical marketing tactics’

The idea that pesticides are essential to feed a fast-growing global population is a myth, according to UN food and pollution experts.

A new report, being presented to the UN human rights council on Wednesday, is severely critical of the global corporations that manufacture pesticides, accusing them of the “systematic denial of harms”, “aggressive, unethical marketing tactics” and heavy lobbying of governments which has “obstructed reforms and paralysed global pesticide restrictions”.

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Claxton, Norfolk Wigeon boil up from the pools and the white lines across the males’ wings flash in the grey waves of their panic

I am in heaven in recent days. Buckenham marshes, across the river, is a mosaic of temporary splashes and mud-edged pools and, from the Yare’s raised bank, I can see how it’s smothered in late-winter pre-migration waders and wildfowl. All the flocking thousands are in turn the trigger for the presence of harriers and peregrines.

While the former circle continuously over the marsh, swinging and twisting in cold air, the peregrines are no more than ghosts, spooking the others into wild free-ranging chaos. However, I did have one extraordinary sighting: on the evening of the new moon, a male and female peregrine spearing in tandem towards the southern horizon. Both closed their wings into a long stoop and they fell across the sky until I could see them only as two unequal-sized drops of mercury, pulled by gravity into an ellipse.

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Main problem afflicting country’s grid is the lack of clear policy direction from Canberra, witnesses tell Senate inquiry

Senior executives from AGL Energy have given evidence that the main issue causing problems with reliable energy supply in South Australia is “dysfunction” in the gas market – not too many windfarms making the grid unreliable.

Executives from AGL told a Senate inquiry in Melbourne on Tuesday they would like to build a new gas-fired power station in South Australia to increase base load capacity in the state, but gas supply was chronically unreliable in the eastern states.

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Report finds Australia's policy focus on economic development is – still – at odds with the environment.

New study suggests biggest threat to Australia's energy security comes not from wind and solar, but from the control settings of coal and gas plants. It's a revelation that should turn the debate around renewables vs fossil on its head.

While the Finkel Review recognises Australia's “energy trilemma” – security, affordability and sustainability – we have a market that recognises only the first two of these objectives.

A key spacecraft in Europe's new multi-billion-euro Earth observation programme blasts into orbit.

US electric car sales jumped approximately 68% in February 2017 versus February 2016.

The call for applications for funding through Protecting National Historic Sites 2016-17 is now open.

This week wind power generated more than Scotland’s total electricity needs on four separate days.

CEFC sees limited role for gas generation in high renewables grid in Australia, due to competition from solar, high costs, and carbon risks.

Te promised outcomes of reform – cheaper and more reliable electricity, competitive markets and rational investment decisions – are further away than ever.

Warm weather ensured Arctic sea ice hit its lowest extent ever recorded for February.