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Oversupply took its toll on the VEEC market in February with the forward market in particular breaching the lower end of its recent range.

Andrews govt launches tender for up to 75MW new solar capacity in north-west Victoria, some of which will power Melbourne tram network.

The last woolly mammoths were wracked with genetic disease and had a strange shiny coat, say scientists.

Europe's medium-range weather forecasts will cease to be constructed in the UK from 2020.

Ten finalists capture the theme of ‘through young eyes’ in this young photographers’ competition that aims to engage youth around the world in wildlife conservation. The winner will be announced at noon EST in New York

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University of Leicester study shows how air pollution affects bacteria in the nose, throat and lungs

Black carbon found in air pollution can increase the resistance of bacteria that cause respiratory disease, research has suggested.

The findings could lead to a greater understanding of the effects of air pollution on human health, according to the lead scientist of the University of Leicester study.

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The Phase V Investment Strategy has a strong focus on co-investment and partnership with the community and private sector to maximise benefits to the Great Barrier Reef.

Maoneng Group opens 13MW solar park in ACT, turns sights to 200MW western NSW project and large battery storage installation.

CEO Francis Egan complains about protesters ‘harassing’ contractors supplying Preston New Road site in Lancashire

The chief executive of Cuadrilla, a leading fracking company, has complained at what he calls intimidation and harassment by “irresponsible” activists protesting at a shale gas site the firm is constructing in Lancashire.

Related: Cuadrilla starts work on Lancashire fracking site

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Experts are puzzled how the shark, normally found near equator, could have reached UK

A crocodile shark, a marine creature normally found in deep tropical waters, has been discovered washed up on a beach in Devon.

A family found the shark at Hope Cove beach on the south coast and, thinking it was still alive, braved its sharp teeth to try to return it to the water before realising it was dead.

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Endangered pygmy elephants and orangutans threatened by scheme for Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary

David Attenborough and Steve Backshall have joined conservationists and charities asking the Borneo government to reconsider a bridge that threatens one of the last sanctuaries of the rare pygmy elephant.

There are now just 1,500 of the world’s smallest pachyderm, according to WWF, and about 300 of them make their home in the 26,000-hectare Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary, in the state of Sabah in Malaysian Borneo. But construction teams have begun preparatory work for a bridge that will cross the Kinabatangan river which weaves through the region. The area is also home to critically endangered orangutans, proboscis monkeys, clouded leopards, gibbons, sun bears, pangolins and thousands of other jungle species, and hosts a thriving eco-tourism industry where travellers can view wildlife from boats on the river or while hiking into the forests.

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Campaigners say cuts to waste collection services have increased the problem of illegal dumping

Fly-tipping is on the rise again, with the number of incidents up for the third year in a row, official figures show.

Councils across England reported 936,090 cases of fly-tipping in 2015/2016, up 4% on the previous year, the data from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) reveals.

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Only China dumps more plastic in the ocean than Indonesia. But by 2025, the world’s largest archipelago aims to reduce marine waste by 70%

Indonesia has pledged up to US$1 billion a year to dramatically reduce the amount of plastic and other waste products polluting its waters. The announcement was made by Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs at last week’s 2017 World Oceans Summit in Nusa Dua, Bali.

Pandjaitan told delegates at the conference that Indonesia would achieve a 70% reduction in marine waste within eight years. He proposed developing new industries that use biodegradable materials such as cassava and seaweed to produce plastic alternatives. Other measures could include a nationwide tax on plastic bags as well as a sustained public education campaign.

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In India, 6,000 tonnes of plastic waste lies uncollected every day. Some of this washes up in Tamil Nadu state, where it pollutes and contaminates the food and water of communities living along the Bay of Bengal

All photographs by Jacques de Lannoy

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One of the Large Hadron Collider's huge detectors has been given what officials describe as a "heart transplant".

Between Mars and Jupiter is an asteroid that's like nothing else in the solar system. And the odds of it even existing are tiny.

Report’s authors say Sydney unprepared for knock-on effects of a significant increase in average summer temperatures

New South Wales, which has just experienced its hottest summer on record, is 50 times more likely to experience another similarly hot summer and 10 times more likely to experience extremely hot days under climate change, according to a group of Australian climate scientists.

The mean temperature in Sydney was 2.8C above average in December, January, and February, according to the Bureau of Meteorology, and the three-day heatwave from 9 February to 11 was the hottest on record from Sydney to Brisbane, breaking records set in 1939.

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Flies, worms, slugs, woodlice, centipedes, moulds – the compost bin throbs with life

Several times each week I take vegetable peelings from the kitchen to the three compost recycling bins at the bottom of the garden. Even in winter, they are hotbeds of biodiversity.

Today, as I lift the lid of the newest bin, I am greeted by a blizzard of minute moth-flies (Clogmia albipunctata) that have bred in the film of water covering decaying garden weeds and autumn leaves.

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Australia’s summer is officially over, and it’s certainly been a weird one. The centre and east of the continent have had severe heat with many temperature records falling, particularly in New South Wales and Queensland.

For much of the country, the heat peaked on the weekend of February 11-12, when many places hit the high 40s. That heatwave, which mainly affected NSW, was quickly attributed to climate change. But can we say whether the whole summer bore the fingerprint of human-induced climate change?

Overall, Australia experienced its 12th-hottest summer on record. NSW had its hottest recorded summer.

The NSW record average summer temperatures can indeed be linked directly to climate change. We have reached this conclusion using two separate methods of analysis.

First, using coupled model simulations from a paper led by climatologist Sophie Lewis, we see that the extreme heat over the season is at least 50 times more likely in the current climate compared to a modelled world without human influences.

We also carried out an analysis based on current and past observations (similar to previous analyses used for record heat in the Arctic in 2016 and central England in 2014), comparing the likelihood of this record in today’s climate with the likelihood of it happening in the climate of 1910 (the beginning of reliable weather observations).

Again, we found at least a 50-fold increase in the likelihood of this hot summer due to the influence of human factors on the climate.

It is clear that human-induced climate change is greatly increasing the likelihood of record hot summers in NSW and Australia as a whole.

When we look at record summer heat, as represented by average maximum temperatures, we again find a clear human fingerprint on the NSW record.

The Sydney and Canberra heat

So what about when we dig down to the local scale and look at those severe heatwaves? Can we still see the hand of climate change in those events?

As climate varies more on local scales than it does across an entire state like NSW, it can be harder to pick out the effect of climate change from the noise of the weather. On the other hand, it is the local temperature that people feel and is perhaps most meaningful.

In Canberra, we saw extreme heat with temperatures hitting 36℃ on February 9 and then topping 40℃ for the following two days. For that heatwave, we looked at the role of climate change, again by using the Weather@home model and by comparing past and present weather observations.

Both of these methods show that climate change has increased the likelihood of this kind of bout of extreme heat. The Weather@home results point to at least a 50% increase in the likelihood of this kind of heatwave.

For Sydney, which also had extreme temperatures, especially in the western suburbs, the effect of climate change on this heatwave is less clear. The observations show that it is likely that climate change increased the probability of such a heatwave occurring. The model shows the same, but the high year-to-year variability makes identifying the human influence more difficult at this location.

A sign of things to come?

We are seeing more frequent and intense heatwaves across Australia as the climate warms. While the characteristics of these weather events vary a great deal from year to year, the recent heat over eastern Australia has been exceptional. These trends are projected to continue in the coming decades, meaning that the climate change signal in these events will strengthen as conditions diverge further from historical averages.

Traditionally, Sydney’s central business district has had about three days a year above 35℃, averaged over the period 1981-2010. Over the decades from 2021 to 2040 we expect that number to average four a year instead.

To put this summer into context, we have seen a record 11 days hitting the 35℃ mark in Sydney.

It is a similar story for Canberra, where days above 35℃ tend to be more common (seven per year on average for 1981-2010) and are projected to increase to 12 per year for 2021-40. This summer, Canberra had 18 days above 35℃.

All of these results point to problems in the future as climate change causes heatwaves like this summer’s to become more common. This has many implications, not least for our health as many of us struggle to cope with the effects of excessive heat.

Some of our more unusual records

While the east battled record-breaking heat, the west battled extreme weather of a very different sort. Widespread heavy rains on February 9-11 caused flooding in parts of Western Australia. And on February 9 Perth experienced its coldest February day on record, peaking at just 17.4℃.

Back east, and just over a week after the extreme heat in Canberra, the capital’s airport experienced its coldest February morning on record (albeit after a weather station move in 2008). Temperatures dipped below 3℃ on the morning of February 21.

The past few months have given us more than our fair share of newsworthy weather. But the standout event has been the persistent and extreme heat in parts of eastern Australia – and that’s something we’re set to see plenty more of in the years to come.

Data were provided by the Bureau of Meteorology through its collaboration with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science. This article was co-authored by Heidi Cullen, chief scientist with Climate Central.

Andrew King receives funding from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science.

David Karoly receives funding from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science and an ARC Linkage grant. He is a member of the Climate Change Authority and the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists.

Geert Jan van Oldenborgh receives funding from the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) and the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN).

Matthew Hale receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Jillian Broadbent says backing large-scale energy storage a key focus for CEFC in 2017 in a high renewable grid. No mention of clean coal.