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Beavers can regenerate landscapes, encourage wildlife and prevent flooding – and they have friends in high places

The must-have accessory for every English country estate was once a gothic folly, a ha-ha or a croquet lawn. Now it is a pair of beavers.

Landowners and large estates are racing to acquire licences to reintroduce the water-loving rodents, which were hunted to extinction in Britain 400 years ago.

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Plants provide key food source for pollinators as they come out of hibernation

Gardeners should avoid mowing over dandelions on their lawn if they want to help bees, according to the new president of the British Ecological Society.

Dandelions – which will start flowering in the UK this month – provide a valuable food source for early pollinators coming out of hibernation, including solitary bees, honey bees and hoverflies.

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A daily summary of our news plus bite-sized updates from around the world.

Newsnight was given rare access to a once-in-a-generation meeting of indigenous groups trying to save the Amazon.

Take a look inside an Antarctic campsite and find out how they survive.

Regulated entities in the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) drew down nearly 150,000 tonnes on the credit bank in the third quarter of 2019, but administrative adjustments kept the programme’s surplus bank mostly constant.

The Chilean Senate approved changes to the Latin American nation’s $5/tonne CO2 levy on Wednesday, altering the methodology for applying the tax and setting out the use of offsets as a compliance option.

Farm on Eyre Peninsula volunteered by owner to house low and medium risk waste

A farming property on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula will become a nuclear waste dump, the federal government has announced, but opponents of the facility are making a last-bid ditch to stop it.

On Saturday the federal resources minister, Matt Canavan, said 160 hectares of the Napandee property in Kimba would host Australia’s radioactive waste, the vast majority of which comes from the production of nuclear medicine and is held across more than 100 sites.

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A summary of legislative and regulatory action on carbon pricing and clean energy at the US subnational and federal level taken this week, including developments in the Pacific Northwest, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Hawaii, and Illinois.

The UK government has sacked the president of this year’s UN climate talks in Glasgow, announcing that the position will made be a ministerial role.

The RGGI cap-and-trade system reported its lowest annual emissions figure in 2019 as reported fourth quarter GHGs dropped 12%, with much of those reductions coming from New York and Maryland, according to data published Friday.

The UK is due to commence its 2019 free EU ETS allocations within days and on Mar. 4 begin auctioning 2019 units, the British government confirmed late Friday as part of a Brexit transition deal that keeps UK emitters in the scheme for the next year.

Scientists put their concerns about giant satellite networks directly to the companies involved.

The UK government sacks the woman it appointed to run the crucial UN climate summit in November.

Source says officials in COP26 unit could not work with Claire O’Neill in run-up to Glasgow talks

Claire O’Neill, the former UK energy minister who was to lead the UN climate talks this year in Glasgow, has been removed from the post.

Her sacking comes as Boris Johnson prepares to launch the UK’s strategy for hosting November’s crunch climate talks, known as COP26.

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The German government has ‘named and shamed’ another handful of airlines for failing to comply with the EU ETS, admonishing flagship carriers from Russia and Iraq.

Biodegradable potato-starch bags | Fossil fuel advertising | Marmalade | Sponges and loofahs

I have just turned my “active” compost heap, which has received all the Guardian biodegradable bags since they were introduced last year. I am pleased to say the older bags are barely recognisable and are well on their way to forming nice new compost. By the time the “maturing” heap is emptied in the spring, I expect all the bags will have disappeared and will help grow the next crop of potatoes – a virtuous circle. Well done on your initiative.
Jonathan Hammonds
Shrewsbury, Shropshire

• Congratulations on your brave decision to stop taking money from companies that extract fossil fuels (Guardian drops ads from fossil fuel companies, 30 January). Greenpeace calls for others to follow suit, prompting this marmalade consumer (who merely adds the labels to his wife’s confection) to triple his admittedly tiny subscription to your inspiring newspaper.
David Yates
Eccles, Greater Manchester

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Massachusetts state senators approved a wide-ranging climate policy package on Thursday night, including the option of a cap-and-trade programme to link with the regional Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI).

Jim Smith, who has died aged 75, devoted his entire adult life to the River Ouse in Sussex. In his role as head bailiff for the Ouse Angling Preservation Society for 55 years and a trustee of the Ouse and Adur Rivers Trust, he sold and checked fishing permits, policed the fishery, supervised the work of volunteers and helped monitor sewage and pollution.

With his battered tweed trilby and deep Sussex brogue, Jim was the archetypal river bailiff. I first met him some 20 years ago when I began fishing the Ouse for its elusive sea trout. In 2015 Jim was interviewed by the Guardian for a feature headlined The Old Man and the River, highlighting environmental problems facing the Ouse and other rivers throughout Britain.

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WCI market stakeholders remain unsure of whether regulator ARB can void California Carbon Offsets (CCOs) after their invalidation period expires based on the timing of a probe, with the most recent decision providing little clarity on the scenario.