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The Brazilian environment ministry (MMA) has launched a carbon-focused element of its voluntary ecosystem services market for forests that some stakeholders view as a positive sign for the country to avoid double counting emissions reductions under the Paris Agreement.

The US president has been given a number of different medicines to attack coronavirus and calm the immune system. What are they, and why is he taking them?

To support the expansion of the Environmental Markets side of the business, this position is responsible for supporting the development and management of Environmental market analysis activities for the Gazprom Marketing & Trading (GM&T) business in London.

California regulator ARB does not have a timeline for amending its cap-and-trade forestry protocol, with regulatory and market sources expecting further delays until an offset task force completes its annual report next year.

Some opposition members believe the draft legislation unfairly denies traditional owners the right to challenge decision in court

Labor will try to amend a government bill so that the federal resources minister has to nominate the site for a nuclear waste dump, despite concerns within the ALP caucus the change could pave the way for the decision to be challenged in court.

On Monday, the Labor caucus agreed it would try to amend the bill by removing a schedule which states the dump should be located at Napandee some 20km north-west of Kimba in South Australia. The caucus resolved to oppose the bill if the change was not supported.

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Frantic search under way in the state before Asian hornets embark on a murderous rampage among honeybees

Officials in Washington state are conducting a frantic search for a nest containing Asian giant hornets, also known as murder hornets, before the creatures enter what is known as their “slaughter phase”.

Related: ‘Murder hornets’: race to protect North America's honeybees from giant invader

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Quarter of fakes were stolen with some eggs tracked from thief to trafficker to consumer

Decoy eggs made by a 3D-printer and fitted with satellite tags have been placed in sea turtle nests on beaches in Costa Rica to track the illegal trade of their eggs.

A quarter of the fake eggs put among 101 turtle nests on four beaches in Costa Rica were stolen, with some eggs successfully tracked as they moved from thief to trafficker to consumer.

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Fiona Banner artwork is part of group’s direct action campaign against illegal North Sea fishing

Security had been told to expect an artwork for the secretary of state at 9am. Perhaps they were not expecting it to be an enormous chunk of granite painted with squid ink and so heavy it will need a crane to remove.

The artist Fiona Banner and a team from Greenpeace deposited the 1.5-ton artwork outside the Westminster offices of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) on Monday.

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EUAs slumped on Monday to give back some of Friday's gains on a weak auction result and after weekend Brexit talks yielded little, defying strength in wider markets due in part to positive updates on US President Trump's progress in battling the coronavirus.

Though the country is a huge polluter, it leads the world in the clean technologies that could make this feasible

When I first moved to China in 1990, winter meant coal. The moment Beijing turned on the municipal heating system, our faces would become covered with soot. People stockpiled loose coal in huge piles outside their homes for heating and cooking. I could see the smokestacks of four large coal power plants and the country’s largest steel mill in the distance. China’s addiction to this most carbon-intensive of fossil fuels made the prospect of a country dedicated to fighting climate change seem fanciful.

Now, in perhaps the most important news of 2020 that you may have missed, China has stepped up on its own as a climate leader. On 22 September, President Xi Jinping announced in a video address to the UN general assembly that China would aim to become “carbon neutral” before 2060 – Beijing’s first long-term target. In so doing it joins the European Union, the UK and dozens of other countries in adopting mid-century climate targets, as called for by the Paris agreement.

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The huge explosion in Beirut in August was one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions in history.

New regulations would make it the first country in the world to outlaw selling fur for fashion

The virus is a major cause of liver cancer and can lead to people needing a liver transplant.

Its thought the mammals, classified as endangered, were wiped out on the mainland by dingoes.

Climate crisis and logging is leading to shift from canopy rainforest to open grassland

Much of the Amazon could be on the verge of losing its distinct nature and switching from a closed canopy rainforest to an open savannah with far fewer trees as a result of the climate crisis, researchers have warned.

Rainforests are highly sensitive to changes in rainfall and moisture levels, and fires and prolonged droughts can result in areas losing trees and shifting to a savannah-like mix of woodland and grassland. In the Amazon, such changes were known to be possible but thought to be many decades away.

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With a piece of environmental journalism published every three hours, the Guardian is a leading voice in the fight to save the planet

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Since the Guardian pledged a year ago to give the climate crisis even greater priority, we have published a piece of environmental journalism on average every three hours. Greenhouse gas emissions, heatwaves, wildfires, melting polar ice, floods, droughts, the annihilation of wildlife, air pollution … the problems grow more severe every year.

Of course, 2020 has been dominated by the coronavirus pandemic, but even here the correlation with environmental destruction is clear.

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Last year, we vowed to prioritise climate journalism and cutting our own emissions. So much for promises: how are we actually doing this?

In 2019, the Guardian made a pledge in service of the planet. We declared that the escalating climate crisis was the defining issue of our lifetime, and that quality, trustworthy reporting on the environment was an important tool to confront it. We promised to provide journalism that shows leadership, urgency, authority and gives the climate emergency the sustained attention and prominence it demands.

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As the climate crisis intensifies, we publish a regularly updating dashboard of key indicators measuring the health of the planet

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The Guardian is prioritising the environment both in editorial and commercial decisions. We know the situation is dire but that the worst can yet be averted

For Australians, the national trauma of fires burning through 18 million hectares of bushland earlier this year is raw and ongoing. But since then the US west coast and Siberia have also burned. China, Bangladesh, India and parts of Africa have suffered catastrophic flooding. Death Valley recorded possibly the highest ever temperature on Earth, at 54.4C. In February the Antarctic temperature rose above 20C for the first time. In March the Great Barrier Reef suffered its third mass bleaching in five years. In June it was 38C inside the Arctic Circle.

None of these events can be attributed entirely to global heating, but scientists are clear that their frequency and ferocity are signs of impending climate catastrophe, of irreversible destruction. What they have warned of for decades is coming to pass.

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Since we launched our climate pledge last year, we have been working hard to make it a reality

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Last year was the easy bit – we made a lot of promises to reduce our carbon footprint and become a more sustainable business. Since then we have been trying to figure out how to make good on these commitments. While Guardian journalism remains our best tool for confronting the climate emergency, we are doing everything we can in our business too to ensure that we practise what we preach.

We said we would undertake a full audit of our carbon emissions, and have now been through this exercise twice, starting with our 2018-19 financial year and then trying to improve our understanding and the accuracy of our data for our 2019-20 figures.

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