The Guardian

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs, including busy bees, a peregrine falcon and wild horses

It’s the age old battle between the NIMBYs and the YIMBYs!

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Nearly 50% of US bee colonies died off last year, although efforts have helped the overall bee population remain ‘relatively stable’

The US’s honeybee hives just staggered through the second highest death rate on record, with beekeepers losing nearly half of their managed colonies, an annual bee survey found.

But by using costly and herculean measures to create new colonies, beekeepers are somehow keeping afloat. Thursday’s University of Maryland and Auburn University survey found that even though 48% of colonies were lost in the year that ended 1 April, the number of US honeybee colonies “remained relatively stable”.

Poll also reveals increasing cynicism over environmental claims made by companies

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Australians are confused and cynical about the environmental claims made by companies and greenwashing is making people ever more sceptical, a latest survey of people’s attitudes to nature and climate change has found.

The research also points to a radical change in the expectations of Australian consumers and voters, with younger generations strongly rejecting the notion that humans have the right to use nature for their own benefit.

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As the planet continues to heat, politicians will go to greater and greater lengths to suppress popular outrage

So NSW’s premier, Chris Minns, thinks social media platforms like Meta should prevent climate activists from broadcasting their protests.

Scientists tell us that temperatures in the sea and air are spiking; a new study warns about global ecosystems collapsing sooner than predicted. Yet governments everywhere display more determination in suppressing protest than combating warming. As Greta Thunberg notes, “activists all over the world are experiencing increased repressions just for fighting for our present and our future”.

Jeff Sparrow is a Guardian Australia columnist

Settlement will provide funds to US municipalities over 13 years to test for and treat PFAS contamination in public water systems

3M Co has reached a $10.3bn settlement with a host of US public water systems to resolve water pollution claims tied to “forever chemicals”, the chemical company announced on Thursday.

The company said the settlement would provide the funds over a 13-year period to cities, towns and other public water systems to test for and treat contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.

The Paris conference shows the climate crisis is no time for the tranquillising drug of gradualism

The International Energy Agency in 2021 had an unambiguous message: developing new fossil fuel resources is incompatible with restricting global heating to below 1.5C, a threshold beyond which the most disastrous climate impacts lie. Yet the oil and gas industry isn’t listening. Last year it committed half a trillion dollars for new capital expenditure on future drilling and extraction, while making outrageous profits of $4tn. Business as usual will destroy life as we know it.

Energy is fundamental for development and meeting basic needs. But producing it from coal, oil and gas is simultaneously the cause of the climate emergency. Clearly the issues of climate, energy and development must be addressed in an interconnected way. This is very difficult against a post-Covid backdrop when poor nations have record levels of debt. In the wake of the Ukraine invasion, rising interest rates have caused the dollar to surge – raising the cost of meeting loan repayments which are often denominated in the US currency. African nations spend up to five times their health budgets on debt obligations.

Move at Paris summit on global finance will only apply to repayments on new loans

Poor countries will be able to pause their debt repayments if hit by climate disaster, under plans announced by the World Bank at the finance summit in Paris.

The international development organisation said it would insert new clauses in any agreements with developing countries, allowing them to suspend debt payments in the case of extreme weather events, starting with some of the poorest and most vulnerable nations.

Amazon rainforest and other ecosystems could collapse ‘very soon’, researchers warn

Ecological collapse is likely to start sooner than previously believed, according to a new study that models how tipping points can amplify and accelerate one another.

Based on these findings, the authors warn that more than a fifth of ecosystems worldwide, including the Amazon rainforest, are at risk of a catastrophic breakdown within a human lifetime.

Exposure to nature in inner Melbourne has left her with stories, experiences and life skills before she starts school next year

The first time I dropped off my three-year-old at bush kinder, she was in a T-shirt and sandals. In hindsight, it was such a rookie error. Of course she needed long sleeves and closed shoes. The teacher explained that long sleeves provided better protection. If there were any cuts or nicks, a bit of coverage could make a difference.

I never made that mistake again. There was a lot to learn at bush kinder, a kindergarten program held in the parklands of inner Melbourne. The theory behind it was great: nature play improves children’s wellbeing, social and emotional development, cognitive language and physical skills – a string of nice words that I definitely wanted for my daughter. But really I was mainly glad she was outside. No screens. No toys. No equipment. Just what she needed after two years of lockdowns.

Research allays fears that rapid scaling back of production would hit people’s savings and pensions hard

A rapid reduction in fossil fuels, essential to avoid devastating climate breakdown, would have minimal financial impact on the vast majority of people, new research has shown.

Urgently cutting back on fossil fuel production is essential to avoid the worst impacts of climate breakdown and the economic and social turmoil that would ensue. However, some opponents of climate action claim it is too expensive. They argue that rapidly scaling back fossil fuel production would leave billions of pounds of “stranded assets”, leading to an economic slump that would impoverish the public through a fall in the value of savings and pension funds.

Scientists have warned that a marine heatwave off the coasts of the UK and Ireland poses a serious threat to species. Sea temperatures, particularly off the north-east coast of England and the west of Ireland, are several degrees above normal, breaking records for late spring and early summer. The Met Office has said that according to records dating to 1850, global sea surface temperatures in April and May reached an all-time high, and June is likely to follow suit. A professor of Earth sciences, Daniela Schmidt, said 'the extreme and unprecedented temperatures show the power of the combination of human-induced warming and natural climate variability like El Niño'. Experts said marine heatwaves have a similar impact on the environment as wildfires on land, destroying organisms that store carbon such as kelp. The damage caused is also harmful to humanity, which relies on oceans for oxygen, storm protection and food

• ‘Unheard of’ marine heatwave off UK and Irish coasts poses serious threat

Court has been told states are legally responsible for tackling sector’s emissions as IMO talks loom

Governments are coming under growing pressure to tackle the huge climate impact of the shipping industry, ahead of a key International Maritime Organization (IMO) meeting in the summer.

With talks about regulating the sector’s greenhouse gas emissions looming, the world maritime court has been told that states are legally responsible for tackling the climate impact of shipping.

As climate change ministers, we urge multilateral banks to come together to help vulnerable nations, who face cascading challenges

The science is clear. The climate crisis is the biggest single threat we face as a global community. In turn, meeting the goals of the Paris agreement and realising the opportunities of climate action is the task of the 21st century.

No single government can address this alone. Together, we can rise to the challenge.

Water company to have regular meetings with environment secretary after failing to meet promised targets to fix leakage rates

The leakage rate from Thames Water pipes is the highest for five years and the company will not meet its target to plug them this year, according to information released under freedom of information laws.

The company, which serves 15 million customers across London and Thames Valley, has to have regular meetings with the environment secretary because it is considered to be lagging in its performance.

Fossil fuel company ‘aims to thrive through the energy transition by building a low-cost, lower-carbon, profitable, resilient and diversified portfolio’

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The Australian energy giant Woodside is spending $7bn to drill for 479m barrels-worth of oil and gas off the coast of Mexico, but it says this is all in line with keeping global heating to 1.5C.

How?

Protesters clashed with police in the Maurienne Valley, south east France on Saturday, as they demonstrated against a tunnel being built through the base of the Alpine range that separates France and Italy. The protesters were attempting to reach a site where drilling has already begun on what will be the world's longest tunnel, but were blocked by police. 

The protests were led by Les Soulèvements de la Terre (Earth Uprising) - an umbrella group of several different environmental activist associations across France. On June 21 the French government dissolved the collective claiming their actions were violent and led to material damage. Lawyers for Les Soulèvements de la Terre immediately announced their intention to file an appeal

Hertfordshire council rules area of land on Hatfield House estate – owned by Marquess of Salisbury – is common land

The aristocrat who owns Hatfield House country manor has been forced to allow the general public to walk on part of his estate after the local council ruled that it was common land.

Earlier this year, the Marquess of Salisbury, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, opposed an application by the Open Spaces Society (OSS) to register a 1.8 hectare (4.45 acre) area of land on his estate as a common. Gascoyne-Cecil is a Conservative politician, once an MP and minister, and now sits in the Lords as a hereditary peer.

Sarah Finch’s challenge to plans to allow oil well hinges on wider environmental impact of fossil fuels

Climate campaigners have begun a supreme court challenge to plans to drill for oil in Surrey, in a case they hope could set a precedent restricting plans for future fossil fuel projects in the UK.

Sarah Finch is challenging Surrey county council’s decision to extend permission for a well at Horse Hill, near Gatwick airport in the Surrey countryside, which taps a subterranean reservoir developers believe may contain millions of barrels of oil.

Cetacean exhibits same behaviour towards vessel in North Sea that has been seen in Iberian orca population

A yacht in the North Sea off Shetland was repeatedly rammed by an orca on Monday, in a concerning development following previous interactions between the cetaceans and vessels in the strait of Gibraltar and Portugal.

Dr Wim Rutten, a 72-year-old retired Dutch physicist and experienced yachtsperson, was sailing solo from Lerwick to Bergen in Norway. He was fishing for mackerel, with a single line off the back of the boat, when the orca suddenly appeared in the clear water, and hit the stern of the seven-ton boat.