The Guardian

Environment secretary, Steve Barclay, tells firms he will toughen regulatory approach but gives no timescale

The environment secretary has told water companies in England that they will no longer be able to monitor and report on pollution from their own treatment works.

Steve Barclay told the privatised industry he would put an end to operator self-monitoring in a toughening of the regulatory approach.

Extreme weather threatens world’s biggest carbon store as the rainforest is already close to tipping point

The climate crisis turned the drought that struck the Amazon rainforest in 2023 into a devastating event, a study has found.

The drought was the worst recorded in many places and hit the maximum “exceptional” level on the scientific scale. Without planet-warming emissions from the burning of oil, gas and coal, the drought would have been far less extreme, the analysis found.

Terms such as ‘green’, ‘sustainable’ and ‘environmentally friendly’ understood only by minority, says study

The British public has a worryingly low understanding of language around the climate crisis and environmental policies to reduce waste, according to the findings of a survey.

Only a quarter of people questioned clearly understood the term “green” and about the same number could accurately describe what “sustainable” – making something in a way that causes little or no damage to the environment – meant.

Increasingly fearless predators found to be serious threat to safety in national parks

Dutch authorities can shoot “deviant” wolves that could pose a danger to the public with paintball guns, a court has ruled, as debate rages in Europe over protecting the animals.

After a lengthy legal battle, the court in Utrecht, central Netherlands, decided on Wednesday that the behaviour of some of the wolves in a national park was “a serious threat to public safety”.

Fossil emissions ‘finally back to 1960s levels’, say analysts, but they warn levels are still falling too slowly

The European Union pumped out 8% less carbon dioxide from the fossil fuels it burned in 2023 than it did in 2022, the Guardian can reveal, pushing these emissions down to their lowest level in 60 years.

The fall in planet-heating pollution is the steepest yearly drop on record behind 2020, when governments shuttered factories and grounded flights to stop the spread of Covid-19, according to analysis from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (Crea).

The first successful embryo transfer in a southern white rhino paves way for using technique to save rarer northern cousins

The critically endangered northern white rhino could be saved from the brink of extinction after scientists performed the first successful embryo transfer in white rhinos.

After the last male northern white rhino, Sudan, died in 2018, the disappearance of the species looked imminent. Just two infertile female northern white rhinos – Fatu and Najin – remain, and are under 24-hour armed protection at a conservation reservation in Kenya. But a new scientific advancement means the mother and daughter may not be the last of their kind.

Experts say world is ‘past peak fossil power’ but warn against uneven development of energy projects

Nuclear power generation is likely to break records in 2025 as more countries invest in reactors to fuel the shift to a low-carbon global economy, while renewable energy is likely to overtake coal as a power source early next year, data has shown.

China, India, Korea and Europe are likely to have new reactors come on stream, while several in Japan are also forecast to return to generation, and French output should increase, according to a report on the state of global electricity markets published by the International Energy Agency (IEA) on Wednesday.

The UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders is right to warn that a pillar of democracy is under threat in Britain

In the last few years, environmental protesters in Britain have pulled off some striking – and strikingly irritating – acts of civil disobedience. These have caused indignation and aggravation, especially by disrupting people’s lives. But their actions grabbed our attention. The purpose is to denounce an injustice by intentionally breaking the law in a non-violent way. The justification is a climate emergency that threatens humanity’s future.

There is nothing new in this: the suffragettes smashed windows and set buildings alight. Today we honour their cause and courage. Yet the government appears intent on criminalising protest, a move rightly criticised by Michel Forst, the UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders. He warns that a pillar of democracy – the right to protest – is under threat in Britain. The demonisation of environmental activists and the erosion of civil rights without adequate scrutiny from lawmakers, or protection by the courts, are undermining the UK’s guarantees of freedom and the rule of law. It had been almost unheard of since the 1930s for demonstrators to be imprisoned for peaceful protest in the UK. Last month, he said, a climate protester got six months behind bars for slow-walking on a road.

The US oil company is off to court to try and block a green activist motion aimed at accelerating the company’s attempts to cut emissions

ExxonMobil is “committed to responsibly meeting the world’s energy needs”, according to the corporate blah blah, but it is clearly not committed to allowing its shareholders to express their own opinions on the “responsibly” bit of the boast. The US oil company is off to court in Texas to try to block a vote on a resolution tabled by Follow This, a Dutch green activist investor group that would like Exxon to move faster (a lot faster) on reducing emissions.

Exxon has an argument of sorts, one might say, in that Follow This tabled similar-sounding resolutions at the last two annual meetings and neither passed. Some 27.1% of shareholders aligned with the rebels in 2022 and 10.5% last year. Why go through the same process again, the company will argue. And, since last year’s meeting at Exxon contained 13 shareholder motions in total, haven’t US regulators allowed agendas to become overcrowded?

As UN expert says UK’s actions are chilling and regressive, we look at some of the cases

• UN expert condemns UK crackdown on environmental protest

The UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders Michel Forst has said the UK’s crackdown on climate protesters is chilling, regressive and a restriction on fundamental freedoms.

We look at some of the cases:

Defendants on trial for peaceful protest were forbidden from mentioning the words climate change, fuel poverty or the civil rights movement when they were on trial for public nuisance. Several people, including a social worker, David Nixon, and the Dorset councillor Giovanna Lewis, were jailed for contempt of court when they defied the restrictions to explain their motivations for taking action to the jury.

A retired social worker, Trudi Warner, is being prosecuted for contempt of court for holding up a sign outside a court defending the right of juries to decide a case on their conscience. The decision to prosecute was made by the then solicitor general Michael Tomlinson KC, a minister and the Conservative MP for Mid Dorset and North Poole.

Stephen Gingell, 57, was jailed for six months after pleading guilty to taking part in a peaceful slow march protest on a London road. The sentence is thought to be the first jailing under the Public Order Act 2023, which includes an offence of “interference with key national infrastructure”. Gingell is appealing.

Civil injunctions have been issued to hundreds of individuals. National Highways has injunctions covering 4,300 miles of motorways and major A roads. Anyone who breaches this injunction faces imprisonment and/or an unlimited fine. Any corporation can apply for a civil injunction, and individuals can be punished without a trial.

Marcus Decker and Morgan Trowland made history as the peaceful protesters who have received the longest jail sentences in modern history in the UK when they were sentenced to two years and seven months, and three years respectively for public nuisance. They climbed the Queen Elizabeth II bridge over the Dartford Crossing and unveiled a banner for Just Stop Oil in 2022. The longest jail term issued to the suffragettes was three months.

UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders says he is seriously concerned about ‘regressive new laws’

A severe crackdown on environmental protest in Britain with “draconian” new laws, excessive restrictions on courtroom evidence and the use of civil injunctions is having a chilling impact on fundamental freedoms, the United Nations special rapporteur has said.

As the world faces a triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, environmental protesters were acting for the “benefit of us all” and must be protected, Michel Forst, the UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders, said on Tuesday.

Cookstove projects are one of the fastest-growing carbon offset schemes but research finds carbon benefits are vastly overstated

Clean cookstove projects, one of the most popular types of carbon-offset schemes, are probably overstating their beneficial impact on the climate by an average of 1,000%, according to a new study.

Every year, an estimated 3.2 million people die prematurely from household air pollution caused by cooking with smoky fuels such as wood, paraffin or kerosene, which produce about 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on X for all the latest news and features

Campaigners say 76% decline in riverfly species’ abundance at Cunsey Beck is being caused by sewage discharges

Testing by citizen scientists of a beck that feeds into Windermere has revealed a huge loss in invertebrate life in the lake in Cumbria that campaigners say is being caused by sewage discharges.

Save Windermere and WildFish carried out testing for invertebrates in Cunsey Beck, a site of special scientific interest (SSSI), in order to assess the impact on its freshwater ecology of the Near Sawrey wastewater treatment works, owned and operated by United Utilities.

Former Cop26 president criticises the government’s push to ‘max out’ the North Sea

Alok Sharma has said the government’s oil and gas bill going through the Commons will not cut household energy costs or create jobs and instead will break the UK’s promise to phase out fossil fuels.

During a debate on the offshore petroleum licensing bill, which would place the North Sea Transition Authority under a duty to run annual applications for new offshore oil and gas licences, the former Cop26 president criticised the government’s push to “max out” the North Sea. MPs vote on the bill’s second reading on Monday night.

As they get bigger, the environmental harm caused by motor vehicles also grows. Setting some limits is the way forward

Bigger cars take up more room, and in cities where space is at a premium this is recognised as a problem. Polling last year showed 40% of people in the UK had a negative view of 4x4-type vehicles, while just 21% had a positive one. Negative views are even more pronounced in London, while the Midlands – historic heart of the UK motor industry – has a more positive attitude to big vehicles than anywhere else. Since 2001, new cars in the UK and Europe have grown 1cm wider every two years. Last year the average width passed 180cm, too big to fit comfortably in some parking spaces. Campaigners warn that unless regulators step in, cars could keep growing to match trucks and buses.

Taking space away from other road users is not the only problem with these supersized vehicles. Because they are bigger, heavier and higher off the ground, SUVs pose greater risks than other cars to anyone unlucky enough to collide with them. One study found that children are eight times more likely to die after being struck by one.

They don’t chew: they bite, the meat goes straight into their stomach, and they bite again

Imagine a bulldog flattened with a meat tenderiser, shaved and sprinkled with glitter. Imagine more, and everywhere, or else: when I was a child, as sure as all cartoon sand would turn into quicksand, in every fictional body of fresh water swam very real fish with very real, sharp, tiny little teeth.

In The Simpsons, Millhouse is more worried about piranhas than that his mother will stop loving him. Bart is reduced to a skeleton by piranhas from a hosepipe.

Mercury reaches 48.3C on western coast on Sunday, while Northern Territory hit by rainfall far beyond norm

A severe heatwave in Australia led to daily temperatures exceeding 40C (104F) for vast swathes of the country over the weekend, with the Pilbara region in Western Australia particularly badly affected.

After peaking at 47.9C on Saturday, in the remote town of Paraburdoo, Sunday’s highest confirmed temperature at the time of writing was 48.3C, at Onslow airport on the western coast. Onslow is also the joint record holder for Australia’s highest-ever recorded temperature, having reached 50.7C in January 2022. This record could be under threat as the heatwave continues into Monday and Tuesday, with daily maximums of 50-51C possible in the same region.

Global industry is set on a course of decarbonisation – but Rishi Sunak is fatally in thrall to the Tory anti-environment right

Of all Rishi Sunak’s blunders and policy decisions in 2023, perhaps the most consequential was his move to delay key milestones on the way to net zero. Sunak postponed the banning of sales of petrol and diesel cars and domestic boilers two months after the government authorised more carbon extraction from the North Sea. Cue outrage from the capitalists to the greens, from greens to even some Tories. What on earth was he doing?

There is perhaps some sense in his decision to slow down. If net zero by 2050 is the final target, then the means of getting there must be realistic. But as our climate becomes more inhospitable, affecting food imports, infrastructure and ultimately living standards, the goal must instead be to reduce global emissions as quickly as possible, not meet a distant date for net zero. Yes, realistic means to decarbonise the British economy are needed, but he has not provided them. On the contrary, he is willing away the means, as he admits they are lacking.

David Edgerton is Hans Rausing Professor of the history of science and technology and professor of modern British history at King’s College London

Wild freshwater eels are at risk of extinction due to overfishing but their meat can now be cultivated from cells

The first lab-grown freshwater eel meat has been produced, potentially solving a diner’s dilemma. Rampant overfishing has caused eel populations to plummet and prices to soar, but the cultivated eel could provide the delicacy guilt-free.

The eel meat was produced by Forsea Foods in Israel from embryonic cells of the Japanese unagi eel. The company collaborated with a Japanese chef to create unagi kabayaki, marinated grilled eel over rice, and unagi nigiri, a type of sushi.

Economists say funding energy infrastructure, transport, tech and the environment will aid prosperity

The UK should invest £26bn a year in a low-carbon economy to revive prosperity instead of planning tax giveaways that will only lead to further stagnation, leading economists have advised.

Investing in energy infrastructure, transport, innovation in new technologies such as AI, and the natural environment would boost the UK’s economy rapidly, the research found.