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Authorities say there is 'more significant rain to come' in north Queensland, amid warnings to residents not to return to flooded homes. Dams and river catchments from Mackay to Cairns remain swollen from a week of heavy rain, which has dumped more than 1.2 metres at some locations. More than 400 people – mostly in Townsville, Ingham and Cardwell – are in evacuation shelters after being advised on Sunday to flee

• North Queensland floods: hundreds evacuated, dozens rescued as 1.2m of rain dumped in some areas

• Queensland floods: authorities ready for ‘likelihood of more flooding’ – video

• Heatwave warning as ‘intensely hot’ weather continues in south-eastern Australia

BoM forecasts high of 39C in Melbourne and 41C in Adelaide with cool change not expected until Tuesday or Wednesday

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South-eastern states sweltering in a heatwave may be waiting until late Tuesday or Wednesday for a cool change to bring some relief.

Melbourne and Adelaide were in for another very hot day on Monday, after highs of 38C and 39C on Sunday. The Bureau of Meteorology was forecasting Adelaide to reach 41C and Melbourne 39C on Monday, followed by another hot day on Tuesday for both cities.

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Some tropical lows are stalling, dumping huge volumes of rain – and climate change is playing a role

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Record-breaking floods across north Queensland have turned deadly, with one woman drowning while being rescued on Sunday. And the flood waters were still rising, with rain set to continue.

With reports of up to one metre of rainfall in parts of north-east Queensland, the heaviest rain has fallen between Lucinda to Townsville in northern Queensland as the Bureau of Meteorology warns the big wet will continue for days.

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This article originally appeared in the Conversation. Steve Turton is an adjunct professor of environmental geography at CQUniversity Australia

Group of Darwin’s frogs threatened by chytrid fungus thrive in specially built room that mimics their natural habitat

Dozens of endangered froglets have been born at London zoo after conservationists launched an emergency mission to rescue members of the species from a remote national park in Chile.

Researchers rushed to Tantauco Park on the southern tip of Chiloé Island after tests confirmed that the lethal chytrid fungus had reached the nature reserve and threatened to wipe out some of the last remaining populations of Darwin’s frogs.

On top of the added levels of noise and air pollution, there’s the non-trivial matter of demolishing hundreds of homes, diverting several waterways and rerouting a long stretch of the M25

Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has illuminated the “fasten seat belts” sign. Not only have Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves run into severe turbulence over Heathrow, the flight deck deliberately steered the Labour plane into storm clouds. That’s an interesting choice for a government that was already buffeted by serious unpopularity and it’s a choice that a lot of their own party are struggling to explain to themselves. Anger about the chancellor’s new commitment to back the expansion of the London airport and others is mingled with bewilderment. A lot of Labour people are scratching their heads trying to work out why she wants to burn political capital on a hugely contentious project that couldn’t possibly be complete until long after she’s done at the Treasury and Sir Keir is gone from Number 10.

It was her choice and his. She didn’t have to make airport expansion the centrepiece of her keynote speech about growth. The prime minister, if his title means anything, could have stopped his chancellor had he wanted to. One consequence of the fury about the subject is that it diverts attention from her more welcome thoughts about how to boost Britain’s growth-starved economy.

Government scheme to penalise pollution from burning rubbish won’t ensure more is recycled, consultants warn

Councils may be forced to send more rubbish to landfill or export it overseas because of a new pollution tax set to be imposed on the UK’s network of waste incinerators.

There are already more than 60 energy-from-waste incinerators across the UK and the Observer revealed in December that as many as 40 new plants are in the pipeline. Many local councils have supported the policy of burning waste, which is cheaper than sending it to landfill.

A West End play reveals the way in which powerful vested interests brought about the demise of the climate protocol

In his review of the play Kyoto (“The Kyoto climate treaty is hailed on stage, but reality tells a different story”, Focus), Robin McKie rightly points out that the world is failing dismally to effectively get a grip on the climate crisis.

Richer countries that were part of the Kyoto bloc – mostly European nations – put in place extensive policies to implement the treaty’s legally binding targets: the UK’s 2008 Climate Change Act, widely emulated across the world, is one example. Climate laws multiplied after 1997. All countries with targets met them, renewables spread much more quickly than expected, and emissions in the Kyoto bloc fell by over 20%, at least partly because of these policies.

The chancellor is under fire after a study cited as evidence for expanding the terminal to boost the UK’s economic growth was ordered by Heathrow itself

Rachel Reeves was facing criticism on Saturday night as it was confirmed that a report she cited as evidence that a third ­runway at Heathrow would boost the UK economy was commissioned by the airport itself.

Experts and green groups also challenged Reeves’s view that advances in the production of ­sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) had been a “gamechanger” that would substantially limit the environmental damage of flying, ­saying the claims were overblown and did not stand up to scrutiny.

Minister says there was error when Manningtree station car park extension was approved under last government

Campaigners have celebrated an “important victory” in a closely watched case that will determine whether the government will enforce new legislation aimed at protecting national parks and landscapes in England.

Dedham Vale is a designated “national landscape” on the border of Essex and Suffolk, home to increasingly rare species including hazel dormice and hedgehogs. Within it is Manningtree station, where the train operator Greater Anglia built an extension to the car park to cope with increased traffic.

Legal action has begun to remove the tenants after the 80-acre site was sold to be turned into a healing retreat

Lunch around the huge sycamore and oak table in the farmhouse kitchen of the off-grid Brithdir Mawr community in the Preseli mountains of west Wales is a warm, gentle affair.

Members of the housing co-operative share soup made from leeks and potatoes grown in the gardens, served with crumbly goat’s cheese from its own herd, all washed down with mugs of mountain spring water.

Exclusive: Chief climate adviser calls on Starmer to make ‘strong, confident’ case for green UK that public can buy into

Ensuring that the costs of decarbonisation are shared fairly across society must be a top priority for ministers or they risk losing public support for net zero, the UK’s chief climate adviser has warned.

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves should be making a “strong, confident” case for decarbonisation as an engine of economic growth, according to Emma Pinchbeck, the chief executive of the Climate Change Committee, the independent statutory adviser.

Sharp rise in population in 11 of 16 cities expected to continue as rising temperatures make it easier for the animals to breed, say researchers

Rat numbers are soaring in cities as global temperatures warm, research shows.

Washington DC, San Francisco, Toronto, New York City and Amsterdam had the greatest increase in these rodents, according to the study, which looked at data from 16 cities globally. Eleven of the cities showed “significant increasing trends in rat numbers”, said the paper published in the journal Science Advances, and these trends were likely to continue.

Exclusive: MPs and ministers say they plan to oppose the PM if he gives consent to the Rosebank development

Senior Labour figures are warning of a serious fight if Keir Starmer tries to give the go-ahead to a giant new oilfield off Shetland later this year.

MPs and ministers have told the Guardian they are prepared to oppose the UK prime minister should he try and give final consent to the Rosebank development, which is Britain’s biggest untapped oilfield.

Brown trout unlikely to survive in most rivers at height of summer by 2080, says Environment Agency

It has been native to Britain for thousands of years and was heralded as the national fish on the BBC’s Springwatch, but a government report suggests the brown trout risks being wiped out in large parts of England within decades.

The first national temperature projections for English rivers by the Environment Agency forecasts that by 2080 the water will be too warm almost everywhere in England at the height of summer for the iconic Salmo trutta species to feed and grow.

Grassland for livestock faces largest cut, so people will be encouraged to eat less meat, says environment secretary

Farmland in England will be reduced by more than 10% by 2050 under government plans, with less meat produced and eaten by the country’s citizens.

The environment secretary, Steve Reed, launched the government’s blueprint for land use change on Friday, designed to balance the need to build infrastructure and meet nature and carbon targets.

Exclusive: Documents seen by Guardian Australia show a sustained strategy approved by environment minister Tanya Plibersek

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The Australian government carried out an international lobbying campaign to keep the Great Barrier Reef off a list of world heritage sites in danger, including dispatching politicians and officials to Unesco’s Paris headquarters and asking diplomats to gather intelligence on countries that could influence the decision.

The campaign is revealed in documents released to the Greens after a parliamentary request and show how Australia sought to influence Unesco and members of the 21-country world heritage committee in the lead up to a crunch meeting in July last year.

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Scheme backed by €170m fund crucial to getting agreement from farmers, politicians and environmental groups

“Plant-based foods are the future.” That is not a statement you would expect from a right-wing farming minister in a major meat-producing nation. Denmark produces more meat per capita than any other country in the world, with its 6 million people far outnumbered by its 30 million pigs, and it has a big dairy industry too. Yet this is how Jacob Jensen, from the Liberal party, introduced the nation’s world-first action plan for plant-based foods.

“If we want to reduce the climate footprint within the agricultural sector, then we all have to eat more plant-based foods,” he said at the plan’s launch in October 2023, and since then the scheme has gone from strength to strength. Backed by a €170m government fund, it is now supporting plant-based food from farm to fork, from making tempeh from broad beans and a chicken substitute from fungi to on-site tastings at kebab and burger shops and the first vegan chef degree.

The decision to expand Heathrow is just the latest evidence that my party is chasing policies that serve profit, not people

Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s recent “big growth agenda” speech wasn’t just the expression of a vision for the economy. It was also a warning shot to wavering Labour MPs. The message was blunt: get on board with the government’s economic strategy or step aside. Growth, we were told, is the non-negotiable mission.

This was not a sudden shift but a reaffirmation of her stance at Davos, where she made clear that “the answer can’t always be no”. That answer, now firmly codified, prioritises GDP growth above all else. Heathrow airport expansion is in; net zero, bats and newts are out. The promise? A revitalised economy, busy high streets and more bobbies on the beat – a Labour-friendly vision of progress designed to bolster morale and stuff leaflets with “good news” ahead of the next election.

Clive Lewis is the Labour MP for Norwich South

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world

Tiny plastic pollution more than 50% higher in placentas from preterm births than in those from full-term births

A study has found microplastic and nanoplastic pollution to be significantly higher in placentas from premature births than in those from full-term births.

The levels were much higher than previously detected in blood, suggesting the tiny plastic particles were accumulating in the placenta. But the higher average levels found in the shorter pregnancies were a “big surprise” for the researchers, as longer terms could be expected to lead to more accumulation.