The Guardian

Spiders have been spotted at numerous locations attempting to flee to higher ground during New South Wales floods. Shenae and Steve Varley witnessed spiders covering 'the entire length of the railing that’s not under water' at the Penrith weir in western Sydney. Macksville resident Melanie Williams was also shocked by a swarm of spiders climbing the outer wall of her home as they fled for higher ground.

• NSW weather live: Berejiklian says fires and floods may push people to ‘breaking point’ as disaster relief payment expanded
• 'Never seen anything like it': locals watch helplessly as floodwaters rise across New South Wales

Misuse and subsidising of supplies for the rich also causing shortages and high prices for the poor and vulnerable

The failure of governments around the world to place a clear value on water is leading to widespread water waste, shortages and high prices for poor and vulnerable people, the UN has warned.

In many countries, water is treated as a low-cost resource for uses such as irrigation, but this is leading some farmers to use too much, causing scarcity for other users. In other places, rich people receive heavily subsidised water to their homes, leading to further waste, while the poor struggle to gain access to water for essential uses.

Animal ‘slightly underweight’ but seemed in generally good health and was probably looking for food

An Arctic walrus has been spotted off the Pembrokeshire coast, prompting a callout to the RSPCA to check on animal’s welfare.

The walrus was first spotted a week earlier on rocks in County Kerry, Ireland, before seemingly making its way over to south Wales.

Scientists warn that Nobel summit and long-term decisions to save the planet are at risk from targeted attacks online

Fake news on social media about climate change and biodiversity loss is having a worrying impact in the battle to halt the growing environmental threats to the planet, a group of scientists and analysts have warned.

In a report published by the Royal Swedish Academy of Science, they say measures needed to create a healthier, more resilient planet – by reducing fossil fuel emissions, overfishing and other threats – will be hard to enforce if they continue to suffer targeted attacks in social media. The international cooperation that is needed to halt global heating and species loss could otherwise be jeopardised, they say.

Storks, butterflies and turtle doves could all suffer at the Knepp estate in West Sussex

It is a place where rare white storks raise their chicks alongside peregrine falcons and purple emperor butterflies, where the trees are filled with endangered turtle doves and nightingales, and where the population of breeding songbirds is the densest in Britain.

For conservationists and wildlife enthusiasts, the Knepp estate in West Sussex is more than just a wildlife sanctuary, it is a symbol of hope: a former arable and dairy farm that is now a world-famous rewilding project, home to some of the rarest birds and insects in the UK.

The tiny crustacean, never seen elsewhere, has been ‘breeding like mad’ at the Horniman by the South Circular road

For more than a decade, nobody at the museum had any idea that the unusally fast-moving, zig-zagging shrimp they were feeding to the fish in their aquarium was a brand-new species that had never been seen before anywhere else in the world.

Smaller than a child’s fingernail, the new type of marine mysid crustacean has been discovered in a humble tank at the Horniman museum in London, where it has spent at least the past 12 years hiding in plain sight and “breeding like mad”.

With the average UK family throwing out £730 of surplus items a year, eco-conscious consumers have found a hi-tech fix

There is such a thing as a free lunch, it turns out, as long as you don’t mind too much what it is. Tamara Wilson found hers a few streets away from her west London home – and as well as picking up some unwanted bread and fruit that would otherwise be thrown away, she made a new friend.

Wilson* is one of 3.4 million people around the world using an app designed to encourage people to give away rather than throw away surplus food. “It’s such a small thing, but it makes me feel good and my neighbour feel good. And a lot of small acts can end up making a big difference,” she said.

Bruce and Ann McGregor used a bequest of $1.6m from Bruce’s late father to buy Prosser River Reserve, protecting a diverse natural refuge

On a still morning on a hill at the back of Prosser River Reserve you can watch the mist settle on undisturbed native forest in the valley below while taking in a backdrop of mountains and the Tasman Sea.

You can listen as the gums overhead broadcast 20 varieties of birdsong – and, if you’re skilled or lucky, maybe catch sight of a rare bird in the canopy. Then you can walk down the ridge to Back River, where the giant old trees and threatened native flora lining the banks are like a throwback to pre-European times, with barely an invasive species in sight.

Move reverses former president’s order to drop all references to the climate emergency on government websites

Canceled four years ago by a president who considered global warming a hoax, climate crisis information has returned to the website of the US government’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as part of Joe Biden’s promise to “bring science back”.

Architecture’s top prize has been awarded to a design duo who could show Britain how to bring its emissions under control

This week the highest honour in the architecture world was awarded to a pair of Parisian designers better known for revitalising existing buildings than creating new ones. The Pritzker prize, which includes a $100,000 jackpot, went to Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal, whose most impressive projects – the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, upgrading three social housing blocks in Bordeaux, and the extension of a Dunkirk warehouse to form an arts complex – are all refurbishments.

It’s the first time in the award’s 46-year history that retrofitting, the practice of upgrading buildings rather than knocking them down to start again, has triumphed. Lacaton & Vassal’s victory has shaken up the architectural profession and signals a remarkable shift in priorities among the world’s best city-makers. If embraced more widely, this could transform how buildings everywhere are regenerated.

Project will explore whether perceptions of the turning season have changed since first lockdown

• Coronavirus – latest updates
• See all our coronavirus coverage

After a long, hard winter, the sights, sounds and scents of spring in the UK will come as a welcome relief for many people. Over this weekend, amateur nature writers across the country are being encouraged to document their feelings and record sightings of flora and fauna of the new season.

The observations will be collected by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the National Trust, then woven into a new poem by the nature writer Elizabeth-Jane Burnett.

The best of the week’s wildlife pictures, including fighting ponies, a polar bear hotel and pigeons in Syria

Campaigners target Standard Chartered, urging bank to stop funding coal in emerging markets

Climate protesters from as many as 60 countries have gathered in person and online for Fridays for Future, a movement created by the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.

Campaigners raised local issues alongside the globally co-ordinated campaign #cleanupStandardChartered, which calls on the London-headquartered Standard Chartered to divest from coal in emerging markets.

A climate activist dived in the Indian Ocean as part of the first underwater protest of the global climate strike.

Shaama Sandooyea held a placard reading ‘Youth Strike For Climate’ in the Saya de Malha bank, part of the Mascarene Plateau and located between Mauritius and Seychelles in the Indian Ocean. It is the largest seagrass meadow in the world and one of the biggest carbon sinks in the high seas

Oil companies knew 50 years ago the huge damage they were doing. Their motive to ignore it is the same now as it was then

Capitalism is on a collision course with human life and the future of our planet. Each year, air pollution takes more lives than smoking: the last estimate suggests 8.8m deaths across the world, compared with 7m from cigarettes.

Related: Oil firms knew decades ago fossil fuels posed grave health risks, files reveal

As environmental agencies reel from a Republican-led assault on regulations, local activists are taking up the fight

The headaches, asthma attacks and serious nosebleeds that plagued Diego Mayens as a child in West Long Beach, California were all triggered by one basic activity – playing outdoors. He suspects the foul emissions from nearby refineries and other heavy industry were behind his problems.

“It had to do a lot with the air quality in the area,” Mayens told the Guardian. “I feel particularly bad seeing kids playing outside and people who live here walking around who might not know what they’re breathing in.”

Jason Torlano skied upper part of Half Dome – and reports suggest it may be first ever descent to go so far down the mountain

The pair hiked up to a tree near the summit of Yosemite’s Half Dome peak, at almost 9,000ft, and took turns keeping a fire going. The next day they set out just after 3am to avoid the sun warming up the ice and snow, raising the risk of avalanches.

Once there was enough daylight to see that conditions were safe, the pair clambered up to the peak, strapped on their skis, and began the perilous glide towards a face that looked almost vertical – and to the “death slabs” below.

Covid pandemic continues to hamper plans for key gathering to agree targets on protecting nature

A key United Nations summit to negotiate an accord for nature similar to the Paris climate agreement has been postponed for a second time, it has been announced.

The UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) said in a a statement that Cop15, the biggest biodiversity summit in a decade, had been moved to October due to delays related to the coronavirus pandemic. The negotiations in Kunming, China, had been scheduled for May after they were moved from October 2020.

While Australia has spent US$2bn, France pledged $57bn, the UK $42bn and Japan $24bn, Oxford University study finds

Australia is the worst performer on a list of the world’s 50 largest economies for “green recovery” spending to kickstart economic growth after the Covid pandemic, according to research conducted for the United Nations environment program.

The research suggests Australia spent US$2bn on green initiatives during the coronavirus recovery, compared with US$57bn in France, US$54bn in South Korea, US$47bn in Germany, US$42bn in the United Kingdom, US$41bn in China and US$24bn in Japan. Germany spent $9bn on hydrogen alone.

Today’s targets are nowhere near enough, we must speed up change and halve global emissions in the next decade

• Alok Sharma is president designate of Cop26 and the Conservative MP for Reading West
• Report: UK’s Cop26 president calls for world to get on track to hit net zero by 2050

The climate crisis represents a clear and present danger to people and our planet. Its real-world consequences are now all too visible.

In Nepal last month, I met communities displaced by melting glaciers. In Ethiopia, I saw how floods, droughts and locusts have decimated crops. Around the world, oceans are warming, and storms, floods and wildfires are intensifying, while here at home, our coastal towns face serious long-term threats from rising seas. Unless we act now, we will be out of time to hold back the worst impacts.