The Guardian

Larch Maxey’s exit leaves four in tunnel, as judge grants possession order to HS2

A fifth HS2 protester has voluntarily left the Euston tunnel, leaving four people still in occupation.

The decision by Dr Larch Maxey came on the same day that a high court judge granted a possession order to HS2 for the site in London.

As climate impacts intensify, power grids stuffed with ageing fossil fuel infrastructure crumble

Climate change is full of surprises. We were warned about heatwaves, hurricanes and high-intensity firestorms. What we didn’t see coming was a cynical, cyclical economy of blackout bullshit. As climate impacts intensify, power grids stuffed with ageing fossil fuel infrastructure crumble. Those blackouts are usually blamed on wind and solar – and used to extend the lifespan of existing fossil fuel generators. Opportunity costs increase, climate impacts worsen and blackouts intensify. It’s an accelerating death spiral.

Last week Texas suffered an outage likely to be the worst on record in the US. Millions of people were without power for days, initially at a scale roughly equivalent to all of eastern Australia going dark at once. A burst of winter weather froze vital components at power stations, gas supplies were limited by frozen pipelines and, consequently, a third of the state’s thermal power stations were offline (mostly gas). An unspecified proportion of wind turbines were disabled due to icing and low-temperature shutoffs, but “gas and coal were actually the biggest culprits in the crisis”, Eric Fell, director of North America gas at Wood Mackenzie, told Bloomberg.

CBI, Energy UK and others tell chancellor cutting scheme will risk target of net zero emissions by 2050

Business groups are urging the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, to keep funding home insulation and other low-carbon measures under the green homes grant, which is under threat from cuts.

They warned that moves to reduce the amount of money paid out under the scheme, or abandon it altogether, would make it harder to reach the government’s target of net zero emissions by 2050, and damage the UK’s credibility as host nation of this year’s Cop26 UN climate summit and president of the G7 group of rich nations.

Independent review says department received allegations soon after first permits were issued but exports continued

The federal environment department failed to investigate allegations endangered and rare Australian birds were being sold in Europe at a huge profit and instead continued issuing permits to allow more birds to be exported to a secretive German charity, an independent review has found.

The investigation, by KPMG, was triggered after reporting by Guardian Australia revealed hundreds of birds, including endangered species, were exported to the Berlin-based Association for the Conservation for Threatened Parrots (ACTP) on the grounds that they would be used for a zoo exhibition.

Ingestion of lead shotgun pellets from bed of Larnaca Salt Lake blamed for rise in deaths of migrating flamingos

Conservationists in Cyprus are urging authorities to expand a hunting ban throughout a coastal salt lake network, amid concerns that migrating flamingos could swallow lethal quantities of lead shotgun pellets.

Martin Hellicar, the director of Birdlife Cyprus, said flamingos were at risk of ingesting the tiny pellets lying on the lakebed as they fed. Like other birds, flamingos swallow small pebbles to aid digestion but cannot distinguish between pebbles and the lead pellets.

A rare Amazonian cactus called the moonflower has bloomed for what botanists believe is the first time in the UK. Experts at the University of Cambridge's   Botanic Garden kept a night watch throughout the week so they did not miss the flowering of Selenicereus wittii – an event that usually begins at sunset and is over by sunrise.

The moonflower actually bloomed earlier on Saturday afternoon at about 3pm, and the garden said it was 28cm (11in) long. The flower produces a sweet-smelling scent that turns 'rancid' after just two hours, as the plant begins to die

• Rare Amazonian cactus flowers for first time in UK
• Ready, steady, bloom! Botanists wait for rare cactus to open for one night only

The Lone Star State is aptly named. If you’re not part of the Republican oil elite with Cruz and Abbott, you’re on your own

Texas has long represented a wild west individualism that elevates personal freedom – this week, the freedom to freeze – above all else.

Related: Why the cold weather caused huge Texas blackouts – a visual explainer

We break down the facts around one of the Coalition’s five priority areas in its ‘technology, not taxes’ response to the climate crisis

The Morrison government is backing soil carbon – drawing carbon from the atmosphere and storing it in the land – as a major part of its response to the climate crisis.

The idea isn’t new, and at times has been derided as “soil magic” due to exorbitant claims about what it could achieve. But it is receiving renewed focus after the government listed it as one of five priority areas under its so-called “technology, not taxes” approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Moonflower Selenicereus wittii blooms for just 12 hours, with start at botanical garden brought forward

Thousands of people around the world tuned into a live stream of a rare cactus this week as it prepared to bloom – thought to be the first such event in the UK.

Now, horticulturists say the event has begun, and will be over by sunrise on Sunday.

Exclusive: Prof Sir Robert Watson says backing of Cumbrian mine refutes claims of climate leadership

One of the UK’s most eminent environmental scientists has called the government’s failure to block a new coalmine in Cumbria “absolutely ridiculous”.

Prof Sir Robert Watson said the UK’s commitment to net zero emissions by 2050 to tackle the climate crisis was “wonderful”, but that there had to be a focus on immediate actions. The UK is hosting a UN climate summit, Cop26, in November and Boris Johnson has pledged to lead a green industrial revolution.

John Kerry made remark as US officially returned to climate agreement on Friday, 107 days after it left under Donald Trump

The US has marked its return to the Paris agreement by urging countries to do more to confront the climate crisis, with America’s climate envoy, John Kerry, warning that international talks this year are the “last, best hope” of avoiding catastrophic global heating.

On Friday, the US officially returned to the Paris climate accord, 107 days after it left at the behest of former president Donald Trump. Joe Biden moved to reverse this on his first day in office and Kerry conceded that the US is returning “with a lot of humility, for the agony of the last four years”.

Public warned to watch what they flush after workers tackle blockage for two weeks

Members of the public have been urged to be careful what they flush after a “huge, disgusting” fatberg the weight of a small bungalow was cleared from an east London sewer.

Thames Water engineers and MTS Cleansing Services spent two weeks using high-powered water jets and hand tools to chip away at and eventually remove the rock-like heap – said to have smelled like composting festival toilets and rotten meat – from a conduit in Canary Wharf.

Curiosity and sociability among traits found, despite dolphins having evolved separately for millions of years

Dolphins have developed a number of similar personality traits to humans, despite having evolved in vastly different environments, researchers have found.

A study, published in the Journal of Comparative Psychology, looked at 134 male and female bottlenose dolphins from eight facilities across the world, with each dolphin’s personality being assessed by staff at the facilities. The results of the study found a convergence of certain personality traits, especially curiosity and sociability.

World leaders expect Washington to prove commitment to accord after four years of inaction

The US is back in the Paris climate accord, just 107 days after it left.

While Friday’s return is heavily symbolic, world leaders say they expect the US to prove its seriousness after four years of being mostly absent. They are especially keen to hear an announcement from Washington in the coming months on the US’s goal for cutting emissions of heat-trapping gases by 2030.

Rivers are biodiversity hotspots but pollution, dams and invasive species have caused havoc

Rivers in which fish populations have escaped serious damage from human activities make up just 14% of the world’s river basin area, according to the most comprehensive study to date.

Scientists found that the biodiversity of more than half of rivers had been profoundly affected, with big fish such as sturgeon replaced by invasive species such as catfish and Asian carp. Pollution, dams, overfishing, farm irrigation and rising temperatures due to the climate crisis are also to blame.

The outages endured by residents result from the state’s political decisions – but all of us need to think more about ensuring resilience

Though the desperate conditions that millions of Texans have suffered for days were triggered by a powerful winter storm, the underlying issues are the work of human beings. At least 2.7 million households were still without power on Wednesday, and nearly 12 million faced water quality issues. Hospitals ran out of water. Families have burned belongings to keep their children warm.

As bizarre as it may seem that residents of the biggest energy-producing state in the US can be left powerless for so long, these problems were foreseen. While Republican leaders in Texas have blamed a reliance on renewable energy, it was mostly natural gas plants that failed, with a reactor at a nuclear facility also forced offline. The desire to stay free from federal oversight means that Texas has a stand-alone grid, preventing it from importing power. The lack of regulation meant that price competition took precedence over stability of service. The grid’s operator was warned following power outages 10 years ago that equipment needed to be protected against extreme low temperatures, but failed to act. The system prioritised profits instead of the people it was supposed to serve.

Morrison government’s inaction is driving away chance to build a new low-emissions economy, industry experts say

Australia risks being left in a “parallel world” with petrol cars as the rest of the world turns to electric vehicles in an effort reduce carbon emissions.

As Ford announced that all its cars sold in Europe would be electric by 2030, industry experts warned Australia faces an uphill struggle to catch up with other nations in preparation for the phasing out of the internal combustion engine.

From the Komodo’s mouth hang various strands of toxic drool, lightly coated in dust

The goanna wanted an egg. It had climbed a few metres up the trunk of a large cabbage palm and was looking at me: egg. Its nose pointed down, its eyes looked up, like a begging dog, and – distinctly unlike a dog of any kind – it flicked its forked tongue against the bark: egg. Although I was in possession of a carton, I declined the request. I have seen a goanna (Australian for monitor lizard) eat an egg and they have no idea how to do this in a normal way. They crunch the snack whole, a dull look on their faces, as most of the yolk dribbles down the sides of their mouths.

Of course, the best monitor lizard – and champion of disturbing feeding habits – is the Komodo dragon: a big beast that lives on small islands such as Indonesia’s Komodo, Rinca, Flores, and Gili Motang (50,000 years ago, Komodos lived in Australia, too). As the cult internet comic strip Achewood puts it, “Everyone knows that a Komodo Dragon is the biggest, worst lizard of the modern day.”

UN report offers bedrock for hope for broken planet, says António Guterres

Humanity is waging a “senseless and suicidal” war on nature that is causing human suffering and enormous economic losses while accelerating the destruction of life on Earth, the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, has said.

Guterres’s starkest warning to date came at the launch of a UN report setting out the triple emergency the world is in: the climate crisis, the devastation of wildlife and nature, and the pollution that causes many millions of early deaths every year.

Six experts say failure to reform climate finance risks undermining trust in Paris agreement

Taxes on international transport could provide new flows of finance to developing countries to help them reduce greenhouse gas emissions and cope with the impacts of climate breakdown, a group of climate finance experts have said.

Rich countries are failing on their pledge to provide $100bn a year to help poor countries cope with the climate crisis, and the way in which climate finance is organised needs urgent reform, the six academics argue in an article in the journal Nature Climate Change.