The Guardian

In focusing on targets, activists from rich countries risk putting metrics above the lives of vulnerable people

The dissonance is enough to make me uninstall Twitter from my phone. Maybe it’s compassion fatigue, maybe it’s 2020. But if I’m honest with myself, it’s a world-sized rift in how we perceive the climate emergency on the different timelines I doom-scroll. On one feed, everyone – American or not – is forced to tune in to each candidate’s climate policy because the US’s electoral fate is inextricably linked to the future of the planet. On another feed from back home in India, 40 new coalmines in the last great sal forests are being served up to any bidder who’ll take them, while civil rights activists from a different era of environmental organising languish in jail, their health deteriorating.

We’re at an inflection point in climate politics, where some governments are readying 30- and 40-year carbon-neutral plans and others are looking to coast into the next decade with pledges that are already five years old. Meanwhile people who have always suffered are contending with the fallout of inaction in the here and now. We need to align these two timelines and to broaden our definition of climate justice, if we are to achieve any measure of justice for the most vulnerable. But in order to do this, we must accept that climate politics are not so black and white any more.

Msrine experts exasperated by ‘disturbing nature and tone of the hearings’ in ‘a shameless misuse of the parliamentary process’

Coalition senators have criticised scientists and misrepresented evidence given by Australia’s main marine science agency at the close of a “politically motivated” Senate inquiry looking at water quality on the Great Barrier Reef, scientists claim.

More than a year after the Coalition-backed inquiry was launched, a final report was released in parliament on Thursday evening that backed the links between farm runoff – water from farms that flows into the ocean – and impacts on the health of the Great Barrier Reef, but called for better relations with farmers.

By reporting on issues across the world affecting the climate crisis the media can influence change

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“Will this story make a difference?”

It’s a question journalists ask themselves all the time. The answer is rarely clearcut, and there is no shortage of stories that barely make a ripple. But there have been a number of occasions in recent years on the Guardian’s environment desk when the answer has been a resounding yes.

Council is latest to push for bathing status for a stretch of river in order to protect it

Oxford has become the latest area to push for bathing water status for an area of river in an attempt to stop Thames Water discharging raw sewage into it.

The city council has backed a motion to apply for a section of the River Thames to become a bathing water area, akin to the status granted to coastal waters in the UK. The status drives up the standards of waterways. Currently no English river qualifies as bathing water, but the designation applies to more than 600 beaches and lakes.

The Royal Society of Biology has released the shortlisted entries and winners for its Photographer of the Year and Young Photographer of the Year competition. This year’s theme was Our Changing World

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Vessels spent 200,000 hours in 2019 bottom trawling or dredging the seabed in protected areas set up to safeguard vital ecosystems

More than 97% of British marine protected areas, created to safeguard ocean habitats, are being dredged and bottom trawled, according to data shared with the Guardian.

Nearly a quarter of the UK’s territorial waters are covered by MPAs, set up to protect vital ecosystems and species, including harbour porpoises and dolphins. This network of parks is a symbol of the government’s “world leading” target to protect 30% of ocean biodiversity by 2030.

A surfboard was recovered from the water at Wylie Bay but the male surfer has not been located, a police spokesman says

A surfer is missing following a possible shark attack near Esperance in Western Australia with authorities recovering a surfboard from the water.

A marine search and rescue team is at Kelp Beds beach in Wylie Bay looking for the man after a possible shark bite was reported at 10.50am local time on Friday.

US artists, hunters and conservationists concerned stamps promote the idea that conservation always involves hunting

Each year, the country’s most talented wildlife artists submit their waterfowl-themed artwork to the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s (USFWS) annual contest to determine an image for the following year’s federal duck stamps. But this year’s entries look a little different.

In May, the USFWS announced a new, permanent theme for the stamps, which help fund wetland conservation: waterfowl hunting. That’s why this year’s submissions featured imagery of birds along with dispensed shotgun shells, duck calls lost among tall reeds, and hunters with rifles aimed at blue skies, as Audubon magazine first reported.

Fragile Planet is a record of the dramatic changes that are shaping our planet. Containing more than 230 photographs, the book documents the effects of climate systems and forces of nature on our world alongside striking images that show their impact

• Fragile Planet: The Impact of Climate Change is published by Collins Books
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The challenges of re-engineering the global economy by 2050 were already immense, even before the advent of Covid-19

In terms of energy, we are living in an “after-Paris” world. For, in the half-decade since the Paris climate agreement, its impact has only continued to grow. The idea of an energy transition to what is called “net zero carbon” by 2050, which is at the heart of the agreement, is becoming embedded in the strategies of investors and companies and in the policies of governments. There are widespread calls for large green stimuli while interest rates are low. If elected, Joe Biden’s wide-ranging climate plan would put the US on the same path as Britain and European governments.

Yet no one at that Paris conference in 2015 could have imagined that a pandemic would sweep the world in 2020 and impose an economic dark age on people across the globe. What does that mean for mapping the path towards the energy transition?

Poll shows majority of people do not realise the flesh of a carved pumpkin is edible

More than half of the 24m pumpkins carved for Halloween in Britain this year will not be eaten, according to new research.

The findings suggest that one in seven people who celebrate Halloween do not regard the gourds as food while only 42% realise the fleshy innards of a carving pumpkin are edible.

Five £1m prizes will be awarded each year for next 10 years to support environmental solutions

The Duke of Cambridge has announced that £50m will be awarded over 10 years through his ambitious Earthshot prize, billed as “the most prestigious global environment prize in history”, which aims to find solutions to repair the planet by 2030.

Five £1m prizes will be awarded each year for the next 10 years, aiming to provide at least 50 solutions to some of the world’s environmental problems.

The ads included calling climate change a hoax and were paid for by conservative US groups

Adverts on Facebook denying the reality of the climate crisis or the need for action were viewed by at least 8 million people in the US in the first half of 2020, a thinktank has found.

The 51 climate disinformation ads identified included ones stating that climate change is a hoax and that fossil fuels are not an existential threat. The ads were paid for by conservative groups whose sources of funding are opaque, according to a report by InfluenceMap.

Drone footage captures great white stalking Matt Wilkinson off Ballina in northern NSW

Drone footage has captured professional surfer Matt Wilkinson’s narrow escape from a 1.5m great white shark off the coast of Ballina in northern New South Wales.

The world championship tour surfer was paddling on his board near Sharpes Beach on Wednesday when a shark swam quickly up behind him.

Air temperatures hit all-time highs for month and Arctic sea ice level was ‘particularly low’

The world this year experienced its hottest September on record, scientists have reported.

Surface air temperatures last month were 0.05C warmer than in September 2019, making it the hottest September on record globally, experts from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said.

Study calls for more rights for indigenous reserves as rising gold price attracts more miners

A new report has exposed the scale and impact of mining on indigenous reserves in Amazon countries as gold prices soared during the Covid-19 pandemic. More than 20% of indigenous lands are overlapped by mining concessions and illegal mining, it found, covering 450,000 sq km (174,000 sq miles) – and 31% of Amazon indigenous reserves are affected.

The report, released on Wednesday by the World Resources Institute, said indigenous people should be given more legal rights to manage and use their lands, and called for better environmental safeguards. As pressure mounts over the issue, a leading Brazilian thinktank has called for regulations tracing gold sold by financial institutions.

Rising emissions of nitrous oxide – a key greenhouse gas – from farming are putting world on track to exceed 2C heating

The spread of intensive farming is threatening to blow the world’s chances of meeting the Paris agreement on the climate crisis, as the increasing use of artificial fertiliser and growing populations of livestock are raising the concentration of a key greenhouse gas to levels far beyond those seen naturally.

Nitrous oxide is given off by the overuse of artificial fertilisers, and by organic sources such as animal manure, and has a heating effect 300 times that of carbon dioxide. Levels of nitrous oxide in the atmosphere are now 20% higher than in pre-industrial times, with most of that increase coming from farming.

In the past, although windfarms were located just off the coast of Scotland, manufacturing work was outsourced to Indonesia

Yesterday’s speech to the virtual Conservative party conference was classic Boris: amusing metaphors, whimsical slogans and grand rhetoric. The prime minister has pledged to usher in a “green industrial revolution” that will help us “bounce back greener” from Covid-19.

One of the most significant announcements was the scaling up of the offshore wind sector. The government intends to quadruple offshore wind capacity by 2030, with a promise to power all our kettles, lights and electric cars from clean, “guilt-free” electricity.

This year’s budget will have far-reaching implications for the economy, social services, public health, the environment and higher education

The Morrison government’s recovery budget is a single-year plan that bets the house on a private sector-led recovery.