The Guardian

Verdict against eight men accused in the murder of Honduran indigenous environmentalist will be handed down on Thursday

The verdict against eight men accused over the murder of Honduran indigenous environmentalist Berta Cáceres will be handed down on Thursday after a controversial five-week trial plagued by allegations of negligence and cover-ups.

Cáceres – who won the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize – was shot dead in March 2016, after a long battle against the internationally financed Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam project on the Gualcarque river, territory sacred to the indigenous Lenca people.

Charity warns against complacency as levels of plastic remain ‘shocking’

Record numbers of volunteers turned out this year to help clear litter from the UK’s beaches, in the 25th annual Great British Beach Clean.

But the Marine Conservation Society (MCS), which organises the event, warned there were still shocking amounts of plastic litter on UK beaches, despite a 16% decrease compared with last year. It said the average of 16 glass and plastic bottles and drinks cans retrieved on every 100-metre stretch of beach (330ft) surveyed strengthened the case for the urgent introduction of a deposit return system in all parts of the UK.

Despite announcement construction is to begin within weeks, Guardian Australia has confirmed regulatory approvals are still needed

The Indian mining giant Adani has announced it will self-finance its controversial Queensland coal mine project and says major works are due to start “imminently”.

Adani has made a string of announcements in recent months that indicated the company would scale back its mine, rail and port plans plans, having been unable to find an outside investor.

Deadly heatwaves and spread of diseases affect people’s health today, report says

People’s health is being damaged today by climate change through effects ranging from deadly heatwaves in Europe to rising dengue fever in the tropics, according to a report.

Billions of hours of farmwork is being lost during high temperatures and global warming is damaging the ability to grow of crops, it warns.

Critical water supplies will become harder to manage, as droughts and flooding continue to intensify

• Key findings No 2: some pollution action is far better than none
  
• Key findings No 1: air pollution kills

The Trump administration published a major report on climate change the day after Thanksgiving. We will explore the key findings each day this week.

Donald Trump doesn’t believe his own government’s major report on climate change – which the administration tried to bury over the Thanksgiving break. It warns that rising temperatures are already harming America and will cause huge damage globally.

Radical overhaul in farming and consumption, with less meat eating, needed to avoid hunger and climate catastrophe

The global food system is broken, leaving billions of people either underfed or overweight and driving the planet towards climate catastrophe, according to 130 national academies of science and medicine across the world.

Providing a healthy, affordable, and environmentally friendly diet for all people will require a radical transformation of the system, says the report by the InterAcademy Partnership (IAP). This will depend on better farming methods, wealthy nations consuming less meat and countries valuing food which is nutritious rather than cheap.

42.6C temperature in Cairns broke a November record that has stood since 1900 by 5.4C

A record-breaking heatwave in north Queensland will further increase above-average marine temperatures, heightening the risk of another coral bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef next year, scientists say.

Dozens of record November temperatures have been recorded in the region, most along the reef coastline, this week.

Specialist diving group teams up with British conservation charity to lower impact of scuba tourism on threatened reefs

The threat posed to coral reefs by scuba diving in Egypt and Thailand is so serious that officials have banned certain operators or suspended the sport altogether, but now moves are afoot to make diving tourism more sustainable.

A partnership between the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (Padi), the world’s largest training group, and the UN-backed Reef-World Foundation, a British conservation charity, will encourage the industry to sign up to the Green Fins scheme, which helps dive centres to reduce their environmental impact and mitigate the damage the burgeoning sport causes to coral reefs worldwide.

Migratory shorebirds populations down by average of 70% from 1985 to 2015

Populations of threatened bird species in Australia halved in the past 30 years, according to a new national Threatened Bird Index.

The index is the first part of a large data consolidation project being undertaken by the Threatened Species Recovery Hub, along with the University of Queensland and Birdlife Australia.

Analysis suggests 116m tonnes of dairy products are wasted globally, with almost half lost before they even reach a store

One in six pints of milk produced around the world is lost or wasted, according to research conducted at Edinburgh University for the Guardian.

Sixteen percent of dairy products – 116m tonnes – is lost or discarded globally each year, according to Prof Peter Alexander, a member of the newly formed Global Academy of Agriculture and Food Security. He calculated that retailers, distributors and consumers are responsible for half of this waste, throwing away roughly 60m tonnes of dairy a year.

Government scrapped £1bn plan in 2015 but now aims to build project within a decade

The UK wants to build its first project to capture and store carbon emissions from industry within the next decade, as part of a rebooted push by ministers to support the technology.

The government scrapped a £1bn carbon capture and storage (CCS) competition in 2015, with the then-chancellor George Osborne saying it was too costly. Earlier efforts had also collapsed.

About half of the G20 countries will fall short of their Paris agreement pledges, scientists warn

• Hundreds of students striking over climate change descend on parliament

Australia is not on track to meet its 2030 emissions reduction targets and global greenhouse gas emissions are showing no signs of peaking, a new UN report has warned.

In its annual emissions gap report, which looks at the gap between carbon reduction policies countries have in place and what is required to keep global warming to well below 2C, the UN says global emissions have reached record highs.

Chemical cocktail suppresses periwinkles’ ability to avoid crabs and disrupts food chain

Toxins leaching from microplastics leave shellfish at the mercy of predators, research has found. The chemicals completely suppress the ability of the periwinkles to detect and avoid the crabs that eat them.

Microplastics plague the world’s rivers and oceans and absorb poisonous chemicals from the water. Previous work has shown mussels are harmed by these toxins when they eat microplastics, but the latest study is the first to show disruption of the relationship between predator and prey. This is likely to disrupt the entire food chain, researchers say.

Management of UK rail lines fails to take environmental best practice into account

An independent review into the scale of tree felling by Network Rail is calling for a complete cultural change by the company to focus on valuing nature and the environment.

The review, published on Wednesday, was sparked after Guardian articles highlighted a threat to millions of line-side trees from Network Rail’s approach to managing the environment around its tracks and the scale of tree felling taking place in nesting season.

Humpback whale and 27 pilot whales among those beached in Croajingolong national park

A humpback whale and 27 pilot whales have stranded themselves on a remote beach in a Victorian national park.

Most of the beached animals have died, according to authorities.

Laminaria hyperborea forests soak up carbon and provide food and shelter for sea life

This week’s storms are washing up quantities of Laminaria hyperborea kelp on our shores. Removing the rotting and smelly stems, or stipes, can be a big task for local authorities.

This species of kelp, which has 3-metre leaves, among the most numerous of the seven that grow in British waters and form undersea forests, mainly on the west coast. It grows on rocky shores in water from a metre to 32 metres deep, wherever there is sufficient light. These forests soak up vast amounts of carbon and are good for stabilising the climate as well as providing food and a habitat for many sea creatures.

Rapid emissions turnaround needed to keep global warming at less than 2C, report suggests

Countries are failing to take the action needed to stave off the worst effects of climate change, a UN report has found, and the commitments made in the 2015 Paris agreement will not be met unless governments introduce additional measures as a matter of urgency.

New taxes on fossil fuels, investment in clean technology and much stronger government policies to bring down emissions are likely to be necessary. Governments must also stop subsidising fossil fuels, directly and indirectly, the UN said.

We’d like to know if you changed your opinion on climate change and whether there was a moment that convinced you of its impact

This year has seen more than 200 natural disaster events take place across the world. In February, the Beast from the East swept across Europe bringing snow and strong winds causing the UK’s worst weather in years, and in November California experienced the deadliest wildfire in the state’s history.

With a UN agency predicting a 75-80% chance of a climate-warming El Niño event next year, which could bring global droughts and floods, “there is evidence that climate change is making the effects of El Niño more severe”.

More than half of countries use censorship, harassment or violence to repress public debate, warns a report

Nearly six in 10 countries are seriously restricting people’s freedoms, according to a new report that warns of a growing repression around the world.

According to the study, there is little or no space for activism in countries such as Eritrea and Syria, and also worrying signs in countries where democracy is considered well established, such as France, the US, Hungary and India.

Natural cycle has major influence on global weather, bringing droughts and floods

There is a 75-80% chance of a climate-warming El Niño event by February, according to the latest analysis from the UN’s World Meteorological Organization.

The last El Niño event ended in 2016 and helped make that year the hottest ever recorded by adding to the heating caused by humanity’s carbon emissions. The 2019 event is not currently forecast to be as strong as in 2016.