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Latest Environment news, comment and analysis from the Guardian, the world's leading liberal voice
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Charge €30 a tonne for CO2 to avoid catastrophic 4C warming

Fri, 2018-10-05 16:00

New global policies such as carbon pricing are needed if we are to avoid an apocalyptic increase in temperature

We are following a path that will ultimately take us to a 4C-warmer world. A hot state where it is unlikely that we can generate food, water and shelter for all citizens, where sea level rise will ultimately exceed 10 metres, and where social insecurity and widespread disease will very likely be universal.

Along the way we will reach several critical tipping points. One such is at 2C – a scenario that may prompt the Earth system to shift from self-cooling by means of buffering emissions to self-warming, thereby putting us on a path to a “hothouse Earth”. At 3C we reach a point where extreme floods and droughts will force people to leave their homes; more powerful hurricanes will destroy urban infrastructure.

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From London to Shanghai, world's sinking cities face devastating floods

Fri, 2018-10-05 09:01

Threat to major population centres is increasing as planners fail to prepare for impacts of global warming, report says

London, Jakarta, Shanghai and Houston and other global cities that are already sinking will become increasingly vulnerable to storms and flooding as a result of global warming, campaigners have warned ahead of a landmark new report on climate science.

The threat to cities from sea level rises is increasing because city planners are failing to prepare, the charity Christian Aid said in the report. Some big cities are already subsiding – the ground beneath Shanghai, for instance, is being pressed down by the sheer weight of the buildings above – and rising sea levels resulting from global warming will make the effects worse.

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Most Australians believe household recycling sent to landfill, survey finds

Fri, 2018-10-05 04:00

80% say they would pay up to $10 per week for better services

Two-thirds of Australians believe their household recycling is sent to landfill and 72% said they would recycle more if they knew that their household waste was reliably recycled, a survey has found.

But despite the desire for better recycling, the survey, released on Friday by the University of New South Wales, also found that only half of the respondents were prepared to pay more for better recycling services.

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'Don't call it a disaster': how to change the conversation about drought

Fri, 2018-10-05 04:00

It’s not about more money for farmers. It’s about long-term settings for a changing climate – and taking the politics out of it

  • Read part one and two of The New Normal

Central to the Australian meaning of drought is the idea of a rainfall deficiency, a term that suggests less than “normal”. But what is normal and how should it govern drought policy? In this part of our series The New Normal, we look at the history of drought policy and how the conversation is changing.

Away from the glare of nightly television reports showing farmers feeding starving stock, there is a more complex conversation going on among landholders. It discards the idea that policy should be built on the notion of average rainfall, and instead accepts Australia has a drying climate where wet seasons are the exception rather than the rule. It accepts that governments need to put in place a framework for encouraging good management practice for farmers, not only as food producers but environmental stewards, given they manage 60% of the Australian landmass.

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US plan to genetically alter crops via insects feared to be biological war plan

Fri, 2018-10-05 04:00

$27m program says it will use virus-carrying insects to engineer crops, but some worry it’s a way to develop biological agents

Government-backed researchers in America are aiming to use virus-carrying insects to genetically engineer crops – raising fears the technology could be used for biological weapons.

A new article in the journal Science explores the shadowy program funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa).

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Scientists say halting deforestation 'just as urgent' as reducing emissions

Thu, 2018-10-04 23:00

Protecting and restoring forests would reduce 18% of emissions by 2030 and help to avoid global temperature rise beyond 1.5C

The role of forests in combating climate change risks being overlooked by the world’s governments, according to a group of scientists that has warned halting deforestation is “just as urgent” as eliminating the use of fossil fuels.

Razing the world’s forests would release more than 3 trillion tons of carbon dioxide, more than the amount locked in identified global reserves of oil, coal and gas. By protecting and restoring forests, the world would achieve 18% of the emissions mitigation needed by 2030 to avoid runaway climate change, the group of 40 scientists, spanning five countries, said in a statement.

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'Crowds, congestion, no parking': should Canada limit visitors to its majestic parks?

Thu, 2018-10-04 20:00

Conservationists say the soaring popularity of Canada’s national parks is becoming an overwhelming burden



As an increasing number of people descend on Canada’s national parks each year, conservationists are warning that the love of majestic scenery – and the foot traffic that follows – is overwhelming delicate ecosystems and ruining the experience of visiting.

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Rain brings respite to parts of NSW, but not enough to break the drought

Thu, 2018-10-04 17:08

Some towns receive more rain in 24 hours than in the whole year combined

Some parched New South Wales towns have received more rain in 24 hours than they have all year but it’s not enough to break the drought that’s gripped the state for months.

Western regions received significant falls on Wednesday night generated by a trough that was set to cross central NSW before moving into the Hunter Valley, the Bureau of Meteorology said.

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‘Terror being waged on wildlife', leaders warn

Thu, 2018-10-04 15:00

National and conservation leaders say the annihilation of nature is a dangerous ‘blight on humanity’, ahead of major summit

Humanity is waging a war of terror on wildlife across the globe, according to the head of a world-leading research institute who was previously a counter-terrorism expert for the UK government.

Dominic Jermey, director general of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), also spent years in Afghanistan supporting the fight against terror, until leaving his post of UK ambassador in 2017. “Coming to ZSL, I am in a front row seat on a different kind of war, this time on wildlife,” he said in an article for the Guardian. “[It is] a war with catastrophic impacts on people and animals.”

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Political agreement on emissions policy unlikely, competition watchdog says

Thu, 2018-10-04 14:48

ACCC chairman Rod Sims says energy policy can still be made without political agreement on emissions

The chairman of Australia’s competition watchdog, Rod Sims, has warned it is foolish to wait for political agreement on emissions reduction before formulating an energy policy, because Australia’s political parties have now demonstrated they have irreconcilable differences.

In remarks referencing the tortuous debate over the national energy guarantee and the preceding decade, the ACCC chairman told a conference on Thursday the only way to get progress was to separate the objectives of emissions reduction, reliability and affordability.

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'This drought is different': it's drier and hotter – and getting worse

Thu, 2018-10-04 04:00

On the land and in the towns they’re affected to varying degrees; some find it harder to cope. But they all agree something has changed

  • Read part one of The New Normal here

If you don’t fully appreciate the complexity of rural communities, farmer Peter Schmidt is not the sort of bloke you would be expecting in the Mulga Lands. His place is 21,000 hectares – 52,000 acres in the old money – and his family have been there since his grandfather selected blocks in the 1890s. The closest town is Wyandra, a blip on the highway on the way to Cunnamulla from Charleville – a drive that reveals the disused fences of smaller blocks long abandoned as unsustainable.

Schmidt though is still at his homestead at Alawoona, its sheds and outbuildings surrounded by a metre-high levee, standing like a bad joke in their sixth year of drought. He put it in after the 2012 flood, which washed a foot of water through his house. Problem is, that flood heralded the start of the dry and it pretty much hasn’t rained since. He jokes with station hand Joe that he cursed the place and might have to break the levee to bring on the rain. But far from being a man of superstition, Schmidt is a rural scientist, with two masters degrees – one each in rural education and cattle behaviour. He has a softly spoken manner and a sense of humour born in the Mulga.

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Great Barrier Reef: forest three times size of ACT cleared in past five years

Thu, 2018-10-04 04:00

Clearing of forests in reef catchment zone show Australia a global deforestation hotspot, campaigners say

New official data shows clearing of forests near and along the Great Barrier Reef continued despite Australian government pledges to protect the natural wonder, with at least 152,000 hectares felled in 2016-17 alone.

Forests covering 770,000ha – an area about three times the size of the Australian Capital Territory – in the reef catchment zone have been bulldozed over the past five years. The area cleared last year was larger in size than that covered by new re-growth.

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MEPs vote for 40% cut in car emissions by 2030

Thu, 2018-10-04 01:35

Tory MEPs voted against the goal despite a UK government instruction welcoming it

MEPs have voted for a 40% cut in car emissions by 2030, in a rebuke to more cautious proposals by the European commission that signals tough negotiations with national governments ahead.

Germany has strongly opposed any increase to the 30% cut in CO2 output proposed by the European commission, although countries such as France have yet to reveal their position.

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Commercial fishing banned across much of the Arctic

Thu, 2018-10-04 00:55

International agreement will protect vast areas of sea that have opened up as the ice melts

Commercial fishing will be banned across much of the Arctic under a new agreement signed on Wednesday in Greenland, closing down access to a vast area of sea that is newly opening up under climate change.

The moratorium on Arctic fishing will safeguard an area about the size of the Mediterranean for at least the next 16 years, as warming temperatures allow summer navigation across what was previously ice.

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Asian hornet sightings spark persecution of European species in UK

Wed, 2018-10-03 21:16

Cases occurred after confirmed reports of invasive species feared as threat to the honeybee

A British wildlife charity has warned that a spate of bad news stories about the invasive Asian hornet is leading to the persecution of its home-grown equivalent.

Devon Wildlife Trust said it has across cases of people exterminating the European hornet (Vespa crabro) thinking it was the troublesome Asian hornet (Vespa velutina).

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Trump races against clock to roll back major Obama-era environment rules

Wed, 2018-10-03 19:00

The administration’s lengthy slate of rollbacks will slow progress on reducing air pollution and greenhouse gases that warm the planet, health experts say

Donald Trump’s administration is racing against the clock to rescind or rewrite every major pro-environment policy enduring from Barack Obama’s presidency. But the government probably won’t be able to usher those changes through the courts before the next presidential election.

Green-minded states and advocates can’t sue until regulations are final, and it could take years for the courts to rule. In the interim, the lengthy slate of rollbacks will slow progress on reducing air pollution and greenhouse gases that warm the planet, health experts say.

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The new normal? How climate change is making droughts worse

Wed, 2018-10-03 09:50

In the first part of a new series, we take you through the current conditions, and then put them in context with other severe droughts in Australia’s history

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Delays to energy efficient goods will cost EU consumers 'billions' in lost savings

Wed, 2018-10-03 00:53

New eco-designs for products such as TVs and fridges are also crucial to Europe meeting its climate targets, say experts

New energy efficient eco-designs for 15 products including fridges, TVs and dishwashers have been delayed, EU diplomats say, even though experts consider them “crucial” to meeting Europe’s Paris climate pledge. The delays are also expected to mean consumers will miss out on lower energy bills.

The design revamps would have saved 62m tonnes of CO2 emissions – as much as Sweden’s annual primary energy consumption – but now look set to be dealt with by the next commission, in which far right parties may be more influential.

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Footage shows Indonesian earthquake causing soil liquefaction – video

Tue, 2018-10-02 22:39

Liquefaction has caused buildings to collapse in the city of Palu after last Friday's earthquake. This occurs when the earth takes on the characteristics of a liquid after an earthquake. The death toll from the quake and tsunami has passed 1,200

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Ikea says goodbye to plastic straws with display at London's Design Museum

Tue, 2018-10-02 22:10

‘Last Straw’ installation aims to raise awareness of plastic waste as the firm bans single-use straws from UK and Irish stores

Ikea today symbolically unveiled its last single-use plastic straw in a display at London’s Design Museum, after it stopped serving or selling the items in any of its UK and Ireland stores, restaurants and bistros this week.

The so-called Last Straw installation will be on show to the public until Saturday and aims to inspire consumers to collectively take small steps that will have a positive environmental impact.

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