The Guardian

Charges said to be needed to prevent UK companies being undercut by overseas manufacturers

The prospect of higher taxes is not usually viewed with joy by British businesses, or Conservative MPs – but when it comes to carbon, that is precisely what many are asking for.

A growing number of manufacturers, Tory MPs and experts are calling for charges to be levied on the carbon emissions associated with imports. They believe the levy is needed to create a level playing field that would enable UK companies to invest in cutting their greenhouse gas emissions, without finding themselves undercut by lower-cost but higher-carbon imports from overseas.

Estimate in new EPA analysis is probably ‘dramatic’ undercount because ‘forever chemical’ waste is unregulated in US

US industry disposed of at least 60m pounds of PFAS “forever chemical” waste over the last five years, and did so with processes that probably pollute the environment around disposal sites, a new analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data finds.

The 60m pounds estimate is likely to be a “dramatic” undercount because PFAS waste is unregulated in the US and companies are not required to record its disposal, the paper’s author, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer), wrote.

Seafood companies and retailers threaten to boycott north-east Atlantic catch after two-decade failure to agree sustainable quotas

A coalition of British seafood companies and retailers, including Young’s, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Aldi and Waitrose, has condemned the “collective failure” of the UK, Norway and other states to reach agreement on the sustainable fishing of mackerel in the north-east Atlantic.

Lack of political agreement over a decade has led to an “overfishing disaster of potentially epic proportions”, conservationists say, leading to 44% more fish being caught than is sustainable.

Directive punishes most serious cases of environmental damage, including habitat loss and illegal logging

The European Union has become the first international body to criminalise wide-scale environmental damage “comparable to ecocide”.

Late on Thursday, lawmakers agreed an update to the bloc’s environmental crime directive punishing the most serious cases of ecosystem destruction, including habitat loss and illegal logging, with tougher penalties.

Hundreds of school students marched their way to Tanya Plibersek’s office with thousands protesting in Melbourne

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Nirvana Talukder didn’t go to school on Friday – but she says she was thinking about her future.

The 16-year-old was among hundreds of school students who marched their way to federal environment minister Tanya Plibersek’s office in Surry Hills, Sydney, calling for action on climate change. They joined thousands of students across Australia who took Friday off as part of the School Strike 4 Climate.

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world

From the reaction to Ulez in London to heat pumps in Germany, eco-policies are still too often felt as sanctions on working people

It began with a petition. In May 2018, Priscillia Ludosky, a gently spoken French-Martinique small-business owner who sold natural cosmetic products, launched a call on Change.org for lower prices on petrol at the pumps. It gathered steam and she was contacted by Eric Drouet, a lorry driver. Together they organised a protest against a carbon tax on petrol that was due to be implemented the following year (notably, this was not long after Emmanuel Macron cut taxes for the ultra-rich). The call was eventually answered by hundreds of thousands of people across France, in rural areas and cities. The gilets jaunes (yellow vests) movement was born.

Its participants are now celebrating the fifth anniversary of a movement that politicised many people across France, uniting them in rage at the “president of the rich”. I remember the first protest in Troyes in the Champagne region, where I was living at the time. I was taken aback by how angry people were as they banged at the gates of the town hall in their hi-vis jackets, venting their frustration at the daily struggles of life in post-2008 France, where average disposable incomes had dropped over several years. French protests are always lively, but as the journalist John Lichfield observed, “the white-hot anger” of the gilets jaunes was “something new and different”. As it turned out, Macron was surprised too. He abandoned the tax after just over three weeks of protest, leaving the French political class in total shock at what had just happened.

As officials prepare to gather in Nairobi, Kenya, for the third stage of talks on a UN plastic pollution treaty, new photos show the scale of the waste problem less than 8 miles from the UN Environment Programme building where the talks will take place. Nairobi’s Dandora dump site is one of the largest in Africa

Improvement targets for horticulture and poultry reduced after lobbying from National Farmers’ Union

The UK government has weakened energy efficiency targets for farmers after lobbying from the National Farmers’ Union.

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) had proposed a 40.9% energy efficiency improvement target for horticulture and a 12% target for poultry in order to cut the carbon footprint of the farming sector and reduce the reliance on fossil fuels to heat greenhouses and sheds.

Exclusive: Fields run by climate summit host have burned gas near daily despite 20-year-old pledge, satellite monitoring reveals

State-run oil and gas fields in the United Arab Emirates have been flaring gas virtually daily despite having committed 20 years ago to a policy of zero routine flaring, the Guardian can reveal.

The UAE is hosting the UN Cop28 summit, which starts on 30 November, and Sultan Al Jaber, the CEO of the state oil company Adnoc, will preside over the international negotiations to urgently tackle the climate crisis.

There is an unprecedented global swing towards solar and wind power under way

If you’re searching for some hope on the climate crisis before the Cop28 UN meeting in Dubai this month, try this: China may be changing direction on pollution earlier than expected.

Lauri Myllyvirta, a longtime China analyst now with the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, calculated that CO2 emissions from the world’s biggest national polluter are likely to fall next year and could then go into “structural decline”.

Labour leader aims to set up ‘British jobs bonus fund’ to challenge oil firms to accelerate shift to clean energy

Keir Starmer has challenged the oil industry to dramatically speed up its shift to clean energy by offering up to £2.5bn to subsidise new jobs in renewables for North Sea workers.

The Labour leader has told executives from firms including Shell and BP that the UK is in a global race to move away from oil and gas, with competitor countries such as the US investing billions in climate-friendly technologies.

Nine women used hammers and chisels to shatter building’s windows in April 2021 as part of Extinction Rebellion protest

Nine climate protesters have been cleared by a jury of causing £500,000 worth of criminal damage to the windows at the headquarters of HSBC bank in London.

The women, who were all taking action as members of Extinction Rebellion, sang and chanted as they shattered the custom-made glass windows with hammers and chisels at about 7am on 22 April 2021.

Superb singers, pollen showers and some Jambalaya on the Bayou. The winners of the sixth annual BirdLife Australia Bird Photography awards have been announced

I used to believe I had no real say in what our government did. But eventually I realised that that simply wasn’t true

I’m 16 years old and today I will be striking from school because of the government’s complete failure to combat a very real, and very dangerous threat to my future. I live in western Sydney and have lived here all my life. I enjoy school, and take my education seriously. I take pride in my academic achievement. Despite this, I’m walking out of school to fight for my future.

When I was in primary school, my teacher taught us about climate change, and how it’s caused. He would explain that it would lead to things like rising sea levels, more extreme temperatures, andworsening floods and fires. I understood what he said, but at the time it was hard to actually imagine what it meant.

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Even with bigger subsidies, the technology looks attractive price-wise compared with gas

The good news is that the government has an offshore wind strategy again, something that was in doubt after the last auction flopped by producing no bids from developers. The maximum price the state is prepared to pay for a windfarm’s output for 15 years has been set at £73 a megawatt hour for the 2024 auction, a level that should be high enough to grab attention in boardrooms and spark some bidding action.

The bad news, of course, is that £73 is a mighty leap from £44, the price that generated the big thumbs-down, and these subsidies end up on our bills. Yes, we all know about higher interest rates and inflation in everything from steel to the cost of transporting turbines to the North Sea. But a 66% increase?

Researcher says data suggests permit conditions breached on up to 70 days, but United Utilities disputes findings

Suspected illegal dumping of raw sewage into Windermere took place on up to 70 days in 2022, a year in which campaigners said the lake had its worst summer of harmful algal blooms, according to analysis of data released under environmental information rules.

Prof Peter Hammond, whose research first identified the scale of illegal raw sewage discharges from English water companies, has analysed detailed data on spills and treatment by United Utilities, which was released by the Environment Agency.

Scientists in eastern China find 24 out of 28 water samples have plastic particles commonly seen in synthetic fibers and packaging

Air, water, soil, food and even blood – microplastics have found their way virtually everywhere on Earth, and now that list includes clouds.

Bits of plastic particles were recently discovered above eastern China, with new research showing that these microplastics could influence cloud formation and the weather.

Species populations falling, with some decreasing due to loss of habitat and less food availability

More than half the seabird species breeding on British and Irish coasts have declined over the last 20 years, according to the most comprehensive census to date.

Eleven of 21 nesting seabirds species have fallen, five species have remained stable and five have increased, some because of targeted conservation work, according to the Seabirds Count survey.

Former chair of climate change committee says UK’s decision has encouraged other countries to keep exploiting fossil fuels

The UK’s decision to open a new coalmine in Cumbria was a “disaster” that encouraged other countries to press ahead with fossil fuels, and the continued expansion of North Sea oil and gas is likely to continue the harm, a former chief adviser to the government has said.

Other countries are using the UK as an excuse for pressing ahead with fossil fuel projects despite their climate commitments, according to Adair Turner, the first chair of the Committee on Climate Change and a former head of the CBI.