Environment news

• Chinese firms face competition to maintain role in developing Iranian oilfields

  24-12-2016 15:39
  Iran plans to ask international oil companies to bid for the second phase of development of its Yadavaran and North Azadegan oilfields, a senior official said on Saturday. "CNPC would like to extend its North Azadegan contract, but we have announced that ...they should take part in the bidding for a new contract," Gholamreza Manouchehri, deputy head of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.
  
  Read more

• Government to outline climate change risks facing UK in new report

  24-12-2016 12:13 via theguardian.com
  
  Experts say Theresa May, if she accepts view of report, would have to outline how government intends to protect the nationIn a landmark report, the government is to outline the specific risks it believes Britain faces due to the impact of climate change. The report, to be delivered early in the new year, will be the first response made by Theresa May’s administration to a major environmental concern and will have considerable implications for future green policy outcomes.The UK climate cha
  
  Read more

• When will our electricity come from the sea?

  24-12-2016 10:18 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Could wave energy ever power the world?
  
  Read more

• 2016's best bits: wonderful wildlife

  24-12-2016 10:00 via theguardian.com
  
  From giant pandas to record numbers of blue butterflies, wildlife gave us plenty of reasons to rejoice this yearImagine a world where pandas are no longer endangered and an area of the Pacific twice the size of Texas has been turned into a marine protected area. Picture a Scotland where protected beavers roam, and an England where more large blue butterflies dance than at any time since the 1930s. Or dream of a Wales where the majestic crane breeds for the first time in 400 years.This isn’
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• 2016's best bits: April to June

  24-12-2016 10:00 via theguardian.com
  
  From surprise sporting triumphs to a healing ozone layer, everything that gave us hope this springIt wasn’t supposed to play out this way. At 5.05pm in Augusta, Georgia, on Sunday 10 April, there was no indication that it would. No Englishman had won the Masters, arguably golf’s most coveted individual event, since 1996. The American Jordan Spieth, who held a five-stroke lead, was in the midst of an extraordinary run, spanning 12 months. Step forward Danny Willett, who seized an oppo
  
  Read more

• White Christmases in the UK over the years – in data

  24-12-2016 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Memory can play tricks on us with regard to how often we saw snow on 25 December in our childhood – so here’s the definitive recordA blanket of snow on Christmas Day might be the stuff of childhood memories, but how often does it actually happen in the UK?
  It all depends on where you live. In Scotland, snowflakes have fallen on Christmas Day 37 times since 1960. This compares to 16 times in Northern Ireland and 16 in Wales. In England, it’s a matter of the north-south divide: n
  
  Read more

• Oaken hall where the barn owl flies

  24-12-2016 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Chalton, Hampshire In the morning we find a carpet of shining black pellets brimming with skulls and rubbery tailsAt the highest and darkest point of the South Downs escarpment, an Anglo-Saxon hall stands beefy and lumbering under a black sky dusted with stars. Built with hand-hewn oak timbers and hazel spars, it is the latest addition to the educational farm on Butser Hill where I work as a creative developer, feeding goats and designing guide books. The farm is an outdoor archaeological labora
  
  Read more

• UK designer launches 30-year Christmas jumper

  24-12-2016 06:07 via bbc.co.uk
  
  A UK designer launches the "30-year Christmas sweatshirt" to question the ethics of the "fast fashion" industry.
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Climate scientist and Nasa astronaut Piers Sellers dies aged 61

  24-12-2016 05:09 via theguardian.com
  
  British-born Sellers, who featured in Leonardo DiCaprio’s climate change film, lauded as ‘a strident defender and eloquent spokesperson for our home planet’ Piers Sellers, a climate scientist and former astronaut who gained fame late in life for his eloquent commentary about the earth’s fragility and his own cancer diagnosis, has died. He was 61.British-born Sellers, who flew on three space shuttle missions between 2002 and 2010, died on Friday morning in Houston, Texas,
  
  Read more

• China's Hebei plans $100 billion investment in clean sectors in 2017

  24-12-2016 04:47
  The heavily polluted northern Chinese province of Hebei will invest as much as 700 billion yuan ($100.82 billion/82.03 billion pounds) on new projects next year as part of its efforts to "upgrade" its heavy industrial economy, the local government said on Saturday. The new projects will focus on "innovation" and promote less industrially intensive sectors like renewable energy, financial services, information technology and logistics. Hebei, which surrounds the capital Beijing, has been on the f
  
  Read more

• Arctic heatwave could break records

  24-12-2016 02:45 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Temperatures at the North Pole could be up to 20 degrees higher than average this Christmas Eve.
  
  Read more

• Piers Sellers: UK-born astronaut dies aged 61

  24-12-2016 02:20 via bbc.co.uk
  
  British-born astronaut Piers Sellers has died of pancreatic cancer, aged 61, Nasa says.
  
  Read more

Follow @UK_Environment on Twitter!