Environment news

• Birdwatch: the swallow – my favourite bird has left to enjoy a second summer

  10-11-2020 22:30 via theguardian.com
  
  In the UK, we face a long, cold winter without these travellers and I cannot wait for their returnDuring the summer, as swallows hawk for insects high over our Somerset home, they are a daily embodiment of hope and joy. When they disappear, for the colder, darker half of the year, they leave a corresponding gap in our hearts.We often say that swallows fly south for the winter. Yet, although they do travel 6,000 miles to South Africa, it is only our winter they miss – when they arrive, they
  
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• UK must provide real climate leadership | Letter

  10-11-2020 18:30 via theguardian.com
  
  While the UK talks tough, its agencies have continued to plough public funds into fossil fuels, writes Angela Picciariello
  Greta Thunberg is right to call out governments for failing to deliver on their climate commitments (‘Hypocrites and greenwash’: Greta Thunberg blasts leaders over climate crisis, 9 November). A league table ranking G20 OECD countries on their effectiveness at phasing out fossil fuels, published this week by ODI, the International Institute for Sustainable Develo
  
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• Can Joe Biden and Kamala Harris unite America after Trump – video explainer

  10-11-2020 18:25 via theguardian.com
  
  When Joe Biden formally takes over the presidency in January he will face some of the greatest crises to hit the US in recent history: a pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 Americans, a devastated economy, a rapidly overheating climate and a deeply fractured nation.The Guardian's Lauren Gambino looks at how Biden and the vice-president-elect, Kamala Harris, plan to 'heal' the country after four years of Trumpism – and the challenges they will face with the prospect of having to navi
  
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• Student finds mystery pterosaur in Cambridgeshire fossils

  10-11-2020 17:52 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Roy Smith made his "exciting" discovery while trawling through wrongly-identified shark fossils.
  
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• Rock mining with microbes may aid space explorers

  10-11-2020 17:45 via bbc.co.uk
  
  UK scientists show how astronauts on the Moon or Mars could one day mine for metals using bacteria.
  
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• Fields of gold: Australia's bumper canola harvest – in pictures

  10-11-2020 17:30 via theguardian.com
  
  In spring, canola crops burst into flower in the Riverina and central west regions of NSW, creating a sea of yellow. Tourists have been travelling to farms to photograph the coloured landscape as an alternative to travelling interstate during lockdown Continue reading...
  
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• Denmark's mass mink cull illegal, PM admits as opposition mounts

  10-11-2020 16:56 via theguardian.com
  
  Tally of culled animals 2.5 million and rising, as confusion mounts over bid to stamp out Covid variant among animalsDenmark’s prime minister has admitted the massive mink cull she authorised last week was illegal, as opposition parties called for the resignation of the agriculture minister who has been overseeing the policy.Mette Frederiksen announced last week that all the country’s mink would have to be culled due to fears that a Covid-19 mutation moving from mink to humans could
  
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• Lord Deben's speech and just transition debates: What happened on Day One of Net-Zero Live 2020?

  10-11-2020 16:35
  
  Day One of edie's virtual Net-Zero Live on Tuesday (10 November) saw hundreds of sustainability and energy experts gathering with the shared aim of accelerating ambition and action. Here, we round up the key takeaways.
  
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• Green Recovery: Labour challenges UK Government to spend £30bn on low-carbon economy

  10-11-2020 14:43
  
  The Labour Party is urging the Government to use the Treasury's spending review later this month to allocate multi-billion-pound packages to low-carbon sectors and to launch new reskilling and green finance initiatives.
  
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• Hurricane season: Record number of named Atlantic storms

  10-11-2020 13:26 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Theta is the 29th Atlantic storm this hurricane season and another system is forming in the Caribbean.
  
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• The Covid-carrying Danish mink are a warning sign – but is anyone heeding it? | Matthew Baylis

  10-11-2020 13:19 via theguardian.com
  
  Sars, Mers, now this: we must think hard about how we farm animals that are known hosts of human coronavirusesTwo decades ago, a seminal study from the University of Edinburgh compiled a list of all known human infectious diseases. It found a total of 1,415 different human pathogens, and claimed that 61% were capable of spreading between humans and animals. Today, with the world put on hold by a deadly disease that seems likely to have spread first from bats to humans, we know the dangerous effe
  
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• Renewables will overtake gas and coal globally in 2024, IEA predicts

  10-11-2020 12:44
  
  The International Energy (IEA) has published a major analysis on the state of the global renewable energy sector, predicting that wind and solar capacity will double by 2025.
  
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• WRAP: Lockdown has made Brits more aware of fashion's environmental impact

  10-11-2020 12:13
  
  Almost two-thirds of adults in the UK say that lockdown has brought home the importance of their clothing lasting longer, and been a time in which they've learned more about the environmental impact of the fashion industry.
  
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• Virtual jet lag and nappy changes: a day in the life of the UK's Cop26 envoy

  10-11-2020 11:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Climate diplomacy has been forced online due to coronavirus, but John Murton remains upbeat that solutions can be foundThe coronavirus crisis has forced a year’s postponement of the next round of vital UN climate talks, called Cop26, which were scheduled to take place this week in Glasgow.But the pandemic has not diminished the urgency of the climate crisis, and despite the year’s delay, governments have continued to work round the clock on forging a new UN-brokered deal in the hope
  
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• Chancellor Rishi Sunak confirms UK's first sovereign green bond, mandatory TCFD disclosures

  10-11-2020 10:27
  
  Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak has made a string of major announcements on green finance, confirming that the UK will issue its first green gilts in 2021 and will introduce new climate disclosure requirements.
  
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• Cash cow: could carbon credits get US farmers to plant trees?

  10-11-2020 08:15 via theguardian.com
  
  Incentives for wildlife-rich field buffers could improve ecosystems and mitigate wildfires, conservationists hope
  Frances Crowhill Sauder stands up to her knees in clover and jewelweed, gazing down at the nameless spring that originates up the wooded hillside from her 55-acre Fiddle Creek Dairy farm in Quarryville, Pennsylvania, which produces yoghurt and cheese from a small herd of grass-fed Jersey cows.The spring’s lower banks border the farm’s pastures; they were recently planted
  
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• Natural England 'cut to the bone' and unable to protect wildlife, say staff

  10-11-2020 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Exclusive: report warns of ‘yawning gap’ between government rhetoric on environment and reality of years of underfundingThe government’s conservation watchdog has been “cut to the bone”, with staff underpaid, undervalued and overworked and feeling unable to protect England’s most valuable wildlife sites, according to a new report and testimony from workers.Natural England, which is sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), ha
  
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• 'We want real action': young activists aim to fill void on climate with Mock Cop26

  10-11-2020 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Frustrated by postponement of UN talks, young people have organised their own virtual conferenceLike many young climate activists around the world, 14-year-old Lavinia Iovino was exasperated when Cop26, the annual UN climate summit due to take place in Glasgow in November, was postponed for a year because of the coronavirus pandemic.“I was very disappointed because it showed that political leaders think we can give ourselves a year more, when we just can’t do that; the climate crisis
  
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• Renewable energy defies Covid-19 to hit record growth in 2020

  10-11-2020 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  International Energy Agency expects green electricity to end coal’s 50-year reign by 2025Coronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageGlobal renewable electricity installation will hit a record level in 2020, according to the International Energy Agency, in sharp contrast with the declines caused by the coronavirus pandemic in the fossil fuel sectors.The IEA report published on Tuesday says almost 90% of new electricity generation in 2020 will be renewable, with just 1
  
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• People plan to fly and drive more post-Covid, climate poll shows

  10-11-2020 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Exclusive: Gap between actions and beliefs threatens green recovery from pandemicCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coveragePeople are planning to drive and fly more in future than they did before the coronavirus pandemic, a survey suggests, even though the overwhelming majority accept human responsibility for the climate crisis.The apparent disconnect between beliefs and actions raises fears that without strong political intervention, these actions could undermine efforts
  
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• People plan to drive more post-Covid, climate poll shows

  10-11-2020 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Exclusive: Gap between actions and beliefs threatens green recovery from pandemicCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coveragePeople are planning to drive more in future than they did before the coronavirus pandemic, a survey suggests, even though the overwhelming majority accept human responsibility for the climate crisis.The apparent disconnect between beliefs and actions raises fears that without strong political intervention, these actions could undermine efforts to meet
  
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• Two-million-year-old skull of human 'cousin' unearthed

  10-11-2020 03:43 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The fossil from a large-toothed species helps shed more light on how humans evolved, researchers say.
  
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• Joe Biden: How the president-elect plans to tackle climate change

  10-11-2020 01:33 via bbc.co.uk
  
  What will a Joe Biden presidency mean for the global battle against rising temperatures?
  
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• UK retail sector pledges to reach net-zero emissions by 2040

  10-11-2020 01:01
  
  More than 60 leading retailers, including Pret UK, Burberry, Sainsbury's and Missguided, have pledged to support a new collaborative roadmap to transform the sector and its supply chain to net-zero emissions by 2040.
  
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• Q+A: Malcolm Turnbull attacks ‘shocking legacy’ of Murdoch and News Corp on climate crisis – video

  10-11-2020 00:06 via theguardian.com
  
  In a heated debate about media bias on the ABC’s Q+A program, the former prime minister says Rupert Murdoch and his media company have ‘done enormous damage’ to western democracies, in particular on the subject of global warming. ‘The company you work for and its friends in politics, like Trump and others, have turned this issue of physics into an issue of values or identity,’ Malcolm Turnbull tells the Australian’s editor-at-large, Paul Kelly, adding: ‘
  
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