Environment news

• In the early days of Covid-19, we stopped consuming and rather loved it. But it didn't stick | Sarah Wilson

  22-01-2021 20:00
  
  In April of last year, Australians stopped spending – but where some label current highs in consumption as ‘recovery’, Sarah Wilson sees a cultThis week I found myself thinking back to early Covid. The globe had been suspended in an eerie pause and many of us were given the most unique of opportunities: time and space to have a good, hard look at ourselves and what mattered.Do you remember what we did? We stopped consuming. And we really rather loved it. Continue reading...
  
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• 'In the early days of Covid-19, we stopped consuming and rather loved it. But it didn't stick.'

  22-01-2021 20:00
  
  In April of last year, Australians stopped spending – but where some label current highs in consumption as ‘recovery’, Sarah Wilson sees a cultThis week I found myself thinking back to early-Covid. The globe had been suspended in an eerie pause and many of us were given the most unique of opportunities: time and space to have a good, hard look at ourselves and what mattered.Do you remember what we did? We stopped consuming. And we really rather loved it. Continue reading...
  
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• Coalition quietly adds fossil fuel industry leaders to emissions reduction panel

  22-01-2021 20:00
  
  Critics ask if some appointees to the Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee have a potential conflict of interestThe Morrison government has quietly appointed fossil fuel industry leaders and a controversial economist to a committee responsible for ensuring the integrity of projects that get climate funding.Critics have raised concerns about whether some appointees to the Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee may have a potential conflict of interest that could leave its decisions open to le
  
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• The Guardian view on electric cars: greener roads are good | Editorial

  22-01-2021 19:25
  
  Technological advances combined with tough emissions targets are bringing the end of petrol and diesel traffic into view The prospect of a cleaner motor vehicle fleet is drawing closer. In November, the UK government announced that a ban on new petrol and diesel car sales would be brought forward to 2030. Advances in battery technology mean the tipping point at which electric vehicles become cheaper than other types, without subsidies, could come within five years. Fast-charging electric car bat
  
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• Quarter of known bee species have not been recorded since 1990

  22-01-2021 17:00
  
  Global study finds that species numbers reported in the wild fell sharply between 1990 and 2015The number of wild bee species recorded by an international database of life on Earth has declined by a quarter since 1990, according to a global analysis of bee declines.Researchers analysed bee records from museums, universities and citizen scientists collated by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, (GBIF) a global, government-funded network providing open-access data on biodiversity. Contin
  
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• Oxford approves UK's first local air quality targets

  22-01-2021 16:06
  
  Oxford City Council has approved local air pollution targets through to 2025 that are stricter than the national legal target.
  
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• Farmers lead plan to reintroduce white-tailed eagle to Norfolk

  22-01-2021 15:33
  
  Consultation comes after the birds have been successfully rewilded in other parts of the UK
  A consultation has been launched to reintroduce Britain’s biggest bird of prey to Norfolk in an unprecedented rewilding move led by farmers.Supported by other landowners in the region, a west Norfolk farm wants to release white-tailed eagles on to its coastal land, after the successful reintroduction of the birds in western Scotland and the Isle of Wight. Continue reading...
  
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• Farmers back plan to reintroduce white-tailed eagle to Norfolk

  22-01-2021 15:33
  
  Consultation comes after the birds have been successfully rewilded in other parts of the UK
  A consultation has been launched to reintroduce Britain’s biggest bird of prey to Norfolk in an unprecedented rewilding move led by farmers.Supported by other landowners in the region, a west Norfolk farm wants to release white-tailed eagles on to its coastal land, after the successful reintroduction of the birds in western Scotland and the Isle of Wight. Continue reading...
  
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• Israel's ibex make the most of lockdown – in pictures

  22-01-2021 13:59
  
  Nubian ibex have been roaming the empty streets of Mitzpe Ramon as Israel’s coronavirus lockdown extends to the end of the month Continue reading...
  
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• Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption

  22-01-2021 13:25
  
  Sales increase 43% globally in 2020 as plunging battery costs mean the cars will soon be the cheapest vehicles to buy Electric vehicles are close to the “tipping point” of rapid mass adoption thanks to the plummeting cost of batteries, experts say.Global sales rose 43% in 2020, but even faster growth is anticipated when continuing falls in battery prices bring the price of electric cars dipping below that of equivalent petrol and diesel models, even without subsidies. The latest anal
  
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• Nissan to expand EV battery manufacturing at Sunderland plant

  22-01-2021 13:19
  
  Nissan has confirmed plans to add additional electric vehicle (EV) battery production capacity to its UK plant in Sunderland, quashing concerns that the plant could downside or close after Brexit.
  
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• Kate Wylie to step down as Mars' global sustainability lead for new role at Chanel

  22-01-2021 12:46
  
  Kate Wylie has confirmed plans to step down as Mars' global vice-president for sustainability after more than ten years at the food and beverage giant. She has been named as luxury fashion house Chanel's next global chief sustainability officer.
  
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• One-third of US rivers have changed color in recent decades, research finds

  22-01-2021 11:15
  
  Significance of changes are unclear and could reflect various ways in which humans are impacting the environment Rivers may seem like immutable features of the landscape but they are in fact changing color over time, a new study has found.Researchers compiled a database of satellite images of major rivers in the United States from 1984 to 2018 and learned that about a third have significantly changed color in less than 40 years. Continue reading...
  
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• Legal bid to stop UK from building Europe's biggest gas-fired power plant fails

  22-01-2021 10:45
  
  The Court of Appeal has thrown out a legal challenge to the UK Government's decision to grant planning permission for Drax's major new gas-fired power plant.
  
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• Electric vehicles and heat pumps set for exponential growth on road to net-zero

  22-01-2021 09:49
  
  More than 4.5 million electric vehicles (EVs) could be on UK roads, almost 250,000 households could feature solar technology and between 450,000 to more than one million domestic electric heat pumps could be installed by 2030 in order to reach net-zero, new research has found.
  
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• George Eustice says water firms must cut sewage releases into rivers and sea

  22-01-2021 08:00
  
  Environment secretary says water companies too reliant on overflows discharging pollution after stormsThe environment secretary, George Eustice, has made a commitment to reducing releases of raw sewage by water companies into rivers and coastal waters. Eustice said there was “still too much reliance” by water companies on storm overflows to discharge sewage into waterways.A government taskforce set up following growing pressure over sewage pollution in rivers announced that water com
  
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• Chris Packham joins fight to end UK’s 'embarrassing' plastic waste exports

  22-01-2021 07:30
  
  TV presenter says government is reneging on Brexit green pledges by breaking with EU banChris Packham, the naturalist and TV presenter, has accused the government of sending “shivers of fear” through Britain’s environmentalists by backtracking on green pledges since Brexit.The wildlife expert accused the government of “irresponsible and embarrassing” practices on plastic waste, following a report by the Guardian last week that the UK would continue to ship unsorted
  
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• Only a third of UK’s key fish populations are not overfished

  22-01-2021 07:00
  
  First post-Brexit audit finds of the top 10 UK stocks, only three are in ‘a healthy state’Only a third of the UK’s key fish populations are in a healthy state, and catches of key species such as cod should be reduced this year as the UK negotiates fishing rights with the EU, according to the first post-Brexit assessment of the UK’s fisheries.Of the top 10 stocks on which the UK’s fishing industry relies, only three – mackerel in the north-east Atlantic, haddoc
  
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• Country diary: when life becomes a matter of eat or freeze

  22-01-2021 06:30
  
  Abbeydale, Sheffield: Smaller birds are busy despite the snow, helping themselves to the emergency supplies hanging from the cherry treeSnow began falling as I looked from my window, and “the room”, as the Irish poet Louis MacNeice put it, “was suddenly rich”. So I turned my chair to watch this treasure accumulate. Within half an hour, flakes were weighting the twigs and the sodden earth became first blurry and then blanketed from view. Still it came, the “spawning
  
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• UK Government faces fresh accusations of backtracking on post-Brexit environment pledges

  22-01-2021 01:02
  
  MPs and Lords, including former Shadow Environment Secretary Lord Clark, are urging the Government to prove that it won't export low-quality plastics to developing nations for recycling, arguing that policy loopholes currently exist.
  
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