Environment news

• UK going ‘all out’ to to be a clean energy superpower, says Keir Starmer – video

  24-04-2025 23:56 via theguardian.com
  UK prime minister tells energy summit his government is determined to transition energy system from fossil fuels to renewablesBritain will accelerate push to net zero, Starmer tells energy summit Continue reading...
  
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• Only three people ever prosecuted for covering up England’s illegal sewage spills

  24-04-2025 23:30 via theguardian.com
  Employees of water firms who obstruct investigations into spills could face jail under new rules that come into force on FridayWater company bosses have entirely escaped punishment for covering up illegal sewage spills, government figures show, as ministers prepare to bring in a new law threatening them with up to two years in prison for doing so.Only three people have ever been prosecuted for obstructing the Environment Agency in its investigations into sewage spills, officials said, and none r
  
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• Norfolk bird surveyors find Britain’s oldest known oystercatchers

  24-04-2025 14:04 via theguardian.com
  
  Birds in their 40s wintering on mudflats of the Wash received leg rings in early 1980sIf your ears are assaulted by the shrill piping calls of an excitable bird on the east coast of England, fear not: it’s probably an oystercatcher experiencing a midlife crisis.Two of the handsome black and white birds with bright red-orange bills have been found to be the oldest known oystercatchers ever recorded in Britain, clocking up at least 41 and 43 years on the mudflats of the Wash. Continue readin
  
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• Wood-burning stoves to be allowed in new homes in England despite concerns

  24-04-2025 13:11 via theguardian.com
  
  Campaigners condemn decision amid growing evidence of harm to health and climate from heating appliancesUK politics live – latest updatesWood-burning stoves will be allowed to heat new-build homes in England despite growing evidence showing their significant contribution to air pollution and carbon emissions.The government is writing its future homes standard, a set of rules for developers, aimed at decarbonising England’s housing stock. Heating the UK’s 28m homes accounts for
  
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• Miliband urges global cooperation amid energy 'challenges'

  24-04-2025 12:50 via bbc.com
  
  The UK Energy Secretary was speaking at the opening of a two day summit on energy security.
  
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• Giant icebergs once drifted off the coast of Britain, scientists find

  24-04-2025 11:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Discovery could provide valuable clues as to how the climate crisis might affect Antarctica, says studyGiant, flat-topped icebergs the size of the city of Cambridge drifted off the coast of Britain during the last ice age, according to a study that has uncovered evidence of their existence for the first time.A series of distinctive, comb-like grooves found preserved in sediment near Aberdeen in Scotland were left behind by the underside of huge “tabular” icebergs that dragged across
  
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• Fingerprints of city-sized icebergs found off UK coast

  24-04-2025 11:00 via bbc.com
  
  Deep tracks gouged in the seafloor off the coast of Scotland could help us understand Antarctica today.
  
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• Meet the new American refugees fleeing across state lines for safety

  24-04-2025 10:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Americans have often moved between states for opportunities. Now they’re being forced to uproot themselves to escape hostile forces under Trump Continue reading...
  
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• He fought to stop the forest being felled. The price was 30 years in prison for a murder he says he did not commit

  24-04-2025 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The UN has called the detention of Pablo López Alavez ‘arbitrary’, while human rights organisations say his sentence is part of a systematic and alarming pattern of criminalisation of Mexico’s environmental activistsThe meeting room in the prison of Villa de Etla, a town in Oaxaca, Mexico, doubles as a classroom with school desks and a small library. The walls feature motivational phrases such as “First things first”, “Live and let live” and &ldqu
  
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• Labour’s great nature sellout is the worst attack on England’s ecosystems I’ve seen in my lifetime | George Monbiot

  24-04-2025 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The horrifying planning bill, which rips up environmental protections, was drafted with CEOs in mind. We know because Keir Starmer told usThose of us who try to defend wildlife are horribly familiar with bad laws. But we’ve never seen anything like this. The government’s planning and infrastructure bill is the worst assault on England’s ecosystems in living memory. It erases decades of environmental protections, including legislation we inherited from the EU, which even the Tor
  
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• EVs to cost more under a Coalition government, after Dutton’s apparent backflip on popular tax break

  24-04-2025 07:26 via theguardian.com
  
  Polestar says Dutton’s move shows ‘a complete lack of understanding of the significant cost-of-living, climate and health benefits of EVs’Election 2025 live updates: Australia federal election campaignPolls tracker; election guide; full federal election coverageAnywhere but Canberra; interactive electorates guideListen to the latest episode of our new narrative podcast series: GinaGet our afternoon election email, free app or daily news podcastElectric vehicles would cost more
  
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• Country diary: Thousands of honey drops on a single branch | Paul Evans

  24-04-2025 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  The Marches, Shropshire: In this garden we’ve had woolly aphids, rose aphids, whitefly and blackfly, now we have Californian maple aphids, who have a story of their ownAn accidental touch of a branch brings a handful of little sticky dots. Looking at the branch, the surprise is that all the lower ones are covered with a shifting pointillism of dots moving together. Under a hand lens they become autonomous animals – aphids.There are thousands of them, moving independently as individua
  
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• Two teens and 5,000 ants: how a smuggling bust shed new light on a booming trade

  24-04-2025 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Two Belgian 19-year-olds have pleaded guilty to wildlife piracy – part of a growing trend of trafficking ‘less conspicuous’ creatures for sale as exotic petsPoaching busts are familiar territory for the officers of Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), an armed force tasked with protecting the country’s iconic creatures. But what awaited guards when they descended in early April on a guesthouse in the west of the country was both larger and smaller in scale than the smuggling ope
  
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• Water firms admit sewage monitoring damaging public trust

  24-04-2025 03:09 via bbc.com
  The industry says powers to self-monitor water quality should be handed back to the regulator.
  
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