Environment news

• Australia’s renewables transition is well under way – but meeting its 2030 target will be ‘extremely challenging’

  18-09-2026 17:00 via theguardian.com
  A gap looms between the Albanese government’s goal of 82% renewable energy and planned solar and wind projectsGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe challenges of Australia’s energy transition – from a system once fired by coal and gas to one powered by solar, wind and supporting technologies – are being underlined on an almost weekly basis.On Tuesday, the Carroll Labor government in Victoria announced a review of the Western Renewables Link, a maj
  
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• Drone footage shows severe drought hitting river in Brazil – video

  18-09-2026 16:04 via theguardian.com
  Drone footage from 17 September shows the Araguaia River drying up, as severe drought grips parts of Brazil. The country is preparing for potential El Niño impacts in late 2026-27, with the Tocantins-Araguaia basin already experiencing severe drought conditions Continue reading...
  
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• Drone footage shows severe drought hitting Brazil’s northern river – video

  18-09-2026 16:04 via theguardian.com
  
  Drone footage from 17 September shows the Araguaia River drying up, as severe drought grips Brazil’s northern basin. The country is preparing for potential El Niño impacts in late 2026-27, with the Tocantins-Araguaia basin already experiencing severe drought conditions Continue reading...
  
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• Fat Bear Week has returned – and the salmon are swimming for their lives

  18-09-2026 15:00 via theguardian.com
  The public will, for the 12th year in a row, vote for the fattest of brown bears in Alaska’s Katmai national parkThe bears have returned to the river and are packing on the pounds as another Fat Bear Week begins at Katmai national park.The 12th annual Fat Bear Week, in which the public will vote for the fattest of Katmai’s brown bears as mothers, cubs and males gather along the salmon-run at Brooks river in Alaska begins on Monday. Continue reading...
  
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• From old railways to an oasis of art, food and nature: how an eco-park was born in Greater Manchester

  18-09-2026 13:00 via theguardian.com
  Northern Roots is launching Britain’s biggest urban farm and eco-park, in an effort to boost people’s health and wellbeingStanding in the open green space of Northern Roots, it is hard to imagine the landscape as it once was.Two cotton mills, two coalmines and an industrial railway once occupied this 65-hectare (160-acre) site in Oldham, Greater Manchester. Later, about 24 hectares became a tip, with much of the space left to nature. Continue reading...
  
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• Week in wildlife: swimming pigs, circling sharks and a fox on the cricket pitch

  18-09-2026 09:00 via theguardian.com
  This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world Continue reading...
  
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• The world’s rivers are at breaking point. Can we save them before it is too late?

  18-09-2026 08:00 via theguardian.com
  In this week’s newsletter: As the Guardian launches a year-long project, Our Rivers, we take stock of the issues facing waterways around the worldDon’t get Down to Earth delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereThe nicknames of the world’s biggest rivers give a sense of how we feel about them: “the great river”, “the river that swallows all rivers”, “Mother Ganga” and “Old father Thames”. They feed and water us, and many other animal
  
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• MPs urge ministers to break off Thames Water talks with US hedge funds

  18-09-2026 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Efra committee calls for emergency legislation enabling government to take public control of the company Andy Burnham is under further pressure to take control of ailing Thames Water from a cross-party group of MPs who are calling for ministers to break off talks with the US hedge funds who are effectively running the company.Adding their voices to demands that the prime minister takes public control of the company, which has debts of £20bn and is being controlled by a group of 100 hedge f
  
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• Improved air quality linked to better mental development in toddlers, study finds

  18-09-2026 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Long-term research in New York shows efforts to reduce air pollution associated with higher cognitive test scoresImprovements in air pollution are leading to brighter, smarter toddlers, according to a new study from Columbia University in New York.For more than two decades, Prof Frederica Perera and a team from the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health measured the air pollution exposure of pregnant women and the development of their children in the disadvantaged communities
  
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• Country diary: Dinner time for the buzzard family is not a dignified affair | Kate Blincoe

  18-09-2026 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Caistor St Edmund, Norfolk: We have three breeding pairs on the farm, and one in particular has been a source of fascination and amusementI’m out on the farm most days, but I miss so much. It took a few days to notice a mother mallard with her late brood of 12 ducklings until they were all dabbling in a yard puddle. Dad sees more than me. He told me of the lazy adult buzzard that waited in a tree, then dive-bombed a peregrine that had caught a pigeon. The peregrine dropped its prey, which
  
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• ‘Forcing a reckoning’: How Asia is preparing for a ‘supersized’ El Niño

  18-09-2026 01:57 via theguardian.com
  From Sri Lanka to South Korea, governments are preparing for droughts, wildfires, typhoons and floods – with climate plans facing their biggest challenge to dateAsian governments are rushing preparations for the most severe El Niño weather event on record, with hundreds of millions of people bracing for multiple crises at once as extreme heat, heavy rain and food shortages hit the region.Fuelled by exceptionally warm ocean conditions across the tropical Pacific – and developin
  
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