Environment news

• Green bonds market reached record heights in 2017

  12-01-2018 11:24
  The green bonds market grew by a staggering 78% between 2016 and 2017, with national and institutional investors funnelling more than $150bn into low-carbon projects.
  
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• ‘Termination shock’: trust our expert warnings on geoengineering’s planetary risks | Raymond Pierrehumbert, Julia Slingo, Michael Mann and Valerie Masson-Delmotte

  19-06-2026 12:00
  Do we really want to play dice with our planet?A series in the Guardian recently declared “it’s time to talk about geoengineering.” So let’s talk about it. And let us start with some simple truths about this cluster of techno-optimistic “quick fixes” which purport to somehow offset our slow progress towards zeroing out planet-warming carbon emissions.Solar geoengineering proposals – reducing sunlight – have received the most attention, but a host o
  
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• How the world’s voracious appetite for shrimp is destroying Ecuador’s mangroves

  19-06-2026 12:00
  As demand soars, the country’s mangrove forests and the livelihoods of shellfish gatherers are under threat from encroaching farms and unchecked pollutionAt low tide, Johana Carolina Cruz Potes steps into the mudflats around Isla Costa Rica, in Ecuador’s Jambelí Archipelago. Holding a bucket and a short metal hook, she probes the tangled roots of a mangrove patch, searching for concha negra, black-shelled cockles, buried beneath the sludge.Cruz Potes has done this work since s
  
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• Week in wildlife: a hungry hoopoe, a hot croc and a snoozing otter pup

  19-06-2026 09:00
  This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world Continue reading...
  
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• The changing face of Mongolia as, beneath the grass, permafrost thaws

  19-06-2026 08:00
  The warming caused by climate breakdown in the landlocked east Asian country is transforming its fragile ecosystemAs the climate crisis accelerates, Mongolia is warming rapidly, transforming the country’s cryosphere, including some of the most southerly permafrost landscapes in the northern hemisphere.Although rarely associated with the Arctic, Mongolia has a remarkably cold climate. Ulaanbaatar is the coldest capital city in the world, and a substantial portion of the country lies within
  
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• My trip to meet the scientists trying to refreeze the Arctic

  19-06-2026 08:00
  In this week’s newsletter: The melting of the Arctic’s summer sea ice is the most visible upshot of the climate crisis. Refreezing it might be a long shot – but do drastic times call for drastic measures?• Don’t get Down to Earth delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereSpeeding across rapidly melting Arctic ice on a snowmobile gave me a vivid feel for its beauty and fragility. The brilliant white landscape gleamed ahead, while the sky blue pools of meltwater jetted up o
  
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• ‘I’m 90 for goodness sake’: rainforest activist to pedal 104 miles down Thames

  19-06-2026 08:00
  Veteran campaigner Robin Hanbury-Tenison is raising money for a research station near his home in CornwallPedalling on water for more than a hundred miles in a heatwave, pushed back by east winds and having to navigate 31 locks would be a challenge for anybody. But when that body is 90 years old, with a bad knee, failing balance and malfunctioning arms and shoulders, it’s a herculean feat.Rainforest campaigner Robin Hanbury-Tenison, 90, is pedalling 104 miles down the River Thames from Oxf
  
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• Weatherwatch: Saharan dust drops microorganisms into European soil

  19-06-2026 07:00
  Scientists are examining how ‘blood rain’ affects soil microbiome, with Portuguese vineyards a particular focusDust events, when thousands of tonnes of fine sand whipped up from the Sahara are dumped over Europe, are becoming more intense. These sometimes produce “blood rain” that leaves visible red streaks, and while generally harmless, the dust is not sterile but brings a freight of microorganisms.One big concern is how imported microbes may affect the soil microbiome a
  
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• Country diary: These oysters are destined – we hope – for great things | Claire Stares

  19-06-2026 06:30
  Portsmouth, Hampshire: A huge conservation effort is under way to restore native oysters to the Solent, and I was on hand to help give them a pre-release spa dayNative oysters (Ostrea edulis) have been harvested from Chichester Harbour since Roman times, but due to overfishing, disease, pollution and competition from invasive Pacific oysters (Magallana gigas), the population has declined by 96% over the past century.The Solent Oyster Restoration Project is working to restore reefs by reseeding t
  
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• The Tassie devils in my neighbourhood keep stealing shoes and laundry, but I adore them | Kelley Swain

  19-06-2026 04:45
  The thievery of these little creatures is endlessly amusing to me, but there have been, I’m told, a few rounds of inconvenienceGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastTo have your knickers go missing at a music festival may be seen as evidence of having a great time, but what if you’re at a folk music festival in the lush green Huon Valley of Tasmania, where parents stroll around with children in prams, and the wildest thing happening is an 8pm ceilidh?The thing is
  
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• Trump administration reverses decision to scrap ocean monitoring system

  18-06-2026 21:31
  Move to dismantle $368m sea observatory initiative faced opposition from experts and lawmakersThe Donald Trump administration has reversed its decision to dismantle a $368m deep-sea observation system following an outcry from lawmakers and ocean experts.On Thursday, the National Science Foundation announced that it would halt plans to dismantle the Ocean Observatories Initiative, stating: “effective immediately, [it] will not proceed with further removal or descoping of equipment from the
  
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• Showdown in the desert: the small town fending off a new California gold rush

  18-06-2026 18:00
  A prospecting company’s search for gold has the town of Lone Pine and Indigenous leaders on edge, as the Trump administration green lights new projects across the American westLone Pine, population 1,882, lies along a stretch of California highway framed by the vast Inyo mountains and a sweeping desert landscape of sagebrush and dunes.It’s the type of small town tourists drive through en route to Death Valley,; where hikers get a motel room between Pacific Crest Trail treks. But amid
  
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• ‘The sea took everything away’: how Nigeria’s ‘Happy City’ is disappearing beneath the waves

  18-06-2026 10:00
  More than half of Ayetoro – a Christian utopia founded in the 1940s – has been lost to the ocean, and its remaining people are running out of optionsIn the early hours of 15 February 2019, the Atlantic Ocean came for Arowo Victoria’s livelihood. The 60-year-old retired midwife was asleep when neighbours began banging on her door, shouting that the sea had started covering buildings along the nearby coastline.By the time she got to her small shop, she discovered that the Atlanti
  
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• Cambridge experts recreate 336-year-old garden to commemorate ‘father of natural history’

  18-06-2026 10:00
  John Ray, 17th-century botanist who coined words petal and pollen, was a tutor at Cambridge when he created his first gardenHe coined the terms petal and pollen, helped to lay the foundations of modern biology and is widely regarded as the greatest English naturalist of the 17th century.But it was while he was a young college tutor at Cambridge in the 1650s that the botanist John Ray – also known as “the father of natural history” – created his first known garden and bega
  
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• A bonanza for fans of the natural world: the digital library sharing 64m pages of scientific knowledge with everyone

  18-06-2026 09:00
  The Biodiversity Heritage Library is an invaluable online archive of historic texts on species living and lost supplied by the world’s leading museums and universities. Now its future is in doubtSome go there to read about the wood that Victorian manufacturers used to make walking sticks. Others want to see an illustration of a Tasmanian tiger or marvel at the field diary of one of the first known botanists to explore the Antarctic.Over the past 20 years, more than 64m pages have been made
  
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• Real-time monitoring to protect chalk stream

  18-06-2026 07:09 via bbc.com
  
  Real-time pollution levels tracked along length of Hampshire's rare chalk stream.
  
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• Escape hatches on lobster pots protect marine life

  18-06-2026 07:06 via bbc.com
  
  Fishing equipment is being redesigned to prevent "bycatch" affecting thousands of marine creatures.
  
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• Weatherwatch: UK’s migrant waders feel the effects of a changing Arctic

  18-06-2026 07:00
  Warmer winters and springs are drying out wetlands and the birds are missing out on an abundance of insects to eatWhen we think of spring migrant birds, it is easy to focus on songbirds such as warblers, flycatchers and swallows. Yet during late spring, many are waders – passing through Britain on their way north to breed in the high Arctic from their winter quarters in sub-Saharan Africa.According to the British Trust for Ornithology’s regular migration blog, it has been a good year
  
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• Watch: Seven cheetah cubs born at Whipsnade Zoo

  18-06-2026 06:41 via bbc.com
  
  The cubs are the first to be born at the conservation zoo for 15 years.
  
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• Country diary: Watching the ruffs strut like ludicrous Walter Raleighs | Michael J Warren

  18-06-2026 06:30
  Blackwater Estuary, Essex: Near a vast sweep of flats and creeks, one small pool has become a destination for both me and a parade of shore birdsI saw in this summer with the brief stays of Arctic-bound birds. Waders from the south came in such number and variety to my local patch near Tollesbury that for one week in May I went down to the marsh every dawn and dusk. I went to watch and feel the motion of it all at the turn of tide and time. Everything was change.They kept coming, new species eve
  
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• Can ecosystems ‘malfunction’?

  18-06-2026 06:00
  We are told the natural world is ‘breaking down’. But forests don’t work like aeroplanes or human heartsA version of this piece was originally published on Aeon as Why we need to think again about ecosystem failureThe Amazon rainforest, according to a 2021 study, is losing its capacity as a carbon sink and now emits more than it absorbs. In the tropics, marine scientists are reporting that coral reefs are in decline, threatening fish stocks. Equally concerning is research into
  
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• Simpler, older version of Stonehenge found three miles from famous site

  18-06-2026 01:11 via bbc.com
  
  The structure consisted of two posts that lined up with the solstices 5,000 years ago.
  
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• ‘Most famous tree in the world’: Sherwood Forest’s 1,000-year-old Major oak dies

  18-06-2026 01:01
  
  Nottinghamshire tree, one of Europe’s oldest and largest, fails to produce leaves after being stressed by series of hot, dry summersThe Major oak, one of Europe’s oldest, largest and most celebrated ancient trees, has died.The huge tree, which has grown in Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire, England, for at least 1,000 years, failed to produce any leaves this year, after becoming stressed by a series of hot, dry summers. Continue reading...
  
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• Space industry giants visit fabrics factory

  17-06-2026 17:49 via bbc.com
  
  Delegates from Nasa and Space X were among those visiting the firm that makes specialist fabrics.
  
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• Rising temperatures may increase flood risk through river ‘whiplash’, study finds

  17-06-2026 15:24
  Sudden shifts from wet to dry weather, or vice versa, may foil typical drought- and flood-prevention measuresRising temperatures may trigger a dangerous increase in “hydroclimatic whiplash” in rivers that would make traditional approaches to flood and drought planning insufficient, a study has found.As temperatures rise owing to the worsening climate crisis, rivers will experience increasingly rapid transitions between heavy downpours and long dry spells – called hydroclimatic
  
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• US public still favours action on climate change despite Trump’s fossil fuel drive

  17-06-2026 14:00
  
  Two-thirds of Americans say they are worried about climate but level of media coverage does not reflect thisUS political and media discourse has drifted away from the climate crisis amid a frontal assault by Donald Trump upon policies to limit global heating and the president’s pugnacious demands to “drill, baby, drill” for more oil and gas.Yet while elite attention on climate has waned, even among some previously vocal Democrats who have wound back on criticism of the fossil f
  
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• Why farmers see Colombia’s knife-edge election as a battle for the Amazon’s future

  17-06-2026 13:00
  Many small-scale landowners now include conservation measures alongside everyday farming. But progress is precarious, and the threat of guerrilla violence and poverty remain whichever candidate winsLike most people settling in the area, Pablo Peña was seeking to escape violence and make a living from a patch of land when he moved to Guaviare in central Colombia. More than 30 years on, he says his life is now about conflict and deforestation.Peña first visited Guaviare during his ma
  
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• The ocean has shielded us from the worst of climate change. Now it is running a fever | Karina Von Schuckmann

  17-06-2026 12:00
  Nearly every indicator of climate change is flashing red. But we still hold the tools available to bring the planet back into balanceThe ocean is running a fever. In 2025, the number of days of marine heatwaves – prolonged spells when the sea turns abnormally, dangerously warm – was more than triple what it was in the early 1990s.These are not abstract statistics. A severe and persistent marine heatwave bleaches coral reefs, strips away the kelp forests that shelter young fish, empti
  
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• Campaigner threatened with prosecution by Environment Agency after waterway cleanup

  17-06-2026 10:00
  Paul Powlesland told he acted illegally after organising volunteers to remove litter, weed and silt from River RodingA river campaigner who organised a cleanup of his local waterway is being threatened with prosecution by the Environment Agency for acting illegally.Paul Powlesland, a lawyer and environmental campaigner, organised a team of volunteers to tackle the removal of litter, weed and silt from a section of the River Roding, after repeatedly asking the agency to act. Continue reading...
  
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• ‘I don’t like being stuck in an office’: the young people helping plant a ring of trees around London

  17-06-2026 08:00
  London Tree Ring project aims to create corridors of plant and animal life around the city to strengthen its biodiversityHarry Ewing is heaping branches and foliage from the forest floor on to a dead hedge, reinforcing the protective circle around his newly planted trees in Hadley Wood, north London. He is in a glade created by a fallen oak that was previously overrun with thick bramble.“I feel very happy – the trees are growing already. It’s really nice seeing it when it start
  
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