Category Archives: Environment

ACCC to compel companies to back up environmental claims with evidence

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Australia’s competition watchdog publishes draft guidelines in a bid to stamp out greenwashing

Companies should have evidence to back up claims they make about their environmental sustainability, according to draft guidelines developed by the competition watchdog in a bid to stamp out greenwashing.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) published the draft guidance on Friday after its recent greenwashing internet sweep identified concerning practices ranging from overstating climate action to companies developing their own certification schemes.

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Nationals accuse Labor of ‘hypocrisy’ over response to scathing APVMA report – as it happened

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Cabinet meeting to decide Lowe’s successor today

Philip Lowe will be replaced as the Reserve Bank governor, with today’s cabinet meeting to decide his successor, Guardian Australia has confirmed.

If I was asked to continue in the role, I would be honoured to do that and I would continue.

If I am not asked to continue in the role, I will do my best to support my successor, and the treasurer has said he will make an announcement before the end of this month.

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Severe thunderstorm warning for parts of Vermont, New York, Vermont and Ohio Valley – live

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Latest storm warning comes just days after areas of Vermont and New York were hit with flash flooding, raising concerns over more damage

Meterologist Ben Frechette from NBC5 reported that a tornado risk is going up slightly in north-eastern NewYork state:

As some parts of the US are sweltering, Vermont was bracing for more rain on Thursday.

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Scottish ministers have ‘duty’ to protect seabed from harmful fishing, says court

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Licensing for scallop dredging and trawling must comply with National Marine Plan after judicial review by Open Seas charity

The Scottish government should stop approving licences for fishing vessels using methods believed to cause harm to habitats, a charity working to protect marine life has urged, after a court declared a routine licensing decision to be unlawful.

Scotland’s highest court ruled that the Scottish government had failed to act in accordance with Scotland’s National Marine Plan (NMP) when varying fishing licences last December, after a judicial review by the conservation charity Open Seas. It is legally obliged to act in accordance with its environmental duties, as stated in the NMP, when making these decisions.

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Loophole lets farmers pollute UK rivers with excess manure – report

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Investigation finds polluting farmers may not face action after breaking the rules

A loophole in the UK’s pollution legislation allows farmers to pollute rivers by spreading excess manure, an investigation has found, with those acting unlawfully not facing any action in most cases.

The government introduced new farming rules for water in 2018, aimed at cleaning up England’s waterways. However, after lobbying from the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), including at least two meetings with ministers, the guidance was watered down.

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Scottish windfarm built in 1995 to be ‘repowered’ with new turbines

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ScottishPower expects Hagshaw Hill to produce five times as much energy with half the turbines by early 2025

One of Britain’s oldest onshore windfarms will soon be “repowered” so it can generate five times as much green electricity as it did in 1995 – with almost half as many turbines.

The owner of the Hagshaw Hill windfarm, ScottishPower, began dismantling 26 turbines on its site in rural South Lanarkshire on Wednesday.

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Arkansas warned over ‘life-threatening’ flash floods; Florida ocean temperatures hit record high – as it happened

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California governor launches campaign aimed at protecting residents from extreme heat; US president says extreme heat and floods linked to climate

The National Weather Service in New Orleans has warned of scattered storms that are expected to deliver flash flooding in the area later today.

Rainfall is expected to reach 2 to 5 inches per hour (or more at times), with the potential flash floods likely to take place mainly from late morning through the evening hours.

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‘They were chilled’: bated breath as beavers released in Northumberland

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Animals make first return to the county in 400 years as National Trust introduces family of four to Wallington estate

It was a genuinely tense tale of the riverbank as a family of four beavers were released into the Northumberland countryside on Wednesday, the first time in more than 400 years that the animals are making the county their home.

Would they even come out of their cages? Would they be as feisty coming out as they apparently were going in? Would they be happy with their new surroundings?

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Stitch in time: France to help pay for clothes to be mended to cut waste

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People will be able to claim back €6-€25 of cost of repairing clothes and shoes in latest environmental measure

A broken heel, a rip in trousers, buttons missing from a shirt? Don’t throw them away if you live in France, where the government will pay a “repair bonus” to have them mended in a new scheme aimed at cutting waste.

An estimated 700,000 tonnes of clothing is thrown away in France every year, two-thirds ending up in landfill.

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Woodside LNG: Australia’s ‘biggest’ contribution to climate crisis a step closer to 50-year extension

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WA EPA dismisses most grounds of appeal against extension of operation licence for gas processing facility in the Pilbara

One of Australia’s biggest fossil fuel developments is a step closer to having its life extended for nearly 50 years after Western Australian officials dismissed appeals arguing it should be stopped on climate science and cultural grounds.

More than 750 organisations and individuals last year lodged objections to a WA Environment Protection Authority (EPA) recommendation that oil and gas company Woodside be allowed to operate its gas processing facility in the Pilbara until 2070.

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Australian trial of seaweed cow feed fails to achieve hoped-for methane cuts

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Longest trial so far of supplement derived from red seaweed produced 28% less of the greenhouse gas – much lower than previous studies

One of the world’s longest commercial trials of a seaweed supplement that the global meat industry hopes could slash methane from beef cattle has recorded much lower reductions in the potent greenhouse gas than previous studies.

Putting the supplement into the diets of 40 wagyu cattle in an Australian feedlot for 300 days cut the methane they produced by 28%.

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EU passes nature restoration law in knife-edge vote

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MEPs back law to place recovery measures on 20% of EU’s land and sea by 2030 by dozen votes

The EU has narrowly passed a key law to protect nature – a core pillar of the Commission president Ursula von der Leyen’s European Green Deal – after months of fiery debate and an opposition campaign scientists criticised as misleading.

The nature restoration law will place recovery measures on 20% of the EU’s land and sea by 2030, rising to cover all degraded ecosystems by 2050.

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Extreme US weather: Vermont flooding ‘nowhere near over’, says governor – as it happened

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Phil Scott says damage is ‘historic and catastrophic’; parts of the US south and southwest are suffering extreme heat

Vermont’s governor Phil Scott gave a press conference earlier, saying that while the sun was expected to come out in Montpelier, the flooding was “nowhere near over”.

He was speaking as his state was dealing with up to two months’ worth of rain in two days. The rain had left “countless” roads washed out.

…What is heat stress and what causes it?

It occurs when the body experiences a buildup of heat, at a level that is more than what it can release. “The human body has this fantastic ability to cool through sweat evaporation,” said Uwe Reischl, professor in the school of public and population health at Boise State University. But even when the body is producing sweat, the evaporation can be limited due to humidity in the air.

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Crows and magpies using anti-bird spikes to build nests, researchers find

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Dutch study identifies several examples of corvids’ ‘amazing’ ability to adapt to the urban environment

Birds have never shied away from turning human rubbish into nesting materials, but even experts in the field have raised an eyebrow at the latest handiwork to emerge from urban crows and magpies.

Nests recovered from trees in Rotterdam in the Netherlands and Antwerp in Belgium were found to be constructed almost entirely from strips of long metal spikes that are often attached to buildings to deter birds from setting up home on the structures.

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‘It’s pillage’: thirsty Uruguayans decry Google’s plan to exploit water supply

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Country suffering its worst drought in 74 years, with government even mixing saltwater into drinking supply

A plan to build a Google data centre that will use millions of litres of water a day has sparked anger in Uruguay, which is suffering its worst drought in 74 years.

Water shortages are so severe in the country that a state of emergency has been declared in Montevideo and the authorities have added salty water to the public drinking water supplies, prompting widespread protests.

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New North Sea oil and gas fields ‘will not meet UK’s energy needs’

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Plans would only supply Britain with fossil fuels for an additional three weeks a year, analysis finds

New oil and gas fields in the North Sea would produce only enough gas to satisfy the UK’s needs for a few weeks a year, with a minimal impact on energy security, analysis has found.

Fields now under consideration would supply at most an additional three weeks of gas a year to the UK, from 2024 to 2050, even if none of the gas was exported.

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EU to drop ban of hazardous chemicals after industry pressure

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Exclusive: Leaked documents show that as little as 1% of products containing hazardous substances could be prohibited

The European Commission is poised to break a promise to outlaw all but the most essential of Europe’s hazardous chemicals, leaked documents show.

The pledge to “ban the most harmful chemicals in consumer products, allowing their use only where essential” was a flagship component of the European green deal when it was launched in 2020.

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Tomato crisis hits India as rain ravages crops and prices rise 400%

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Consumers, farmers and even McDonald’s struggle in shortage blamed on irregular weather

Listening to the chatter at Delhi’s vegetable markets, only one question is on everyone’s lips: just how much will a tomato cost today?

Prices of tomatoes, a staple of Indian cooking, have soared by more than 400% in recent weeks as the country has been gripped by a nationwide shortage.

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Italy heatwave could push temperatures close to European record

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High pressure forecast to raise temperatures to 48C as hot weather sweeps Spain, France, Germany and Poland

Temperatures in Italy could get close to breaking a European record this week as a fierce heatwave grips much of the continent.

An anticyclone – an area of high pressure – named Cerberus will cause temperatures to exceed 40C (104F) across much of the country by Wednesday, with the islands of Sicily and Sardinia predicted to bear the brunt at 47-48C.

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Brazil says illegal miners driven from Indigenous territory, but ‘war’ not over

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Country’s top cop said 90% of miners despoiling Yanomami land had been expelled, though experts say they are only displaced

Brazil’s top federal police chief for the Amazon has celebrated the government’s success in driving thousands of illegal miners from the country’s largest Indigenous territory but warned the “war” against environmental criminals is not yet over.

Speaking during a visit to the Amazon city of Belém, Humberto Freire estimated environmental and police special forces had expelled 90% of the 20,000 miners who had been devastating the protected Yanomami territory, since launching their clampdown in February.

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