Category Archives: Environment

Climate activists ‘disrupt supplies from three oil terminals in England’

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Just Stop Oil says action will affect fuel availability at petrol pumps across south-east and Midlands

Clean energy campaigners claim to have disrupted supplies from three oil terminals in the Midlands and south-east of England, as motorists complain that some petrol stations are running short of fuel.

The government said only one terminal was out of action on Sunday afternoon as a result of the Just Stop Oil protests, and that local police forces were working with the industry to ensure that fuel supplies can be maintained.

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Millions of bird deaths as US hit by avian flu outbreak

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US officials believe nearly 24m poultry birds, mostly chickens and turkeys, have died of flu since virus strain identified in February

Millions of birds have died in the US in recent weeks, because of a contagious strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza, popularly known as bird flu.

The bird flu has also led zoos across the US to temporarily close aviary exhibits and move birds away from the public. At zoos from Colorado to Maryland, species ranging from ostriches to penguins have been moved indoors.

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Extinction Rebellion stages mass protest in central London

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Activists call for end to fossil fuel investment at sit-down demonstration in Regent Street and Oxford Circus

Supporters of the environmental activist group Extinction Rebellion have taken part in a mass sit-down protest in the heart of London’s shopping district.

Several thousand demonstrators with multicoloured flags bearing the group’s “extinction” symbol gathered near Marble Arch on Saturday morning as samba bands warmed up.

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‘It’s a media war’: the UK’s top anti-oil campaigner fights on aged 80

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In 50 years, Canvey Island’s George Whatley has won five victories against oil and gas firms trying to expand operations

George Whatley is probably Britain’s most successful anti-oil campaigner, but you won’t find him at Extinction Rebellion’s latest wave of protests or the Just Stop Oil campaign which has blocked fossil fuel infrastructure recently.

At 80 years old and after a recent spell in hospital, he will be taking it easy at his bungalow on Canvey Island, Essex. But if anyone can claim a place in the annals of successful environmental protests, it is this former Bank of England security guard.

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Dozens of evacuation orders in place across NSW as rivers expected to reach major flood levels

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Schools closed and residents ordered to leave as torrential rain falls on Sydney and already saturated catchments

Dozens of evacuation orders have been issued for parts of south-west Sydney with the Hawkesbury and Nepean rivers expected to reach major flood levels on Friday.

Water levels at the Upper Nepean River at Wallacia were tipped to exceed last month’s flood peak, while the Hawkesbury at North Richmond was expected to reach 10.5 metres by 10am, and as high as 11.8 metres at noon – just below the level seen in the devastating floods in February 2020.

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Thieving sea lions break into salmon farm and gorge on feast of fish

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Conservationists say the farms are a danger to sea lions and other marine mammals, who can become entangled in their nets

Dozens of thieving sea lions in western Canada have spent the last few weeks gorging on fish after brazenly slipping into an industrial salmon farm – and ignoring all attempts to make them move on.

Cermaq, the aquaculture giant with operations in Norway, Chile and Canada, says the wily predators were able to evade netting and electric fences in late March as part of a “breach event” at the Rant Point farm near Tofino in British Columbia.

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Australia news live updates: NSW flood evacuation orders; asylum seekers to be released from detention; 30 Covid deaths

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Seventeen asylum seekers expected to be released from detention; flood evacuation orders in NSW; Marise Payne meeting Nato members to discuss Ukraine; NSW records 16 Covid deaths and 22,255 new infections; Victoria records four deaths and 12,314 new infections; WA records 7,998 new infections and three deaths over past weeks; Queensland records seven deaths and 10,984 new cases. Follow all the day’s news live

The man seeking a high court challenge against federal intervention in NSW Liberal preselections has been expelled from the party.

In an escalation of the factional stoush, Matthew Camenzuli has asked the high court to prevent Scott Morrison’s hand-picked candidates from receiving Liberal endorsement on ballot papers pending the urgent case.

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PM to put nuclear power at heart of UK’s energy strategy

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Plan will not please environmental campaigners, who say it fails to meet government’s net-zero targets

Boris Johnson is to put nuclear energy at the heart of the UK’s new energy strategy, but ministers have refused to set targets for onshore wind and vowed to continue the exploitation of North Sea oil and gas.

Amid deep divisions among senior Conservatives, the strategy will enrage environmentalists, who say the government’s plans are in defiance of its own net-zero targets and neglect alternative measures that experts say would provide much quicker relief from high energy bills.

Increasing nuclear capacity from 7 gigawatts to 24GW

Offshore wind target raised from 40GW to 50GW (from 11GW today)

Solar could grow five times from 14GW to 70GW by 2035

An “impartial” review into whether fracking is safe

Up to 10GW of hydrogen power by 2030

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Putin’s daughters targeted in US sanctions against Russia

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Joe Biden links new measures directly to accounts of atrocities committed by Russian forces in Bucha

The US has announced a new round of sanctions targeting Russia’s top public and private banks and two daughters of Vladimir Putin, following mounting global accusations of Russian war crimes in Ukraine.

The sanctions targeted Maria Vorontsova and Katerina Tikhonova, two adult daughters of Putin’s with his former wife Lyudmila Shkrebneva.

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Ministers launch fracking study, paving way to end moratorium in England

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Conservatives seek to examine latest techniques, citing rising energy costs

Ministers have paved the way for a reconsideration of the moratorium on fracking in England by commissioning a new study to examine safety concerns about the controversial practice.

In an effort to decrease Britain’s reliance on imported energy given spiralling costs, the business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, said it was “absolutely right that we explore all possible domestic energy sources”.

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Coalition accused of sitting on environment report to avoid delivering ‘more bad news’

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Calls for report to be released before election so voters know ‘official state’ of environment under Morrison government

The Morrison government has been accused of sitting on a major report card on the state of Australia’s environment it received more than three months ago to avoid “more bad news”.

Labor, the Greens, the independent MP Zali Steggall, environment groups and scientists have called on the government to release the Australia State of the Environment report, which is produced by scientists and compiled every five years.

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Victims of Brazil’s Mariana dam disaster seek compensation through UK courts

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In one of the largest claims in English legal history, 200,000 people affected by the 2015 incident will have their case heard this week

More than 200,000 victims of Brazil’s worst environmental disaster are seeking compensation in a UK court this week, in one of the largest group claims in English legal history.

The claimants, including representatives of Krenak indigenous communities, are fighting to get compensation for the devastation caused by the Mariana dam disaster in November 2015. The £5bn lawsuit is against the Anglo-Australian mining company BHP.

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Bird populations in Panama rainforest in severe decline, study finds

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Of 57 species sampled, 35 decreased in number by 50% over four decades, with climate crisis likely factor

Bird populations in a Central American tropical rainforest are suffering severe declines, with likely factors including climate breakdown and habitat loss.

Scientists from the University of Illinois tracked species of birds in a protected forest reserve in central Panama to determine if and how populations had changed from 1977 to 2020.

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Hundreds of thousands of fish dead after NSW floods

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Scientists find fish that could normally tolerate low oxygen levels among those killed in Richmond river

Hundreds of thousands of fish have died after recent flooding in northern New South Wales caused “severe deoxygenation” of rivers, with researchers alarmed at discovering carcasses of species that traditionally tolerate lower oxygen levels.

Scientists are still researching the full of extent of the destruction to marine life along the Richmond river, where multiple fish kill events occurred following flooding in late February and early March. The flooding led to a total lack of oxygen in a 60km stretch of the waterway, between Coraki and Ballina on the northern NSW coast.

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Coalition tries for third time to let renewable energy agency fund technologies using fossil fuels

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New rules could allow Arena to back developments that use CCS, such as that of ‘blue’ hydrogen made with gas, Senate hears

The Morrison government has launched a third attempt to change the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Arena) to allow it to fund a broader range of technologies, including some using fossil fuels.

The Senate has twice in the past year used a disallowance motion to block new regulations introduced by the energy and emissions reduction minister, Angus Taylor, to expand Arena’s remit to include backing technologies such as hydrogen made with gas and carbon capture and storage (CCS).

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High-carbon goods imported into UK should be subject to new tariffs, say MPs

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Carbon border adjustment mechanism would penalise companies and countries trying to evade responsibility for cutting emissions

High-carbon goods imported into the UK should be subject to new tariffs, to help ensure other countries are fulfilling their obligations to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions as well as the UK, an influential committee of MPs has said.

A carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) would penalise companies and countries trying to evade responsibility for cutting emissions, the MPs said, and provide an incentive for certain industrial sectors to move away from environmentally damaging practices.

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Victoria to restore area five times size of Melbourne with $31m boost to private land conservation

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BushBank scheme aims to revegetate parcels of private land to create habitat for endangered wildlife and capture carbon

The Victorian government plans to restore an area five times the size of Melbourne as part of a new scheme to increase conservation on private land.

The state’s energy, environment and climate change minister, Lily D’Ambrosio, has announced the government will spend $31m to revegetate parcels of private land to create habitat for endangered wildlife and capture carbon.

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What really happened at Geneva’s crucial biodiversity negotiations?

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Talks ahead of the key Cop15 summit on halting mass extinction of life were slow – and much has been asked of the developing world

For talks that are meant to be about halting the mass extinction of life on Earth, the slow pace of negotiations in Geneva ahead of Cop15, the major biodiversity summit in Kunming, China, later this year, was not a hopeful sign that meaningful action would follow. As discussions drew to a close this week, little progress was made on the targets and goals that are meant to herald nature’s “Paris moment”.

Rhetoric from rich developed nations about the need for ambition on halting biodiversity loss was not being followed through with resources, negotiators from Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa complained.

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‘We feel safer’: how green energy is brightening refugee lives in Rwanda

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Solar panels and cleaner-burning stoves have reduced dangers faced by residents of three camps

“The camp has come from the dark into the light,” says Edson Sebutozi Munyakarambi, a refugee living in the Kigeme camp in southern Rwanda.

“Before the solar-powered street lamps, the camp was dark. Some people would come and steal things from the houses,” says Munyakarambi, who chairs the committee that represents the 16,000 people in the camp. “But now no one can rob people on the street corners and the children can study or play outside while they wait for their dinner.”

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Coral bleaching under way at Ningaloo reef as Western Australia battles heat

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Every photograph of bleached corals a reminder we’re not doing enough to tackle climate crisis, conservationists say

Conservationists say they have have recorded evidence of coral bleaching under way at Ningaloo off Western Australia’s north-west coast.

It comes just as the Great Barrier Reef on the other side of the country undergoes another devastating mass bleaching event.

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