Guardian Environment News

Tim and Geli Harris have spent more than a decade fighting to protect Catfield Fen, a rare wetland in the Norfolk Broads

Polluters and regulators who fail to stop pollution must quake in their boots when they receive a letter from the lawyers for Tim and Geli Harris. The couple, who farm 460 acres in the Norfolk Broads, have now scored a hat-trick of landmark legal victories to save an internationally important wetland after they won again in the high court this month.

Lady Justice Lieven found that Natural England failed in its statutory duty to protect Catfield Fen from pollution after nitrates and phosphates washed from arable fields into one of the finest examples of calcareous fen in western Europe, home to 2,500 species including rarities such as the fen orchid, crested buckler fern, breeding bittern and swallowtail butterflies.

Exclusive: Angela Eagle tells utility bosses next price review ‘must focus on value for money for customers’

Ministers will make an unprecedented intervention in water bills and how companies prioritise investment, directing bosses to bring down costs and stop leaks and sewage overflows.

Angela Eagle, the environment secretary, has told suppliers in England and Wales she plans to intervene in the next price review – conducted by the water regulator, Ofwat.

Suit alleges EPA has for decades failed under the Clean Water Act to address surface-water atrazine pollution

A new lawsuit asks a federal judge to order the Trump administration to address widespread pollution from the hormone-disrupting pesticide atrazine – which has regularly been found at levels that threaten wildlife and human health.

The cancer-linked chemical is now contaminating nearly 25%, or about 860,000 miles, of all continental US rivers, according to a recent review of federal records. The waterways cover more than 20% of surface drinking water intakes across the country, and more than 675,000 private and commercial wells.

At the midpoint of the last century the region had 1,450 glaciers and a new study reveals the extent of losses

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

People succumbed to heat at highest rates in Malta, Italy and Hungary, with health issues, loneliness and poverty exacerbating toll

Heat killed a record 50,000 people in European cities this summer, new research suggests, with scientists blaming climate breakdown for two in every three of the deaths.

Morgues and funeral homes filled with bodies from June to August as the heat added by planet-baking pollution cut short an extra 32,000 lives in urban areas, the researchers found. Hot days pushed vulnerable bodies into overdrive and warm nights prevented them from recovering.

The high court found NSW is responsible for emissions from burning exported coal. What message does it send when the government can step in and bypass the law?

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As someone who lost their home in the black summer bushfires, I was buoyed by the high court finding in favour of a small community group in the Hunter Valley earlier this month.

Led by two retired science teachers, Wendy Wales and Tony Lonergan, the Denman Aberdeen Muswellbrook Scone Healthy Environment Group took on a massive coal corporation and won. As a fellow schoolteacher, I felt a particular sense of pride seeing these ordinary Australians act on their care for their community and future generations.

Violent storms overnight knocked over utility poles and trees and carried thunder and heavy winds through state

Yet more severe weather struck Thursday in the US south-west as the Four Corners region surveyed blown-away roofs, trees knocked on to homes and power lines downed from overnight tornadoes that injured one person.

The injuries weren’t life-threatening but rare for an area better known for scalding heat. But this fall has been unusually soggy in the south-west with El Niño conditions that have sent one tropical system after another in from the Pacific, causing the Grand Canyon and surrounding deserts to rage with floods.

PM pledges commitment to address climate crisis, saying in Guardian article that his ‘determination is unwavering’

• Andy Burnham: We will make the net-zero transition work for Britain

Andy Burnham has said he will not “abandon the responsibility” of fighting the climate crisis after the government approved the Jackdaw gasfield, pledging to block new North Sea licences and keep Britain on track for net zero by 2050.

The comments are the prime minister’s most forthright yet on net zero, after many MPs have privately cast doubt on the authenticity of his commitment to tackling the climate crisis.

PM will also announce funding for specialised protective gear and the deployment of military aircraft

The UK government is to create an AI Cobra unit to spot wildfires after this year’s record-breaking summer saw devastating blazes across the country.

The country experienced its hottest-ever summer this year, with prolonged dry periods and extreme heat fuelling wildfires that triggered an emergency alert to mobile phones in England and Wales. Figures released on 8 October showed a clear upward trend in the number of fires recorded each year.

In the US, a growing number of Jewish people are seeking purpose and community through farming

Wendy Rhein is trying to round up the sheep hanging out among the hazelnut and walnut trees of her Chutzpah Hollow farm in Tryon, North Carolina.

“Hi, Brea. Come on down. I hear you,” Rhein calls to the bleating queen of the flock. If the Barbados black belly ewe moves, the rest will follow.

Be Ready campaign aims to prepare UK for impact of climate crisis, technological dependency and threats by hostile state

Every Briton is being urged to stock up to nine litres of bottled water and three days’ worth of food in new government guidance designed to ensure that households can survive a weather, cyber or other serious emergency.

The Be Ready campaign is aimed at persuading people to stock up with supplies to last 72 hours, amid growing official concern about the impact of the climate crisis, technological dependency and hostile state threats.

Protecting jobs and strengthening energy security in the short term does not mean wavering on Labour’s deep commitment to a cleaner, greener future

• Andy Burnham vows UK will hit net zero target despite Jackdaw gasfield approval

On Wednesday, the energy secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh, gave the go-ahead for gas production to begin at the Jackdaw gasfield in the North Sea. This has been the subject of fierce debate for many years, with strong views on both sides. I want to explain what the decision means and how it fits with Britain’s climate commitments.

At a time of acute global instability, it makes sense to responsibly use our resources here at home. Gas from this field will begin heating our homes and powering our businesses this winter. In the longer term, it will significantly strengthen our energy security by increasing domestic gas production by about 6% and support the UK’s energy supply for more than a decade. Wednesday’s decision will also protect hundreds of jobs in Scotland and add almost £3bn to the UK economy over the lifetime of the project.

With the climate crisis and diseases threatening one of the world’s most popular fruits, researchers are hoping a breakthrough in breeding techniques could give the Cavendish banana a certain future

Love them or loathe them, bananas are one of the world’s most popular fruit. But a combination of the climate crisis and new killer diseases have had growers concerned over the banana’s threatened extinction, something that would impose a huge toll on farmers in countries from Guatemala to Malawi, alongside eradicating a staple food.

Now researchers say they have made fresh advances in the race to save them from disaster. This month, Yelloway – a research collaboration between Chiquita, the world’s largest banana company, and the crop-improvement company KeyGene – announced it had developed a fully fertile Cavendish banana, meaning it may be possible, through cross-breeding, to create new banana varieties that are commercially viable and resistant to disease.

Arizona’s Land of Standing-Up Rocks, formed from ancient volcanic eruption, gets new status with bipartisan support

An area of towering rock spires in south-eastern Arizona known among Native Americans as the Land of Standing-Up Rocks has become the nation’s newest national park.

Legislation to create Chiricahua national park was sent to the White House and Donald Trump signed it on Tuesday. It passed Congress with bipartisan backing and is now the 64th US national park.

New study reveals dramatic population drops in fish, cephalopods and more after Deepwater Horizon disaster

Marine life in the Gulf of Mexico plummeted by about 60% after BP’s 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill and has still not fully recovered, according to a new study.

The April 2010 explosion of an offshore drilling unit 50 miles off the Louisiana coast triggered the largest marine oil spill in history, releasing 134m gallons of oil into the ocean. According to the study published on Monday in PNAS, the disaster – which also killed 11 people and injured 17 others – led to the “sudden, severe and persistent declines in the abundance” of marine life for more than a decade.

The Cali Fund, set up to raise $1bn a year for biodiversity from drug companies, remains near empty

Big pharmaceutical companies have been accused of “free-riding on nature”, after a landmark biodiversity fund that invites businesses to put some of their profits back into conservation was left virtually empty.

The Cali Fund set out to raise $1bn (£750m) annually, by asking companies that profit from nature’s genetics to contribute towards conservation in low-income countries. But more than 18 months after the fund was launched, it remains far below this target.

Video released by Randwick city council shows a whale carcass floating in the water in a Sydney bay, causing the closure of two busy beaches. The whale's decomposed body was found on Thursday morning at Lurline Bay, a rocky cove surrounded by cliffs in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. It’s believed to be a juvenile humpback

• ‘Almost looks fake’: two Sydney beaches closed after whale carcass washes up

If Flávio Bolsonaro is elected, Brazil’s ecosystems will face collapse. The ruling class would rather burn the world than share it with the poor

However grim the trajectory might seem, I’ve always believed that sense will ultimately prevail. As the great perils of dismantling the living world become increasingly obvious, even the most rapacious exploiters must come round. Nobody wants to live on a dead planet, do they?

There are – or were – signs that this wasn’t just wishful thinking. Since 2015, mostly thanks to China, the area of the planet being reforested has increased, while thanks in large part to Brazil, the global rate of forest destruction has declined. The area of the Brazilian Amazon forest cleared each year is one-sixth of what it was when records began in 1988. In the past four years, as a result of Brazilian government policy, the deforestation rate has fallen by 71%. If Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is re-elected president on Sunday, the country could reach zero deforestation by 2030. The arc of the moral universe seems to have bent towards justice.

Swimming banned at Maroubra and Coogee while council prioritises ‘culturally respectful’ approach to remains

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A whale carcass has forced the closure of two busy swimming and surfing spots after washing up between Coogee and Maroubra beaches in Sydney – but there are no plans to remove it.

The whale’s heavily decomposed body was found on Thursday morning at Lurline Bay, a rocky cove surrounded by cliffs in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.