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Men staged protest in City of London in October 2021, which included one gluing head to road to block traffic

Four climate protesters, including a man who glued his head to the road in order to block traffic in central London, have escaped jail terms.

Matthew Tulley, 44, Ben Taylor, 38, George Burrow, 68 and Anthony Hill, 72, staged a protest between Bishopsgate and Wormwood Street in the City of London on 25 October 2021. They were convicted of causing a public nuisance by a jury at Inner London crown court. All four represented themselves.

Julie Mecoli, 68, Stefania Morosi, 45, Louise Lancaster, 57, and Nicholas Till, 67, took part in London street blockade in 2021

Four climate protesters who stopped traffic on a central London road during rush hour have been convicted of causing a public nuisance.

Julie Mecoli, 68, Stefania Morosi, 45, Louise Lancaster, 57 and Nicholas Till, 67, were among a group of Insulate Britain supporters who walked into Upper Thames Street on 25 October 2021 while a separate group also blocked nearby roads on Bishopsgate, in the City of London financial district. All four denied the charges.

Scientists find that using oysters as water filters helps the bivalve and other species thrive – and could treble the amount of carbon going into the seabed

Good whisky needs pure clean water, which partly explains why distilleries in Scotland always seem to have such scenic, loch-side backdrops. And one of the best ways to filter that water is oysters. Indeed, the European native oyster was so plentiful in Scotland that 30 million a year were harvested from oyster beds outside Edinburgh in the 1800s.

But today the species is almost extinct: populations have dropped by 85% over the past century, most likely because of overfishing from bottom trawling.

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs, including a baby egret, a newborn shark and a zebra on the loose

Miami Seaquarium, where the whale performed, announced a ‘binding’ agreement to relocate her to her home – Puget Sound

More than five decades after being captured in the waters off the Pacific north-west, Tokitae the orca has a plan to return home, delivering a victory to animal rights advocates and Indigenous leaders who have long fought for her release.

On Thursday, the owners of the Miami Seaquarium where Tokitae lives announced a “formal and binding agreement” with a group called the Friends of Lolita to begin the process of returning Tokitae to Puget Sound. A news release indicates that the joint effort is “working toward and hope the relocation will be possible in the next 18 to 24 months”.

Environmentalists question high grade given to JBS and accuse it of deforestation in the Amazon and under-reporting emissions

The award of an A-minus sustainability grade to the world’s biggest meat company has raised eyebrows and kicked off a debate about the rating system for environmental and social governance.

Brazilian meat company JBS has previously been linked to deforestation in the Amazon, where its slaughterhouses process beef from ranches carved out of the Amazon, Cerrado and other biomes. But in the latest Climate Change Report by the influential rating organisation CDP, the multinational got a grade of A- for its efforts to tackle climate change – up from B in the previous assessment – and was given a “leadership” status award.

Government admits its policies will achieve only 92% of cuts and experts think that is a ‘generous reading’

The UK government has said it is still on track to meet its international climate commitments under the Paris agreement, as analysis of its energy plans suggested more drastic policies would be needed to make the required carbon cuts.

Ministers announced the UK’s revamped net zero strategy on Thursday, with a raft of documents exceeding 1,000 pages, setting out policies on sectors from biomass to solar power, and from electric vehicles to nuclear reactors. It came as Rishi Sunak headed to Oxfordshire to visit a development facility for nuclear fusion, accompanied by Grant Shapps, the energy and net zero secretary.

Therésè Coffey may bring Food Standards Agency, now overseen by health department, under remit of Defra

The UK government is considering tightening control over the Food Standards Agency (FSA) after news that allegedly fraudulent pork products found their way on to supermarket shelves.

Therésè Coffey, the secretary of state for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), told the House of Commons on Thursday that she would look at bringing the FSA under her department’s control.

This article was amended on 30 March 2022. An earlier version said that Robert Goodwill was Defra minister of state; in fact he is chair of the EFRA committee.

Scottish first minister's questions was disrupted five times on Thursday as Yousaf took questions from MSPs. When FMQs eventually got going, Douglas Ross, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, queried Yousaf's appointment of an independence minister, asking if it was a fair use of taxpayers' money. Yousaf hit back, telling MSPs that independence was a priority for the Scottish people. Yousaf said: 'I make no apology whatsoever for having a minister for independence because, my goodness, we need it more than ever before'

• Can Humza Yousaf unite the SNP? – Politics Weekly UK

• What challenges await the new SNP leader and first minister of Scotland?

• Postponing state pension age decision ‘not exactly a sign of strength’, Jacob Rees-Mogg tells Tories – UK politics live

At the Primal Gathering retreat, attendees seek new – and sometimes surreal – ways to connect with nature and take meaningful action on environmental destruction

The explorer and documentary maker Bruce Parry pushed his penis inside his body on his 2005 BBC show Tribe in an effort to be accepted by the Kombai people in New Guinea, before turning white and having to lie down. He would do whatever it took to assimilate, including taking hallucinogenic drugs, drinking blood and running naked across the backs of a row of cattle.

Now he is focusing his energies closer to home. He is using the knowledge he gained from Indigenous societies around the world to encourage people in the UK to form stronger communities that can take meaningful action to halt ecological destruction.

Resolution asks ICJ to clarify countries’ obligations to fight climate change and the consequences they should face for inaction

A group of Pacific Island students who were instrumental in pushing a UN resolution that should make it easier to hold polluting countries legally accountable for failure to act on the climate crisis have greeted its adoption as historic.

“Young people across the world will recall the day when we were able to get the world’s highest court, the international court of justice, to bring its voice to the climate justice fight,” said Solomon Yeo, campaign director of Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC), who is from Solomon Islands.

Changes to the safeguard mechanism take us a step closer to net zero by 2050 – the goal consecutive governments have signed up to

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At some stage, policies that governments put forward to reduce emissions need to do exactly what they say on the tin.

This week’s deal between Labor and the Greens to improve a policy covering Australia’s biggest polluters does, finally, achieve that.

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Evidence that drought cut late-summer hatchings raises fears that delayed effect of caterpillar die-off will be seen this year

The heat and drought of last summer caused British butterfly populations to crash later in the year, according to a new study.

Common butterfly species including the brimstone, small tortoiseshell, peacock, green-veined white and small white appeared in good or average numbers during the spring and early summer of 2022 but numbers in subsequent late-summer generations were greatly reduced.

New guidelines for $2bn carbon offsetting industry aim to guide buyers towards high-quality credits

New quality standards for the $2bn carbon offsetting industry have been published to help guide buyers to high-quality credits following widespread concern that many are just hot air.

On Thursday, new guidelines for a “good” carbon credit programme were announced by the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM), an initiative that aims to reassure buyers about the quality of offsets they are buying for climate commitments and help them avoid credits that do nothing to mitigate climate change or might be linked to human rights violations.

In latest blow to Joe Biden’s reputation as the ‘climate president’, 73.3m acres of the gulf will be offered for fossil fuel extraction

An enormous swathe of the Gulf of Mexico, spanning an area the size of Italy, was put up for auction on Wednesday for oil and gas drilling, in the latest blow to Joe Biden’s increasingly frayed reputation on dealing with the climate crisis.

The president’s Department of the Interior offered up a vast area of the central and western Gulf, including plunging deep water reaches, for drilling projects that will stretch out over decades, despite scientists’ urgent warnings that fossil fuels must be rapidly phased out if the world is to avoid disastrous global heating. The auctions also come despite Biden’s own pre-election promise to halt all drilling on federal lands and waters.

Comedians and comedy programs have started to find ways to speak to the climate crisis in their work but how can something so heavy create laughter?

When David Perdue applied to be part of a climate comedy program, he felt a little out of his element: “I couldn’t recall one time I’d ever had a conversation with my friends about climate change,” said the Atlanta-based comic. Perdue, who is Black, added, “But I knew it was an issue that was going to affect people who look like me, so I wanted to use comedy to address that.”

Perdue was one of nine comedians who took part in a nine-month fellowship where they learned about climate science and solutions and collaborated on new, climate-related material. The Climate Comedy Cohort produced shorts, toured together, and pitched ideas to television networks. Their work is part of a broader effort to bring some levity to a topic that is increasingly present in everyday life.

EPA’s response to the derailment has drawn intense criticism from East Palestine residents and public health experts

The US Environmental Protection Agency’s internal watchdog division is opening an investigation into the handling of the East Palestine train wreck which caused a toxic disaster in the small Ohio town.

An agency spokesperson declined to comment on why it is launching the investigation, but a public memo from the EPA office of inspector general states that it will “conduct interviews, gather data, and analyze a variety of issues, including hazardous waste disposal, air and water monitoring, soil and sediment sampling, and risk communication”.

At two wildlife centres in the Madre de Dios region, the victims of illegal mining activities embark on a long journey of rehabilitation

“She used to fight every time I tried to feed her, but she recognises it’s me now,” says Cinthia Pariguana-Garriazo, a veterinary nurse at Taricaya eco reserve. It is 6am, and she is coaxing a squealing baby spider monkey called Rain into accepting breakfast – a syringe filled with liquefied fruit and medicine.

Rain is fed every four hours and requires regular physical contact with Pariguana-Garriazo, her primary carer. Over the next few months, she will be gradually introduced to solid food and to other spider monkeys and her contact with humans will dwindle. From there, it’s a long process of rehabilitation before her release back into the wild. Juveniles can expect to stay at Taricaya for at least three years.

Minority Labor government in NSW looking likely as two more seats called for Coalition. Follow live

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Sorry – I am told by a couple of senators that it was “technically” 4.13am.

So expect to see a few bleary-eyed senators in the coffee lines this morning.

Government’s official advisers point to ‘lost decade’ in efforts to protect lives and livelihoods

The UK is “strikingly unprepared” for the impacts of the climate crisis, according to the Climate Change Committee (CCC), which said there had been a “lost decade” in efforts to adapt for the impacts of global heating.

The CCC, the government’s official climate adviser, said climate damages will inevitably intensify for decades to come. It has warned repeatedly of poor preparation in the past and said government action was now urgently needed to protect people and their homes and livelihoods.