Environment

Coastal plain was up for sale as part of the Trump administration’s plan to pay for Republicans’ tax cuts with oil revenue

The Trump administration’s last-minute attempt on Wednesday to auction off part of a long-protected Arctic refuge to oil drillers brought almost zero interest from oil companies, forcing the state of Alaska into the awkward position of leasing the lands itself.

The coastal plain of the Arctic national wildlife refuge was up for sale to drillers as part of the Trump administration’s plan to pay for Republicans’ tax cuts with oil revenue. Conservatives argued the leases could bring in $900m, half for the federal government and half for the state.

After a three-year push by the Trump administration, almost no oil companies offered bids. Analysts point to controversy, low oil prices and an incoming administration that opposes drilling.

(Image credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

Environmental campaigners say failure to call in West Cumbria Mining planning application ‘jaw-dropping’

Environmental campaigners and a local MP have criticised the government’s “jaw-dropping” decision not to block the building of a “climate-wrecking coal mine”.

The communities secretary, Robert Jenrick, decided on Wednesday not to challenge the planning application for a new coal mine in Cumbria, despite opposition from Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and the MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, Tim Farron.

We are working hard to change the government’s mind on carbon fee and dividend, writes Catherine Dawson. The climate crisis cannot be solved within a continuing market economy, says Frank Jackson

In his article (There’s a simple way to green the economy – and it involves cash prizes for all, 5 January), Henry D Jacoby gives a brilliant analysis of the benefits of a carbon fee and dividend (or climate income) carbon-pricing policy and why there are some psychological barriers to its wider adoption. Citizens’ Climate Lobby is an international grassroots environmental group which has been encouraging politicians to consider adopting carbon fee and dividend (CF&D) since 2007.

CF&D has been adopted in Canada and Switzerland – although the latter does not currently tax fuel for energy while it moves towards the development of more renewable energy systems. Canadians could have replaced its implementer, Justin Trudeau, last year and ditched the policy. They didn’t.

No ships left the big ports in Queensland and NSW in December ahead of Beijing resetting coal import quotas for the new year

Hopes of an early resumption in the Australian coal trade to China have been dashed after analysis revealed no ships had left the largest export terminals in Queensland and New South Wales bound for the country last month.

Market watchers say that goes against the annual trend of ships setting off for China in December, so that they arrive for the resetting of coal import quotas at the beginning of a new calendar year.

Workers on farms supplying world’s biggest meat firms allegedly paid £8 a day and housed in shacks with no toilets or running water

Brazilian companies and slaughterhouses including the world’s largest meat producer, JBS, sourced cattle from supplier farms that made use of workers kept in slavery-like conditions, according to a new report.

Workers on cattle farms supplying slaughterhouses earned as little as £8 a day and lived in improvised shacks with no bathrooms, toilets, running water or kitchens, according to a report from Brazilian investigative agency Repórter Brasil.

Since 1995, the report said, 55,000 Brazilian workers have been rescued by government inspectors from “situations similar to slavery”. While the number of investigations has fallen in recent years – 118 workers were freed in 2018, compared with 1,045 a decade earlier – that does not mean the situation has improved, just that inspections have been reduced, it noted.

Researchers find invasive felines hunt with greater intensity, in broader environments and in greater numbers than equivalent native marsupial predator

Australia’s wildlife are at least 20 times more likely to come across a deadly feral cat than one of the country’s native predators, according to a new study.

Invasive cats, which kill billions of native animals each year, form a triple threat, the study finds, by hunting with greater intensity, in broader environments and in greater numbers than an equivalent native marsupial predator – the spotted-tailed quoll.

Mediterranean study finds subtidal populations of cockles, whelks and other species have collapsed by 90%

The world’s most devastating climate-driven loss of ocean life has been reported in the eastern Mediterranean, one of the fastest warming places on Earth.

Native mollusc populations along the coast of Israel have collapsed by about 90% in recent decades because they cannot tolerate the increasingly hot water, according to a new study, which raises concerns about the wider ecosystem and neighbouring regions.

National Grid issues urgent call for suppliers to generate extra 524MW of electricity capacity

Plunging temperatures and a drop in wind turbine power generation have pushed UK electricity market prices to a new high and prompted the National Grid to put out an urgent call for suppliers to provide extra capacity.

The National Grid control room warned that its spare electricity supplies would be “tight” this week, and on Tuesday issued an official call for generators to bring forward an extra 524 megawatts of electricity capacity within 24 hours.

• EPA rule will require release of raw data from scientific studies
• Critics fear compromising personal details and health benefits

The Environmental Protection Agency has completed one of its last major rollbacks under the Trump administration, changing how it considers evidence of harm from pollutants in a way that opponents say could cripple future public-health regulation.

Nordic country becomes first in the world where electric car sales outstrip those powered by other means

Norway became the first country in the world where the sale of electric cars has overtaken those powered by petrol, diesel and hybrid engines last year, with the German carmaker Volkswagen replacing Tesla as the top battery-vehicle producer, data shows.

Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) made up 54.3% of all new cars sold in the Nordic country in 2020, a global record, up from 42.4% in 2019 and from a mere 1% of the overall market a decade ago, the Norwegian Road Federation (OFV) said.

Sales of drilling rights are the climax to one of the nation’s highest-profile environmental battles

In one of its last strikes against the American wilderness, Donald Trump’s administration will on Wednesday auction off portions of the Arctic national wildlife refuge to oil drillers.

The lease sales are the climax to one of the nation’s highest-profile environmental battles. The lands on the northern coastal plain of Alaska are home to denning polar bears and migrating herds of Porcupine caribou that indigenous communities depend on and consider sacred. But the oil industry has long suspected that the ground beneath the plain holds billions of barrels of petroleum.

The ‘carbon dividend’ is so elegant that it seems too good to be true. Governments should make it a post-pandemic priority

Over the past year – when societies around the world have had to grapple with their greatest challenge in decades – climate change hasn’t been at the top of the agenda. But that doesn’t mean it’s gone away. Far from it – in fact, we just experienced the hottest September in 141 years, and extreme warmth recorded in the Arctic continues a disturbing trend. When the focus turns back to this ongoing existential threat, hopefully we’ll have learned some lessons from the pandemic about what can be achieved when imaginative thinking is brought to bear.

Our approach towards tackling the climate crisis is necessarily going to be multipronged. But one powerful tool is that of a carbon tax. So far, however, only a few nations have taken this route. Why?

Up to 10 million straw-coloured fruit bats descend on Zambia’s Kasanka national park every year, dispersing millions of seeds as they go

• Words and photographs by Georgina Smith

David Mubiana will always remember the day he was shot. It happened in 2002, when his unit was ambushed by poachers with AK-47 rifles and a shotgun. He was wounded in the arm and stomach; one bullet rupturing his spleen. As a wildlife police officer in Zambia’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife, his job is inherently risky.

“Even if you fall down, you have to stand up and continue fighting. If we finish our wildlife, [our children] are not going to see what we are seeing today,” he says.

Labor says the Coalition is isolated on climate change and needs to commit to net zero emissions by 2050

Australia has formally updated its United Nations climate policy without fanfare and without any improvement to its 2030 target to cut emissions, sparking criticism from Labor, the Greens and climate policy experts and campaigners.

Repeating language heard frequently in recent months, the document, submitted to the United Nations on New Year’s Eve, says Australia will “meet and beat” its declared 2030 target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 26% to 28% below 2005 levels.

Birders headed to Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park to view brightly coloured painted bunting

Hundreds of people have flocked to the Washington DC area to catch a glimpse of a new, celebrated arrival who has offered some welcome relief following a bruising year. No, it’s not Joe Biden.

Excited birders have crammed into a Maryland park, braving rain and dismally low temperatures, to witness the painted bunting, a brightly coloured bird that usually reserves its elan for the warmer climes of Florida.

Head of Energy Security Board calls for ‘agreed national emissions reduction trajectory’ among federal, state and territory governments

The Morrison government appears to be inching closer to committing to net zero emissions by 2050 as it comes under growing international pressure over climate policy, a top energy adviser has said.

Kerry Schott, head of the government’s Energy Security Board (ESB), called for national unity on energy policy after the body published a new report citing differences among Australian governments as a “challenge” to the national electricity market.

‘The whole thing that is great about the teeth of the narwhal is that nothing makes sense’

• The Nature of ... is a column dedicated to interesting animals, insects, plants and natural phenomena

There are some animals about which it is easy to forget the fact that they have teeth, so that every time they flash their grins, it is as though you are seeing a new animal. Dogs, cats of all kinds, sharks and crocodiles are not among these. Horses, rabbits, fish and geese live toothless in my mind.

Narwhals are among the actually toothless, if you discount their tusks. Inside their mouths, which are shaped in a permanently sweet smile, there are no teeth as we understand teeth to be.

But the males have a long, unicorn-like projection protruding – just off centre – from what might be described as their upper lip. I find them quite festive, like ornaments that should be hung on a Christmas tree. Maybe it’s their wintry, icicle-like tusk. I try to forget that this tusk is a tooth.

Research says planting trees in urban areas could mitigate rising temperatures

Urban regions around the world are likely to see a near-universal decrease in humidity as the climate changes, a study has found.

The research suggests that building green infrastructure and increasing urban vegetation might be a safe bet for cities looking to mitigate against rising temperatures.

Tourist drawcards Kuta and Legian beaches are being overwhelmed by up to 60 tonnes of plastic rubbish every day

Bali’s beaches have been covered in tonnes of ugly rubbish as a result of the monsoon and chronic failings in Indonesia’s waste management system.

Authorities say that between 30 and 60 tonnes of trash is being collected from the island’s most famous beaches each day.