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Decision was widely expected after lobbying by Shell but will dismay environmental campaigners
The UK government has approved the controversial Jackdaw gasfield in the North Sea, a widely expected move that will nonetheless dismay environmental campaigners and a number of Labour MPs.
While Labour’s 2024 election manifesto committed to a ban on new drilling licences in the North Sea, the companies behind Jackdaw and the Rosebank oilfield project, which is being decided on separately, have sought environmental approval for existing licences.
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Action needed to avoid disastrous overshoot of climate targets, according to organisation’s environment body
The world needs to cut carbon emissions by nearly a fifth in the next four years, and by close to half within a decade, to avoid overshooting climate targets by a disastrous margin.
Although the “window has closed” on holding temperature rises to 1.5C, in line with scientific advice, limiting the “overshoot” of that target is still possible, according to the UN Environment Programme (Unep).
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As glaciers melt and permafrost thaws, Longyearbyen, on the remote Arctic islands of Svalbard, faces climate-induced problems from tap water to housebuilding to landslides
• Heavy metals make Norwegian village’s tap water toxic
On a rugged mountain plateau of snow-dusted rocks, in the remote archipelago of Svalbard, a glaciologist, Andy Hodson, points out the “ears” of ice, white against the rock, that gave Foxfonna glacier its name, after the arctic fox.
The small glacier, on a mountain 8 miles (15km) outside the Norwegian village of Longyearbyen, is a popular summer hike for tourists who come here seeking the Arctic experience.
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As Cop17 kicks off, records since 1921 show more bee species declining than increasing in all parts of Europe except the Alps
Most of Europe’s wild bee species and about half of its hover fly species have declined over the last century, a study has found, as a UN biodiversity summit begins in Armenia.
Records since 1921 show more bee species are declining than increasing in all parts of Europe except the Alpine region. The richness of bee and hover fly species suffered a persistent drop in the Atlantic and Continental regions, the study found, though trends in other regions were mixed or even positive.
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Amateur wildlife photographer Rhys Morgan has caught extraordinary footage of one of the largest whale species on Earth.
While sailing off the Pembrokeshire coast in Wales, Morgan and his friends spotted the blowholes of a fin whale in the distance, recognisable by the hooked fin near its tail, a dark grey upper body, white belly, and an asymmetrical jaw that is dark on the left and white on the right.
People who have enjoyed the video online are trying to raise awareness of fin whales being hunted in Iceland and calling on government ministers to take action
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Poole, Dorset: At this time of year, migrants are constantly on the move here, whether leaving, arriving or just stopping to refuel
With the sadness of our summer migrants departing the UK for another year comes the joy of our wintering birds returning. Working in conservation at Poole harbour, I’m out most days, connected to the ebb and flow of this change.
As it is one of the largest natural harbours in the world, and located on the East Atlantic Flyway, birds are constantly on the move here, whether leaving, arriving or stopping to refuel.
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Researchers say almost 90% of participants in unconditional basic income scheme in Peru adopted environmentally beneficial practices
A pioneering project to provide Indigenous people in the Peruvian Amazon with an unconditional basic income has contributed to the protection of the rainforest, according to a study.
The analysis from the University of Bath is expected to contribute to a growing debate about the role of direct payments to communities that maintain globally important ecosystems.
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These yachts are highly popular with the ‘super-bourgeoisie’ – and getting bigger. Can anything be done to stop them destroying our seas?
Who knew? Apparently everyone did, apart from me: you don’t wear shoes on a superyacht. Now, about to step on to my first teak deck at the Monaco Yacht Show, I’ve got to take my trainers off, and I’m having a sock panic. Have they got holes? Do they even match? Do they smell?
To be honest, I’ve come dressed all wrong for Europe’s big annual superyacht trade exhibition. The code for men seems to be crisp and tucked in, blazers and chinos, navy and white, sculpted hair and designer sunnies. (I went colourful, loose, casual). For women, it’s something like Riviera elegance. Everyone – whether they’re Italian, French, English, German, American, exhibitors, buyers, brokers, charterers – seems to know each other. The international superyacht community seems to be a close-knit one, and I’m not part of it. Yet.
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Inspired by a gothic cathedral partly built using human bones, this gleaming monument to recycling boasts 82,000 bricks derived from construction waste – following a two-day brick-making festival
Museums often try to reflect the world around them, but rarely are they made so literally of their surroundings as the new design museum in Ghent. Rising above the Belgian city’s medieval tiled rooftops like an angular white watchtower, the new building has vacuumed up the city’s condemned concrete frames, windows, car windscreens, sinks and old toilets, and transformed them, phoenix-like, into a gleaming monument to recycling.
“There’s nothing new about reuse,” says Andy Groarke, co-founder of Carmody Groarke, the London-based architects who designed the €20m (£17m) project with local firms Atama and Re-st. “We’ve just forgotten how to do it.”
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Every sun-dappled object is an instrument as composer Dom Coyote and sound designers Elena Peña and Dave Price conjure trip-hop-inspired rhythms in the Mendips for a new stage adaptation
The woodland is stuck to our skin. Sound designers Elena Peña and Dave Price are hunched next to me, burying a microphone into mossy ground. Composer Dom Coyote is listening on headphones, crunching out a rhythm with his boot before shucking his shoes for a subtler sound. “It’s got to be socks off, Dom,” says Price. Coyote obliges, the balls of his feet soon covered in dead conifer needles. “Do you wish you’d had a pedicure now?” Peña asks.
It’s a short drive from Bristol to this patch on the Mendip Hills, where pine cones and rowan berries scatter at the entrance to the trees. We’re on the hunt for sounds to orchestrate a staging of Max Porter’s novel Lanny. The adaptation by Somerset-based Bea Roberts moves the spectral story of a lost boy and a mulch-guzzling creature from commuting-distance-to-London to commuting-distance-to-Bristol, with director Nancy Medina wanting the show’s sound to exist within the city’s historical music scene. “A kind of trip-hop world,” says Coyote, who is exploring this idea by replacing electronic beats with those of the natural world. “So we need to go and play the forest.” Every sun-dappled object becomes an instrument. Up on his feet, Price tests out a rhythm on a deep-timbred trunk. He points to the tree. “Any notes for the snare drum department?”
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