Campaigners welcome move but say success depends on enforcement and global agreement on a treaty

Thailand has banned plastic waste imports over concerns about toxic pollution, as experts warn that failure to agree a global treaty to cut plastic waste will harm human health.

A law banning imports of plastic waste came into force this month in Thailand, after years of campaigning by activists. Thailand is one of several south-east Asian countries that has historically been paid to receive plastic waste from developed nations. The country became a leading destination for exports of plastic waste from Europe, the US, the UK and Japan in 2018 after China, the world’s biggest market for household waste, imposed a ban.

Waterways can protect biodiversity, help with water security and keep cities cooler, says Canal & River Trust

Protecting the UK’s canals is crucial for improving the nation’s resilience to climate change, campaigners have said.

A report by the Canal & River Trust charity found canals could play a “critical role” in biodiversity, decarbonisation and climate adaptation.

Once known for landgrabs, shootouts and slash-and-burn farming, Paragominas has halted deforestation to become a model of sustainable growth in a region charred by wildfires

It’s 9am and the sun is already high above a parched Amazon. Not even stray dogs are out on the asphalt in Paragominas today, but Adnan Demachki knows just the retreat. Turning right off state highway PA-125, the former mayor and native of this restless frontier town of 105,000 people in northern Brazil pulls up to the municipal park a five-minute drive from the town centre.

Inside, a shaded boardwalk winds through the forest to a green-hued lake complete with lily pads and a sculpted serpent rising from the waters. Macaws squawk in the canopy near a soaring sumaúma tree, the giant of the rainforest.

The beloved conservationist, who died in 1995, would have turned 100 today. A new collection, Myself and Other Animals, traces the origins of his lifelong rapture with animals

As a toddler, Gerald Durrell was on a walk when he peered over the side of the road and spotted two creatures. “They were gently sliding over each other in what looked like a dance. They were a pale coffee colour with black, ridged stripes. They were glutinous and beautiful”.

This rather flattering description of two slugs writhing in a ditch opens a new collection of writings by the beloved conservationist, who died in 1995 and would have turned 100 today, and it sets the tone for the book: all animals should be considered miraculous, conventional looks aside.

Special rapporteur Elisa Morgera criticizes ‘ineffective’ status quo and says focus must be on ‘deep, systemic inequalities’

The international effort to avert climate catastrophe has become mired by misinformation and bad faith actors, and must be fundamentally reformed, according to a leading UN climate expert.

Elisa Morgera, the UN special rapporteur on climate change, said the annual UN climate summits and the consensus-based, state-driven process is dominated by powerful forces pushing false narratives and by tech fixes that divert attention from real, equitable solutions for the countries least responsible and most affected.

The ex-president was a pioneer on renewable energy and land conservation but his 1980 defeat was a ‘fork in the road’

When a group of dignitaries and journalists made a rare foray to the roof of the White House, Jimmy Carter had something to show them: 32 solar water-heating panels.

“A generation from now,” the US president declared, “this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.”

‘Future homes standard’ will not mandate replacing boilers with environmentally friendly alternative

The government is to scrap the 2035 ban on gas boilers in its new housebuilding standards.

The previous Conservative government had laid plans to phase out gas heating for homes by banning the sale of new gas boilers by 2035, so people replacing their gas boilers after that date would instead have to buy a heat pump or other environmentally friendly way of heating homes.

British chef Mike Keen paddled up the coast of Greenland eating only what local people did, and the health benefits led him to question the global food system

For a period of two months last year, a typical day for chef Mike Keen would see him skipping breakfast and lunch in favour of snacks such as dried capelin (a small bait fish), dried halibut, jerky-like dried whale and a local Greenlandic whale skin and blubber treat called mattak.

Mike Keen eats fermented seal blood in Sermilik fjord, east Greenland. Photograph: Mike Keen

Global heating is supercharging storms, floods and droughts, affecting entire ecosystems and billions of people

The climate crisis is “wreaking havoc” on the planet’s water cycle, with ferocious floods and crippling droughts affecting billions of people, a report has found.

Water is people’s most vital natural resource but global heating is changing the way water moves around the Earth. The analysis of water disasters in 2024, which was the hottest year on record, found they had killed at least 8,700 people, driven 40 million from their homes and caused economic damage of more than $550bn (£445bn).

Exploring the aberration, absurdity, madness and ingenuity of skiing, an activity that raises both questions and concerns despite its global success. It continues to fascinate and intrigue in the face of social and environmental upheavals. There are more than 2,000 resorts scattered across the world, attracting hundreds of millions of skiers, but there are also profound questions about its future amid climate challenges and societal changes

Watch Duty – which began in California and has expanded across 14 states – alerted the public to more than 9,000 wildfires in 2024

Cristy Thomas began to panic as she called 911 for the second time on a warm October day but couldn’t get through. She anxiously watched the plume of black smoke pouring over her rural community in central California get larger.

Then she heard a familiar ping.

UK diners are increasingly turning to the versatile, nutritious fish

For millions of Britons, smoked salmon on blinis or dill-laden gravadlax is a party staple. But restaurants and home cooks are increasingly choosing trout instead.

Trout sales are up 36% year on year at Waitrose, with raw trout seeing the biggest increase, up more than 60%. Over at online retailer Ocado, trout sales have jumped higher – up 54% year on year.

While the EU and US hesitate, the UK can become world leader in this burgeoning – and cruelty-free – innovation

If the pet food industry were a country, it would rank as the world’s 60th biggest emitter of carbon dioxide. In countries such as the US, researchers estimate that pet food accounts for about a quarter of total meat consumption. And as the number of pets grows, the environmental impact looks set to increase. But the British government may have unlocked a solution. This year, the UK became the only country in Europe to approve the use of lab-grown meat in pet food.

Lab-grown meat may sound futuristic, but the process is actually straightforward. It starts with the harvesting of a small number of animal cells, then the cells are fed essential nutrients to help them replicate and grow, similar to a yeast culture on a petri dish. But unlike a whole living animal, there are fewer limitations on size, there are no welfare concerns, and the setup does not require such vast land, water and energy resources.

Lucy McCormick is an analytics manager at the Guardian and a writer on economics, politics and current affairs

Factory closures highlight the turbulent shift to a green economy, exposing political challenges and the urgent need for a equitable move to net zero

One of the biggest political battles of the future began to take shape in 2024, yet it did not centre on Westminster. Instead, try Grangemouth in central Scotland, Port Talbot in south Wales and Luton in the south of England. Their stories were not front-page staples, but each was of huge significance – locally, nationally and economically.

Grangemouth is Scotland’s sole oil refinery, whose owners confirmed in September that it would shut, to be replaced by a terminal taking in imported fuel – with nearly 400 workers losing their jobs. In the last days of September, the only remaining blast furnace at Port Talbot was shut down, as part of a restructuring that will cost 2,800 employees their jobs. At the end of November, staff at Vauxhall in Luton were told the plant would shut, ending 120 years of the carmaker’s association with the town and putting between 1,100 and 2,000 jobs at risk. One result was two days of protests in the town a week before Christmas.

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The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world

Experts say sighting of orca in Puget Sound with second deceased calf is ‘devastating’ for ailing population

An apparently grieving killer whale who swam more than 1,000 miles (1,600km) pushing the body of her dead newborn has lost another calf and is again carrying the body, a development researchers say is a “devastating” loss for the ailing population.

The Washington state-based Center for Whale Research said the orca, known as Tahlequah, or J35, was spotted in the Puget Sound area with her deceased calf.

Pragmatism will win over purism, unless the government favours early closure for car manufacturers

The main timetable is set: no new petrol and diesel cars will be allowed to be sold in the UK after 2030, and sales of all new hybrids will be forbidden from 2035. But that phasing still leaves open the critical matter – for the automotive industry, and for a couple of manufacturers in particular – of which new hybrids will be allowed to be sold until the last day of 2034.

Just the variety that comes with a socket – plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs)? Or should old-style hybrids, such as the Toyota Prius, which have smaller batteries charged by a main internal combustion engine, also be permitted?

Across Toronto, a team sets out at dawn to rescue migrating birds that have collided with buildings, and keep a record of the thousands each year that don’t make it

Every morning at dawn, a dozen volunteers scour the streets of Toronto picking up small birds. Some days they will find hundreds of them, most already dead or dying. A few they are able to save. Live birds are put in brown paper bags and driven to wildlife recovery centres, while dead birds are put in a large freezer. If no one picks them up, their carcasses are swept up by street cleaners.

“One of my first days was really horrific,” says Sohail Desai, a volunteer with the charity Fatal Light Awareness Program (Flap) Canada, which has about 135 people patrolling the streets across Toronto. Desai was walking close to his house in the North York area in Toronto when a flock of golden-crowned kinglets flew into a 15-storey glass building.

Bowhead whales may not be the only species that can live to 200 years old. Researchers have found that the industrial hunting of great whales has masked the ability of these underwater giants to also live to great ages

In Moby-Dick, Herman Melville’s epic novel of 1851, the author asks if whales would survive the remorseless human hunt. Yes, he says, as he foresees a future flooded world in which the whale would outlive us and “spout his frothed defiance to the skies”.

Moby Dick was a grizzled old sperm whale that had miraculously escaped the harpoons. But a new scientific paper is set to prove what oceanic peoples – such as the Inuit, Maōri and Haida – have long believed: that whales are capable of living for a very long time. Indeed, many more than we thought possible may have been born before Melville wrote his book.

I want to give my kids that overarching sense of a single summer going on all through childhood, a door to a memory they can open any time

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You never step into the same river twice. But you can step into the same ocean, or so it seems, each January when we take that first swim: ducking our heads under a wave to feel the rush of cold and the sting of salt, shaking like dogs when we emerge, washed clean of the year just gone.

When I was a child, it was Phillip Island: a green canvas tent in my grandfather’s back yard; a chipped foam surfboard rasping against my skin as I lay on it, just floating in the channel between the island and the mainland, never daring to go into the actual surf. It was the acrid smoke of mozzie coils and the oily texture of the battered flake from the fish and chip shop. Showers under the tank stand; the sun burning our skin until it peeled.

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Jenny Sinclair is a Melbourne journalist and writer of creative nonfiction and fiction

I wind my thread around their holes to create sculptures that connect with ageing and time

I have collected hundreds and hundreds of broken shells. I select them by holding them up to the sea, looking at the shape of them and deciding whether I want to work with them – and whether they will work with my thread.

To me, a shell that is broken is more interesting than a shell that is perfect. A broken shell has lived a life. I can see what the sea has done to it, what has happened to it on the rocks and stones. We spend so much of our lives searching for or trying to obtain perfection. But as I’ve got older, I’ve realised that perfection is unattainable – and the search isn’t worth it.

Part of an international initiative to combat organised wildlife crime, similar seizures in Australia and Norway have recovered more than 50,000 eggs

More than 6,000 eggs have been seized in the biggest haul of its kind in UK history, after police carried out raids in Scotland, South Yorkshire, Essex, Wales and Gloucester. Thousands of eggs were found secreted in attics, offices and drawers.

The UK raids took place in November as part of Operation Pulka, an international effort to tackle organised wildlife crime – specifically the taking, possessing and trading of wild birds’ eggs. The raids began in June 2023 in Norway, and resulted in 16 arrests and the seizure of 50,000 eggs. In Australia, an estimated 3,500 eggs have been seized, worth up to A$500,000 (£250,000).

Protests, Taylor Swift and chubby penguins are all part of the best images from the wire agencies in 2024

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The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world

Grey seals are growing in numbers on England’s east coast as a result of environmental safe havens and cleaner North Sea waters

It is a cold winter’s day to be lying on a beach, but the seal pup suckling from its mother doesn’t mind. A few metres away, a pregnant seal is burrowing into the sand, trying to get comfortable, while a third seal, which has just given birth, is touching noses with her newborn pup.

The shoreline – a mass of seals and their white pups – is one of Britain’s greatest wildlife success stories: a grey seal colony on the east Norfolk coast.

Rising temperatures are pushing these Arctic mammals ever farther into Greenland’s north. But eventually there will be nowhere left for them to go

Built like a small bison, weighing as much as a grand piano and covered in thick, shaggy coat, the musk ox is one of the most distinctive species in the high Arctic. But from a hill on Greenland’s tundra, they seem impossible to find.

Each bush, rock and clump of grass resembles a mass of wool and horns in the blustery chill on the edge of the island’s enormous polar ice cap. Scanning the shimmering landscape with binoculars, Chris Sørensen looks for signs of movement.

A rise in the number of remarriages and a baby boom in the years since 2004 gave hope to survivors and helped them cope with the tragedy

It was Mahyuddin’s mother who had pestered him to go out on Sunday morning, 20 years ago. Dozens of relatives were visiting their small coastal village in Indonesia for a wedding party, but a powerful earthquake had struck just before 8am. Buildings in some areas had collapsed. He should go and check on his employer’s office to see if they needed help, his mother said.

As he drove into town, he found chaos and panic. The road was heavy with traffic: cars, motorbikes, trucks, all rushing in the same direction. People were running, shouting that water was coming.

For the past decade, the Barcelona-based visual artist Xavi Bou has devoted his work to revealing “the hidden beauty of natural movement”. His initial focus was birds; now he’s moved on to insects. In collaboration with US entomologist Adrian Smith he’s created an eye-popping series that captures – by merging multiple frames into a single image – the rhythmic flutterings of butterflies and chaotic leaps of spittlebugs and treehoppers. As well as their beauty, Bou was struck by the crucial role that insects play in ecosystems, even as their numbers plummet – it’s estimated that the biomass of flying insect species has decreased by 75% over the past 27 years. “We need to move beyond seeing insects as mere nuisances,” says Bou. “They are fascinating, essential creatures, and we owe them a great deal.”

• See more of Xavi Bou’s images here

From break dancing to nude bathers and the country’s best mullets, here’s a selection of our photographers’ finest work

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world