BusinessGreen: Diners all over the globe will soon be able to find out just how sustainable their meals are, after a new international rating system was launched today. The method developed by the Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA) scores restaurants on how they manage their energy, waste and water, as well as their sourcing of local food and treatment of staff. Since its launch in the UK in 2010, the SRA has rated more than 500 restaurants using its three-star system and is also working with Eurostar...

Guardian: BP made a record pre-tax profit in the first quarter of double its $9bn for the same period in 2012, the company announced on Tuesday, as a Norwegian regulator rebuked the company for a 2012 oil spill in the North Sea. The company's pre-tax profit was nearly $20bn in the first quarter of 2013 on a turnover of $107bn. BP was censured on Monday by Norway's Petroleum Safety Authority after a leak at a major North Sea platform. The watchdog accused BP of poor maintenance and "serious breaches of...

Guardian: BP's profits slipped in the first quarter as it emerged that the oil company had paid out more than half of the cash it has set aside to pay for damages caused by the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The company's replacement cost profit – its preferred measure because it removes one-off items and the effect of oil prices – was $4.2bn (£2.7bn) for the quarter, compared with $4.7bn for the same period last year and $3.9bn for the last quarter of 2012. It was above analysts'forecasts of $3.27bn...

BusinessGreen: Cities around Europe may have to erect flood barriers similar to the Thames Barrier that protects London from sea surges, as climate change takes hold and leads to the danger of much more destructive storms, floods, heavy rainfall and higher sea levels, Europe's environmental watchdog has warned. The effects of climate change will be so far-reaching across the continent that vineyards may have to plant new grape varieties, farmers may have to cultivate new crops and water suppliers look to technology...

Inter Press Service: The deceptively calm waters of Langa Langa Lagoon on the west coast of Malaita Island in the Solomon Islands is home to thousands of people who have lived on artificial islands for centuries. For generations the islanders in this south-west Pacific nation have employed tenacity and ingenuity to maintain their existence on these tiny low-lying man-made atolls, devoid of freshwater and arable land. But climate change is now the greatest threat to their survival. "The seas are rough and the tides...

RTCC: Pacific Island states at risk from rising sea levels have indicated they will push for compensation unless global emissions are brought under control. In a statement issued at the start of the latest round of UN climate talks, which started today in Bonn, the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) also called for any global climate deal to limit warming to below 1.5°C by the end of the century. “Work…must be driven by a sense of urgency, bearing in mind that our failure to act decisively now...

Reuters: The latest round of U.N. climate talks, a second session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP), resumed this week in Bonn, Germany. As so often seems to be the case, the meeting began against the backdrop of alarming news about climate change from the scientific community. Researchers at the Mauna Loa laboratory confirmed that atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are on track, this month, to exceed 400 parts per million for sustained lengths of...

Radio new Zealand International: A book which aims to teach primary school children in Kiribati about climate change has gained interest from around the world, with requests to print the book in several languages. The book, called, "The Children Take Action - A Climate Change Story", was developed by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme and aims to help children learn about the basics of climate change and its impacts on the environment. Seema Deo is SPREP`s communications and outreach advisor, and...

PlanetEarth: This week in the Planet Earth Podcast: Robert Mulvaney and Emilie Capron from NERC's British Antarctic Survey explain how ice cores drilled from Antarctica give us a unique window into Earth's past climate and reveal a worrying trend over the last 50 years.

LA Times: Confidential surveys of water officials, water users and others involved with the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta offer some telling insight on why the delta is stuck in a perpetual quagmire. When it comes to fixing the hub of California's water system, most parties would prefer it if someone else made the sacrifices. The surveys, conducted last year by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California and discussed in a new institute report, found that there was general agreement with scientists...

ScienceDaily: Nesting green sea turtles are benefiting from marine protected areas by using habitats found within their boundaries, according to a U.S. Geological Survey study that is the first to track the federally protected turtles in Dry Tortugas National Park. Green turtles are listed as endangered in Florida and threatened throughout the rest of their range, and the habits of green sea turtles after their forays to nest on beaches in the Southeast U.S. have long remained a mystery. Until now, it was not...

New Scientist: When did humans stamp our footprint on the planet? The idea that we have entered a geological epoch defined by our very presence – the Anthropocene – is gaining traction, but exactly when did this epoch begin? After the first atom bomb went off? At the start of the industrial revolution in the mid-18th century? Or was it a lot earlier? A new study argues that the Anthropocene began with the rise of farming or even in Neolithic times, when we took to widespread burning of the bush to hunt animals....

Associated Press: Living in a coastal town or city with seawalls and docks on the waterfront, it can be difficult to notice the sea level rise by increments each year. But effects of higher sea level are very clear down a winding dirt road in Georgetown County where acres of what was once a forested wetland have morphed into a salt marsh of dead trees jutting toward the sky. "When you go into the field, you really see a lot of trees dying. That's the first thing that catches your eye," said Alex Chow, who teaches...

Seattle Times: At Spring Creek Mine, a broad black seam of coal, reaching depths of 80 feet, runs like a subterranean river through arid, sagebrush-covered hills. This is a world-class seam formed from the remnants of ferns, grasses and other plants that flourished here more than 50 million years ago, when this part of Montana was a humid marsh. Cloud Peak Energy, operators of this mine, and other companies have proposals that could eventually double the state's coal production -- part of the push...

Knox News: Scientists cannot find traces of oil in the deep water of the Gulf of Mexico three years after the nation’s worst offshore spill, but residual toxins are still in the sediment along the coastal marshes, according to scientists at the University of Tennessee who have studied the effects of the spill. Bacteria in the Gulf was already adapted to consuming oil that naturally leaks from the ground into the water there, said Terry Hazen, a Governor’s Chair for Environmental Biotechnology at UT and Oak...

Vancouver Sun: Building a diamond mine, expanding an oil-sands mine, offshore exploration or an interprovincial bridge could soon require a federal environmental review under proposed additions and subtractions to the Harper government's new environmental rules. But provincially regulated pipelines, facilities used to process heavy oil from the oilsands, pulp and paper mills as well as some chemical plants are among those being deleted from a list of projects requiring federal environmental investigations before...

Guardian: Australia's huge coal industry is a speculative bubble ripe for financial implosion if the world's governments fulfil their agreement to act on climate change, according to a new report. The warning that much of the nation's coal reserves will become worthless as the world hits carbon emission limits comes after banking giant Citi also warned Australian investors that fossil fuel companies could do little to avoid the future loss of value. Australia is already the globe's biggest coal exporter...

Independent: The father of crocodile hunter Steve Irwin has launched a multimillion pound campaign to save Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Septugenarian Bob Irwin, whose son was killed by a stingray while diving on the reef in 2006, warned today that if people did not act now the coral would be ruined. The elderly conservationist claimed industrial activity was threatening Australia’s great natural wonder by dumping mud and rock in the reef’s waters and turning it into a shipping superhighway, “It’s...

Climate News Network: Antarctic clams (Laternula elliptica) play a vital role in the ocean ecosystem, drawing down carbon into sea-bed sediments and circulating ocean nutrients. Now a new study has found that the reproductive capacity of this long-lived and abundant species -- existing in the cold, oxygen-rich waters of the Antarctic -- could be seriously affected by rising ocean temperatures. The study, by scientists at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and from the University of Kiel and the Alfred Wegener Institute...

The Hindu: Development of a large-scale software model to examine the impact of climate change in Kerala is part of a forthcoming scientific study that will formulate an integrated climate change database and information system for the State. The proposal, estimated at Rs.80 crore, will map the impact of climate change on agriculture, fisheries, industries, transport, tourism, bio-diversity and forestry sectors in Kerala. CSIR`s (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research) National Institute of Science...