As vast solar plants multiply, so does the scrap, set to reach 19m tonnes by 2050. But disposing of the waste often falls to informal traders who risk injury when dismantling broken panels Under the scorching sun, a sea of solar panels gleams in the semi-arid landscape. Pavagada, 100 miles north of Bengaluru in southern India, is the world’s third-largest solar power plant, with 25m panels across a huge 50 sq km site, and a capacity of 2,050MW of clean energy. India has 11 similarly vast solar parks, and plans to install another 39 across 12 states by 2026, a commitment to a greener future ..read more

Government support for green manufacturing is actually the easy part. To truly reduce emissions, we must stop digging up and burning fossil fuels Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast Last week Anthony Albanese finally announced the government’s major plan for the transition to a renewable energy economy. The Future Made in Australia plan was quickly derided by critics as “picking winners”, in the misguided view that the market is better at deciding how to tackle the climate emergency and that the mark ..read more

The Albanese government has shed little light on how billions of dollars will be divvied up. The treasurer’s ‘favourite economist’ might provide some clues Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast Edison Zhou, the head of local sales for solar giant Trina, was slightly taken aback when asked at a recent briefing in Sydney whether his firm might shift any of its panel manufacturing to Australia. After all, wasn’t Australia among the Chinese company’s top markets in the Asia-Pacific, on a par with Japan with a total demand heading towards 6 gigawatts a year? Si ..read more

London mayor expected to criticise Susan Hall in speech launching solar panels on school roofs Sadiq Khan will accuse his Conservative rival in the race to be London’s next mayor of being “Trumpian” over the climate crisis, as he announces plans for solar panels on schools. Khan is expected to acknowledge resistance to his expansion of the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) in a speech on Friday but insist that he still intends to “go further ..read more

VisitAHeatPump service allows householders to look and ask questions about low-carbon system UK householders considering swapping their gas boiler for an electric heat pump could see how they work by visiting an early adopter in their area. A new service aims to help would-be heat pump owners to book a visit with households that already have one installed, through a website launched by the innovation charity Nesta ..read more

Prime minister says government needs to be ‘more strategic and more sophisticated’ to compete globally Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast Anthony Albanese is signalling a dramatic shift to unapologetically and directly supporting Australian industry and innovation, saying the country needs “sharper elbows when it comes to marking out our national interest” and competing with the rest of the world. In a speech to be delivered to the Queensland Press Club on Thursday, the prime minister will effective ..read more

Onshore wind and solar could provide 226GWh of electricity without impairing food production, says Friends of the Earth England could produce 13 times more renewable energy than it does now, while using less than 3% of its land, analysis has found. Onshore wind and solar projects could provide enough electricity to power all the households in England two and a half times over, the research by Exeter University, commissioned by Friends of the Earth (FoE), suggested ..read more

In the state of La Guajira, ambitious plans to transition to renewables are beset by bureaucratic delays and anger from many local Indigenous people, who see it as ‘new colonialism’ Photographs by Charlie Cordero A few years ago, as age began to take its toll, Rosa Velásquez decided it was time to leave the restaurant she owned in the coastal town of Cabo de la Vela and move back home for a peaceful retirement.. However, when she returned to the tiny rural community of Jotomana, on the arid plains of Colombia’s northernmost tip, she found the place she and her ancestors had called home for g ..read more

Country needs to speed up environmental response to protect its ageing population, multinational study finds In 2005 Beijing was crowned the smog capital of the world. Concerns about air pollution and athlete health overshadowed preparations for the 2008 Olympic Games and required industry and traffic shutdowns to clean the air during the event itself. Now, a team of researchers at Chinese, German and Canadian universities have tracked the impacts of deteriorating air at that time. They found that particle pollution deaths in China were increasing at about 213,000 a year and peaked at 2.6mn pe ..read more

While Toyota falls in line on vehicle emission standards, an expert takes a dim view of ‘solar sunshot’ and the carbon offsets that aren’t Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast The news cycle moves fast. There was a cascade of climate news as the country slowed down for Easter last week. Here’s some of what you might have seen, what you might have missed, and a look at what it means. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup ..read more