food for health

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We asked for your pictures of trees in leaf to mark the launch of our new nature photography project. Here is a pick of the best

Don't let the tube strike defeat you. Our tips on on how to cycle past the the queues

If you are a London commuter dreading tube strike chaos this evening and tomorrow there is an alternative to fighting your way on to overcrowded buses or a long walk.

Whether you are a lapsed cyclist nervous about busy roads, or don't even have a bike, here's our practical guide to cycling to work:

• I don't have a bike. If you're really keen, this could be the perfect excuse to fork out for a two-wheeled steed. London Cycling Campaign has lots of advice on what to look for in a new bike plus the accessories like lights and a lock that are pretty essential. Alternatively, you could try hiring a bike for a couple of days, or sign up for the new central London cycle hire scheme. It costs just a pound to access the scheme for a day with usage charges varying depending on how long you use the bike for (up to 30 minutes is free). That won't get you into work from the suburbs, but if you are commuting into a central terminus like Liverpool Street or Charing Cross then a hire bike would take you the rest of the way.

• I haven't used my bike for a while. If your bike has been rusting at the back of the garage for a few months (or even years), you may not be confident it is actually safe to ride. LCC has a step by step guide to simple safety checks. If all is not well, they also have advice on how to fix some of the basic problems.

• Isn't it dangerous? London cycling certainly demands that you have your wits about you, but it is not the suicidal activity that some people think. There are now more than half a million cycle journeys in the capital every day - nearly double the figure in 2000. And cyclists experience roughly the same fatality risk per kilometre travelled as pedestrians.

For nervous cyclists who prefer strength in numbers, TFL is organising escorted rides from the following locations at 8am on the morning of 7th September:

• Ravenscourt park to Trafalgar Square; meeting point main entrance on Kings road
• Finsbury Park to St Paul's; meeting point entrance to Finsbury Park on Seven Sisters Road
• Mile End to St Paul's (utilising Barclays Cycle Superhighway route 3); meeting point corner of Mile End Road and Burdett Road at entrance to the park
• Swiss Cottage to Moorgate; meeting point junction of Eton avenue and Adamson Road
• Brixton to the West End (utilising the Barclays Cycle Superhighway route 7); meeting point the Ritzy cinema
• Clapham Common to the City (utilising the Barclays Cycle Superhighway route 7); meeting point the bandstand on the common

• How do I avoid main roads? Transport for London has a handy "Journey planner" in the top right hand corner of its homepage for cyclists. It is designed to help you stick to safer roads. TFL also has a set of cycle maps which can be picked up at bike shops or ordered online. The londoncyclist blog has a great round up of online route-finding tools. And the much criticised Barclays superhighways are an option if you happen to have one near you.

If you have any tips for beating the strike with your bike please share them below.

Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki have both been found guilty of theft and trespass after intercepting a box of whale meat

Two anti-whaling activists were today found guilty of theft and trespass while attempting to expose embezzlement in Japan's heavily subsidised whaling industry.

Greenpeace members Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki were each sentenced to one year in prison, suspended for three years. Prosecutors had sought 18-month terms for the "Tokyo Two".

Sato and Suzuki intercepted a 23kg (50lb) box of whale meat at a delivery depot in the northern city of Aomori in 2008, claiming it had been stolen by a member of the country's whaling crew.

The meat, worth about 60,000 yen, was part of a much larger quantity habitually taken from the Nisshin Maru, the fleet's mother ship, and sold for personal profit, they said.

"This sentence is totally disproportionate and completely undeserved," Suzuki said after the ruling at Aomori district court. "We set out to reveal the truth about the government's whaling programme, but instead have been punished, while those behind the misuse of public money walk free."

The Institute of Cetacean Research, a quasi-governmental body that organises the annual hunts, insists that members of the crew traditionally take home small amounts of meat as gifts for their families after spending months at sea.

The International Whaling Commission permits Japan to kill about 950 whales a year for "scientific research," despite a 1986 ban on commercial whaling. The meat from the culls is sold on the open market in Japan.

Suzuki, 43, and Sato, 33 who were alerted to embezzlement by a member of the whaling crew, took their findings to the authorities in May 2008 after a three-month Greenpeace investigation into the whistleblower's claims.

Some whalers would take home between five and 10 boxes of whale meat, which fetches about 20,000 yen a kilo when sold legally, the whistleblower, known only as "Kujira-san" (Mr Whale), told the Guardian in an interview.

Prosecutors decided not to pursue the case and instead arrested the activists. They were held for 23 days without charge, during which they were interrogated while strapped to chairs and compared them to members of Aum Supreme Truth, the doomsday cult that carried out the fatal gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995.

"In the international court of public opinion, Junichi and Toru were acquitted a long time ago," Kumi Naidoo, director of Greenpeace International, told reporters in Aomori. "Their actions were not of a criminal nature, they were acting in the public interest and to expose the mass theft of Japanese taxpayers' money.

"We appeal to the Japanese government to launch an independent commission of inquiry to explore the initial allegations made by Junichi and Toru."

The dispersal of tiny sea creatures in Antarctica has alerted scientists to the vulnerability of Earth's ice sheets

Bryozoans make unlikely prophets of doom. Nevertheless, scientists believe these tiny marine creatures, which live glued to the side of boulders, rocks and other surfaces, reveal a disturbing aspect about Antarctica that has critical implications for understanding the impact of climate change.

British Antarctic Survey researchers have found the dispersal of these minute animals suggests a sea passage once divided Antarctica 125,000 years ago. The discovery was made for the ongoing Census of Antarctic Marine Life project and involved comparing bryozoans from the Ross and Weddell seas. These two seas are separated by the west Antarctic ice sheet, one of the planet's largest masses of ice. Bryozoans found in the Ross and Weddell seas should have been fairly different in structure if the sheet had been stable and ancient. The two populations would have slowly evolved in different manners, if the sheet was millions of years old.

But Dr David Barnes and his team discovered that the two populations were almost identical, indicating the two seas must have been connected by a major sea passage in the recent past, around 125,000 years ago. "What we've got is this group of animals that don't disperse very well because the adults don't move at all and the larvae are short-lived and sink, so they find it difficult to get around," says Barnes. "So you're left with this nice signal of where things used to be connected and, in this case, it appears to be a connection between what is now an ice sheet."

The impact of the west Antarctica ice sheet melting sufficiently to let a major sea passage extend through it would have been considerable. A complete collapse of the sheet today would lead to a sea-level rise of between 11ft and 16ft, for example, though the event uncovered by Barnes may only have been a partial one. Nevertheless, the research indicates that the great ice sheet, once thought to be impregnable, is really highly vulnerable.

Does it make environmental sense for supermarkets to truck our food via a centralised 'hub'?

I saw the news story in the Guardian on Saturday about the Cornish clotted cream which travels 340 miles just to be stacked on a shelf in a supermarket two miles from the dairy where it was produced.

At first, I thought this sounded bonkers, but the more I thought about it the less I was convinced this was as silly as it might first appear.

Yes, it would make better sense for that individual store to take delivery of the clotted cream direct from the dairy rather than see it go on a roundtrip to the supermarket's distribution centre at Bristol, but if you applied this logic to every item in a supermarket you would quickly lose the economies of scale gained when operating a centralised system. Are the supermarkets taking a unfair rap on this particular issue?

M Hartfield, by email

Food miles are a far more complicated, nuanced issue than is often portrayed, as we've discussed many times before on this site. Examples can be found to support both sides of the debate.

However, the specific issue of how supermarkets move food around the country (as opposed to, say, the air-freighting of food) is one angle of the debate that riles many people, particularly when case studies such as these tubs of clotted cream are presented. Should our motorways be busy with trucks taking food up and down the country via centralised distribution hubs? Couldn't a more intelligent system be devised which allowed local products to remain within their region for consumption and avoid these "needless" journeys?

Many supermarkets now boast that they stock local produce, but it often transpires that it, too, can get sent hundreds of miles away to be packaged and then distributed. In this situation, should this produce even be marketed as "local"?

Coincidentally, a recent article in the New York Times by Stephen Budiansky (and a subsequent blog) criticising the "locavore" movement has attracted a lot of attention online. He has made some reasoned - if not necessarily original - observations about why slavishly following the "local food" mantra is not always a good thing. Some of his arguments might act as fuel to the debate here.

And in a slight tweak to the regular Ask Leo format, instead of returning on Friday to round up and respond to the comments left here, I am now going to monitor and react to the comments as they are posted over the first couple of days. I feel the crowd-sourcing element to these discussions has been really constructive and I'm keen to promote it as much as possible. A "live", conversational thread should, I hope, help us to penetrate and analyse these topics in even greater depth. Definitive answers to many of the topics we discuss here are elusive and a highly collaborative approach seems to make sense. I hope you agree.

• Please send your own environment question to ask.leo.and.lucy@guardian.co.uk.
Or, alternatively, message me on Twitter @leohickman

Michael Tait visits Scotland's western Highlands to meet Stephen and Jo Wanderley, practitioners of the 4000 year old art of falconry

S2C Global Systems is promising tanker deliveries but high cost might make it just a pipe dream

Imagine an oil tanker plowing through the ocean, hauling valuable cargo from resource-rich nations of the world to the countries that need it: but instead of oil, the tanker holds millions of gallons of fresh water.

It's not a vision from some futuristic film or doomsday novel, but the present-day intention of companies trying to launch the bulk water export business. The idea has been around since the 1990's, yet no one has succeeded in making it a practical reality.

But last July, the US company S2C Global Systems, Inc. became the latest bulk water wanna-be by announcing it would begin shipping water from Alaska to India within the next six to eight months. Using large class vessels that can hold 50 million gallons at a time, S2C plans to sell the water for both manufacturing and drinking purposes to countries around the Arabian Sea.

"I think it's a dream," said Peter Gleick, a scientist and international water expert, in an interview with SolveClimate News. Gleick is President of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security. "I don't think bulk water transfers of any significant volume are ever going to happen, because the cost of moving water, especially across the ocean, is so high."

Rod Bartlett, managing partner of Alaska Resource Management (a partnership between S2C and True Alaska Bottling), told SolveClimate News that S2C is finalizing legal issues and logistics for a "World Water Hub" on the western coast of India. Once it's built, the hub will be a distribution point from which the company plans to deliver water to target destinations in the Middle East and northern Africa.

"Every nation within a four-day target of the hub is a potential customer or client that will need fresh water," said Bartlett. Without revealing specific details, Bartlett added that S2C has received both spoken and "written expressions of interest."

The water S2C plans to export will come from Alaska's Blue Lake near the city of Sitka, about 90 miles southwest of Juneau. Since 1999, Sitka has promoted itself as a source for bulk water exports; True Alaska Bottling owns the water rights to 8 million gallons per day from Blue Lake.

As to why humans would want to move water around the world, Bartlett explained: "(You move the water) because you can't move the population." Most of the world's freshwater is found near the Poles, while most people live closer to the equator.

Population growth, urbanization and irrigation place are creating increasing demand for water. But climate change is exacerbating the problem of supply, most notably in the Himalayan region, often referred to as Asia's water tower.

According to a report from King's College in London, about two-thirds of the Himalayan glaciers are shrinking, and decreased runoff will affect water levels in ten major rivers. All together, the rivers' drainage basins are home to 1.3 billion people—close to one-fifth of the world's population.

Many of them live in India. S2C originally chose to build their hub there because they couldn't find an appropriate port in the Middle East. But now, said Bartlett, "as you continue to look at the potential in India, it's going to be a natural place to sell water soon, no question about it."

Desalinated Water 18 Times Cheaper
The idea of moving vast quantities of water is hardly new. The Romans did it with aqueducts; today, California pipes the Colorado River's water hundreds of miles into its cities and farms. But when you ship water more than 1000 or 1500 miles, said Gleick, "the diesel costs kill you."

International water shipments do occur on small geographic scales. In 1997, Greece began shipping water to the island of Aegina, 13 miles from the Greek coast. Singapore currently imports freshwater from Malaysia but vowed to build desalination plants for increased water security. A plan for Turkey to sell water to Israel was recently suspended due to political tension between the two nations.

What S2C has proposed—moving water halfway around the world, 50 million gallons at a time—is on a scale that dwarfs existing bulk water transfer efforts.

The biggest problem, said Gleick, is that S2C will be competing with desalination plants, which are very popular in the Middle East. "Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are almost completely dependent on desalinated (sea)water."

Water from desalination plants costs about $1/cubic meter (this price includes the cost of building and running the plant), said Gleick. According to Bartlett, it will cost S2C $18/cubic meter to move the water from Alaska to India.

In order to make a profit, the company would then have to mark up the price before selling to customers. Some of the water will be sold in bulk to pharmaceuticals and manufacturers; the rest will be bottled for drinking. And after days in storage on board the ship, the water will need further processing before it's clean enough to sell, further adding to the company's costs.

Despite the abundance of cheap desalinated water, Bartlett believes that desalination has its drawbacks. In an email to SolveClimate News, he wrote that the process of purifying seawater has environmental impacts (such as pollution from the fossil fuels that power the plant). He also said that the desalinated water can leach minerals out of pipes, making the water less palatable.

Gleick acknowledged that the price of desalinated water doesn't take into account the environmental costs. However, he said that the mineral-leaching problem comes from overly purified water and can be easily solved. Plant operators will either add minerals back into the desalinated water or mix it with existing tapwater. "This is routine (at) desalination plants."

"(The process of) reverse osmosis can turn seawater into potable water," said Gleick. After that, "you basically tune the system to the kind of water you want."

Nevertheless, Bartlett was optimistic about his company's future. In his opinion, S2C overcame a major hurdle by finding a deepwater port in India that can accommodate the large class vessels. It also helps that the ports at either end are quipped to load and unload the water quickly. Every day that a ship sits in port costs the company $50,000-$60,000.

But all those problems, said Gleick, are insignificant compared to the cost of transport. At the end of the day, S2C's water is more than 18 times more expensive than existing sources.

Move to Ban Water Exports
Logistics and pricing aside, the mere idea of turning water into another internationally traded commodity has drawn mixed reactions.

Canada, which owns more freshwater resources than any other country, is moving to ban bulk exports. Greenland, Iceland and New Zealand are searching for investors.

Bartlett argued that bulk water trade would hardly make a difference in the grand scheme of things. For context, S2C's maximum potential allocation from Blue Lake is 12 billion gallons per year (37,000 acre-feet), less than one percent of California's yearly allotment (4.4 million acre-feet) from the Colorado River.

Bartlett said that S2C hopes to build two more Water Hubs, one in the Caribbean and another near eastern China.

Gleick remained doubtful about the success of the India venture: "I would be hugely surprised if this passed any economic or practical test…until I see a contract and an actual shipment, I'm going to remain skeptical."

Discuss the day's big stories, tell us what we should be covering, and keep in touch with us on Twitter and Facebook

Welcome to our new blog series, Environment Weekly.

This is your space to post your links and tips below on the big stories we should be covering this week.

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Comments close at 5pm today. You can keep in touch with us throughout the week on Twitter and Facebook

Angela Merkel's coalition government decides to lengthen service of plants by average of 12 years

The German government today agreed to extend the working lives of its nuclear reactors by an average of 12 years, in a controversial move that will shape the energy strategy of Europe's largest nation for decades to come.

Having put the seal on a deal that was hammered out after lengthy talks between politicians and power companies, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, hailed it as a "revolution in energy provision". She said it would help to ensure Germany's place at the forefront of "the most environmentally and worldwide most efficient" energy policy.

Under the agreement, the four power companies E.ON, RWE, EnBW and Vattenfall have agreed to pay the German government €30bn (£25bn) to allow the operating lives of its 17 nuclear plants to be extended. The companies will also pay €2.3bn in nuclear-fuel rods tax over the next six years, as well as an annual €300m for the next two years and €200m between 2013 and 2016 into a special renewable energy investment fund.

The decision marks a turnaround on the decision reached almost a decade ago under the Social Democratic (SPD) and Green party coalition of Gerhard Schröder to phase out nuclear power early in the next decade.

Opposition politicians and environmental groups referred to today variously as "heartbreaking" and "a black day".

Sigmar Gabriel, leader of the SPD, said it was a "black day for energy policy", and accused the government of selling out to the energy lobby. "The security of the Germans has been sold to four large companies," he said. "Never before has the impression been given so shamefacedly that politics can be bought."

The decision could prove the government's hardest test yet, at a time when its popularity ratings are suffering. According to recent polls, most Germans are in favour of phasing out nuclear power as soon as possible. Experts have predicted that the issue could put new wind back in the sails of the Green party, which has pledged to reverse the decision if it gets into government.

Merkel now faces the tough challenge of trying to ensure that any draft law bypasses the Bundesrat, or upper house of parliament, where she lost her majority earlier this year.

Greenpeace energy expert Tobias Münchmeyer said extending the lives of the plants amounted to little more than "a pure monetary gift from the government", which "damages Germany while being of advantage to the companies". He said the decision would also lead to the production of "thousands of tonnes" of additional atomic waste, and with it, the problem of where and how to store it.

The conservative government in neighbouring Austria condemned the decision, referring to it as a "disappointment" and a "retrograde step" for energy policy. "Germany has simply made it easier for itself to keep its CO2 emissions down," said Austrian environment minister Nikolaus Berlakovich, who added that the future lay in renewable energies. "What's clear is that atomic energy is no answer to climate change and no sustainable way in which to reduce CO2 emissions," he said.

A protest against the decision has been scheduled for 18 September in Berlin.

But Merkel, who spent a week in August touring nuclear power plants and alternative energy producers, said it was precisely to ensure the embracing of renewable energy that she had agreed to keep nuclear power plants running for longer. She said nuclear power would be a "bridge" that would allow more time for reliable and affordable technologies to be developed. Merkel pointed to the renewable energy investment fund, whereby nuclear utilities will effectively pay part of their gains from the extension to develop renewable energy.

The decision was reached following a report that said Germany would not be able to reach to its goal of reducing CO2 emissions by 80% in 2050, compared to 1990 levels, if it abandoned nuclear power too soon.

Mining company's operations in India under scrutiny by shareholders following pressure from Amnesty and celebrities

Shareholders of Vedanta Resources are taking action to clarify issues about the mining company's operations in India over concerns about alleged breaches of human rights and environmental laws.

Institutional investors have formed a coalition to investigate some of the issues that have dogged the company recently.

Independently, shareholders including Aviva Investors are considering going to Vedanta's mining sites in India to assess the situation for themselves. They are also considering commissioning a report from an external consultancy.

Vedanta has been the target of lobbying groups such as Amnesty International and celebrity campaigners including Bianca Jagger and Michael Palin. The Indian government recently accused the firm of violations of forest conservation, tribal rights and environmental protection laws.

Vedanta is controlled by billionaire Anil Agarwal through Volcan Investments, a holding vehicle with a 61.7% stake in the business. The company was last month refused permission to develop a bauxite mine as the project was said to be a threat to local tribes and the environment. The mine was planned on a forested hill considered sacred by an ancient tribe.

"Some [responsible investors] have disinvested because of concerns over stakeholder-related risks," said ethical investors group Eiris in a document recently presented to the company. "Shareholder engagement on such issues is increasing as a way to protect shareholder value in the long term."

Shareholders are waiting for a company's response to the document, where they asked the firm to create a committee to oversee the development of human rights and indigenous rights policies. The report also asked Vedanta to set up a panel of external experts to assess operations and to commission independent environmental and human rights impact assessments.

"We are looking forward to the response in due course," said Steve Waygood, chief of sustainability research and engagement at Aviva Investors.

Vedanta declined to comment.

Shareholders also want clarity over the company's planned $8bn (£5.2bn) expansion of its aluminium refinery, adjacent to the planned bauxite mine.

"The era when mining companies could get away with destroying those in their path with impunity is thankfully drawing to a close," said Stephen Corry, director of Survival International. "The concerned public must remain vigilant about these so-called development projects – companies simply cannot be trusted voluntarily to abide by human rights standards, particularly when dealing with tribal peoples who can't know what they're up against."

Vedanta has also been stripped of international safety awards amid concerns that it won without declaring that a chimney collapse at one of its sites had killed at least 40 workers last September – one of the worst industrial tragedies in India's recent history.

Investors such as the Church of England, the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, Norwegian Government Pension Fund and the Dutch pensions manager PGGM Investments have sold their shares in the company because of ethical and environmental concerns.

PGGM said that with other investors it had tried to organise a meeting to discuss possible solutions to the problems in Orissa. According to the Eiris report, "Vedanta did not accept the invitation to participate in this roundtable."

The company last month agreed to acquire a majority stake in Cairn Energy's Indian unit for about $9bn in cash. The move is aimed at securing oil and gas supplies to fuel the power plants the company controls in India.

The fruit of the bramble is a delicious, guilt-free and ephemeral pleasure

Not that one. The handheld gizmo with all the addictiveness, and few of the upsides, of a class A substance has just ruined your holiday. You're now going to have to reconnect with nature in between long hours at a desk. But how better to do so than with Rubus fruticosus – the real blackberry, which is now in season, and a fitting flavour of the month. The blackberry proves to children that snacks need not come pre-packed and rammed with additives. Even better – it's guilt-free. Food miles: zero. Carbon footprint? We think not. To pick blackberries is to participate in an ancient tradition: the fruit even gets a mention in Shakespeare. And the bramble quite literally offers a free lunch, or at least a free dessert, which is not to be sniffed at in the austerity age. So enjoy, but hurry. The date will soon be upon us when, according to legend, the devil was kicked down from heaven to land, cursing, upon a bramble bush. In revenge, he is said to spit (or in some versions pee) on the fruit at mid-autumn each year, rendering it immediately inedible. That tall tale underlines what a transient pleasure blackberrying is. Seamus Heaney described a boy's anguished desire to preserve his harvest of "lovely canfuls": "Each year I hoped they'd last, knew they would not." So we recommend you put down your portable screen, pick up a punnet, and make tracks for the nearest bramble patch at once, while watching out for the spikes. They can hurt, but never quite get under the skin like an e-missive from the boss.

In Norfolk I have long grown accustomed to a very patchy distribution in our local swallows. Much of the vernacular architecture has been converted into residences or otherwise made unsuitable for these barn-dwelling creatures. The more pervasive use of insecticides in our arable county has also cut deeply across the food chain, which once climbed all the way to these blue swooping birds. But in the Peak District it was a joy to appreciate just how common this summer migrant can be.

The cattle pasture and villages around the Dove and Manifold rivers were made more charming by the presence of so many swallows. Over one dry slope in a side dale to the Dove proper, I came across a flock of around 200 birds, house martins and swallows, whiffling down like huge quick-winged butterflies just above the tips of the hawthorn bushes. They had clearly found some rich seam of aerial invertebrates and were taking full advantage.

Then in Hollinsclough I came upon several family parties angling between the dark heavy mass of several mature sycamores. Rain clouds brooded overhead, and beyond the hill slope, above the village, the ravens croaked and chased each other. Through this tableau of green light, deep shadow and dark sounds, the village swallows threaded their way as flickering blue scraps. While they wove their loose lines in the air around me I began to appreciate the full cycle at work in that moment. There was the green pasture, then the cattle, then all that cow dung and all those cattle yards, with their attendant flies and abundant insect life, and out of this land, with all its disparate and deep-rooted elements, were the swallows born.

What happens when fierce scientific rivals go head to head? Joel Levy discusses some of history's most epic battles to discredit the work of colleagues. Do these often petty quarrels help or hinder the progress of science?

Joel's book Scientific Feuds: From Galileo to the Human Genome Project is out now.

Museum director Tony Hill takes us on a tour as Manchester's Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) undergoes an £8m redevelopment. Peek behind the scaffolding on our video tour.

The Science Weekly team question why Stephen Hawking's views on the existence or otherwise of God are making headlines, again; they discuss the Guardian's Bjørn Lomborg climate change exclusive; a stay of execution for Fermilab's Tevatron atom smasher; why the Higgs boson is causing a headache for the Nobel prize committee; and the problems of carbon emissions "embedded" in imported goods.

Check out our shiny new science front page and meet our crack team of science bloggers:

The Lay Scientist by Martin Robbins
Life and Physics by Jon Butterworth
Punctuated Equilibrium by GrrlScientist
Political Science by Evan Harris

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Unions argue that abusive behaviour and racism are widespread and wants shake-up of system in light of worsening safety record

Transocean, the American rig owner at the centre of BP's Gulf of Mexico oil spill, has been accused of compromising safety in the North Sea by "bullying, harassment and intimidation" of its staff.

The allegations, in a damning report by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) seen by the Guardian, will deeply embarrass Transocean, which on Tuesday appears before a House of Commons investigation into the lessons to be learnt from the Deepwater Horizon spill.

The offshore and transport union, RMT, argues that abusive behaviour and racism towards an increasingly multinational workforce in the North Sea are widespread, and it wants a huge shake-up of the system in the light of a worsening safety record.

The allegations came as Thad Allen, the US official leading the Deepwater Horizon cleanup, said an important milestone had been reached with the replacement of the blowout preventer that failed to stop the flow of oil in the original accident. He said the original device had been hauled to the surface for investigators to determine what went wrong.

The HSE reported less than two weeks ago that the combined fatal and major injury rate had almost doubled, rising to 192 per 100,000 workers in 2009-10 from 106 12 months earlier. There was also a big increase in hydrocarbon releases, from 61 to 85 – raising the possibility of fires and explosions offshore, the kind of accident that triggered the Piper Alpha disaster, in which 167 UK workers died.

Transocean has so far managed to avoid the kind of acute scrutiny given to BP over the Macondo well, but the British oil company is expected to criticise the rig operator when it publishes its own internal investigation into what went wrong. The HSE "specialist inspection report" resulted from a visit to four rigs operated by Transocean Offshore (North Sea) Ltd, including the John Shaw and Sedco 711, in the summer and autumn of last year.

The HSE report says: "The company has not considered the human contribution to safety in a structured and systematic manner," and says the organisational culture is based on blame and intolerance.

Most damagingly, the report says instances of unacceptable behaviour by offshore management were raised with HSE inspectors by Transocean staff on more than one rig visited. These included bullying, aggression, harassment, humiliation and intimidation, and were "causing some individuals to exhibit symptoms of work-related stress, with potential safety implications", the HSE says.

Responding to the allegations in a statement, Transocean said: "The HSE report confirmed that Transocean has demonstrated a commitment to fostering an organisational culture based on trust and respect that improves our safety and performance records. Third-party assessments such as those conducted by HSE and Lloyd's Register are a key part of the company's philosophy of continuous review and improvement."

Jake Molloy, regional organiser for the RMT's offshore branch in Aberdeen, said he was extremely alarmed by the report, but not surprised. "I have dealt with three cases where workers were unfairly dismissed by Transocean and in each one I have been able to win compensation for them," he said. But he feared that Transocean was far from unique, and said the increase in accidents reported by the HSE still almost certainly underestimated the true position.

"I know from the phone calls I get in this office that other really serious incidents are not being reported because of widespread bullying and intimidation. I cannot follow up these cases because it would expose the guys to losing their jobs," he said.

Molloy said he was aware of rigs with 19 different nationalities on board speaking a mixture of Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, Italian and French. He feared that some staff did not have the language skills either to communicate well with each other or to understand safety instructions properly. It was not unusual for Filipinos and others to be racially abused.

The Guardian has spoken independently to foreign oil workers, who confirm they have faced bullying, intimidation and racism. One, who asked not to be named, said he recently witnessed offshore fires that he was told not to report as it could cause a fuss and endanger either his own job or those of his fellow crew members.

The Norwegian safety authorities have just published their own figures and expressed grave concern that the number of hydrocarbon "releases" from their rigs and platforms has gone up from 14 to 15 over the past 12 months.

The UK government announced in June it was increasing environmental inspections offshore but also boasted that "our safety and environmental regulatory regime is fit for purpose. It is already among the most robust in the world and the industry's record in the North Sea is strong."

Fur stoles are being snapped up by lovers of vintage fashion

Basil Brush beware – fox stoles, once disdained as gruesome artefacts of a crueller era, are back. Trendspotters report seeing increasing numbers on vintage lovers. And it's not just the pelts – these are old-fashioned stoles, with little foxy heads and furry paws.

"I've definitely noticed that there's more acceptance for fur with a face and claws now, something that still looks like an animal," says Shona van Beers, a reproduction vintage designer. As retro-style faux fur jackets and accessories fill high street shops – Topshop alone offers eight coats and one stole online – true vintage addicts are looking for something more extreme. Professional vintage pin-up Fleur de Guerre thinks it is down to a desire for authenticity: "If you turn on an episode of Poirot, all the upper class ladies have a fox stole with a head on it. Lots of girls who are very keen on authenticity in their looks wear them—they can be quite glamorous if they're in good Condition."

Vintage fur-wearers dismiss concerns about animal cruelty because the clothing is being re-used; still it's harder to ignore the animal's origin when it's staring passersby in the face. But what's behind the trend? Could it be because British affection for live foxes is at an all-time low? A survey into wildlife attitudes conducted with the London Wildcare Trust suggests 34% of urban-dwelling respondents changed their opinions on wild animals after the London fox maulings this summer.

So, might the new fox antipathy push this trend into the mainstream? Perhaps, says Vogue market editor Emma Elwick-Bates, who also sees longevity in the more Peta-palatable faux fur trend. "The fur may be flying in the vintage markets," she says, but the fashion set will likely stick to the "fantasy furs" in the style of Chanel's latest show, or Burberry's aviator shearlings.

• This article was amended on 6 Septeber 2010. The original attributed to Fleur de Guerre a quote that read, "People are saying, 'I'm doing this for real, I'm wearing the whole thing." This was said by another interviewee, Shona van Beers. The quote has now been replaced by a correct one from Fleur de Guerre.

• President Alvaro Colom declares national emergency
• Dozens of rescue workers buried in further slide

Torrential rains from a tropical depression caused landslides that have killed at least 38 people in Guatemala – some of them rescuers trying to save people already buried under a wall of mud.

In the village of Nahuala, about 200 rescue workers suspended the search for bodies Sunday afternoon after heavy rain fell in the area, Civil Protection spokesman David de Leon said. Two slides in the same spot killed at least 20 along a highway leading northwest of the capital toward Mexico. Another slide closer to Guatemala City killed at least 12.

"We will return when the rain ceases," De Leon said. "It is difficult and dangerous to continue with the search."

Suagustino Pascual Tuy, a Nahuala police officer, said he and several others rushed to the highway with picks and shovels after hearing radio reports of the fallen earth, which had buried two pickup trucks and a bus at kilometer 171 of the Inter-American highway.

Pascual Tuy said the crowds were able to rescue several people alive including his nephew, who was driving one of the pickups.

"He is in critical condition, but thank God we were able to get him out alive," he said.

Pascual Tuy said people were still digging through the rubble when the mountain above them began crackling. He shouted a warning, but moments later the second slide buried a number of rescuers. Pascual Tuy ran for his life and the slide only caught his legs.

"The mountain was making noise like an earthquake, but people wouldn't leave," he said. "They were being stubborn and didn't get out."

Regional fire department major Otto Mazariegos said at least 50 people were believed to be buried. "Under the earth there is a bus that carried we don't know how many people, and there are those who tried to help the victims of the first slide," he said.

Rescue crews have recovered 20 bodies from the site, said fire department spokesman Jose Rodriguez.

A few hours earlier, a landslide at kilometer 81 of the same highway partially buried a bus, killing 12 people.

Communications minister Guillermo Castillo said there have been 15 landslides in different spots along the Inter-American highway in the last 48 hours.

Pascual Tuy said there have been several landslides along the highway in the last year, and authorities knew of the danger.

"Last year there was a landslide there, 15 days ago there was a landslide," he said. "But now a big one came."

President Alvaro Colom visited the area Sunday and said the following day would be declared a national day of mourning.

Speaking Saturday, even before news of the second slide, Colom said, "It is a tragic day. Today alone 18 people have died, 12 buried by a hill when they traveled in a bus."

Four children and two adults died in slides elsewhere, he said.

The president told officials to close the highway.

"There are several hillsides that are loose and could fall. So we ask the population to not go out, to avoid moving along the highways," he said.

Fire Department spokesman Mario Cruz said it could take three days to recover all the bodies because of the weather.

Heavy rains from Tropical Depression 11-E have pelted Guatemala for days, unleashing mudslides in several areas, cutting highways and prompting officials to evacuate thousands of people.

Pakistan needs millions in aid following the floods. Find out which countries have donated what so far - and where the funding gaps are
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Floods have decimated Pakistan: the number of people suffering could exceed the combined total of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the United Nations says.

Final figures are still to come. The total number of people affected in the three other disasters is about 11 million - 5 million in the tsunami and 3 million in each of the earthquakes.

We wanted to know how much aid has been raised so far - and which countries have donated hard cash. The figures, from the UN, show that at the moment, the major donor is the UK - with over $7m. Although in funds per head of their populations, many other countries are ahead.

The figures are split between committed funding - which is cash the UN has in the bank, and pledges - where the money has not been transferred. So, for those of you wondering why that $10m announced is on the list, the answer is that it hasn't shown up on the UN's bank statement yet.

Check out the full spreadhseet for details of exactly what has been donated so far too.

We tried this exercise during the Haiti disaster - and we will update this as time goes on.

In some instances, the pledged cash may never be transferred, if previous disasters are anything to go by.

We've also included details on where the aid money has been spent so far.

The data is below - what can you do with it?

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The violence in Maputo is just the latest manifestation of the crippling shortcomings of the global economy

It has been a summer of record temperatures – Japan had its hottest summer on record, as did South Florida and New York. Meanwhile, Pakistan and Niger are flooded and the eastern US is mopping up after hurricane Earl. None of these individual events can definitively be attributed to global warming. But to see how climate change will play out in the 21st century, you needn't look to the Met Office. Look, instead, to the deaths and burning tyres in Mozambique's "food riots" to see what happens when extreme natural phenomena interact with our unjust economic systems.

The immediate causes of the protests in Mozambique's capital, Maputo, and Chimoio about 500 miles north, are a 30% price increase for bread, compounding a recent double-digit increase for water and energy. When nearly three-quarters of the household budget is spent on food, that's a hike few Mozambicans can afford.

Deeper reasons for Mozambique's price hike can be found a continent away. Wheat prices have soared on global markets over the summer in large part because Russia, the world's third largest exporter, has suffered catastrophic fires in its main production areas. These blazes, in turn, find their origin both in poor firefighting infrastructure and Russia's worst heatwave in over a century. On Thursday, Vladimir Putin extended an export ban in response to a new wave of wildfires in its grain belt, sending further signals to the markets that Russian wheat wouldn't be available outside the country. With Mozambique importing over 60% of the wheat its people needs, the country has been held hostage by international markets.

This may sound familiar. In 2008, the prices of oil, wheat, corn and rice peaked on international markets – corn prices almost tripled between 2005-2008. In the process, dozens of food-importing countries experienced food riots.

Behind the 2008 protests were, first, natural events that looked like an excerpt from the meteorological section of the Book of Revelation – drought in Australia, crop disease in central Asia, floods in south-east Asia. These were compounded by the social systems through which their effects were felt. Oil prices were sky-high, which meant higher transport costs and fossil fuel-based fertiliser prices. Biofuel policy, particularly in the US, shifted land and crops from food into ethanol production, diverting food from stomachs to fuel tanks. Longer term trends in population growth and meat consumption in developing countries also added to the stress. Financial speculators piled into food commodities, driving prices yet further beyond the reach of the poor. Finally, some retailers used the opportunity to raise prices still further, and while commodity prices have fallen back to pre-crisis levels, most of us have yet to see the savings.

Is this 2008 all over again? The weather has gone wild, meat prices have hit a 20-year high, groceries are being looted and heads of state are urging calm. The view from commodities desks, however, is that we're not in quite as dire straits as two years ago. Fuel is relatively cheap and grain stores well stocked. We're on track for the third-highest wheat crop ever, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO). While all this is true, it misses the point: for most hungry people, 2008 isn't over. The events of 2007-2008 tipped more than 100 million into hunger and the global recession has meant that they have stayed there. In 2006, the number of  undernourished people was 854 million. In 2009, it was 1.02 billion – the highest level since records began. The hardest hit by these price rises, in the US and around the world, were female-headed households.

Not only are the hungry still around, but food riots have continued. In India, double-digit food price inflation was met by violent street protests at the end of 2009. The price rises were, again, the result of both extreme and unpredictable monsoons in 2009 and an increasingly faulty social safety net to prevent hunger. There have been frequent public protests about the price of wheat in Egypt this year, and Serbia and Pakistan have seen protests too.

Although commodity prices fell after 2008, the food system's architecture has remained largely the same over the past two decades. Bill Clinton has offered several mea culpas for the international trade and development policies that spawned the food crisis. Earlier this year, he blamed himself for Haiti's vulnerability to price fluctuations. "I did that," he said in testimony to the US Senate. "I have to live every day with the consequences of the lost capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people, because of what I did. Nobody else." More generally, Clinton suggested in 2008 that "food is not a commodity like others… it is crazy for us to think we can develop a lot of these countries [by] treating food like it was a colour television set."

Yet global commodity speculators continue to treat food as if it were the same as television sets, with little end in sight to what the World Development Movement has called "gambling on hunger in financial markets". The recent US Wall Street Reform Act contained some measures that might curb these speculative activities, but their full scope has yet to be clarified. Europe doesn't have a mechanism to regulate these kinds of speculative trades at all. Agriculture in the global south is still subject to the "Washington consensus" model, driven by markets and with governments taking a back seat to the private sector. And the only reason biofuels aren't more prominent is that the oil they're designed to replace is currently cheap.

Clearly, neither grain speculation, nor forcing countries to rely on international markets for food, nor encouraging the use of agricultural resources for fuel instead of nourishment are natural phenomena. These are political decisions, taken and enforced not only by Bill Clinton, but legions of largely unaccountable international development professionals. The consequences of these decisions are ones with which people in the global south live everyday. Which brings us back to Mozambique.

Recall that Mozambique's street protests coincided not only with a rise in the price of bread, but with electricity and water price hikes too. In an interview with Portugal's Lusa news agency, Alice Mabota of the Mozambican League of Human Rights didn't use the term "food riots". In her words: "The government… can't understand or doesn't want to understand that this is a protest against the higher cost of living." The action on the streets isn't simply a protest about food, but a wider act of rebellion. Half of Mozambique's poor already suffer from acute malnutrition, according to the FAO. The extreme weather behind the grain fires in Russia transformed a political context in which citizens were increasingly angry and frustrated with their own governments.

Yesterday, I reached Diamantino Nhampossa, the co-ordinator of Mozambique's União Nacional de Camponeses (National Peasants Union of Mozambique). "These protests are going to end," he told me. "But they will always come back. This is the gift that the development model we are following has to offer." Like many Mozambicans, he knows full well which way the wind blows.

Climate scientists meeting in Britain this week hope to build a database to predict natural disasters precisely. And records of the voyages of the Bounty and Beagle will assist them in their task

Leading climate scientists will gather in the UK this week to finalise plans for a revolutionary project aimed at transforming their ability to predict meteorological disasters. The goal is to create an international databank that would generate forecasts of unprecedented precision.

The scientists' plans include:

■ Creating a global network of weather stations that would provide daily temperature readings for any spot on the planet. At present, only monthly readings are generated for the United States and Europe, while virtually no data is provided for much of Africa, the Amazon and Antarctica.

■ Digitising old sea logs – including those of the Bounty, the Beagle and Scott's Discovery – to build up a data set of historical weather patterns.

■ Persuading many countries that currently refuse to provide meteorological information to the rest of the world to open their data banks.

■ Seeking help from web companies and organisations such as Google and Galaxy Zoo to help volunteers decode data. In this way, meteorologists hope to transform their long-term forecasts.

"It is now very clear that humanity is changing the climate through the greenhouse gases we are pumping into the atmosphere," said Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring at the UK Met Office, one of the organisers of this week's meeting. "But we don't know yet, and what we really must find out is how those changes will affect a particular area.

"We need to answer key questions such as whether the onset of the monsoon in India will be delayed, how the frequency of droughts in the Horn of Africa is changing, or whether Europe will experience more severe heatwaves in future."

In recent months Moscow has been blanketed in smog from burning peatlands, a giant island of ice has splintered from Greenland and floods in Pakistan have killed about 2,000 and left millions homeless. Scientists believe that, as climate change takes an increasingly tight grip on the planet, more and more of these events will happen. They want to learn how to predict such occurrences and give vulnerable areas accurate warnings about potential catastrophes.

However, meteorologists are limited by the lack of data they receive from monitoring stations around the globe. Although there are more than 6,000 such stations providing data about temperatures, wind, precipitation and other variables, these only generate monthly averages for a particular locality.

"We need to get daily temperature readings if we are going to make accurate forecasts," said Peter Thorne, of the Co-operative Institute for Climate and Satellites in North Carolina. At the same time, swaths of Africa and Antarctica and much of the Amazon have no stations at all.

One of the aims of this week's meeting is to discuss ways in which daily readings could be generated by increasing the number of these remote, unmanned stations. It is intended to begin negotiations with countries that refuse to give out readings from weather stations on the grounds that such information could be sold. Simply opening these nations' data banks would double the information available to world forecasters.

However, it is the decoding and digitising of old logs from some of Britain's most illustrious sea voyages – a process likely to involve assistance from organisations such as Google – that promises to be of particular public interest. Throughout the 19th century and for many of the early years of the 20th century, Britain's navy ruled the oceans. Daily information about weather conditions recorded in logs gives an invaluable insight into climate patterns for these decades. Examples include the logbooks of the ships of the East India Company, which are held in the British Library, the logs of Royal Navy ships during the first world war, which are held in the UK National Archives, and those of the major Antarctic expeditions, which are currently being digitised by the Met Office.

"The problem is that the data is stored in old logbooks and it is an extremely laborious business to turn that information into digital form," added Stott.

However, recent developments on the web have provided precedents for providing help for such work. Three years ago Chris Lintott, an Oxford physicist, set up a website called Galaxy Zoo which asked the public to help classify photographs of a million galaxies. It has turned into the biggest citizen-science experiment on the web. Galaxies can be classified as spiral, elliptical or merging. However, with images of more than a million taken by astronomers, their categorisation – crucial for understanding the evolution of the universe – was daunting until Galaxy Zoo was set up. By logging on, members of the public can classify galaxies and have proved as good as, and in some cases better than, professional astronomers.

Now meteorologists hope that Galaxy Zoo, whose organisers have been invited to this week's climate meeting, can provide a model that will allow the public to help in the massive job of digitising the weather data left by sailors.

"We need not only to create climate data sets at daily or even shorter timescales, at a resolution of a few kilometres at most, but to generate data sets as far into the past as possible," said Stott. "That is why we are planning to take all these different approaches."

Converting up to a fifth of UK wheat into biofuel will force prices even higher at a time of food shortages, warn critics

The soaring price of wheat has raised questions about the UK's commitment to biofuels as it attempts to wean itself from its dependence on oil.

A network of biorefineries that convert wheat and other crops into bioethanol that can then be blended with petrol are being developed as the UK looks to meet its EU renewable transport fuels obligations.

But the huge amounts of wheat that will be used in the process – up to a fifth of the UK's current annual production within four years – have prompted questions about where the crop will come from.

At the end of a week in which the wheat price hit a two-year high as Russia, the world's fourth largest producer, imposed an export ban for the second year running, there were fears that the domestic move to biofuels would lead to further rises in the cost of wheat. The result would be a significant rise in shopping bills.

Currently there is only one wheat biorefinery operating in the UK. Owned by a company called Ensus, the Tees-side plant, which cost almost £300m to build and was temporarily closed due to teething problems, will use some 1.2 tonnes of wheat a year when at full capacity.

But four more plants that could use wheat, at Immingham, Corby, Grimsby and Hull, are also in development. According to the cereals and oilseeds division of the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, the three UK biofuel refineries that are expected to be fully operating by 2014 will require 3m tonnes, one-fifth of the wheat produced in the UK.

The demand is expected to rise further as the UK tries to meet recently agreed EU biofuel targets. The UK has recently signed up to a compulsory EU target that will see 10% of its transport fuels come from renewable sources by the year 2020.

The "dash for wheat" could see large amounts of land converted to arable use both in the UK and abroad. Green groups are concerned about what this will mean for developing countries.

The World Bank, the OECD and the UK government's Gallagher report all identified biofuels as a significant factor in recent food price rises. But some reports suggest biofuels could actually help to "smooth out" the peaks and troughs associated with the wheat market by providing producers with more stable demand.

Concerns about the UK's wheat supply come at the end of a week in which the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation warned that world food prices have risen to their highest level in two years. It said that the increase was due partly to a drought in Russia, where government export restrictions have led the price to surge. Speculators have also been blamed for helping to drive prices higher at a time of general uncertainty.

A spike in food prices triggered deadly riots in Mozambique last week and experts worry that other countries that saw such unrest during the last global food crisis in 2008 could be hit again. In Egypt, where half of the population depends on subsidised bread, recent protests over rising prices left at least one person dead. There are also reports of price increases in flood-hit Pakistan.

Kenneth Richter, head of biofuels at Friends of the Earth, said last week's riots showed that food should not be used for fuel. "In a time of rising food prices and global shortages, it is cynical to burn wheat in our cars," he said.

Poor harvests and demand from developing countries could push cost of weekly shop up by 10%

Two years after the last food crisis, when prices surged by nearly 15% in the UK, food inflation is back. Soaring global food prices have prompted City and food industry experts to warn that the cost of the weekly shop is set to rise by up to 10% in the coming months.

As in 2008, rocketing prices are the result of rising demand and supply shortages caused by freak weather and poor harvests. Moreover, these conditions are exacerbated by speculation on commodity markets and changing diets in fast-growing Asian countries.

Last week, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) called an emergency meeting for 24 September to discuss the food crisis. In Mozambique, riots broke out following the government's decision to raise bread prices by 30%, leaving seven people dead and hundreds injured. At the same time the Russian government extended its export ban on wheat by another 12 months as it battles drought, shortages and inflation at home, which threatens to push up prices further. European wheat prices hit more than €231 (£192) a tonne last week, just below last month's two-year high of €236 but still 60% higher than a year ago in sterling terms. Corn prices are at their highest level since June 2009 while sugar has been on a rollercoaster ride after hitting a 29-year peak in February.

FAO economist Abdolreza Abbassian raises the prospect of further civil unrest in less developed countries if the price of basic food continues to rise: "Russia's move is another unfortunate development that will prolong upward pressure on grain prices and contribute to higher price instability in world markets. Rioting may reappear in poor districts around the world if prices of basic foodstuff commodities continue to rise further. "

Surging wheat prices, along with higher sugar and oil-seed costs, drove the FAO's international food price index up 5% last month, the biggest rise since last November. The organisation estimates this year's wheat crop at 646m tonnes – down 5% from last year – while world barley production, also hit by bad weather in the former Soviet Union and the EU, is forecast to drop by 22% to a 30-year low of 129m tonnes. Last month global meat prices hit a 20-year high.

In the UK, Premier Foods, owner of the Hovis brand, has warned the global shortage of wheat could push up the cost of bread by at least 5p a loaf, while other food brands such as McDougalls flour and Mr Kipling cakes will also cost more.

A leading UK supplier of flour, Rank Hovis, is to increase its prices from 6 September. Soaring barley prices mean that the pub price of a pint of beer could top £4 this time next year.

Experts fear that UK food price inflation, which was running at an annual rate of 3.4% in July, could now rise to 10% – depending on whether costs continue to climb and to what extent food manufacturers absorb the increases.

The Grocer's food and drink editor Alex Beckett reckons that if prices for commodities such as wheat, sugar, cocoa and palm oil remain at current levels, by January the weekly shop could cost 10% more than 12 months previously.

Philip Shaw, chief economist at Investec, said: "If the current rise in prices is sustained, food price inflation might climb to 7-8% by mid-2011." And Philip Rush, at Nomura, sees food prices going higher over the next year, tipping back up to above 5% year-on-year growth.

Meat

Global meat prices have risen sharply as a drop in production from exporters such as Argentina and the US has coincided with rising demand from China, where consumers are eating more meat than they used to. The FAO's index of meat prices in August climbed to its highest level since it started compiling the index in 1990, up 16% over the past year. Lamb prices are at a 37-year high, beef prices are at their highest level in two years and pork and poultry have also become dearer.

Mark Topliff at Eblex, which represents the English beef and sheep industry, explains that in recent years, falling cattle prices have led to fewer farmers keeping cows in major exporting nations like Argentina, Brazil and the US, the world's biggest beef producer. The removal of EU subsidies under the common agricultural policy for British and European sheep farmers has also led to a decline in sheep numbers.

Wheat

The European flour milling association has highlighted the role of speculators in driving up wheat prices, although the global shortage appears to be the main factor. The main culprit is the weather – wheat prices have been going up since the summer when crops were hit by a drought and wildfires in Russia and dry weather in Ukraine and Kazakhstan, compounded by unusually wet weather in Canada and the floods in Pakistan.

Russia, the world's fourth-biggest wheat producer, has imposed an export ban on grain amid its worst drought in at least 50 years, and prime minister Vladimir Putin warned last Thursday that the ban could stay in place until after the 2011 harvest, forcing importers in the Middle East and North Africa to turn to Europe and the US for supplies.

"This has completely changed the complexion of the market," said Sudakshina Unnikrishnan, a commodities analyst at Barclays Capital. "We see further upside for corn and wheat prices. Consuming countries are scrambling to gain access to supplies," she warns.

Britain's wheat crop is expected to be close to average this year, but Germany, which had more rain in August, could become reliant on wheat imports for the first time in 10 years. The winter wheat harvest will be 9% lower this year than last, according to the German farmers' association, forcing Germany to import grain from France and the US.Bad weather has also affected the quality of the wheat, which suffers when it stands too long in the rain. Lower-quality wheat is used as animal feed.

The premium for high-quality milling wheat used in bread, cereals and biscuits, which now costs about £195 a tonne, has climbed to £30-£40 from the typical £10-£15.

"If we don't get a bumper harvest from the southern hemisphere, namely Argentina and Australia [due at Christmas], the wheat price could continue to stay where it is," said Guy Gagen, chief arable adviser at the National Farmers' Union. The Northern hemisphere – the US, Canada, Russia and northern Europe – produces 80% of the world's wheat supply.

Experts note, however, that the market is not in the same position as it was in 2007/08, when global wheat stocks were very low, as there have been two seasons of replenishment. The problem is that many countries will not release their surplus stocks to the market but are hoarding them, says Alexander Waugh, director general of the National Association of British and Irish Millers.

On a brighter note, he adds: "High prices tend to encourage farmers to plant more crops. The situation may be uncomfortable but it's not out of control or unmanageable."

Cocoa

In mid-July, a US commodities trading company, Armajaro, attempted to corner the market in cocoa by taking delivery of 7% of the world's supply at a time when prices were at a 32-year high of $3,200 per tonne (£2,077) – a $1bn bet. The fear was Armajaro would squeeze the market, forcing prices even higher. In the event prices have gone into reverse, falling by more than 25% as fears have receded that supplies from Ivory Coast, which produces 40% of the world's cocoa, would be hit by bad weather.

However, last week Barry Callebaut – the world's biggest chocolate company, which supplies confectioners such as Nestlé – said prices would stay high.

"Retailers do not want to accept higher prices at the moment in spite of higher raw material costs," said the company's chief executive. "But pressures will rise, prices will just have to increase."

Sugar

Sugar prices hit a 29-year high in February, but then fell back sharply. However, last week Brazil – the world's biggest sugar producer – warned crops may be lower than expected as a result of dry weather and the price climbed back to its highest level since March.

Coffee

Coffee prices are at a 12-year high and global stocks at their lowest level for a decade. Several coffee bars have started to push through price rises, although Starbucks said last week that it would not raise prices.

The truth about energy monitors

People keep giving me smart energy monitors. I now have four: the vintage diykyoto.com Wattson – a digital display that changes colour to show energy use; an Owl (theowl.com) that claims to save me £125 a year; Alertme.com showing energy use in "full colour!"; and, most recently, a Currentcost.com – which sends electricity consumption breakdowns to my Google homepage.

They all give real-time clues to the games consoles, printers and spare freezers that vampirically suck energy from the grid. In the UK, 29% of the country's total energy consumption occurs in the home. By 2015 more than 110m European homes will be monitoring water and gas, too. It should be an austerity no-brainer: if all lights were turned off when not in use we'd save a collective £55m.

There's a school of thought that says smart meters be damned, the way to cut emissions is to encourage us to stop bingeing on energy at peak times with better off-peak tariffs. Some experts insist that affluent consumers might even think a unit of electricity is rather cheap when they see it on their energy monitor and use even more.

My many monitors haven't stopped me wasting power. What I need is an even smarter monitor that nags me by phone and text then shames me into behavioural change by publicly broadcasting my real-time energy transgressions on an easily deciphered graph. Luckily it's coming soon.

If you only do one thing this week

Support British carrot growers! As we speak they are covering their carrots in straw to extend the traditional summer crop through the winter. Strawed carrots are an indigenous crop with a very low carbon footprint.

If you have any ethical questions, email lucy.siegle@observer.co.uk

• The full story text was inserted in this space on 6 September 2010. The original appeared with headlines only - hence some of the puzzled comments below.

Bristol throws open the doors to its 52 green houses on 11 and 12 September

There's knowing how much energy your home uses (see "Can I use energy and be green?" column ) and then there's doing something about it. We hear a lot about sustainable housing stock and the retrofitting of existing properties to cut emissions, but Bristol Green Doors (bristolgreendoors.org), which runs on 11 and 12 September, invites us all to take a look at 52 functioning homes across the city and find out how it feels to build and live in a real green house.

The brainchild of Kate Watson and Dan Weisselberg, both studying for an MSc in architecture, environment and energy, the Green Doors weekend throws open the gates to all sorts of properties, from a 1720 cottage to zero-carbon housing-association flats. "When you do get to see greener housing stock it tends to be an empty show house," says Watson. "We wanted to do something on a massive scale where you could see houses that are works in progress."

Open-house schemes have been used to great effect to raise the profile of historic and contemporary architecture; can they work for green? "You get to hear from the owners, see what they've done and most importantly be in the community. It's not just going to see a house, it's about seeing green solutions in the context of a whole neighbourhood. Some houses are inspiring and aspirational, some will give you the confidence to think, 'Oh, I could do this, too.'"

Inevitably there are showstoppers, not least the wood-fired hot tub in a garage. It features a tank clad in reclaimed wood and uses copper pipes from an oil boiler. It cost £50. "It's the perfect way to show that green building projects can be really affordable and ultimately quite relaxing," says Watson.

If you have any ethical questions, email lucy.siegle@observer.co.uk

Government pulls plug on funds for 10-mile tidal barrage

The government will this month sound the death knell for the world's largest tidal energy project – to be built across the Severn estuary between Somerset and south Wales – when it rules out public funding for the controversial £20bn plan.

The announcement will please some environmentalists, who were worried about the impact on bird life in the estuary, but others say such spending cuts will make a mockery of David Cameron's pledge to be the "greenest government ever".

The private sector is unlikely to back the 10-mile tidal barrage, which would be able to provide 5% of the UK's electricity, without government money.

In a report to be published this month, ministers will recommend that further feasibility studies be carried out for one of four much smaller projects, which would cost about £3bn. But they will give no guarantee that the selected option will go ahead. "It will make pretty depressing reading," said one source who has seen the report.

It is understood that a consortium is trying to raise finance for the project, which would also create direct road and rail links across the estuary and a 1.5km lake. But a spokesman for the Severn Tidal Power Group (STPG), a consortium made up of Sir Robert McAlpine, Balfour Beatty and Taylor Woodrow, admitted it was unlikely that developers would foot the estimated £250m cost of getting a project to the planning stage because of the risk it would be refused.

MPs will table a cross-party motion this week calling on the government to pay a £60m grant promised before the election that is vital for the UK's hopes of becoming a major wind turbine manufacturing centre. The money would go to a selected port to allow it to upgrade its infrastructure – raising bridges, for example, to allow giant turbines to be transported and shipped for installation off the UK coast. Siemens and General Electric are planning to build several turbine factories in the UK, and these plans are conditional on the port upgrade going ahead, as are possible plans by Mitsubishi to build its own facility. Trade body RenewableUK estimates that the port upgrade would create a total of 50,000 jobs.

Doug Parr of Greenpeace said: "Without the right leadership and investment, this will not be the greenest government ever. And there's no way we'll see a sustainable low-carbon economy without the necessary support for our renewable industry. Other clean energy projects must not face the same axe as the Severn barrage."

Clive Chatters, chairman of the New Forest national park authority, pays tribute to the work of amateur naturalists in the recently published symposium Biodiversity in the New Forest.

Their observations and recording underpin the work of the professionals whose research helps to shape conservation policy and practice. The symposium suggests that most species are under great pressure and many are declining. But all is not yet gloom and doom, as ponds around Burley make clear.

During an enforced evacuation as the Blitz hit Southampton, schoolteacher LW Stratton studied a number of ponds in the area. His findings in 1942 were published after the second world war and much of his collection is now in the Manchester Museum.

His research has provided a basis for my study of the molluscs in these ponds that will span 60 years. The quest has involved a fair measure of social history. The ponds had to be located. Some have gone and one is now known by a different name. Another was found only when the records of the former village pharmacy came to light.

The changing landscape also had to be considered. Old photographs show the terrain around some of the ponds; one from the 1890s shows a leaning oak on the bank. The tree is still there, the water long gone.

There have been some gains, but the most noticeable change is the disappearance of the largest species formerly found in several of the ponds. Still resident in the garden pond where it was found in 1942, the great pond snail, Lymnaea stagnalis, seems to have vanished from the wild. It used to be abundant in the ponds along Pound Lane.

Locals recall that they were drained in the 1950s to eliminate the snails, which at the time were thought to be carriers of red water disease. Potentially fatal for cattle and ponies, the disease is actually tick-borne. If the locals' memories are correct, the snails were victims of a serious miscarriage of justice.

After violence in Africa and protests in Egypt, Serbia and Pakistan, the UN are to urge action on the rising cost of food

The UN has called an urgent meeting on rising global food prices in an attempt to head off a repeat of the 2008 crisis that sparked riots around the world.

Seven people, including two children, were killed in Mozambique this week during three days of protests triggered by a rise in the cost of bread. There has also been anger over increasing prices in Egypt, Serbia and Pakistan, where floods destroyed a fifth of the country's crops.

The UN's announcement came after Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin extended the country's ban on grain exports. The ban has been partly blamed for a 5% increase in global food prices worldwide over the last two months, hitting their highest level in two years. The price of wheat has had its biggest monthly rise for 37 years. "In the past few weeks, global cereal markets experienced a sudden surge in international wheat prices on concerns over wheat shortages," the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said.

"The purpose of holding the meeting is for exporting and importing countries to engage in constructive discussions on appropriate reactions to the current market situation."

Agency spokesman Christopher Matthews said the meeting of the inter-governmental committee on grains will be held on 24 September, most likely in Rome. He added a large number of member countries had expressed concern about a possible repeat of the food crisis two years ago. But agency officials and other experts have stressed that conditions are different from 2008, when high oil prices and growing demand for biofuels pushed world food stocks to their lowest levels since 1982.

The tense atmosphere in developing countries, where food costs up to 70% of family income, erupted in Mozambique this week in three days of riots that left seven people dead, hundreds injured and millions of dollars of damage.

"This was the worst rioting I have ever seen in my life, people can really turn very violent and lives are at risk, instead of a peaceful demonstration," said Felizmina Fabia, a resident of the capital, Maputo. As violence continued today, with police firing tear gas and rubber bullets, opposition parties and human rights groups criticised the government, saying it failed to gauge the anger that would be unleashed by the 30% bread price increase and hikes in water and electricity tariffs.

Alice Mabota, head of the Mozambican League of Human Rights, told Portugal's Lusa news agency: "The government underestimated the situation and can't understand or doesn't want to understand that this is a protest against the higher cost of living."

The government-imposed price rise took the cost of a bread roll - the staple of Mozambicans - to 20 US cents (13p) in a country where the average worker earns around $37 (£24) a month.

Egyptians have also protested over food prices in recent months, and analysts have warned that riots could follow the jump in prices in Africa and the Middle East. The trend comes after the global recession already put a squeeze on household budgets and intensified the risk of malnutrition.

In Mauritania in west Africa, rice prices doubled over the first three months of the year, according to the World Food Programme. Over the same period, the price of corn rose 59% in Zimbabwe and 57% in Mozambique.

Niger is suffering severe food shortages and price rises of up to 30%. Save the Children reported last week that the number of severely malnourished children visiting its clinics in Niger has gone up fourfold since the start of the year.

In Russia itself, the price of some essential food products soared 30% in August. Officials have blamed panic buying.

Susannah Nicol, a regional spokeswoman for the World Food Programme (WFP), warned that its operations could soon be affected. "Any food rise means that donations to the WFP will buy less for the hungry and the poor," she said.

In 2007-08, severe food shortages and resulting price rises led to worldwide demonstrations and violence. But analysts say global grain supplies are more abundant this time after bumper harvests in 2008 and 2009.

Daniel Sinnathamby [CORR], regional humanitarian coordinator for Oxfam in southern Africa, said: "There is food around, which was not the case in 2000 and 2003 when production failed. Most countries in the region except Zimbabwe seemed to have had fairly good harvests.

"The question is how does it get around and into the hands of poor people. Governments need to take a look at internal distribution and see who is poor and marginalised."

In June a UN report warned that food prices will rise by up to 40% over the next decade due to growing biofuel production and demand from emerging markets.

Scottish shellfish firm is to move south to the warmer waters of Lyme Bay, where it aims to produce up to 10,000 tonnes a year

Plans for the largest offshore mussel farm in Europe, to be set up in Lyme Bay, were announced today.

The company behind the project hopes it will produce up to 10,000 tonnes of mussels a year – more than the entire annual production of Scotland, where much of the UK industry is based.

The project, using 15.4 square kilometres of seabed leased from the Crown Estate, will be on three sites in the bay. Offshore Shellfish (OSL), which is to begin a pilot project, hopes eventually to employ up to 30 people on the farm and to help to create three times that number of jobs in the transport, engineering and supply industries.

Most shellfish production in Scottish lochs on the west coast is on ropes and long lines. Some schemes, such as that in the river Exe in Devon, grow mussels on the riverbed.

John and Nicki Holmyard have sold their business on Loch Etive to finance their £5m investment. "This new business is a unique opportunity to produce mussels away from the coast, which will help diversify and develop the full potential of large-scale seafood production in the UK," John Holmyard said. "The mussels will be grown on ropes suspended above the seabed, which ensures they are free from grit. Being offshore, the farm will be well flushed with clean oceanic water that is rich in the plankton on which the mussels feed naturally."

Initially, production will be aimed at the export market. "We designed this as a large-scale development to enable us to provide the volumes required by European buyers," said Nicki Holmyard. "However, with low per-capita consumption of mussels in the UK, our long-term aim is to develop the market by encouraging greater domestic consumption of this highly nutritious and delicious seafood."

In Scotland, mussels take two to three years to grow, but this should be reduced to two in the warmer waters off the south coast, she said.

• ExxonMobil discussed politics of BP takeover with the White House
• BP's value had once dropped by more than $100bn, since 20 April

BP said today that it was a fortnight away from finally sealing the rogue well in the Gulf of Mexico – potentially triggering bids from rivals for a company whose market value has been dramatically eroded since the April blowout.

BP, which also announced that the clean-up bill has hit $8bn (£5bn), has been viewed as vulnerable to takeover since the Deepwater Horizon accident on 20 April.

But City experts said the leaking well needed to be finally capped – putting a lid on liabilities – before anyone would dare make a move. There have been successive reports that the cash-rich US firm ExxonMobil – the biggest non-government owned oil company in the world – has discussed the political implications of a BP takeover with the White House .

While Barack Obama is said to have raised no competition objections – although some assets would probably have to be sold – industry experts believe he must be concerned about job losses at a time of high US unemployment.

Any takeover offer would fit into a wave of merger and acquisition activity across other sectors of business and would inevitably lead to redundancies.

No new oil has flowed from BP's Macondo well in the Gulf since 15 July when a cap was inserted but BP said it hoped to seal it for good in mid-September.

The bill has steadily risen since the explosion, which triggered an environmental disaster in the region and the country's worst-ever oil spill. In the aftermath, the oil company was forced to abandon hopes of drilling in the Arctic due to its tarnished reputation while BP's chief executive, Tony Hayward, bowed to pressure to resign from the end of this month.

Since the processing of claims by people affected by the disaster was transferred to the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, led by Ken Feinberg under a deal with the White House, BP has paid out some $38.5m to 4,900 claimants. Before the transfer, it had made 127,000 payments, worth about $400m. Meanwhile, more than 28,000 people, more than 4,050 ships and dozens of aircraft are still involved in the country's biggest offshore clean-up operation.

BP's future was effectively put up for formal discussion in June when the normally-conservative investment bank, JP Morgan Cazenove put out a provocative research note on BP.

Fred Lucas, JP Morgan's London-based oil analyst, looked at whether Exxon was the right player to make an £88bn bid. The US group is the financially strongest oil company, he said, adding that it could make a cash and stock offer while spinning off $50bn (£33bn) of refining and marketing assets, resulting in a bid estimated at 473p a share.

Certainly BP is very cheap by historic standards. More than $100bn was wiped off BP's market value at one stage since the 20 April explosion.

The company has instructed Goldman Sachs and Blackstone to defend against any hostile takeover bids.

One City fund manager said last night that he expected Exxon, Chevron or possibly even a Chinese national oil corporation to make a move on BP but Fadel Gheit, veteran oil analyst with the Oppenheimer brokerage in New York, said he doubted the White House would endorse a takeover that would cost more US jobs.

"When Exxon took over Mobil (in 1998) 50,000 jobs were shed within three years. The real way these mergers are made to work is by cutting costs often by massive layoffs. What politician would support that when unemployment levels are already at their highest for 40 years? It makes a lot of sense on paper but the political realities make it unlikely."

Other analysts said a move by a Chinese company was unlikely be agreed in the US, where many of BP's assets are based. Washington vetoed the takeover of Unocal by the China National Offshore Oil Corporation in 2005.

Supermarkets take pride in stocking local produce but distribution is 'complicated'

• Ask Leo: Could supermarkets move our food around in a greener way?

More than a century ago Thomas Rodda began to sell his cream at markets in Cornwall, travelling as far from his farm as his horse could manage. Today a tub of Rodda's Cornish clotted cream on sale at Tesco in Redruth, two miles from the creamery in Scorrier, has been driven at least 340 miles to get there.

Rodda's great great grandson, Nicholas Rodda, admitted today that his forefathers would have been "surprised" that the cream was sent up on a Tesco lorry to a distribution centre in Avonmouth, near Bristol, one day, only to be sent back to the far south-west of England the next.

"It does sound crazy but it does make sense," said Rodda, the managing director of a company that makes 80m dollops of clotted cream a year. "It's complicated."

The issue was highlighted this week by the curious case of Ginsters, based in Callington (population around 6,000) in south-east Cornwall.

Ginsters prides itself on its Cornish connections. It employs 700 people who help make about 3m pastries a week. It has grown steadily since the 1960s when the Ginster family converted their egg-packing plant into a small bakery.

One of Ginsters' favourite slogans is "Keeping it local." All of its beef is British and 65% comes from Jaspers, whose abattoir is five miles from Callington. Ginsters sources about 70% of its vegetables from Cornwall, many from Hay Farm at Antony, 18 miles away. A fifth of its flour is made using wheat from Cornwall.

Ginsters has a fleet of 150 vehicles based at sales offices around the country, delivering direct to service stations, convenience stores and small supermarkets. It uses Samworth Brothers trucks to get its pasties into some supermarket distribution systems.

But its pastries – some destined for the new Tesco next door – are taken by lorry to Avonmouth before being moved back to the supermarket's shelves, a round-trip of at least 250 miles.

Many Callington residents, small-scale food producers and campaigners against "food miles" express bafflement and frustration.

But it goes further. Ginsters sends consignments destined for other supermarkets by the same circuitous route. Pasties sold at the Co-operative store in Callington a mile from the factory have travelled to Portbury, near Bristol, and back – another round-trip of 250 miles.

Other producers who pride themselves on their local credentials also send their products on long journeys.

Cornish Country Larder makes St Endellion Cornish brie near Newquay, north Cornwall. It is sent to its depot in Taunton in Somerset and moved on to the Tesco distribution centre at Avonmouth before being transferred to where it has been ordered – including stores in Cornwall.

One route for Cornish sardines starts with them being landed at a port in south Cornwall before being driven inland to a processor on an industrial estate. They are moved up to a distribution centre outside the county before being sent back to stores in Cornwall.

When the Guardian bought sardines from a Tesco store, an assistant said they would have been landed about three days before they arrived on the fish counter. If they had come direct from port to shop it would have taken about 45 minutes.

Small pasty makers in Callington said they were amazed at the odyssey which Ginsters pasties were making.

"It seems an odd way of doing business," said Ann Arnold, of the Pasty Stop Bakery, where they make 300 pasties a day in a room above the shop. Their journey to market consists of carrying them down the narrow staircase. The journey is even shorter at the nearby Cornish Bakery, whose pasties make a trip of about a metre from the back room to the front counter.

Elaine Ead, the owner of the Chough Bakery in Padstow, north Cornwall, and a committee member of the Cornish Pasty Association, said she was frustrated by the sight of lorries trucking up and down the motorways. "We have to have a think about how food is produced and distributed," she said.

Tim Lang, the professor of food policy at City University London, who coined the phrase "food miles", said: "At one level it's completely absurd but it is alas the reality of modern logistics, which is based on cheap oil, the motorway system and mass production. If people don't like it they are going to have to be prepared to pay more for a more sustainable system of logistics."

Andrew Sims, policy director of the new economics foundation thinktank, said: "We do not pay the real environmental price for producing and transporting goods. It is economically inefficient and a market failure.

"To learn that Cornish goods are being taken on tours of Britain to end up being sold in branches of Tesco right next door to where they were made tells us that, for all the claims of being green, UK plc has a very long way to go to become environmentally efficient and responsible. It would be funny were it not for the sad waste of resources."

Tesco and the Co-operative insist their distribution systems are the most efficient and environmentally friendly ways of moving goods around.

A spokesman for the Co-operative Group defended regional depots. "If each individual supplier delivered directly to our stores, that would result in tens of thousands of extra vehicles on the road and not only significantly increase our carbon footprint but also add to traffic congestion."

Distribution centres were, said Tesco, the most efficient delivery network. "If it were more efficient to make separate deliveries to local stores from national suppliers, we would do so. But with more than 2,000 stores in the UK and an average Tesco superstore carrying 40,000 different lines, a centralised distribution system is more practical and efficient," a spokesman said.

He added that the company had cut the number of lorry journeys by investing in technology and other measures.

Ginsters, which is praised for using local ingredients, is upset at the criticism. Spokesman Larry File said there would be "mayhem" if every producer tried to deliver to every store in the country.

Consumers would have to come to terms with very limited choice if producers delivered only locally, File said. "There would be no fresh fruit, no fresh vegetables out of season."

Back at the creamery, Nicholas Rodda said sending its products out on supermarket lorries meant it could get its products out of Cornwall. "We're so far from the marketplace. It's a tremendous logistical feat to get our cream to Scotland, Norfolk and Wales the following morning."

And, of course, back to Cornwall.

Pastry base

Ginsters prides itself on its Cornish connections. Based in Callington (population around 6,000) in south-east Cornwall, it employs 700 people who help make around 3m pastries a week. It has grown steadily since the 1960s when the Ginster family converted their egg-packing plant into a small bakery. Since 1977 Ginsters has been part of Samworth Brothers, the Melton Mowbray-based seller of pork pies, sandwiches and other goods, which has 7,000 employees in Leicestershire, Cornwall and Milton Keynes. Pork pies packaged under the Ginster label are made in Leicestershire. One of Ginsters' favourite slogans is "Keeping it local". All of its beef is British and 65% comes from Jaspers, whose abattoir is five miles from Callington. Ginsters sources around 70% of its vegetables from Cornwall, much of it from Hay farm in Antony, 18 miles away. A fifth of its flour is made using wheat from Cornwall. Ginsters has a fleet of 150 vehicles, delivering to service stations, convenience stores and small supermarkets. It uses Samworth Brothers trucks to get its pasties into some supermarket distribution systems. 

• This article was amended on 6 September 2010. The original referred to seperate deliveries to local stores. This has been corrected.

Patricia Espinosa says success of talks should not be measured by whether countries agree on a new legally binding text

Mexico's foreign minister today dampened hopes of a breakthrough deal at the Cancun climate change talks in November, saying negotiators are focusing on making progress on smaller issues before perhaps seeking a comprehensive agreement in 2011 or later.

Speaking after a two-day meeting in Geneva that dealt with how to pay for carbon-cutting projects in developing countries, Patricia Espinosa said the public should not measure the success of the Cancun talks by whether countries agree on a new legally binding text to combat global warming.

"I don't think this is the right approach under the current circumstances," she told reporters. "Throughout the world there are really very different needs and interests."

Organisers of the Cancun meeting, including the United Nations and the Mexican government, are trying to inject a sense of optimism and trust among negotiators after the last major round of talks in Copenhagen ended in failure last year.

Swiss environment minister Moritz Leuenberger, who hosted the closed-door talks in Geneva, insisted countries are "no longer fixated" on agreeing on a successor to the 1997 Kyoto protocol, which scientists say does not go far enough in requiring countries to reduce their carbon emissions.

Delegates traveling to Cancun, a Mexican resort city, should consider it a "unique opportunity to consolidate a cooperative framework that can allow us to move to immediate action," said Espinosa.

Rich countries like the United States, which rejected the Kyoto protocol, want rapidly developing nations such as China and India to join in the effort to cut pollution. Poor countries say they will agree to a deal only if it includes significant financial aid to help them make their economies more green.

Espinosa says such a "green fund" might be agreed in Cancun.

But, according to Wendel Trio, climate policy coordinator at Greenpeace International, big differences remain over where the money should come from, who should get it, and how it would be controlled.

"Given that climate finance is definitely one of the issues that will need to be solved, the fact that we haven't seen progress in the last two days is an indication that governments are not yet willing to move forward," said Trio.

The sums involved are vast – $10bn annually for the next three years, $100bn a year starting in 2020 – and both sides are insisting on transparency to ensure commitments are kept and funds are not wasted.

On Friday, the Dutch government launched a website aimed at tracking pledges made by rich countries and the programmes toward which they go.

Meanwhile, US climate envoy Todd Stern told reporters that failure of a climate bill in the US Senate need not mean the end of attempts to introduce legal restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

"I am in no sense writing off legislation over time and I'm quite sure the president isn't either," he said.

But he rejected any suggestion that the United States might sign up to the Kyoto protocol if no other agreement is agreed to replace it.