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A Hampshire lab tests tap water quality for 2.2 million people across the south east every day.

Experts find no proof minuscule particles are a threat to health but say more research is needed

Microplastics are increasingly found in drinking water, but there is no evidence so far that this poses a risk to humans, according to a new assessment by the World Health Organization.

However, the United Nations body warned against complacency because more research is needed to fully understand how plastic spreads into the environment and works its way through human bodies.

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MPs say people will have to stop driving if the UK is to meet its Zero Carbon goals by 2050.

A daily summary of our news plus bite-sized updates from around the world.

Speculators' RGGI allowance (RGAs) holdings rose during the second quarter of 2019 as trading activity also increased in the Northeast US ETS, according to a new report.

The appointment of receivers to one of Australia's biggest curb-side recyclers has prompted calls for greater urgency in finding long term solutions.

Forty-six companies worth $2.2 trillion have signed up to set tougher climate goals under the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi) ahead of an October ratcheting up of ambition.

The Canadian federal Conservatives’ climate plan would take the country even further off its Paris Agreement GHG target by scrapping or altering a variety of CO2 pricing and clean fuel measures and replacing them with negligible or difficult-to-measure initiatives, according to a new policy brief.

New York is expected to finalise draft regulations over the next two months to implement the post-2020 Model Rule for the Northeast US RGGI carbon market, a regulatory source told Carbon Pulse.

A sense of futility haunts us all, so I sought to distill in as few words as possible what could be done by us as a people. Writing them, I felt my despair lift

In 1971, the Liberal Billy McMahon – routinely judged the worst Australian prime minister ever, an achievement not to be underestimated in a nation where the worst routinely rule – created a new portfolio: Environment, Arts and Aboriginal Affairs. Nobody wanted the job: given it, Peter Howson observed that he was responsible for “trees, boongs and poofters.”

What’s changed with our conservative rulers over the last half century? On the evidence of the shame the prime minister, Scott Morrison, visited on all Australians last week at the Pacific Islands Forum, not very much. There he successfully pressured Pacific leaders to remove from the final forum communique and climate change statement all references to coal, to limiting warming to less than 1.5C, and to setting out a plan for net zero emissions by 2050.

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Morrisons is trialling a higher charge for single-use bags, but experts says all non-essential plastic must be phased out

It is a fairly hefty price hike, but it could pay off. Morrisons is increasing the price of its plastic bags to 30p, having already upped them to 20p earlier this year. The supermarket is trialling the charge in some of its Welsh stores, with money being “reinvested in plastic reduction programmes”, says a spokeswoman.

The 5p charge for single-use plastic bags that was introduced in Wales in 2011, then Northern Ireland and Scotland before England finally caught up in 2015, has been considered a success. The seven main supermarkets in England gave out 6bn fewer bags between in the first six months of the charge than in the corresponding period a year before. However, last year supermarkets sold 1.18bn of the thicker “bags for life”, prompting fears people were using these as single-use bags instead. The Environmental Investigation Agency has said bags for life should cost £1, rather than the 10p many supermarkets still charge.

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An $87m corridor will extend over Highway 101 to reconnect the ecosystem and possibly save mountain lions from extinction

Engineers in southern California are hard at work designing the biggest wildlife corridor in the world, to extend over US Highway 101 to the north-west of Los Angeles.

The corridor will connect different parts of the Santa Monica Mountain chain, which is crucial to the future of mountain lions – but it will help other species as well. The $87m bridge has entered its final design phase and is on track to open in 2023.

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Fires in the Amazon have risen 84% amid growing deforestation, Brazil's space research agency says.

Queensland government names former Origin Energy executive Maia Schweizer as inaugural CEO for its new publicly-owned generator, CleanCo.

The post Queensland chooses Maia Schweizer to head new CleanCo generator appeared first on RenewEconomy.

AEMO concerns about reliability of thermal assets, saying multiple generator failures could put reliability at risk. And it wants a new standard put in place that recognises uncontrollable events.

The post AEMO worries about ageing coal fleet in summer heat, and demands new tools appeared first on RenewEconomy.

London protests were disruptive but made rational case, officer tells court where three activists are on trial

A senior Scotland Yard officer giving evidence at the first group trial of Extinction Rebellion activists behind mass protests in central London said the demonstrators had provoked “soul searching” and proved articulate and rational as they made their case.

The protests, in April this year, had found support even among the public facing severe disruption from the demonstrations, he said.

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The first people to dive down to the Titanic in nearly 15 years say some parts of the wreck have been lost to the sea.

For the first time in 15 years divers have explored the Titanic wreck and say it is deteriorating.

UK supermarket guarantees market for unwanted offspring of dairy cows on suppliers’ farms that might otherwise be slaughtered immediately

Morrisons is guaranteeing a market for all male calves born on its dairy suppliers’ farms in a bid to stop them being killed at birth.

A Guardian investigation last year revealed an estimated 95,000 male dairy calves were being slaughtered on-farm as farmers couldn’t afford to keep them, in a practice known as the dairy industry’s “dirty secret”.

The retailer’s new policy – coming into force in October – ensures they are neither shot or exported. Instead farmers will be required to rear the calves to a certain weight until 15–40 days of age, at which point they will be bought by the beef-rearing company Buitelaar.

Related: Dairy’s ‘dirty secret’: it's still cheaper to kill male calves than to rear them

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EU carbon prices lifted back towards €27 early on Wednesday, as a supply shortfall from the lack of auction helped reverse the previous sessions's late losses.