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Renewables contribute more than 30 per cent of Australia's National Electricity Market for second month in a row.

The post Renewables supply more than 30pct of NEM for second month in a row appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The candidate would be part of the California Carbon team, a division of cKinetics, which provides business intelligence and analytics in carbon markets.

Under container deposit scheme, Victorians will receive 10c for every empty can, small bottle and carton they drop off at a collection point

The Victorian government has called for public comment on a proposed container deposit scheme, due to be rolled out in 2023, finally ending its status as the only state or territory in Australia without one.

Under the proposal put forward by the state government, Victorians will receive 10c for every empty can, small bottle and carton they drop off at a collection point.

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Renewables output in month of October beats both coal and gas for the first time in Western Australia as three major new projects come on line.

The post Renewables overtake coal and gas for first time in Western Australia appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Not for the first time, politicians highlight Scotland's potential to generate renewable energy.

South Australia signs new electricity supply deal with Garnaut's Zen Energy, and for the Cultana solar farm and Playford big battery.

The post South Australia signs supply deal for Playford big battery and Cultana solar farm appeared first on RenewEconomy.

New analysis details the massive economic hurt for Australia if global warming left unchecked, but a shift to zero emissions could create 250,000 new jobs.

The post Australia faces $3.4 trillion economic bill for failure to act on climate change appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Town beach closed after 13-year-old bitten and taken to hospital in a stable condition

A 13-year-old boy has been bitten by a shark at Port Macquarie on the New South Wales mid north coast.

NSW Ambulance says the attack happened just before 6am at Town Beach.

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When humpback whales shift their distribution and behaviour, it can lead to unexpected human encounters and new challenges. Olaf Meynecke, Research Fellow in Marine Science, Griffith University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

The drowning of a family of five in the Channel and a fire on a ship off the coast of Senegal should prompt action – ‘thoughts and prayers’ are not enough

“We don’t see migration as a problem at all: we see people dying at sea as a problem and the existence of the mafias as a problem.” Such was the view expressed last week by Hana Jalloul, secretary of state for migration in Spain. Days earlier, more than 140 people had died off the coast of Senegal, after their ship caught fire and capsized, in the deadliest shipwreck recorded this year. Ms Jalloul spoke of efforts to support the regional government of the Canary Islands, which is struggling to cope with the number of arrivals, and stressed her determination to combat organised crime. She also pointed to migrants’ crucial role in Spanish life, including as care workers during the pandemic.

British politicians could profit from studying her example in the aftermath of the drowning of a family of four Kurdish Iranians in the Channel. (A fifth member of the same family, aged 15 months, is missing and presumed dead.) Reports of the deaths of Rasul Iran Nezhad, Shiva Mohammad Panahi and their children drew forth platitudes from the home secretary, Priti Patel, about “thoughts and prayers”. But nothing said by her or Boris Johnson did anything to dispel the impression that their attitude to people trying to reach the UK to seek asylum is chiefly antagonistic. While Ms Patel repeated her opposition to “callous criminals exploiting vulnerable people”, there was no serious attempt to sympathise with the migrants’ desperation – or acknowledge that their reliance on smugglers is a matter not of accident but of political choice.

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If policies promoting net zero emissions by 2050 are adopted 250,000 jobs would be created and $680bn added to the economy

Australia’s economy will be 6% smaller, there will be 880,000 fewer jobs and $3.4tn in economic opportunities will be lost if the climate crisis goes unchecked for next 50 years, new analysis shows.

On the other hand, the report by consultancy Deloitte Access Economics said policies consistent with a target of net zero emissions by 2050 and keeping global warming to 1.5C could expand the economy by 2.6%, or $680bn to the economy, and create 250,000 jobs.

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Germany’s RWE says outdated regulation is slowing investment in onshore electricity grid

Britain’s bid to build enough offshore windfarms to power every home in the country by 2030 risks being derailed by outdated regulation which is slowing investment in the electricity grid, according to one of the industry’s biggest players.

Germany’s RWE has warned that work to connect the growing number of windfarms off the UK coast to the onshore electricity grid will not keep pace with the government’s goals unless decades-old regulation allows for faster investments.

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With demand and share prices dropping, Europe’s fossil fuel producers recognise that peak oil is probably now behind them

A year ago, only the most ardent climate optimists believed that the world’s appetite for oil might reach its peak in the next decade. Today, a growing number of voices within the fossil fuel industry believe this milestone may have already been passed. While the global gaze has been on Covid-19 as it ripped through the world’s largest economies and most vulnerable people, the virus has quietly dealt a mortal blow to oil demand too.

Energy economists claim with increasing certainty that the world may never require as much oil as it did last year. Even as economies slowly emerge from the financial fallout of the pandemic, the shift towards cleaner energy has gained pace. A sharp plunge in fossil fuel use will be followed in quick succession by a renewable energy revolution, which will occur at unprecedented pace. The tipping point for oil demand may have come and gone, and major oil companies are taking note.

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Labour’s leader is one of millions who should realise that large 4x4s have no place on our cramped city streets

They’re big, they ooze status appeal and they carry with them an unmistakable sense of entitlement – even the driver’s elevated seating is called a “command” position. So is it any wonder that SUVs have transfixed motorists since they started to emerge in the US in the brash 1980s and self-serving 1990s?

Rugged off-roaders, built like tanks and boasting all the subtlety of a Donald Trump meet-and-greet, are hardly new to our roads. It was only a couple of years ago that Land Rover’s bestselling and much-cherished Defender celebrated its 70th birthday. But these are 4x4s that were built to do a proper job of work. A real 4x4 is a prodigious feat of automotive engineering that ensures you can drive into the teeth of the most inhospitable environment on the planet and stay warm, dry and safe.

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The bushfires and the plague are symptoms of something momentous unfolding on Earth – an acceleration of our impact on nature

• This is part of a series of essays by Australian writers responding to the challenges of 2020

What has been the most shocking event of 2020? Was it awakening on New Year’s Day to more news of terror in Australia’s southern forests, to the realisation that the future was suddenly here, that this spring and summer of relentless bushfire was a planetary event? Was it the silent transmission of Covid-19, already on the loose and soon to overwhelm the world and change the very fabric of daily life everywhere at once? Or was it the surging race riots and protests, especially across America, where police brutality triggered grief, anger and outrage about the inequality and injustice still faced by black people? Could we even distinguish them from each other, this overlapping sequence of horrors?

Related: The great unravelling: 'I never thought I’d live to see the horror of planetary collapse' | Joelle Gergis

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Purple patches across Australia are captured in this selection of shots from a ‘secret garden’ to Long Pocket

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Described as ‘gorgeous’ by the man who found it, the great fox-spider has not been seen since 1993

One of Britain’s largest spiders has been discovered on a Ministry of Defence training ground in Surrey having not been seen in the country for 27 years.

The great fox-spider is a night-time hunter, known for its speed and agility, as well as its eight black eyes which give it wraparound vision. The critically endangered spider was assumed extinct in Britain after last being spotted in 1993 on Hankley Common in Surrey. The two-inch-wide (5cm) arachnid had previously also been spotted at two sites in Morden Heath in Dorset. These are the only three areas in Britain, all in the comparatively warmer south, where it has been recorded.

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A full moon at Halloween is a rare event but this year it is a blue moon which is even more unusual.

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The Great Fox-Spider had not been seen since the early 1990s and was feared extinct in the UK.