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It was meant to be the year of gas, but a drumbeat of news has made it the fuel to forget.

The post From bridge fuel to background noise: Another blow for gas appeared first on RenewEconomy.

California Carbon Allowance (CCA) values will rise off the WCI auction reserve price in the first half of the decade, with the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) and COVID-19 pandemic playing a critical role in the linked cap-and-trade programme’s future supply-demand balance, a conference heard Monday.

Emitters slashed their California Carbon Allowance (CCA) position last week ahead of the Nov. 17 WCI auction and as prices increased on the secondary market, while speculators kept their holdings nearly unchanged, according to US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data published Monday.

California’s cap-and-trade programme should play a central role in the state reaching its carbon neutrality goal, with more stringent CO2 allowance budgets necessary to hit this long-term abatement target, business group IETA said in a report published Monday.

The Quebec government on Monday announced that it will phase out the sale of gasoline-powered new vehicles on the same timeline as WCI partner California, as the province’s environment ministry handed out more than 4 mln additional V19 permits.

Traders anticipate the California-Quebec cap-and-trade auction on Tuesday will sell out after the last two consecutive sales went undersubscribed, with the current vintage price expected to settle at a discount to the secondary market.

Cleaner, safer cities are one good thing that could come out of the pandemic – if politicians hold their nerve

Some good can come of even the worst disaster. Amid all the suffering and difficulty of the pandemic, environmentally minded people spied a chance. Could the enforced immobility of life under Covid-19, the rediscovery of neighbourhood shops, parks and walks brought about by the closure of workplaces and schools, lead to a longer-term adjustment – a new car/life balance?

For decades, green thinkers and politicians have advocated for a less automobile-centric culture. Transport policy unites two big themes of environmental politics: the idea that many people need to be reconnected with local geographies, both physical and human; and opposition to pollution. This means greenhouse gases, of course, but also particulate matter and noise. An altered transport hierarchy, it has long been argued, is beneficial to health, since more walking and cycling means less obesity, respiratory illness and heart disease; reduced road traffic also means fewer injuries and deaths caused by collisions.

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It's high time the international shipping industry radically curbed its emissions. The industry must set a net-zero target and adopt a realistic plan to meet it. Christiaan De Beukelaer, Senior Lecturer, University of Melbourne Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Fern is looking for a Brussels-based Forest and climate campaigner to lead the NGO's work on forest biomass for energy.

Two Pacific Island nations urged the UN to advance carbon pricing plans for shipping on Monday, as nations were poised to endorse a global maritime deal that would allow the sector’s emissions to rise for another decade.

US biofuel credit (RIN) prices fell to a one-week low on Monday after EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler suggested credit values were “out of control” and as market participants wait for details on next year’s Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) biofuel quotas and pending compliance waiver applications.

Recent carbon neutrality and net zero pledges by some of the world’s most industrialised nations could render the EU’s proposed carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) "less" necessary, the European Commission’s climate chief said Monday.

Proposal would create 62,000 jobs and help towards carbon neutrality, says commission

The capacity of the EU’s offshore windfarms in the North Sea, the Baltic, the Atlantic, the Mediterranean and the Black Sea will be increased by 250%, under a draft plan drawn up by the European commission.

The move follows Boris Johnson’s announcement this year of his intention to generate enough electricity to power every home in the UK within a decade from the country’s offshore sites.

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EU carbon prices spiked to a six-week high on Monday on the second major announcement of positive COVID-19 vaccine results in the past week.

Can young people help solve the biggest problems facing the planet, given support and opportunity?

Hopes are rising that an effective vaccine against Covid-19 will be available soon.

Switzerland’s emissions trading registry will close for the holidays, effectively shutting down the country’s carbon market for almost a fortnight.

Governments from around the world try to reach agreement on a deal to clean up shipping.

The results add to growing confidence that vaccination can end the pandemic.

Calls for EU animal welfare rules to be enforced as country set to overtake Germany as Europe’s biggest pork producer

Footage that appears to show newborn piglets lying in faeces, pigs with pus-covered wounds and pig carcasses in varying states of decomposition has been published by animal welfare campaigners in Spain.

Spain is expected to overtake Germany this year as the EU’s biggest pork producer. In 2019, a record 53 million pigs were slaughtered across the country, fuelling demand for products such as chorizo, tenderloin and lard across the EU and around the world.

The photos and videos, recorded during undercover visits in 2019 and 2020 to more than 30 pigs farms across Spain, were published by Tras los Muros, which translates as Behind the Walls, a personal project launched by Spanish photojournalist Aitor Garmendia. Tras los Muros said the farms were in the Spanish regions of Aragón, Castilla-La Mancha and Castilla y León, home to around 17% of the country’s more than 86,000 pig farms.

Some of the pigs they found appeared to be “severely injured”, said Garmendia, who led the undercover team, and were thought to be showing signs of issues such as “hernias, abscesses, prolapses, arthritis or necrotic tissue”.

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