Around The Web

Smallholder farmers have released a declaration in advance of UN biodiversity conference COP16 with a rejection of discussions that aim to commodify nature.

The nascent nature credits market is a key solution to the need for economic incentives to restore nature, with its viability proven by carbon, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a speech on Friday.

Exclusive: Campaigners call for overhaul as Guardian investigation shows nature rarely on agenda

• How national parks failed nature – and how to fix them

The boards that oversee England’s national parks are bloated, dominated by men and are severely lacking in diversity, a Guardian analysis has found. The analysis also found that farmers outnumber conservation experts by two to one, nature is rarely on the agenda at board meetings and only one national park can account for the ownership of all the land it covers.

Campaigners said a major overhaul of how national parks were governed was “fundamental” to the recovery of nature in the parks and to serving the public, for whom they were set up.

Continue reading...

Recent policy updates on sectoral expansion failed to boost trading activity in China's emissions market over the past week, which saw permit prices fall below 90 yuan ($12.69) again with shrinking liquidity. 

The Climate Action Data Trust (CAD Trust) and Quantedge Advancement Initiative (WAI) announced a two-year funding partnership Friday to catalyse climate change action and improve carbon market data, the former said.

Government’s communication called ‘unconscionable’ after one of largest spills of toxic ‘forever chemicals’

A former US navy base in Maine has caused among the largest accidental spills of toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” ever recorded in the nation, and public health advocates suspect state officials are attempting to cover up its scale by reporting misleading and incomplete data.

Meanwhile, state and regional officials were slow to alert the public and are resisting calls to immediately test some private drinking water wells in the area despite its notoriously complex hydrology, which could potentially spread the contamination widely.

Continue reading...

Court rules against West Cumbria Mining’s fossil fuel development in Whitehaven

The UK’s first new coalmine in 30 years will not be allowed to go ahead after a ruling in the high court.

On Friday morning, Justice Holgate ruled plans for the facility to be built in Whitehaven, Cumbria will not proceed, in what campaigners called a “victory for the environment”.

Continue reading...

The hazards of urban roads are familiar to many: from drivers itching to get in front, to corner cutters and e-bike dabblers

More or less anyone who has ridden a bike, particularly in a town or city, has a mental list of the types of road users or situations you really need to look out for. The more you cycle, the longer and more entrenched this list becomes, to the extent that you can almost sense a familiar peril lurking a good minute or two’s pedalling distance away.

Below are some examples from my list, the product of years cycling around several cities; London more than most. I’d say at least four are nonetheless fairly universal, at least to urban areas lacking proper cycling infrastructure. But there are others – do tell us yours below.

Continue reading...

The government of China's Sichuan province is seeking methodological proposals on the development of forest carbon sinks under the local offset scheme.

The generic spot price for Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) reached a 16-month high Thursday off the back of over 1 million credits changing hands throughout the day.

Nearly 5,000 primary school students took part in the Australian Conservation Foundation’s Wild at Art competition, which invites children to create an artwork depicting one of the country’s threatened native animals or plants

• ‘A symbol of our nation’: waratah among 20 more species added to Australia’s threatened wildlife list
• Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email

Continue reading...

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world

Continue reading...

A German biogas energy startup has raised $62 million in Series A funding following an oversubscribed round, enabling it to begin producing power plants and meet pre-orders from farmers and industrials, it announced on Friday.

Australia is facing climate hazards on all fronts this spring and summer. Climate scientist Andrew King walks us through the Bureau of Meteorology’s new national outlook. Andrew King, Senior Lecturer in Climate Science, The University of Melbourne Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

A major Japanese trading house has secured a preliminary agreement to buy a stake in a large low-carbon ammonia project in the US, it announced Friday.

Discussions surrounding California’s cap-and-trade programme took a backseat as a joint meeting Thursday between regulator ARB and the Environmental Justice Advisory Committee (EJAC) focused largely on shortfalls in proposed changes to the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS).

The newspaper owned by billionaire Kerry Stokes has not been shy about attacking environmental reforms – but are readers getting the full picture?

• Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates
• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

Kerry Stokes’ West Australian has not been shy about its support of mining and resources industries.

Last year an opinion piece by the Woodside chief executive, Meg O’Neill, spruiking the fossil fuel company’s interests was stretched into a front-page splash, a separate news story and an editorial without the tabloid troubling itself to include an alternative view on what she had to say.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Activities such as mining, dredging and bottom trawling in most MPAs mean conservation targets will be missed, say researchers

Most of Europe’s marine protected areas, set up to safeguard species and habitats, will not meet conservation targets as they provide only “marginal” protection against industrial activities such as dredging, mining and bottom trawling, a study has revealed.

Low levels of protection in 86% of marine protected areas (MPAs) have left the EU far from reaching its 2030 biodiversity targets, which are designed to reduce the risk of species’ extinction, researchers said in a paper published in the One Earth journal. The EU aims to protect 30% of its seas by 2030, with 10% “strictly” protected from damaging activities.

Continue reading...

In announcing the strategy, climate minister Chris Bowen also took a swipe at the ‘climate inactivism’ of critics of the nascent industry

• Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates
• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

The Albanese government has set annual targets of at least 15m tonnes of “renewable hydrogen” by 2050 and dismissed critics who had “gloated” about setbacks to the nascent industry.

The energy minister, Chris Bowen, said on Friday that Australia’s green hydrogen pipeline of projects was “alive and healthy” as he released the government’s new hydrogen production strategy, which updates the 2019 plan he inherited from the Coalition.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

California’s power sector emissions rose above 2023 levels in June and July with a rise in natural gas power generation and a concurrent decline in the share of renewables as the state sweltered under record temperatures.