Around The Web

Pandemic put handbrake on transport emissions and slowed economic activity, while an uptake in renewables also helped drive down levels

Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions dropped last year to levels not seen in more than 30 years due mostly to the coronavirus pandemic that put a handbrake on fossil fuel burning in the transport sector and slowed economic activity.

New government data released Monday shows sectors where emissions fell sharply in 2020 due to factors beyond the government’s control – the global pandemic and the end of a sharp drought – were starting to rebound.

Continue reading...

Elliot Green Power is latest solar investor looking to exit Australia, bringing in advisers to find a buyer for its $500 million portfolio.

The post Elliott Green Power looking for buyers for $500m Australian solar portfolio appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Regulatory approval for major new transmission link raises questions about who should bear the costs, and not just the poor old consumer.

The post Why should consumers be the only ones lumped with costs of big transmission projects? appeared first on RenewEconomy.

RenewEconomy unveils two more interactive maps - large scale solar farms and large scale wind farms, both operating and under construction.

The post RenewEconomy unveils interactive maps of Australia’s big wind and solar farms appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Australia's emissions fell in 2020, due to the pandemic and the ongoing decline of coal, but signs of a post-Covid bounce back are already starting to show.

The post Wind and solar help Australia slash emissions, but no credit to Coalition appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Transgrid give approval to $1.83 billion investment in new transmission link after CEFC makes its largest ever financing commitment.

The post Transgrid commits to major new transmission link after CEFC steps in appeared first on RenewEconomy.

To date, courts have often been reluctant to interfere in what is viewed as an issue best left to policymakers. These recent judgements, and others, suggest things are changing. Jacqueline Peel, Professor of Environmental and Climate Law, The University of Melbourne Ben Neville, Senior Lecturer and Program Director of the Master of Commerce, The University of Melbourne Rebekkah Markey-Towler, Research fellow, Melbourne Climate Futures, The University of Melbourne Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

The blackouts in Queensland last week and Texas in the recent northern winter highlight why customers need more information about market pricing.

The post Customers left in the dark by surging prices after Callide coal explosion appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Met Office warning over impact of global heating prompts calls for action to protect elderly and vulnerable

Britain is failing to protect its vulnerable citizens from the threat of intensifying heatwaves, health experts warned last week. Thousands of preventable deaths could be triggered every year because simple measures to keep houses and care homes cool have not been implemented.

As global heating worsens and heatwaves become more frequent, the problem is likely to worsen significantly – unless urgent action is taken, they say. Those most likely to suffer include the very young, the elderly and people suffering from chronic conditions such as asthma.

Continue reading...

Campaigners are dismayed that Australian governments are ‘shooting themselves in the foot’ over EV policies

As of last week, Canberrans who buy electric and other zero-emissions vehicles automatically receive two years’ registration for free. The Australian Capital Territory already waives stamp duty for clean cars, and has promised households and not-for-profit organisations interest-free loans of up to $15,000 to buy them.

Also last week, the Victorian parliament passed the country’s first road user charge – a tax on every kilometre driven – for electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrids. The Labor state government’s legislation was backed by enough crossbench MPs to pass the upper house despite opposition from the Coalition and Greens. It starts on 1 July.

Continue reading...

British printmaker Sarah Gillespie was drawn to moths because they’re “overlooked and underloved”. Then she found out they’re in catastrophic decline: 50-60 species have become extinct in the past 80 years.

So Gillespie has created a series of mezzotints, on show now at Castle Howard in Yorkshire, to highlight their existential plight. “We have done enormous damage to those we share the Earth with. The work of the artist is to pay attention – to refuse not to notice.”

Continue reading...

Artists are harnessing NFTs to sell their work but ignoring the vast amount of fossil fuels needed to power them

If you happen to count yourself among those appalled by the seemingly unstoppable rise of NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, over the past few months, you might be forgiven a little schadenfreude at the recent news that a dispute has broken out over the ownership of Mars House, a digital file that sold in March for $512,000 (£360,000).

Let’s be clear what’s been purchased here. Mars House itself is nothing more than a string of ones and zeroes residing on a server somewhere. But the NFT isn’t even that string. All it is is another such string pointing to that one, certifying that it is the only copy of that precise sequence of ones and zeroes in existence. Put aside, if you can, the obscenity of a purely virtual dwelling selling for half a million dollars. The dispute over Mars House makes plain what should have been obvious all along: NFTs aren’t even capable of guaranteeing the one thing their value is supposedly predicated on, ownership of a unique digital asset.

Continue reading...

Rare flower reappears on Tean after disappearing in the absence of human inhabitants

The tiny island of Tean was once home to a single resident, a modest chapel, diminutive grazed fields and a dwarf pansy smaller than the tip of a pencil.

All these things vanished from the 0.16 sq km Scilly island in the years after it was abandoned by humans seeking larger things.

Continue reading...

Hairdressers from UK and Ireland sign up to initiative to protect environment and power National Grid

Hair cuttings from salons are being used to mop up oil spills and hair bleaches, and dyes are being burned to create energy as part of a scheme to make the hairdressing industry greener.

Over the past 10 months, 550 salons across the UK and Ireland have signed up to the Green Salon Collective (GSC), an initiative that reduces salon waste through recycling and education programmes.

Continue reading...

The solar tower that rises at Sundrop Farms shines like a beacon from above the saltbush landscape.

The post Good taste and food security: How Sundrop used solar to bring tomatoes to the desert appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Campaigners sense turning point as shareholders, boards and The Hague act to force Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell to cut pollution

The world’s patience with the fossil fuel industry is wearing thin. This was the stark message delivered to major international oil companies this week in an unprecedented day of reckoning for their role in the climate crisis.

In a stunning series of defeats for the oil industry, over the course of less than 24 hours, courtrooms and boardrooms turned on the executives at Shell, ExxonMobil and Chevron. Shell was ordered by a court in The Hague to go far further to reduce its climate emissions, while shareholder rebellions in the US imposed emissions targets at Chevron and a boardroom overhaul at Exxon.

Continue reading...

A hot-water heat pump can be the cheapest way to heat water at your home or business, with or without rooftop solar.

The post Explainer: Why hot-water heat pumps are great for homes with or without solar PV appeared first on RenewEconomy.

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

Speculators’ California Carbon Allowance (CCA) length surged to an all-time high over the past week, as emitters held a cumulative net short across the V20-22 contracts for the first time since last spring, according to US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data published Friday.

Scientists have tracked 4,000 years of human influence on the planet - all from long tubes of mud.