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An Australian engineer-turned climate activist hosts Coal Miners Driving Teslas, a YouTube and Twitter channel heavily spiced with unbridled swearing

What happens when you take an electric car into a town full of petrolheads and coalminers, and film them planting their steel-capped boots on the accelerator?

“Fuck me … it’s like a rocket ship,” says one miner, who usually spends his time driving V8s or manoeuvring a giant coal scoop.

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EUAs slumped to a one-week low just above €50 on Friday to notch a 1.4% weekly loss, while UKAs also sank as it emerged Britain was considering boosting this year's auction supply.

A summary of legislative and regulatory action on carbon pricing, clean fuel standards, and clean energy at the US subnational and federal level this week, including developments in California and Massachusetts.

EU carbon will average €50 for the remainder of this year, analysts predict, with a number of bullish factors leading them to raise their forecasts for both 2021 and 2022.

Heat from industry and warmth from the sea feature in advice to government on future home heating.

Fossil fuel firms are being held responsible for greenhouse gas emissions. That’s a good thing

History was made in the Hague district court this week. Judge Larisa Alwin ruled that Shell, one of the world’s biggest oil companies, must cut its emissions by 45% by 2030 relative to 2019 levels. Until Wednesday, courts in the Netherlands, France and Germany had concentrated on holding governments to their commitments under the Paris climate deal of 2015. States were found guilty of denying basic rights to future citizens, triggering more ambitious climate plans. The landmark Hague ruling shows that corporations can now be ordered to comply with the goals of the Paris agreement.

Governments are supposed to design the regulatory frameworks and put in place the laws so that companies and households steadily reduce their carbon emissions. But this relies on private entities playing their part. If they do not, preferring to hide behind slick PR, the law can step in. The judge accepted the argument that Shell had failed in its duty to respect human rights by failing to adequately curb its role in global heating. Shell’s goals to mitigate its climate impact, the court found, “largely amount to rather intangible, undefined and non-binding plans for the long term”.

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Increased hardship for small farmers as close to a billion pounds wiped off UK’s farming economy in 2020

Farm incomes dropped drastically last year, as poor weather combined with the impact of the pandemic and Brexit-related issues wiped close to a billion pounds off the UK’s farming economy and increased hardship for many small farmers.

Total income from farming, calculated annually by the government, fell from nearly £5.2bn in 2019 to just over £4.1bn in 2020, the lowest value in real terms since 2007.

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The Nova Scotia government is mulling its options for post-2022 carbon pricing, according to a discussion paper released Thursday, suggesting the Canadian province could choose an alternative to its cap-and-trade scheme going forward. 

The UK government may significantly increase the amount of carbon allowances to be sold under the country's new emissions trading scheme this year, Carbon Pulse has learned.

An offset retailer has rejected around 90% of nature-based projects it has examined and is insisting clients buy almost four carbon credits for every tonne emitted from a chosen few initiatives to ensure an effective contribution to climate action.

Germany selected 62 green hydrogen projects as eligible for state financing on Friday, with a large share intended to decarbonise the country's energy-intensive industries.

How do you heat your home cheaply and efficiently if you don't use gas? There are renewable options.

The post Explainer: What’s the cheapest way to heat my house if I get off gas? appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Alarming toxic PFAS levels revealed in new report raise concerns that the chemicals are contaminating vegetables

Sewage sludge that wastewater treatment districts across America package and sell as home fertilizer contain alarming levels of toxic PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals”, a new report has revealed.

Sludge, which is lightly treated and marketed as “biosolids”, is used by consumers to fertilize home gardens, and the PFAS levels raise concerns that the chemicals are contaminating vegetables and harming those who eat them.

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China will set a 10% limit on daily price movements in its emissions trading scheme, while block trades will have to stay within 30% of on-screen prices, the chairman of the carbon exchange in Shanghai told local media on Friday.

Conditional commitments are promises to raise emissions reduction efforts, depending on what others do. It could be a big incentive for Australia. Katie Steele, Associate Professor in Philosophy, Australian National University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

One of the Victorian towns hardest hit by the catastrophic Black Summer of 2019/2020 has been fitted with a grid-connected community battery storage system.

The post Community battery finally installed in bushfire-prone Mallacoota appeared first on RenewEconomy.

DNV, an independent expert in assurance and risk management, has issued a report entitled ‘Technology Review Of Two Single-Axis Tracking System: Agile-1P and Vanguard-2P ‘ which are trackers made by Trina Tracker.

The post DNV finds that TrinaTracker is compatible with large format modules appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Bugs Matter app will collect data on worrying population crash of creatures essential to life on Earth

A new app that tracks bug splats on car number plates will enable UK citizen scientists to help shed light on the worrying decline of insects.

Older drivers will remember scrubbing large numbers of splatted insects from windscreens after journeys in past decades. But a 2019 study that analysed car registration plates after trips in Kent found a 50% fall in splatted bugs compared with 2004.

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Battery storage investment looks good, but new wind and solar projects are stalled. CEC’s Kane Thornton explains why. Plus: The Callide explosion.

The post Energy Insiders Podcast: A new wind and solar investment drought appeared first on RenewEconomy.

While debate builds around whether big batteries could have saved the day in Queensland on Tuesday, the benefits of having a home battery during a coal plant explosion are obvious.

The post What blackout? Home batteries power through Queensland coal plant calamity appeared first on RenewEconomy.