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European carbon prices rebounded back towards €40 on Wednesday amid a stronger auction result and a mixed energy picture, with data showing investor interest surging to fresh record levels.

Over six months, 73,991 tourists visited the continent. The potential to spread coronavirus to penguins, whales and other wildlife is enormous. Michelle Power, Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University Meagan Dewar, Lecturer, Federation University Australia Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Putting a price on emissions from vehicle transport and buildings at EU level will not weaken national policies to decarbonise these sectors, a senior European Commission official said on Wednesday, attempting to allay concerns that the move could replace domestic emissions targets.

A steady decline in the levels of ozone-harming CFCs in the atmosphere has resumed, scientists say.

Smart, activist states could prove as effective at handling the biodiversity crisis as they have at tackling the pandemic

Let’s be honest: few government-commissioned reports make a real difference. Often ministers call on an expert to look into a contentious issue in the hope of kicking it into the long grass, and when a weighty tome duly arrives with uncomfortable recommendations, it is quietly ignored.

It is easy to see how the review into the economics of biodiversity by the Cambridge University academic Prof Sir Partha Dasgupta could be one of those that gathers dust in the Treasury, because it has a tough message. Put simply, Dasgupta says humanity – all 7.8 billion of us – is on a collision course with the planet. Our current economic system is unsustainable and endangers the prosperity of current and future generations.

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Politicians would have us believe we can achieve net zero by just doing the easy things – or that some sectors can be excused

Right now the government is utterly hamstrung on the issue of climate change. After more than a decade of obstruction and doing the least possible, the rest of the world is changing fast and the debate in Australia needs to get real.

As Katharine Murphy put it so well on Tuesday, the government has no real climate change policy to speak of, but they do have a hell of a lot of fighting over pretending that there is.

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A California Senate committee will hold a cap-and-trade oversight hearing next week to examine ways to improve the WCI-linked programme and its role in achieving the state’s long-term climate plan, a legislative source told Carbon Pulse.

The rising value of Bitcoin leads to ever-higher energy consumption, researchers say.

Meeting Paris goals would bring health benefits aside from tackling global heating, research says

Thousands of lives lost to air pollution, inactivity and unhealthy diets could be saved each year if the UK takes the action needed to tackle climate change, researchers have said.

Across the world, millions of lives could be saved if countries raise ambitions on cutting emissions to limit global heating to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels, as they have committed to in the global Paris climate accord.

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Australian exporters risk huge additional costs and shrinking markets as the country’s main trading partners bring climate policy into trade negotiations, but it would be relatively pain free for the government to steer clear of such sanctions, according to two reports out this week.

95% of £1.5bn set aside to improve houses unspent due to slowness in making grants and paying installers

The government is apparently withdrawing hundreds of millions of pounds from the green homes grant programme, a move condemned by the renewable energy industry as an alarming failure of its plan for a green recovery.

Ninety-five per cent of the £1.5bn pot provided for householders in England to make their homes less carbon intensive remains unspent due to long delays in giving out grants to householders and making payments to installers.

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China’s National Energy Administration has proposed to increase the share of renewables in the nation’s power consumption to 40% by 2030 in a move designed to ensure the world’s biggest-emitting nation meets its Paris Agreement obligations.

Riders in major cities, especially New York, encounter particle quantities well above safe levels

People traveling on subway systems in major US cities are being exposed to unsafe amounts of air pollution, with commuters in New York and New Jersey subjected to the highest levels of pollution, research has found.

Tiny airborne particles, probably thrown up by train brakes or the friction between train wheels and rails, are rife in the 71 underground stations sampled by researchers during morning and evening rush hours in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia and Washington DC, the cities that contain the bulk of subway systems in the US.

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Najin and Fatu are the only two rhinos of their species in existence. Jack Davison visited Ol Pejeta in Kenya to document a story that transcends tragedy

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Underwater photographer of the year, a global annual competition based in the UK, celebrates photography beneath the surface of the ocean, lakes, rivers and even swimming pools

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Tanworth Regional Council pens a nine-page submission in opposition to Engie's 400MW Hills of Gold wind farm – and a new anti-wind acronym is born.

The post “Not in Nundle!” Hills of Gold wind farm faces mounting local opposition appeared first on RenewEconomy.

An outstanding historic precinct with a diversity of historic parks, gardens, streets, archaeological sites and buildings has been added to the National Heritage List.

Murdoch press and coalition backbenchers embrace lazy work from Liberal party aligned think tank, designed to scare regional communities over zero carbon targets.

The post How Coalition’s “brain trust” claimed zero emissions would lead to “humanitarian disaster” appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Electric carmaker Tesla invests 8% equivalent of its cash holdings in bitcoin, and said it may accept bitcoin from customers in the future.

The post Tesla buys $A2bn bitcoin, and may accept it as payment for EVs appeared first on RenewEconomy.

New research suggests fossil fuel pollution could be responsible for as many as one-in-five deaths globally, much higher than first thought.

The post Fossil fuel pollution may have killed 8.7 million people in single year, says Harvard study appeared first on RenewEconomy.