Around The Web

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

Moves by China, along with the election of Joe Biden, make temperature targets more achievable.

Several Australian states are going it alone on the the energy transition, forced to act on renewables after the federal government effectively vacated the policy space.

The post Australia’s states have been forced to go it alone on renewable energy, but it’s a risky strategy appeared first on RenewEconomy.

An area seven times larger than Greater London has been lost in what one activist called a ‘humiliating and shameful’ destruction

A vast expanse of Amazon rainforest seven times larger than Greater London was destroyed over the last year as deforestation surged to a 12-year high under Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro.

Figures released by the Brazilian space institute, Inpe, on Monday showed at least 11,088 sq km of rainforest was razed between August 2019 and July this year – the highest figure since 2008.

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Vales Point owners share in another $62 million windfall dividend from ageing coal generator they bought from NSW government for just $1 million.

The post Vales Point owners pocket another $62m dividend from coal generator bought for $1m appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Senior ministers in NSW and the ACT extinguish ideas of following other states in adding an EV tax, a move that is at odds with other jurisdictions around the world.

The post NSW and ACT ministers play it cool on electric car tax appeared first on RenewEconomy.

California gasoline and diesel consumption dropped in August as the coronavirus outbreak continues to impact fuel demand across the Golden State, with traders concerned current restrictions may erode future sales and depress WCI allowance prices. 

Destruction of the rainforest increased by 9.5% compared to the previous 12 months, new data shows.

WCI regulated parties increased their California Carbon Allowance (CCA) length immediately before the release of the Q4 auction results as speculators reduced their position for the second consecutive week, according to US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data published Friday.

EU carbon jumped above €29 to extend their two-month high again on Monday as the energy complex rose on prospects of colder weather, adding to bullish sentiment stemming from an imminent tightening of EUA supply.

The EU should avoid introducing a price floor in its emissions trading system as it would distort and undermine the market while making it difficult to link to others, a group of European energy exchanges has warned.

This exciting role, working in the EU office of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), is your opportunity to join our dynamic team, engaging with senior business leaders and European policy makers.

The states have been forced to act alone on renewable energy after the federal government effectively vacated the policy space. But if not managed carefully, the strategy may backfire. Dylan McConnell, Research Fellow at the Australian German Climate and Energy College, University of Melbourne Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

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The EU is on track to overachieve its 2020 objective to cut emissions 20% below 1990 levels, though progress at national level differs among the 27 states, a European Environmental Agency (EEA) report released on Monday found.

The EU should bring methane emissions from coal mines into the EU ETS from 2030 to curb its negative climate impact, comparable to those of the largest installations covered by bloc's the cap-and-trade system, a report released on Monday said.

New Brunswick is aiming to backdate compliance obligations under its provincial output-based pricing system (OBPS) once it is removed from the Canadian federal government’s ‘backstop’ mechanism, according to regulations posted last week.

EU decision-makers will begin late on Monday the first round of negotiations of the European Climate Law, sources told Carbon Pulse, with talks expected to conclude in the first quarter of next year.

British agriculture will be transformed utterly by bold new proposals

This is a good week to start a revolution. With Brexit now on the brink of deal or no deal, Britain could yet retreat behind a wall of tariffs and protectionism. But if a free-trade deal is done and borders stay open, the way is clear for British agriculture to be transformed utterly. Today a seven-year transition plan has been announced by the environment secretary, George Eustice. It switches the money, currently £2.4bn a year, pumped into farm support from merely subsidising an industry to safeguarding the countryside and supporting good food and animal welfare. As the plan goes out to consultation, it will face a hundred reservations, but freed from the EU’s longstanding, anti-conservation agricultural policy it is emphatically in the right direction.

Within a decade, taxpayers will stop paying farmers on the size of their farms, now roughly £233 per hectare and comprising a third of farm incomes. This has been a massive distortion in favour of rich landowners. By 2028 farms are expected, says Eustice, to be “sustainable businesses that do not need to rely on public subsidy”. But lest that leads to arable degradation and the erosion of nature, and further exacerbates the climate crisis, the present subsidy is to be redirected to what the plan rightly called “public goods”.

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The advance is expected to accelerate research into a host of human diseases, including Covid-19.