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Tax on electric vehicles in South Australia and Victoria would slam brakes on sales | Trent Zimmerman
New road user charges sends a very strange signal and will set back efforts to reduce emissions from the transport sector
The proposed tax on electric vehicles by South Australia and Victoria, and under consideration by other governments of similar proposals, would slam the brakes on their goal of encouraging more drivers to use low-emission vehicles. The proposals are counterintuitive and premature.
Our system of taxes and charges is designed to serve a range of purposes. In this case there are contradictory objectives. On the one-hand, road charges and fuel excises exist in part as a pseudo user-pays levy for the cost of our road network. On the other, tax policies are often designed to change behaviour – to act as either a positive financial encouragement or, conversely and more frequently, a disincentive for a particular course of action. Taxes and charges on electric vehicles must surely be considered in that second category.
Continue reading...The Indonesian meteorite which didn't sell for $1.8m
10 of the best... Ethical pendant necklaces - in pictures
Whether it’s using recycled materials, having a zero-waste policy or supporting specialist artisans, these jewellery brands create pendants with sparkle and an ethical conscience
War of the weedkiller: why environmentalists are concerned about moves to ban Roundup
Many say herbicide is an essential tool in preserving biodiversity but others say it’s a ‘delusion’ to think weed control is only possible with ‘poison’
Glyphosate – the weedkiller better known by its most-famous brand name Roundup – does not have the best of public profiles.
The subject of multibillion dollar payouts over claims it causes cancer, the world’s most-popular herbicide developed by Monsanto is not known for having too many friends among environmentalists.
Continue reading...'We'll be left behind': Australia's electric car inertia is getting it nowhere
While Boris Johnson pledges to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars in the UK by 2030, Australia still has no clear policy
Boris Johnson’s pledge last week that the UK government would lead a “green industrial revolution” seemed, to those dispirited by Australia’s broken climate politics, to be a message from another planet, not another hemisphere.
The Conservatives promised £12bn (A$21.8bn) for a 10-point plan to combat the climate crisis, including building enough offshore windfarms to run every home in Britain, installing 600,000 efficient heat pumps a year to replace dirty old heaters, and developing new small nuclear reactors.
Continue reading...From rewilding to forest schools, our attitude to nature is changing for the better | Melissa Harrison
The statistics may be terrifying – but the UK’s approach to natural habitats is undergoing a quiet transformation
It was the WildEast manifesto that first brought it home to me. An ambitious project bringing together everyone from farmers and landowning peers to ecologists and gardeners, WildEast aims to return 20% of East Anglia’s land – an area the size of Dorset – to nature. The plan will reintroduce locally extinct species such as the great bustard, beaver, pelican and even bison, restore soil health and champion new educational programmes and policies on plastics and food production. Whether or not this exciting vision can be brought to fruition, its scope, urgency and inclusivity are something new.
I’ve been writing a monthly column about nature for several years now, and during that time I’ve witnessed a shift in the UK’s relationship with the environment. While it may take time for its effects to become visible – and time, of course, is in short supply – this change has the potential to affect everything, as disparate groups seek a renewed sense of connection with the natural world.
Continue reading...Sentinel-6: 'Dog kennel' satellite to measure sea-level rise
CP Daily: Friday November 20, 2020
California speculators cut carbon position by largest amount since May ahead of Q4 auction
Donegal: Ministers shocked at peat slide devastation
EU Market: EUAs rebound for 1.8% weekly rise on auction delay, Brexit caution
New rules for Arctic shipping 'a missed opportunity'
Two CORSIA programmes approved as first REDD standards in a compliance carbon market
California’s IEMAC targets December meeting for 2020 cap-and-trade recommendations
ANALYSIS: EU budget delay imperils year-end deal to increase 2030 climate goal
The Guardian view on the ‘spy cops’ inquiry: secrets and liars | Editorial
The undercover policing inquiry was on shaky ground before it started, and victims are right to be concerned
The abuse carried out by undercover “spy cops” working in two police units over 40 years took many forms. The deception practised by at least 20 officers who had sexual relationships with their targets – mostly women, at least three of whom had children as a result – was a gross breach of the women’s human rights, as the force acknowledged when it apologised and paid substantial compensation to seven of them. The harm caused to the children of these deceitful unions is still unfolding: last month it was revealed that compensation has also been paid to a man who had his life turned upside down by the discovery in 2012 that the father who abandoned him as a child was a police officer, Bob Lambert.
Others had their trust violated in different ways. The first month of Sir John Mitting’s public inquiry into the work of 139 officers has heard evidence about how they passed details of trade union activists to a blacklisting organisation used by companies to stop them getting work. A leftwing writer, Tariq Ali, was spied on by at least 14 officers, and said he was shocked by their “prurient” reports. For Stephen Lawrence’s family, the discovery that police spied on their justice campaign was a profound insult that has been compounded by the Metropolitan police’s failure over the past six years to release documents about what happened.
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures
The best of the week’s wildlife pictures from around the world, including baby bears and a stowaway owl
Continue reading...Climate pledge on home heating 'vanishes' after 'mix-up'
TCI price cap could limit emissions reductions from cap-and-trade programme -study
‘Suffocating closeness’: US judge condemns ‘appalling conditions’ on industrial farms
Pork giant Smithfield has settled with North Carolina residents who sued over stench, flies and truck traffic from Kinlaw Farms
A US judge has issued a blistering condemnation of industrial farming practices. The judgment comes as one US meat giant finally settles after a six-year legal battle with plaintiffs who sued the company over the stench, flies, buzzards and truck traffic coming from its industrial swine farms in North Carolina.
J Harvie Wilkinson III, one of the judges in a case that pitted locals against the Smithfield subsidiary formerly known as Murphy-Brown, decried the “outrageous conditions” at Kinlaw Farms, the operation at the center of the lawsuit – “conditions that there is no reason to suppose were unique to that facility”.
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