Around The Web

New guidance from the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) aims to encourage companies to invest in emissions reductions beyond their own value chains on top - rather than instead - of decarbonising their own operations, including by investing in voluntary carbon credits and projects.

Farmers in Britain have real reasons to be angry, but this protest against reasonable green policy has become a culture war

Step back a pace to see how weird this is. Last week, the prime minister of the United Kingdom joined a protest against one of the UK’s four governments. Farmers had obstructed a road in Llandudno with their tractors to demonstrate against the Welsh government’s attempts to meet its environmental obligations under UK law. The policies the protesters were attacking are similar to the policies Rishi Sunak’s government has introduced for England. The main difference is that in Wales, the offer for farmers is better – with more consistent payments and a smoother transition from the old system.

Sunak leads a government that has introduced the most draconian anti-protest laws in our democratic history. These laws are deployed exclusively against official enemies: environmental campaigners, republicans, feminists, Muslims. If you belong to one of these groups and you block a road, you might go to prison. If you are a farmer and you block a road, the prime minister might join you.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

Continue reading...

Nations should be cutting emissions to meet Paris agreement, says Michel Forst after year-long inquiry

European nations must end the repression and criminalisation of peaceful protest and urgently take action to cut emissions in line with the Paris climate agreement to limit global heating to 1.5C, the UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders has said.

After a year-long inquiry that included gathering evidence from the UK, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal, Michel Forst said the repression faced by peaceful environmental activists was a major threat to democracy and human rights.

Continue reading...

Traditional steelmakers say they will have to spend €3 billion on additional EUAs until 2030 to comply with the European Commission's newly proposed free allocation rules, which aim to promote the cleanest methods of reducing iron ore for steelmaking.

Key challenges to scaling the emerging biodiversity credits market include the need for independent verification, robust regulation, and fair engagement with Indigenous Peoples, a UK-France led international initiative told an event on the sidelines of the ongoing UN environment summit this week.

EU carbon allowance prices rose to an eight-day high after the strongest auction result in six weeks triggered further short covering by speculative traders, while the weekly position data showed investors had boosted their bearish bets to a new record.

This winter’s mild temperatures, a result of climate change, have wrecked plans and disrupted local economies in the region

As a child in the 1990s, Joseph Kuzma remembers how he and his father would – around this time of year – drive their truck out on to Lake Erie and set up a mini camp right on the ice.

“We’d stay out there all weekend in an ice shanty. Catch fish, cook it and sleep in bunks on the ice,” he said. He also recalled sitting next to his brother when he drove a dump truck from the nearby island of Put-In-Bay to the mainland atop the lake ice, remarking: “We would have 6in to 8in of ice.”

Continue reading...

The agricultural development in the Cerrado no longer needs to come at the expense of destroying the ecosystem, becoming instead an opportunity to attract investment in sustainable agriculture, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has warned.

The merger of a European biomethane provider and a global supplier of biogas treatment systems will help to deploy new technology that can increase green gas production by 70% - further displacing natural gas, the companies announced Wednesday.

Energy exchanges in Germany and Turkey have agreed to collaborate on building a carbon market in the Mediterranean country.

Agriculture agency set aside nearly $3bn to give to farmers who cut emissions, but about $1.9bn spent on practices not doing that

More than half of federal funding for “climate-smart” agriculture in the US goes to farming practices that are unlikely to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – and in some cases, would even increase them, according to a new report by the non-profit Environmental Working Group.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) set aside more than $3bn to give to farmers who practice “climate-smart” agriculture, but roughly $1.9bn of it is being spent on practices that experts say aren’t actually combating the climate crisis.

Continue reading...

An Abu Dhabi-based asset management firm has announced its first investment in a biochar-based carbon offset project in Indonesia, which is expected to generate around $50 million worth of credits over the next 10 years, the firm announced Tuesday, as separately a blockchain platform is planning a biochar credit marketplace.

An Indian environmental consultancy has teamed up with the Lao government to generate carbon credits from a rice-focused emissions reduction methodology that has rapidly gained popularity across Asia.

US climate chief hits out at ‘disinformation’ and ‘demagoguery’ being used as tactics by special interests to delay action

The populist backlash against net zero around the world is imperilling the fight against climate breakdown and must be countered urgently or we face planetary destruction “beyond comprehension”, the US climate chief, John Kerry, has warned.

He hit out at the rise of “disinformation” and “demagoguery” which he said were damaging the transition away from fossil fuels, and being used as tactics by special interests to delay action.

Continue reading...

Large voluntary carbon project developer and investor South Pole has appointed the former head of sustainable finance at HSBC as its new CEO, the firm announced Wednesday.

Timor-Leste is taking has started taking steps to put together policy guidelines for the voluntary, nature-based carbon market, though a lot of work remains before the framework is finalised.

An initiative set up to define reporting standards for financed emissions is partnering with a provider of sustainability information to address issues with data gaps, according to a press release issued Wednesday.

Government agencies in South Korea are ramping up efforts to help domestic companies make preparations for the impact of the EU's proposed carbon border tax, with a focus on capacity building and financial support. 

Climate committee urges government not to relax future targets after UK overachieved in 2018-22, in part thanks to lockdowns

Ministers will be able to water down the UK’s carbon reduction commitments if the government chooses to take advantage of a legal loophole.

The UK overachieved on meeting its third five-year carbon budget, which ran from 2018 to 2022, requiring reductions of 38% compared with 1990 levels. The emissions cap for the budget was 2,544 megatons of CO2 equivalent, but the actual emissions were 391 MtCO2e fewer, or 15% below the budget.

Continue reading...

Indonesia’s captive coal-fired power stations cannot reasonably be listed as new, clean energy even if they are used in mineral processing for the battery supply chain, a think tank said Tuesday in response to the Southeast Asian country’s recently proposed sustainable finance taxonomy.