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Former reality TV contestants promise ‘instant and long lasting hot water’ in campaign by gas company Jemena

The natural gas giant Jemena has defended paying Instagram influencers, including former contestants of The Block, Married at First Sight and other reality TV shows, to promote the fossil fuel in social media posts.

The #GoNaturalGas campaign from the Chinese and Singaporean-owned Jemena, which manages key natural gas pipelines around and out of Australia, appears to have been running for two years online, and comes amid concern liquified natural gas could be as bad for the environment as coal.

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Independent advice body says minister should be given emergency powers to protect habitat after natural disasters

Australia has not updated a register of habitat critical for the protection of threatened species for 15 years, prompting experts to call for it to be strengthened to protect more types of land.

An independent scientific body that advises the government on threatened species also says the environment minister should be given emergency powers to protect habitat after natural disasters.

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

EUAs recovered from an early drop on Friday for the second straight day, moving back towards this week's 11-month high above €28 as buying remained incessant and largely unexplainable by traders despite more bearish news.

The EU must start paying attention to research and development for CO2 removal methods if it wants to reach its climate neutrality target, a study presented on Thursday found.

In the latest edition of our Carbon Pulse Conversations podcast, we chat with Eduardo Piquero, general director of Mexico City-based environmental consultancy MexiCO2, regarding carbon pricing developments at the national and subnational level in Mexico.

Switzerland has proposed introducing a reverse charge mechanism for VAT on more types of emissions trading in an effort to prevent tax fraud.

The PM is accused of inventing an allegation that wildlife rules are holding back house-building.

The pick of the world’s best flora and fauna photos, including a hatching crocodile and Mexican grey wolf cubs

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The European Commission on Friday launched the first call for projects under the Innovation Fund, after the timeline for auctioning the initial 50 million EUAs to finance the scheme was released this week.

Company convicted of trying to export used nappies and other contaminated materials illegally

One of the UK’s biggest waste firms has lost a case in the court of appeal to overturn a criminal conviction for exporting dirty waste to China.

The Environment Agency, which brought a successful criminal prosecution a year ago against Biffa Waste Services Ltd, which was convicted of trying to send used nappies and other contaminated materials illegally to China, welcomed Friday’s ruling and said exports of this kind of illegal waste “blighted the lives and environment of people overseas”.

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The UK helps rescue company from bankruptcy as part of a plan to replace the EU's Galileo sat-nav system.

The German Parliament’s lower chamber voted on Friday to pass a sweeping act signalling the end of coal power in the country by 2038 and teeing up the cancellation of EUAs to offset the impact.

Closing prices, ranges and volumes for China's regional pilot carbon markets this week.

Scottish court rules that environmental group defied court order banning the protest

Greenpeace has been fined £80,000 after a Scottish court found it guilty of the “wilful defiance” of a court order banning it from occupying a North Sea oil rig.

Lady Wolffe, sitting in the court of session in Edinburgh, said Greenpeace UK had deliberately broken an interdict, or injunction, against occupying a platform owned by the US contractor Transocean in June 2019.

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Frequency of heatwaves and cumulative intensity has risen through the decades, research finds

Heatwaves have increased in both length and frequency in nearly every part of the world since the 1950s, according to what is described as the first study to look at the issue at a regional level.

The study found the escalation in heatwaves varied around the planet, with the Amazon, north-eastern Brazil, west Asia (including parts of the subcontinent and central Asia) and the Mediterranean all experiencing more rapid change than, for example, southern Australia and north Asia. The only inhabited region where there was not a trend was in the central United States.

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Tees Valley mayor hails rental scheme as ‘clean energy, socially distant mode of transport’

Residents of Middlesbrough in north-east England will be the first in the UK to legally ride electric scooters on the open road when the law changes on Saturday, as the government struggles to prevent a recovery from coronavirus based on cars.

Though e-scooters have been whizzing illegally around many UK cities for the past few years, the pandemic has prompted the government to speed up plans to pilot public rental schemes.

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Heatwaves have become longer, hotter and more frequent. This trend is accelerating from climate change. Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, ARC Future Fellow, UNSW Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Past presidents used the parks to inspire and unite. Trump sees them as backdrops for self-serving, divisive campaign rallies

In the United States, parks have always been used as spaces for public protest, places for commemorating acts of resistance and the struggle for a more perfect union, and stages for presidents to call for national unity or celebrate civic purpose.

As his Mount Rushmore event scheduled for Friday makes clear, Donald Trump misunderstands and misuses all these precedents.

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Areas with a drier climate have seen greater loss of biodiversity from global warming

Dry tropical forests are more vulnerable to the impacts of global heating than had been thought, according to new research, with wildlife and plants at severe risk of harm from human impacts.

Some tropical forests are very wet, but others thrive in a drier climate and scientists had thought these drier forests would be better adapted to drought, and therefore more able to cope with the effects of the climate crisis.

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