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Countries should update their Paris emission pledges this year even as the annual UN climate summit is postponed and the world grapples with the coronavirus crisis, Germany’s environment minister Svenja Schulz said on Monday.

NZUs rose 20 cents to their highest since mid-March on Monday as the nation prepared to ease restrictions in place over the past five weeks, including sending the forestry industry back to work.

In 2013, just three adult females remained in the wild, now a much larger group will leave Tasmania to fly north for the winter

There has been little good to say about the recent history of the critically endangered orange-bellied parrot. Numbers of the small migratory bird, which makes a return trip from Tasmania’s south-west wilderness to the mainland’s coastal scrubland each year, have fallen so sharply scientists consider it at risk of extinction within five years.

Just 23 birds arrived at the species’ breeding site at Melaleuca, deep in the Tasmanian World Heritage Wilderness Area, last spring.

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At a time of massive environmental change, we need to expand our language to be able to share the emotional upheavals they engender. Glenn Albrecht, Honorary Associate, School of Geosciences, University of Sydney Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Curtailing of shipping due to coronavirus allows scientists to study effects of quieter oceans on marine wildlife

In cities, human lockdowns during the coronavirus pandemic have offered some respite to the natural world, with clear skies and the return of wildlife to waterways. Now evidence of a drop in underwater noise pollution has led experts to predict the crisis may also be good news for whales and other sea mammals.

Researchers examining real-time underwater sound signals from seabed observatories run by Ocean Networks Canada near the port of Vancouver found a significant drop in low-frequency sound associated with ships.

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Electricity prices go negative prices in all five state markets in Australia's main grid for four consecutive settlement intervals over the weekend.

The post Australia’s main grid sets new milestone for negative prices over weekend appeared first on RenewEconomy.

AEMO tells project owners that connections will resume now that solar oscillation issues in West Murray are resolved, and tells them where they stand in the growing queue.

The post AEMO to resume new connections after solar constraints lifted in West Murray appeared first on RenewEconomy.

On-site solar seen as key to making renewable hydrogen cost-competitive by 2025, according to new study by Dyno Nobel.

The post On-site solar is key to cost competitive renewable hydrogen appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Tilt Renewables’ massive Dundonnell wind farm on track after powering up its output to more than 110MW last week.

The post Huge Dundonnell wind farm powers past 100MW-mark in Victoria appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The climate emergency is unsettling our future, and erasing what we thought was certain about the past

In 2015, flooding exposed the frozen bodies of two cave lion cubs in the Yakutia region of Russia. Members of a species that vanished at the end of the last Ice Age, the pair were buried approximately 12,000 years ago when the roof of their den collapsed and trapped them in the frozen ground. In photos, their faces are so well-preserved one might almost believe they are only sleeping.

Yet despite their unusually perfect condition, the cubs are not the only such relics to have appeared in recent years. Throughout the Arctic and subarctic, animals and artefacts buried for thousands of years are reappearing, liberated from their frozen graves by the rapid warming in the region. In the Alps and elsewhere, bodies of people lost for decades in the mountains are emerging from the ice as glaciers melt. In Australia, towns submerged for generations are resurfacing as dam levels fall due to drought and heat.

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Windlab has announced further delays to the resolution of a dispute over the company’s flagship Kennedy Energy Park project, with an outcome potentially not being reached until the end of May. In an update to the ASX on Monday, Windlab said that it had extended the period of a ‘stand-still’ agreement with the Kennedy project’s...

The post Windlab gains further extension for “truce” in dispute over Kennedy project delays appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Elon Musk considers "super efficient" heating and air con system complete with HEPA filter and water distillation for Cybertruck, additions that will enhance its appeal as an armageddon survival juggernaut.

The post Musk says Cybertruck may have “super efficient” HVAC with water filtration appeared first on RenewEconomy.

ASX-listed Redflow gets order for another 10 of its zinc-bromine flow batteries to help provide mobile and broadband coverage for off-grid parts of New Zealand.

The post Redflow to supply another 10 flow batteries for NZ telecoms program appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The NSW government is soon expected to grant environmental approval to Snowy 2.0. But that process should be halted. John Harris, Adjunct Associate Professor, Centre for Ecosystem Science, UNSW Mark Lintermans, Associate professor, University of Canberra Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Independent MP says scheme lacks transparency and government has no authority to introduce it

Independent MP Zali Steggall has asked the auditor general to investigate a Morrison government scheme to underwrite gas, hydro and coal power, saying it lacks transparency and citing legal advice that the Coalition had no constitutional or legislative authority to introduce it.

Announced in late 2018 after the government abandoned Malcolm Turnbull’s proposed national energy guarantee, the underwriting new generation investment (Ungi) scheme promises public support for new dispatchable power generation projects to increase competition in the electricity grid. Twelve projects have been shortlisted, including six pumped hydro plants, five gas generators and an upgrade to the Vales Point coal-fired power plant.

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More than 100 birds have been living wild in England as part of conservation scheme

The first wild stork chicks to hatch in Britain for centuries are expected to emerge next month after three pairs of the huge white birds built nests in West Sussex.

Disdaining platforms constructed especially for them, the storks have created their stick nests in the heights of oak trees on the Knepp estate, the centre for a reintroduction project.

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Tracking life in our garden or backyard is turning many of us into nature diarists

I heard the first cuckoo on Wednesday evening. I was outside the back door splitting logs when the song floated down from the copse on Bryn Arw, the hill behind our house in the Black Mountains. Cuckoos have been coming to the same copse for as long as we have lived here and I have always written down the date of their arrival from Africa. It is an important moment in the turning year, as the lyrics to the traditional medieval round attest: “Sumer is icumen in/ Lhude sing cuccu.”

My recordings of cuckoos have always been haphazard, though. Some years, because the weather is dreadful or I am working hard and chained to a desk, I fail to get outside. I might first hear the male’s distinctive song, which gives the bird its onomatopoeic name, days after his actual arrival.

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With only one in 400 cups recycled, and even those barely ‘green’, the hunt is on for an alternative

Britain gets through 2.5 billion of them every year, and the number is set to increase. But despite a growing clamour for coffee chains to make their cups more environment-friendly, the vast majority are used only once, which critics say is a considerable waste of natural resources.

One company vying to produce a truly recyclable alternative claims that the UK’s caffeine addiction is responsible for the felling of a million trees a year. An independent study it commissioned suggests that almost 1.5 billion litres of water go into making the cups the UK uses annually.

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The Morrison government is ignoring its own advice when pours money into offshore oil reserves, rather than building the foundations of a green economy.

The post When Coalition spends big on oil, it misses a huge green economic opportunity for Australia appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The most severely affected invertebrates and plants lost at least 30% of habitat to the fires

More than 400 plants and nearly 200 invertebrates need urgent attention after the bushfire crisis, new analysis for the federal environment department has found.

Freshwater mussels, shrimps, burrowing crayfish, land snails, spiders, millipedes, bees, dragonflies and butterflies were among the invertebrates whose ranges have been severely affected by the unprecedented fires through spring and summer.

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