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Government plans to bring changes forward by five years to help the UK reach climate targets.

Newly elected Australian Greens leader Adam Bandt issues call for a Green New Deal, slams "dismal" record of "Scotty from marketing."

The post Adam Bandt elected new Greens leader, issues calls for Green New Deal appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Key US government body says renewables could contribute half of the world's biggest grid as wind, solar and storage costs fall.

The post EIA expects renewables to overtake nuclear, coal and gas in US grid appeared first on RenewEconomy.

When Li Wenliang warned about a Sars-like virus at his hospital in Wuhan, authorities tried to silence him.

Michael McCormack survives challenge from Barnaby Joyce, but biggest news may be resignation of Resources Minister Matt Canavan.

The post McCormack survives as Nats leader as Barnaby’s challenge fizzes appeared first on RenewEconomy.

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

Organization: Climate Analytics Inc Position: Research Analyst, Climate Change Economics Duty Station: Berlin, Germany

PM calls for biggest emitters to join up with pledge to go net zero ahead of UN climate talks

Boris Johnson is calling on countries around the world to follow the UK in pledging to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050, as part of the government’s presidency of the UN’s climate talks this year.

About 80 countries around the world are committed to such a target, but most are small economies with small greenhouse gas outputs. The EU is the biggest bloc on the brink of signing up to net zero, but major economies including China, the US and India show little sign of doing so.

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Vermont Democratic legislators are supportive of the proposed Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI) fuel sector carbon market, but they will likely wait until the final structure of the ETS is released before deciding whether to pass legislation requiring the state’s participation.

AEMO to direct South Australia's three big batteries as it seeks to managed isolated grid heavily dependent on renewables, and as market prices take interesting turns.

The post AEMO takes control of S.A. big batteries to help manage isolated grid appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The largest holder of California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) credits reduced its share of the surplus bank volume during the third quarter, while the number two entity offset that trend by bolstering its own position, state data shows.

Five Massachusetts-based power plants exceeded their annual CO2 limit under the state’s Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA) cap-and-trade programme last year, but data suggests that surplus allowances in circulation will enable those facilities to meet their upcoming compliance deadline.

As PM announces Glasgow plan, much diplomatic work remains to be done

Boris Johnson’s first steps on the international stage after Brexit will be to hail Britain’s role in forging a new global consensus on the climate crisis – although he has not yet said who will lead that charge.

The UK will host the crunch UN climate talks, COP 26, this November in Glasgow, in what experts say is the last chance for international cooperation on the crisis. The prime minister, in launching the UK’s strategy for the talks on Tuesday, stops short of promising to “get climate done”, but in making his own involvement clear he will at least reassure climate activists and governments concerned at a hitherto confused and chaotic start to the UK’s presidency.

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For many Australians, the bushfire disaster could represent a turning point: the moment they adopt new, long-term behaviours to help nature. Denise Goodwin, Research Fellow, BehaviourWorks Australia, Monash Sustainable Development Institute, Monash University Abby Wild, Research fellow, BehaviourWorks Australia, Monash Sustainable Development Institute, Monash University Melissa Hatty, PhD candidate, BehaviourWorks Australia, Monash Sustainable Development Institute, Monash University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

• Inundation and flooding are steadily becoming more likely
  
• Worldwide rise being driven by melting of large glaciers
  

The pace of sea level rise accelerated at nearly all measurement stations along the US coastline in 2019, with scientists warning some of the bleakest scenarios for inundation and flooding are steadily becoming more likely.

Of 32 tide-gauge stations in locations along the vast US coastline, 25 showed a clear acceleration in sea level rise last year, according to researchers at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (Vims).

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Discovery by salvage divers off Romania raises new questions over EU exports of live animals

Secret decks for extra animals have been found in a livestock carrier that sank off the Romanian port of Midia in November drowning thousands of sheep, according to the company carrying out the massive salvage operation.

Only 180 sheep survived out of the 14,600 initially believed to have been onboard the Queen Hind, which was carrying them from Romania, the EU’s biggest exporter of the animal, to Saudi Arabia.

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PM is wrong to dismiss concerns over post-Brexit influx of low-quality food

British farmers are not often called hysterical. For Boris Johnson to dismiss their concerns over food imports post-Brexit seems to show he is willing to see an influx of cheap, low-quality food that British farmers will not be able to compete with. That would hasten the decline of family-run farms, and open up the countryside further to the sort of “megafarms” common in the US.

Cheap food sounds good, but Johnson has glossed over the dangers. Chlorine-washing chicken is partly an issue of animal welfare – poultry in the US are kept in filthy conditions that would be illegal here, then the carcasses are dipped in bleach. But it is one of food safety too, contrary to Johnson’s claims.

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Bulldozed trees on Ron Greentree’s property caused loss of habitat for koalas and brolgas, NSW authorities allege

The biggest wheat farmer in Australia, Ron Greentree, is again facing charges of illegal land clearing, this time in relation to a property in western New South Wales.

Greentree, the former chair of Graincorp, along with his business partner Ken Harris and their companies trading under the name the Greentree Partnership, are facing 32 charges of unauthorised land clearing at Boolcarrol, near Moree, which is alleged to have occurred between 2016 and 2019.

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While the EU carbon market welcomes long-awaited clarity regarding the resumption of the UK’s suspended allowance allocations and auctions, experts were mixed over the short-term impact on EUAs - though they all flagged the sheer amount of volume to come as a major price pressure.

EU carbon prices hit a four-month low on Monday as the prospect of additional supply from post-Brexit Britain weighed on an already fragile market, which is also dealing with tumbling energy prices and wider pressures from China's coronavirus.