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Thinktank says 70,000 new builds in high risk areas are not covered by government-backed scheme

Tens of thousands of families who bought new homes in flood-risk areas are facing “crippling” financial costs, as they are ineligible for cover under a government-backed insurance scheme, a study has found.

Research by the liberal conservative thinktank Bright Blue found that 70,000 homes had been built on land at the highest risk of flooding in England since 2009, including 20,000 that were not protected by flood defences.

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The debate around whether Australia will meet its Paris emissions targets means little attention has been given to the target Australia should set, based on climate science and ethics.

The post What is a fair carbon budget for Australia? appeared first on RenewEconomy.

RGGI Allowance (RGA) prices this week exceeded the 2021 Emissions Containment Reserve (ECR) trigger price for the second time this year, while California Carbon Allowances (CCA) also increased ahead of the first quarterly sale of 2020.

Education minister launches UNSW research hub to accelerate energy storage technologies, saying smelters need to be powered 100% by renewables.

The post Sydney research hub to accelerate energy storage technologies appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Oregon Republicans are once again formalising plans to flee the state this week to scuttle the passage of the state’s WCI-modelled cap-and-trade bill, sources and local media reported.

The world’s largest wind turbine about to enter serial production is the 12MW GE Haliade-X turbine, but manufacturers hope to deliver 20MW turbines by the end of the decade.

The post Germany gears up to test 20MW wind turbines appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Gigastack project will use electricity generated from the world’s largest offshore wind farm to produce renewable hydrogen.

The post World’s largest wind farm to power UK green hydrogen plan appeared first on RenewEconomy.

In the blue corner is the extremely venomous Black Mamba – top snake of Africa – and in the red corner is the muscular Inland Taipan – Australia's alpha snake. Timothy N. W. Jackson, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Australian Venom Research Unit, University of Melbourne Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Millions of people rely on the 1,450-mile waterway as increasing periods of drought and rising temperatures reduce flow of river

The flow of the Colorado River is dwindling due to the impacts of global heating, risking “severe water shortages” for the millions of people who rely upon one of America’s most storied waterways, researchers have found.

Increasing periods of drought and rising temperatures have been shrinking the flow of the Colorado in recent years and scientists have now developed a model to better understand how the climate crisis is fundamentally changing the 1,450-mile waterway.

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The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) outlined a goal of cutting the environmental footprint of the nation's agriculture sector in half by 2050 on Thursday, with enhanced carbon storage from soil and forests seen as possible avenues to achieve that target.

Climate scientist who pioneered the global work of the IPCC as its chair and tackled the ‘climategate’ hacking scandal

To stave off the worst impacts of the climate crisis – already being felt in the form of extreme weather, fires and floods – we have only about a decade to cause greenhouse gas emissions to peak and then fall rapidly. That we know this is largely thanks to one global organisation, a loose collection of hundreds of academics around the world that has amassed our knowledge of the climate for more than 30 years.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, convened in 1988 by the UN and the World Meteorological Organization, is made up of the world’s leading experts on climate science, who draw on thousands of academic papers to prepare comprehensive assessment reports about every five to seven years. Those reports are the gold standard, representing the summation of our knowledge of how the climate system works, and how we are affecting it.

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Academic and electronic musician Bertolt Meyer has hacked into his prosthetic arm and connected it to his synth.

Brazil’s JBS says it can’t trace the origins of all stock, as concern grows over deforestation linked to beef industry

The world’s biggest meat company has frequently been accused of links to deforestation. Now JBS is facing growing pressure from Brazilian politicians and environmentalists to address the information gaps and transparency failings in its supply chain.

Critics say these deficiencies mean JBS is unable to ensure it does not buy cattle from farms involved in illegal deforestation over a decade after promising to do so.

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EUAs extended further their four-week high early on Thursday, inching closer to their loftiest so far this year as some corners of the energy complex edged upwards and worries about the Covid-19 coronavirus continued to ease.

Ministers were planning to ban environmentally harmful practice of burning old heather

Owners of large grouse moors threatened to take legal action against government ministers who had started developing plans to ban repeated heather burning, Whitehall documents have disclosed.

The landowners issued the threat after ministers started working on producing a law to ban them from carrying out the environmentally damaging practice on their moorland estates. The old heather is burned to expose new shoots – a source of food for grouse, whose numbers are boosted. The estates then charge people who want to shoot grouse.

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Experts call for solutions to be enforced immediately to halt global population collapses

The “fates of humans and insects are intertwined”, scientists have said, with the huge declines reported in some places only the “tip of the iceberg”.

The warning has been issued by 25 experts from around the world, who acknowledge that little is known about most of the estimated 5.5 million insect species. However, enough was understood to warrant immediate action, they said, because waiting for better data would risk irreversible damage.

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Mya-Rose Craig has been campaigning for equality in the environmental movement since 2015.

If ocean temperatures don’t drop in the next two weeks, heat stress could tip reef over into another widespread event

The Great Barrier Reef could be heading for a third major coral bleaching outbreak in the space of five years if high ocean temperatures in the region do not drop in the next two weeks, scientists and conservationists have warned.

Heat stress is already building across the world’s biggest reef system, with reports of patchy bleaching already occurring. But a major widespread event is not currently taking place.

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Scientists’ call follows national assessment that finds gum trees in Western Australia wheat belt suffering worst rate of decline

An iconic Western Australian eucalypt, known for the size of flowers, is among almost 150 eucalpyt species scientists have recommended be listed as threatened under national environment laws.

The eucalyptus macrocarpa, commonly known as mottlecah, has the largest flowers of all eucalypt species. The bright red flowers can measure up to 10cm in diameter.

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As climate, privacy, globalisation and demographic developments accelerate, adjustments are needed

Firms and governments must increasingly internalise the possibility – indeed, I would argue, the overwhelming probability – of an acceleration of four secular developments that influence what business and political leaders do and how they do it. Decision-makers should think of these trends as waves, which, especially if they occur simultaneously, could feel like a tsunami for those who fail to adapt their thinking and practices in a timely manner.

The first and most important trend is climate change, which has evolved from a relatively distant concern, on which there is ample time to take remedial action, to an imminent and increasingly urgent threat.

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