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The EU member state-owned European Investment Bank (EIB) will stop lending money to unabated fossil fuel projects at the end of 2021, it said late on Thursday, as green groups welcomed the move despite a loophole that gives limited potential to sidestep the measure.

The world's biggest lithium ion battery at Hornsdale in South Australia is about to get bigger with hundreds of Tesla batteries delivered to the site this week.

The post Tesla big battery in South Australia is about to get bigger appeared first on RenewEconomy.

A group of Mayors from fire-stricken communities in NSW and QLD have issued a statement this morning, urging the Government to acknowledge the link between climate change and bushfires.

Highly endangered finch, which is under threat from the Adani Carmichael coalmine, harnessed support of conservationists

• Follow live reaction to the black-throated finch’s 2019 Bird of the Year triump

The black-throated finch has been voted Australian bird of the year for 2019, beating the tawny frogmouth in a landslide.

The highly endangered finch, which is under threat from the expansion of the Adani Carmichael coalmine, was backed by a highly organised online campaign linking it to deforestation, the climate emergency and opposition to the mine.

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Australia's 40-year search for a site for a national radioactive waste storage facility could be coming to an end.

The final votes in the Guardian / Bird Life Australia poll have been counted and the results are in. Follow the latest updates and reaction as the result is announced

7.31pm GMT

Those top 10 of course, were winnowed down from an initial 50. A lot of beloved, big name birds did not make it through.

The preference flows from those excluded birds could decide today. There are tens of thousands of votes looking for a home. It’s enough to overhaul any frontrunner.

7.25pm GMT

Ben Raue is on hand to provide some psephological analysis of the first round of voting:

“Over 54,000 votes were cast in the first round, with the black-throated finch, a bird threatened by the proposed Adani coal mine, way out in front with 7,234 votes, over 13% of the total vote. The reigning champion magpie came in second with 3,569 votes, or 6.5%.

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Politicians in northern England warn of lasting damage, after 1,758 properties badly hit

Leaders of councils across northern England have called for “massive” increases in funding to deal with major incidents, as the Guardian learned that around 1,800 homes and businesses have been badly flooded in the region.

Dozens of weather warnings remain in place around the country, from Oxfordshire to Yorkshire and across the West Midlands, where more than 100 schools were forced to close on Thursday.

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Recent debates about the future of nuclear power in Australia make much of the potential of the next generation of reactors. Heiko Timmers, Associate Professor of Physics, School of Science, UNSW Canberra, UNSW Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

The Climate Markets Associate plays a key role in our work to scale carbon market finance in natural climate solutions (NCS) through affecting public and corporate policy and practices. They will provide support in driving both corporate and government ambition and action to scale NCS through carbon markets, and thus can expect to engage with country, sub-national, local agencies, multilateral institutions, business and/or private groups.

Emergency Leaders for Climate Action have a simple message: we're in “a new age of unprecedented bushfire danger” due to climate change. But Morrison refuses to acknowledge it as a central issue. Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Forest gardens | Insect conservation | Mumsnet slang | Left-behind tuba | The Peace museum

Our charity, The Garden Classroom, has responded to London teachers’ concerns about pupils’ mental health by offering urban forest schools in Islington parks (Letters, 11 November). Pupils in schools just north of King’s Cross station spend half a day a week in Caledonian Park exploring the wooded areas. Islington has the least open access green space of anywhere in the country. If we can do it, anyone can!
Rosey Lyall
Founder trustee, The Garden Classroom

• I am doing my best (Insect apocalypse’ poses risk to all life on Earth, conservationists warn, 13 November). On my allotment I provide brassicas for caterpillars and white flies, broad beans for aphids, carrots for carrot flies, and borage for bees. I also have homes for other invertebrates including slugs and snails. What else should I try?
Elizabeth Pearson
New Barnet, London

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David Walker argues that reinstating the speed restrictions introduced in 1973 would go a long way in curbing greenhouse gas emissions

In December 1973, when the Opec countries cut back supplies of oil to the west, the UK and the US introduced a maximum national speed limit of 50mph on all roads in order to reduce petrol consumption (Netherlands lowers speed limit to comply with pollution court ruling, 14 November). This remained in force until March to May 1974. Maximum speed restrictions, aimed at reducing energy consumption, were again introduced from December 1974 through to May 1977.

When the speed of a petrol-engined car is reduced from 70mph to its optimal speed of 55mph to 60mph, its petrol consumption falls by some 17%. Given that demand for road transport fuels is around 44m litres of petrol and a little over 81m litres of diesel per day, that brings petrol consumption down by 7.5m litres and diesel by 13.75m litres per day. The 1970s restrictions were introduced to save energy. But they also brought down pollution and carbon emissions: every litre of petrol consumed produces 2.3kg of carbon dioxide (diesel produces 2.68kg).

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The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) will partner with green group The Nature Conservancy (TNC) to help Appalachian landowners develop forestry offset projects for the voluntary market, the entities announced Wednesday.

The oxygen in Martian air is changing in a way that can't currently be explained by known chemical processes.

This role is central to managing the company's climate change and environmental compliance obligations. You will coordinate and analyse data from across the Company working with multiple departments and external auditors to meet legal and business reporting requirements on environment.

The success of a scheme to reintroduce endangered parrots to the forests of South Island augurs well for wider efforts to restore native wildlife

When the conservation trust Project Janszoon released a dozen kākā in Abel Tasman national park at the top of New Zealand’s South Island, the large, brassy forest parrots settled in quickly, despite never before having lived in the wild. At 3am the next morning they began their customary ear-splitting calls. Hikers sleeping in a hut in Bark Bay declined an offer of earplugs from release team members who stayed overnight; snorers, they said, bothered them more than the birds.

That New Zealanders could once again live alongside these rare native creatures – and that the birds could be multitudinous enough to bother them with their chatty racket – is still something of a novelty. In urban spaces, on the fringes of cities, and even in national parks, the country has been bereft of its native birds for so long that they are beginning to feel like part of history. Half of them have gone extinct since humans arrived on New Zealand’s shores. Predators, chiefly stoats, possums, and rats, kill more than 68,000 native birds every day.

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Footage shows Venice's main square, Piazza San Marco, under inches of floodwater as the city weathers its worst flood since the 1960s.

Two people have died as waters reached up to 1.87 metres and caused millions of euros of damage

• Two people die as Venice floods at highest level in 50 years

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European carbon prices dropped to a new one-month low on Thursday, on what traders called a mix of technical selling and bearish pressures.

From mystical woodlands to majestic whales, here are the winners and runners-up of this year’s competition. They were recently announced at the Nature Talks photo festival in the Netherlands

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New Zealand has launched a public consultation round on the rules for auctioning NZUs and how its cost containment reserve (CCR) will work when it replaces the NZ$25 fixed price option next year.