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The Canadian federal Conservatives’ climate plan would take the country even further off its Paris Agreement GHG target by scrapping or altering a variety of CO2 pricing and clean fuel measures and replacing them with negligible or difficult-to-measure initiatives, according to a new policy brief.

New York is expected to finalise draft regulations over the next two months to implement the post-2020 Model Rule for the Northeast US RGGI carbon market, a regulatory source told Carbon Pulse.

A sense of futility haunts us all, so I sought to distill in as few words as possible what could be done by us as a people. Writing them, I felt my despair lift

In 1971, the Liberal Billy McMahon – routinely judged the worst Australian prime minister ever, an achievement not to be underestimated in a nation where the worst routinely rule – created a new portfolio: Environment, Arts and Aboriginal Affairs. Nobody wanted the job: given it, Peter Howson observed that he was responsible for “trees, boongs and poofters.”

What’s changed with our conservative rulers over the last half century? On the evidence of the shame the prime minister, Scott Morrison, visited on all Australians last week at the Pacific Islands Forum, not very much. There he successfully pressured Pacific leaders to remove from the final forum communique and climate change statement all references to coal, to limiting warming to less than 1.5C, and to setting out a plan for net zero emissions by 2050.

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Morrisons is trialling a higher charge for single-use bags, but experts says all non-essential plastic must be phased out

It is a fairly hefty price hike, but it could pay off. Morrisons is increasing the price of its plastic bags to 30p, having already upped them to 20p earlier this year. The supermarket is trialling the charge in some of its Welsh stores, with money being “reinvested in plastic reduction programmes”, says a spokeswoman.

The 5p charge for single-use plastic bags that was introduced in Wales in 2011, then Northern Ireland and Scotland before England finally caught up in 2015, has been considered a success. The seven main supermarkets in England gave out 6bn fewer bags between in the first six months of the charge than in the corresponding period a year before. However, last year supermarkets sold 1.18bn of the thicker “bags for life”, prompting fears people were using these as single-use bags instead. The Environmental Investigation Agency has said bags for life should cost £1, rather than the 10p many supermarkets still charge.

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An $87m corridor will extend over Highway 101 to reconnect the ecosystem and possibly save mountain lions from extinction

Engineers in southern California are hard at work designing the biggest wildlife corridor in the world, to extend over US Highway 101 to the north-west of Los Angeles.

The corridor will connect different parts of the Santa Monica Mountain chain, which is crucial to the future of mountain lions – but it will help other species as well. The $87m bridge has entered its final design phase and is on track to open in 2023.

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Fires in the Amazon have risen 84% amid growing deforestation, Brazil's space research agency says.

Queensland government names former Origin Energy executive Maia Schweizer as inaugural CEO for its new publicly-owned generator, CleanCo.

The post Queensland chooses Maia Schweizer to head new CleanCo generator appeared first on RenewEconomy.

AEMO concerns about reliability of thermal assets, saying multiple generator failures could put reliability at risk. And it wants a new standard put in place that recognises uncontrollable events.

The post AEMO worries about ageing coal fleet in summer heat, and demands new tools appeared first on RenewEconomy.

London protests were disruptive but made rational case, officer tells court where three activists are on trial

A senior Scotland Yard officer giving evidence at the first group trial of Extinction Rebellion activists behind mass protests in central London said the demonstrators had provoked “soul searching” and proved articulate and rational as they made their case.

The protests, in April this year, had found support even among the public facing severe disruption from the demonstrations, he said.

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The first people to dive down to the Titanic in nearly 15 years say some parts of the wreck have been lost to the sea.

For the first time in 15 years divers have explored the Titanic wreck and say it is deteriorating.

UK supermarket guarantees market for unwanted offspring of dairy cows on suppliers’ farms that might otherwise be slaughtered immediately

Morrisons is guaranteeing a market for all male calves born on its dairy suppliers’ farms in a bid to stop them being killed at birth.

A Guardian investigation last year revealed an estimated 95,000 male dairy calves were being slaughtered on-farm as farmers couldn’t afford to keep them, in a practice known as the dairy industry’s “dirty secret”.

The retailer’s new policy – coming into force in October – ensures they are neither shot or exported. Instead farmers will be required to rear the calves to a certain weight until 15–40 days of age, at which point they will be bought by the beef-rearing company Buitelaar.

Related: Dairy’s ‘dirty secret’: it's still cheaper to kill male calves than to rear them

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EU carbon prices lifted back towards €27 early on Wednesday, as a supply shortfall from the lack of auction helped reverse the previous sessions's late losses.

Asia’s ability to deploy carbon pricing instruments to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions at a lower cost remains hamstrung by regulatory shortcomings and a lack of success in attracting private sector finance, according to an Asian Development Bank think-tank.

In 1958, my father-in-law, Simon Gourlay, who has died aged 85, bought 200 acres of pasture and started farming near Knighton, on the English-Welsh border. He converted the dilapidated house and surrounding farmland into a warm family home and later developed the five-acre garden, which was subsequently opened to the public for the National Garden Scheme.

In the late 1970s, he joined the National Farmers’ Union as a delegate and he rose to become NFU president in 1986. During his five-year term of office, he was a moderniser and actively promoted women in farming. He was knighted in 1989 for services to farming.

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SKM Recycling goes into receivership, as 30 Victorian councils scramble to stop recyclable waste going to landfill.

For thousands of years the Nenets people have migrated with their reindeer herds across the Yamal Peninsula in the Russian Arctic. In October 2016, Alegra Ally travelled to north-west Siberia to join a family and document their way of life as autumn turned to winter

New Path – A Window on Nenets Life by Alegra Ally is published by Schilt

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Team of NYU scientists study shifting landscape of country one member calls ‘the end of the planet’

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EnergyAustralia says legal action against wind farm operators a fruitless “blame game,” at a time when the national energy market is changing "beyond recognition."

The post EnergyAustralia slams energy regulator for blackout “blame game” appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Compared with dual glass bifacial, JinkoSolar’s Swan reduces the weight by 25%.

The post JinkoSolar’s Swan reduces bifacial module weight by 25% appeared first on RenewEconomy.