Around The Web

Latest electricity price predictions from AEMC sees wind, solar and storage driving massive reductions in electricity prices over next three years.

The post Electricity prices set to plummet as strong wind and solar investment kicks in appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Ahead of the election, we challenge the parties on the climate emergency, flying, rewilding, red meat and more

• Parties on how they would tackle climate crisis

Putting a tax on meat, ending the sale of petrol and diesel cars within a decade and upgrading the energy efficiency of every home in the UK are among the eye-catching green promises from the political parties fighting for voters’ backing in the general election.

Others include zero-emission railways and a £640m Nature for Climate fund to restore the natural world and help fight the climate emergency. These pledges are in the answers given to a series of questions put to the main parties by the Guardian to draw them out on specific key issues.

Continue reading...

Conservatives, Greens, Labour, Lib Dems and SNP tackle the biggest climate and environmental issues

• Which party has answer to big green questions?

The Guardian put the following questions to the main politicial parties to draw them out on specific key climate and environmental issues ahead of the election.

Continue reading...

Dozens of species are now at risk but a conference this week will showcase new technology that could help stop the illegal trade

The two young women who arrived at Heathrow in February 2014 en route to Düsseldorf were carrying nondescript luggage. Customs officers were suspicious nevertheless and looked inside – to find 13 iguanas stuffed into socks inside the cases. Astonishingly, 12 of the highly endangered San Salvador rock iguanas had survived their transatlantic journey.

“There only about 600 of these animals left in the wild, in the Bahamas, and these animals were being taken to a private collector somewhere in Germany. Incredibly, we were able to return 12 of them, alive, to their homeland – on San Salvador island,” said Grant Miller, who was then working for the Border Force’s endangered species team.

Continue reading...

With the climate emergency putting our mental health at risk, Emma Beddington presents an everyday guide to eco wellbeing

Much like the planet, people have a tipping point. Mine came last summer, when a respected scientist told me matter-of-factly that he thought it was “at least highly unlikely” that his teenage children would survive beyond late middle age. At that point, three decades of climate unease crystallised into debilitating dread, and I’m far from alone.

Continue reading...

During this time of year, we hear a lot about "peace and goodwill to all." But how exactly do you put peace into practice? How is peacemaking a part of living out one's faith? And what does peace on earth and with the earth look like?

There are concerns tyre infill from sports pitches is ending up in waterways and harming wildlife.

The Seychelles has swapped 5% of its national debt for a cash injection to fight climate change and save its ocean.

Your questions answered: The environment, wildlife and climate change.

Taylor details emissions forecasts "to the last tonne" that reveal Coalition expects to reach 50% renewables target it had described as reckless.

The post Coalition embraces Labor’s 50% renewables target that it said was “reckless” appeared first on RenewEconomy.

If you accept that food matters, we need to talk about what we want from our farmers, and what we want our regional landscapes to be

I’m starting to think that after living on a farm for 25 years, I might now learn the art of agriculture at the age of 54. I’m starting to think, in the hierarchy of needs, it might matter more to me than journalism. Because of, well, food. As a journalist for 30-plus years, that is a hard truth. But food matters. Where food comes from matters. The landscape that provides our food matters.

And if you accept those propositions, we need a conversation about what we want from our food producers – our farmers. We need to think about what we want our regional landscapes to be. Talking to farmers, as I do in my home town and in my work, I think we could look back in a decade and find we have lost a fair chunk of middle growers: the in-betweeners. What we will have left is small, specialised food producers who cater to niche eaters with decent incomes, and vast entities churning out cheap food demanded by markets controlling our rural landscapes and our water. In that scenario, Australia would revert to the squatters’ blocks of days past – vast estates with sporadic populations dotted through the countryside. Which is fine, I guess, if that is what Australia wants. As long as it is an informed decision.

Continue reading...

Angus Taylor heads to COP25 next week, where Australia has already twice been given the ‘fossil of the day’ award

For two weeks at the end of every year, the world’s governments meet to work on a global response to climate change. This year is the 25th meeting of what is known as the conference of the parties under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Those who attend know it as COP, or COP25.

Here’s what you need to know about this year’s talks, which started on Monday in Madrid, and what they could mean for Australia.

Continue reading...

Luxembourg will introduce a domestic tax on fossil fuels to help meet its climate targets, the government announced Friday, making the landlocked microstate the latest European nation to implement carbon pricing beyond the reach of the EU ETS.

Australia has released new emission projections with revised historical GHG data, increasing the amount of AAU carryovers it might use for its Paris Agreement target and putting it on track to exceed its international commitments.

A recent study challenging the carbon credit standards that have applied for the global CORSIA aviation offsetting scheme made questionable interpretations of the programme’s environmental criteria, and also ran counter to UN body ICAO’s own guidance in the process, developers and brokers said Friday.

The British Embassy in Vienna is part of the United Kingdom’s world-wide diplomatic network, and represents British political, economic and consular interests in Vienna and is now looking to recruit a Climate Change Policy Adviser.

A warmer world means oceans are able to hold less dissolved oxygen, which is bad news for many fish.

Photographer Judah Passow has documented those were affected by the Bhopal disaster 35 years ago, which killed an estimated 25,000 people ad has left more than 150,000 suffering from chronic medical conditions

Judah Passow has waived his fee for this work. Contributions to the Bhopal Medical Appeal can be made at www.bhopal.org

Continue reading...

Sharks, tuna, marlin and other large fish at risk from spread of ‘dead zones’, say scientists

Oxygen in the oceans is being lost at an unprecedented rate, with “dead zones” proliferating and hundreds more areas showing oxygen dangerously depleted, as a result of the climate emergency and intensive farming, experts have warned.

Sharks, tuna, marlin and other large fish species were at particular risk, scientists said, with many vital ecosystems in danger of collapse. Dead zones – where oxygen is effectively absent – have quadrupled in extent in the last half-century, and there are also at least 700 areas where oxygen is at dangerously low levels, up from 45 when research was undertaken in the 1960s.

Continue reading...

Friends of the Earth rates the party above the Greens and Lib Dems in its environment policy survey.