Around The Web

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

The mayor of Okuma, home of the damaged nuclear power plant, has been in exile for eight years – here he writes about finally returning

The residents of Okuma were among more than 150,000 people who were forced to flee their homes after the March 2011 triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. As one of the wrecked plant’s two host towns, Okuma was abandoned for eight years before authorities declared that radiation levels had fallen to safe levels, allowing residents to return. Even now, 60% of Okuma remains off limits, and only a tiny fraction of the pre-disaster population of 11,500 has returned since their former neighbourhoods were given the all clear in April. A month later, Okuma’s mayor, Toshitsuna Watanabe, and his colleagues returned to work at a new town hall. In the second of a three-part diary for the Guardian, Watanabe recalls the search for a temporary home for Okuma’s nuclear evacuees.

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We are looking for a market analyst to join our established energy analytics team in London (UK) or Karlsruhe (Germany).

The UK is bidding to host COP26 in Dec. 2020. As part of our preparations, as well as a growing need to influence UK climate change policy, the UK is developing a UK climate change strategy, covering international and domestic mitigation and adaptation. Defra has an important role to play in contributing to the strategy and shaping associated UK policy proposals and links to the wider environment agenda, and is creating nine new SEO roles in the Wildlife, International, Climate & Forestry Directorate.

If Australia is to move on from coal, how do we do it. An obvious gap in the Federal Election debates was a comprehensive plan for an industry, and employment, to replace coal in the regions.

It’s about the very survival of people, nations and cultures. If action isn’t taken there are islanders who may have nowhere to go

Scott Morrison flew to the Solomon Islands last weekend to “show our Pacific step-up in action” but this policy will fail if his government doesn’t take meaningful action on climate change. A successful step-up must include stopping our own pollution, defending the sovereignty of our friends in the Pacific and offering a safety net to those who may need it.

Over the past five years Australia’s standing in the Pacific has declined dramatically because of an unwillingness to take strong action on climate change. It’s not as if the Pacific hasn’t been clear. From female fishers to the Fijian prime minister, to remote communities in the Solomon Islands, climate change is a top-order issue. It’s about the very survival of people, nations and cultures. If action isn’t taken, in 40 years there are people in Pacific island states who may have nowhere to go.

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We're going carbon neutral and harnessing the power of the sun this morning as we take a look at how farming is on the environmental front foot.

Indigenous women boxing for fitness and confidence; preserving rural property's historic church; ranger catching rabbits with ferrets; rural community draws crowds to pumpkin festival.

A Melbourne gardener launches first case against Monsanto in Australia, claiming using Round-up caused his cancer.

It's a very noisy world out in Australian nature, and sometimes all you need to do is stop and listen (to this).

EUAs clambered back above €24.50 on Friday, recovering to last week’s closing levels in rangebound trade aided by a bullish energy complex and a looming dip in auction supply.

A summary of legislative and regulatory action on carbon pricing and clean energy legislation at the US subnational and federal level taken this week, including a push to vote on New York’s omnibus climate policy bill, clean energy and GHG target developments in Maine, and news on California offset and hydropower bills.

A proposed European Union satellite mission could have major benefits for agriculture.

White tiger cubs, urban deer and many millions of ladybirds

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The US space agency says it will allow tourists to visit the station from 2020.

EU carbon prices could be boosted by around a third by 2030 should the bloc decide to recalibrate its annual ETS emissions cap reduction rate to align with a more ambitious long-term climate goal, analysts said.

RGGI’s June auction aligned with traders’ expectations as it cleared under the secondary market for the first time since Mar. 2018, with speculators taking home the majority of allowances offered, according to results published Friday.

Pennsylvania’s Senate Democratic Leader is seeking co-sponsors for a bill to install a power sector cap-and-trade programme, a move that could give a legislative mandate for the Keystone State to join the northeast US RGGI carbon market in the future.

The Arctic Sunrise and the Esperanza, two Greenpeace vessels, are in Svalbard, Norway, on the first leg of a voyage from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Their mission is to highlight the threats facing the oceans and to campaign for a global treaty covering all international waters.

The Protect the Oceans expedition is teaming up scientists and campaigners to research the threats of climate change, overfishing, plastic pollution, deep sea mining and oil drilling.

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Less oxygen and ice, more acid and heat. Jonathan Watts joins an expedition studying what this means for the planet

The demise of an entire ocean is almost too enormous to grasp, but as the expedition sails deeper into the Arctic, the colossal processes of breakdown are increasingly evident.

The first fragment of ice appears off the starboard bow a few miles before the 79th parallel in the Fram strait, which lies between Greenland and the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. The solitary floe is soon followed by another, then another, then clusters, then swarms, then entire fields of white crazy paving that stretch to the horizon.

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