Around The Web

• More than half the world’s new pipelines in the US and Canada
• Pipelines ‘locking in huge emissions for 40 to 50 years at a time’

More than half of the world’s new oil and gas pipelines are located in North America, with a boom in US oil and gas drilling set to deliver a major blow to efforts to slow climate change, a new report has found.

Related: Millions more Americans breathing dirty air as planet warms, study finds

Continue reading...

Pristine forests are vital for climate and wildlife but trend of losses is rising, data shows

Millions of hectares of pristine tropical rainforest were destroyed in 2018, according to satellite analysis, with beef, chocolate and palm oil among the main causes.

The forests store huge amounts of carbon and are teeming with wildlife, making their protection critical to stopping runaway climate change and halting a sixth mass extinction. But deforestation is still on an upward trend, the researchers said. Although 2018 losses were lower than in 2016 and 2017, when dry conditions led to large fires, last year was the next worst since 2002, when such records began.

Continue reading...

Forests in tropical regions are disappearing at the rate of 30 football fields a minute, say researchers.

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

California regulator ARB defended its decision to maintain the current emissions cap trajectory of its WCI-linked ETS to 2030, despite confirming that there were more than 218 million surplus compliance units at the end of the market's second compliance period, according to a letter sent to legislators Tuesday.

Oregon’s proposed cap-and-trade scheme would be undersupplied from day one and would absorb more than 40 Mt from the wider WCI market over the next decade if legislation currently on the table is passed, analysts predict.

Tesla Model X owner drives 908km in one day using AC chargers on mission to prove EVs can do Australia's vast distances.

The post Tesla driver clocks almost 1000km in Australian outback in one day appeared first on RenewEconomy.

After the government said the opposition’s emissions reduction policy would cost $26bn, should you believe it?

Short answer: no.

Continue reading...

Musk says Tesla battery storage business expected to grow 300% after being crimped by the focus on Model 3 production.

The post Tesla expects its battery storage market to grow 300 per cent appeared first on RenewEconomy.

A new Climate Action Reserve (CAR) protocol aims to reduce costs for voluntary urban forestry projects, but the methodology would have to demonstrate success and pass other regulatory hurdles to become eligible for WCI compliance-grade offsets, a company official said.

London roads were blocked, reducing buses and taxis’ flow

While Extinction Rebellion blocked roads in London, the capital was awash with particle pollution, causing the mayor to issue alerts on bus stops. But this poor air had nothing to do with the protests, quite the opposite. Analysis by King’s College London found that air pollution improved close to the protest locations. This was especially clear on Oxford Street, without the constant flow of buses and taxis, but was also seen at Aldwych close to Waterloo Bridge.

There was no sign of deteriorations on the surrounding roads, which might be partially explained by lighter traffic because of the Easter holidays. The pollution alerts were part of the all-too-familiar rhythm of spring, when exhaust from traffic, emissions from industry chimneys and ammonia from fertilised fields combines to form particle pollution that drifts over western Europe. Unusually, this covered all of the UK and prompted the Irish Environmental Protection Agency to issue warnings for the east of the country.

Continue reading...

Global pork prices could rise sharply as African swine fever decimates China's pig population.

The second largest emperor penguin colony in Antarctica disappears, satellite images show.

So far, the proposed Adani coal mine has captured quite a bit of attention. The divisions are writ large in Queensland, the home of the proposed project, and Australia's most decentralised state.

Prince Edward Island’s Progressive Conservative party won the right to form a minority government in Tuesday’s election, but a historic showing by the Greens offers the possibility of changing climate politics in Canada’s smallest province.

Privately-held Czech company EPH will purchase two Northern Ireland thermal plants from US firm AES, consolidating its position as the second biggest emitter in the EU ETS.

Researchers from California have found populations of endangered green sea turtles are rising in Pacific coral reefs. It's the first major in-water survey of turtle populations in the Pacific and one of the biggest sea turtle surveys ever carried out.

California regulator ARB distributed 125,900 California Carbon Offsets (CCOs) this week, in the lightest issuance of the year to date.

California should drop its move toward allowing REDD tropical forest protection credits in its carbon market, because it won’t ensure emission cuts and could pave the way for much greater use by airlines under the UN’s CORSIA offsetting mechanism, a cross-party group of EU lawmakers warned on Wednesday.

EUAs slipped on Wednesday as a weak auction result pushed carbon back to technical support levels and further away from the 11-year high near €28 that was approached a day earlier.