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Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Monday said his government would not try to legislate an emissions target for the electricity sector under the National Energy Guarantee (NEG) as opposition from a handful of MPs from his own party meant the policy would likely not make it through parliament.

An ActewAGL electric vehicle charging station, the first to service West Belconnen and the first of several planned for the Ginninderry development, was launched today by Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability, Shane Rattenbury.

The post First electric vehicle charging station for Ginninderry appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The critically endangered regent honey eater flies into the Hunter; we go trackside with 90-year-old Alf McLeod; meet Clyde the kelpie; and visit a vintage caravan rally.

Lily D’Ambrosio talks about the state’s big rooftop solar initiative; David Leitch accuses Rod Sims of stepping over the line; and why price caps could cause bills to rise.

The post Energy Insiders Podcast: Lily D’Ambrosio and the big solar deal appeared first on RenewEconomy.

A reef near a polluted port raises hopes for the conservation of other endangered coral.

Thom Pierce visited the people of Xolobeni to photograph them and the postcards he will post on their behalf to the Australian mining company putting at risk their way of life

Xolobeni is a cluster of rural communities on the eastern coast of South Africa. Tourists know beautiful and rugged area as the Wild Coast. The people of Xolobeni are mostly self-sufficient, living off the land and fishing in the sea, and often only travelling the two hours to the closest shops once a month to buy sugar, oil and other basic provisions.

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Our picture editors choose the best photos from the past 24 hours

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The seafood delicacy can sell for £420 a plate in China. As demand outstrips legal supply, divers from the poor suburbs of Cape Town are making up the shortfall

A muscular, bald man moved through the kelp, hunting forbidden shellfish. His scuba rig bubbled and hissed. He was nearly 100 metres from the seashore and 20 metres below the surface, which was grey and flat like a lake. The water was clear, giving far range of sight. Below him the seafloor spread out until it blurred into nothingness.

It was dangerous territory, but Shuhood (not his real name) accepted the risks. For more than a decade he’d been an abalone poacher, lifting a marine snail worth hundreds of pounds per kilo in Asia from reefs around South Africa. The first time he’d used scuba gear, without training, he’d almost drowned, held down by his weight belt and a mesh bag stuffed with abalone. Another day, his air hose broke underwater, and he blacked out as he swam up to the surface. One night the skipper of a boat he was working on ran him over while fleeing a police patrol vessel, and Shuhood was almost chopped by the propellers. Months later, a poacher was decapitated in a similar incident off Robben Island.

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Flushing daily disposable lenses down the toilet is increasing the threat from plastics, say experts.

A farmers’ leader shot in the back is one of 18 activists killed this year, targeted for opposing evictions, logging and mining

At 9am on 9 May, Luis Arturo Marroquín walked out of a shop in the main square of the small town of San Luis Jilotepéque in central Guatemala. Eyewitnesses say a black Toyota Hilux pick-up then drove up and, in full view of passersby, two men wearing hoods shot Marroquín repeatedly in the back.

The vehicle sped off but was identified and, within hours, police had stopped and reportedly questioned the men and found the weapons. But since then, no arrests have been made or charges levelled and the investigation has stalled.

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Origin supports ACCC call to wind up the federal rooftop solar subsidy early, citing savings to consumers.

The post Origin CEO backs push to cut short rooftop solar rebate appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The photographer has been documenting life at the poles for years. He is determined to safeguard these fragile habitats

When he was four years old, Paul Nicklen’s family moved to Kimmirut on Baffin Island, northern Canada; a village so remote that supplies are delivered once a year, by boat. The Nicklens were one of only two non-Inuit families in the tiny community, and with no telephone, radio or TV, Paul’s childhood was spent on the ice, in the company of native fishermen and in awe of the visual majesty of the region. “I learned how to freeze,” he says. It is a skill that has helped him to become one of the world’s foremost photographers of polar wildlife.

“If you want to shoot the best photography of a particular ecosystem, you have to be comfortable wherever you are,” says Nicklen. “If that’s 150ft deep under the ice, you can’t be sitting there fighting for survival. You need to free up your mind.” Wearing a rebreather to avoid producing bubbles, he stays submerged for up to six hours, submitting himself to the same conditions inhabited by his favourite species. To Nicklen, the Arctic is not a forbidding, alien landscape, but a spiritual home: “I’m far more comfortable around bears than, say, on the streets of New York.”

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Who should be responsible for our nuclear waste?

Palm oil plantations continue to threaten this endangered species. Global standards for minimising consumption of palm oil varies wildly from country to country. Australian conservation groups have been pushing for legislation to mandate the labelling of palm oil on food ingredient lists for almost a decade. Currently, generic terms such as ‘vegetable oil’ or 'vegetable fats’ can be used instead. The EU enforced palm oil labelling in 2014 and is now trying to pass a ban on using palm oil in EU biofuels – a move the UK is seeking to block

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Victoria Labor government proposes rebates and zero interest loans to encourage another 650,000 homes to install another 2.6GW of rooftop solar.

The post Victoria Labor pledges $1.2 billion in rebates, loans for rooftop solar appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Sixty councils across Queensland and NSW to be handed $1m each and amount farmers can borrow in low-interest loans to double

The federal government will announce a $1.8bn funding boost to help farmers battling the worst drought in more than 50 years.

Sixty drought-affected councils across western Queensland and New South Wales will be handed $1m each to spend on anything from trucking in drinking water to building new community facilities.

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The future of our oceans depends on it.

RSPB boss warns of a devastating loss of wildlife if three new parliamentary bills do not rein in UK farming practices

Ministers may have only 12 months to rescue Britain’s degraded environment and to save its endangered birds and animals. That is the stark conclusion of Michael Clarke, chief executive of the RSPB, who has warned that parliamentary bills – to be published over the next year – will have to make crucial changes to the way our farms and fisheries are run if the wildlife and landscape of the nation are to be rescued from their dangerously depleted condition.

“We are on a cusp, and if we fail to act decisively we will pay the price in coming years,” Clarke told the Observer last week.

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Coffee cup levy could be brought in after thousands support action to reduce single-use plastic waste.

Government’s claims that it did extensive due diligence for funding to foundation don’t add up, says opposition

The Labor party says the government’s claims that it conducted extensive due diligence for a $443.8 m grant to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation are “clearly wrong”, following revelations the department of environment and energy warned there were “significant” risks the grant would delay on-the ground projects.

Documents obtained by Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws showed no mention by the environment and energy department of the record grant until 12 April, three days after a meeting between the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, the environment and energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, and the foundation’s chairman, John Schubert.

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