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If the current rates of wind and solar deployment continue, Australia could be at 100% renewables by 2032, and meet its economy wide Paris commitment in 2025, at little cost.

The post Australia could be 100% renewables by 2032 at current rate of wind and solar installs appeared first on RenewEconomy.

European carbon prices retreated after gapping higher along with other energy commodities, though not before EUAs hit a new eight-day high.

Everyone knows the Great Barrier Reef is in peril. But a continent away, Western Australia's Shark Bay is also threatened by marine heatwaves that could alter this World Heritage ecosystem forever. Matthew Fraser, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Western Australia Ana Sequeira, ARC DECRA Fellow, University of Western Australia Brendan Paul Burns, Senior Lecturer, UNSW Diana Walker, Emeritus Professor, University of Western Australia Jon C. Day, PSM, Post-career PhD candidate, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University Scott Heron, Senior Lecturer, James Cook University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Wrasse passes intelligence test in disputed study, challenging ‘vacant’ reputation of fish

They are often said to have a three-second memory, but the brain power of fish has been considerably underestimated, according to scientists who found some fish can recognise themselves in the mirror.

Related: Talking animals: we aren’t the only species capable of speech …

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The catastrophic collapse of a dam at a mine in Brazil has exposed a darker side of an industry that the world depends on.

Democrats are quickly moving on climate change in the new divided Congress as they will unveil the widely-expected “Green New Deal” on Thursday, calling for significant changes to the US economy to reduce carbon emissions over the next 10 years.

UK must deal with plastic waste on its own soil, says group calling for export ban

A cross-party group of MPs is calling for a ban on the export of plastic waste over concerns the UK is passing the buck to the world’s poorest people to clean up its rubbish.

MPs have tabled an early day motion to highlight growing concerns first raised by the National Audit Office that millions of tonnes of plastic waste sent abroad for recycling may be being dumped in landfill.

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My friend and colleague John Harvey, who has died aged 80, was not only an expert in ocean physics, but also a keen climber and outdoor activity leader.

In 1968 John was among the first group of lecturers in the interdisciplinary school of environmental sciences at the recently established University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich. There he taught physical oceanography to generations of students.

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The Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa 2 will attempt to collect a sample of soil and rock from an asteroid on 22 February, the country's space agency says.

Closure of Cottam plant in Nottinghamshire likely to lead to more than 150 job cuts

One of the UK’s last seven coal power stations will close this year after half a century of generating electricity, as the polluting fuel continues its rapid decline in the energy mix.

EDF Energy said more than 150 jobs were likely to be cut due to the closure of the Cottam plant in north Nottinghamshire on 30 September.

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A study has identified trees and plants that are resilient to climate change and support orangutans.

Blueprint for a carbon-neutral economy has been embraced by prominent Democrats and evokes FDR’s famous legacy

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is releasing a broad outline of a vision for the Green New Deal, a plan to battle economic and racial injustice while also fighting climate change.

The new congresswoman’s blueprint, to be made public today, does not set a date for phasing out fossil fuels. But it does aim to develop a carbon-neutral economy in 10 years, which would require huge strides in reducing the US’s reliance on oil and gas and coal. Specifically, the resolution says it is the duty of the federal government to craft a Green New Deal “to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions”. That includes getting all power from “clean, renewable and zero-emission energy sources”.

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France-owned utility EDF will cease power generation at its 50-year-old Cottam coal-fired plant on Sep. 30 due to it being economically unviable, the company said on Thursday, a date that reflects the end of its government subsidies awarded for providing secure supply.

Cuadrilla and Ineos say strict regulations around earthquakes hinder their work

The government has rejected pleas by fracking companies to review strict rules around earthquakes caused by their operations, in a major blow that could spell the end for Britain’s nascent shale industry.

Cuadrilla complained on Wednesday that it had only been able to frack a tiny section of its well near Blackpool last autumn because of the limits, and warned it would not be able to undertake commercial fracking if the regulations are not reviewed.

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The rover Europe sends to Mars in 2020 to look for life will carry the name of an unsung hero of DNA discovery.

Swedish utility Vattenfall’s EU ETS-covered thermal power output dipped 0.6% to 31.6 TWh last year, curbing its demand for carbon allowances while its cleaner forms of output ramped up, it said in annual results on Thursday.

Dieter Helm says withdrawal from common agricultural policy could safeguard natural world

Britain’s withdrawal from the EU’s common agricultural policy (CAP) provides one of the few bright spots of Brexit, and if replaced with new legislation could help to restore some of the country’s degraded natural environment, one of the government’s leading economic advisers has said.

Dieter Helm, professor of energy policy at Oxford University, told the Guardian: “If there was any reason to be optimistic about Brexit, it is that it is the end of the CAP. It is hard to think how you could be anything other than better off if you had control of how you spend [the sums currently allocated in farming subsidies].”

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On a tiny urban smallholding in Kenya, the Huruma Town Youth Group tend goats and chickens and grow vegetables – sharing their bounty with the community’s most vulnerable

In a space of less than an eighth of an acre in Huruma, a small informal settlement in north-east Nairobi, is a tiny farm housing 19 goats and 286 birds – chickens, doves and guineafowl.

Pens and cages have been cobbled together with discarded wood and corrugated iron. Goats hop from a pen curious to see their new visitors, passing day-old chicks who squeak from inside a cage. There’s a goat skin drying out in the sun as a bunch of flies swarm above it.

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Sydney's very own electric moped maker launches new X1 performance model - and it's literally driving out the door.

The post New “performance” electric motorbike unveiled by Australia’s Fonzarelli appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Electronic waste hazardous due to toxic parts was tracked to developing countries

The UK is the worst offender in Europe for illegally exporting toxic electronic waste to developing countries, according to a two-year investigation that tracked shipments from 10 European countries.

The investigation by the environmental watchdog the Basel Action Network (BAN) put GPS trackers on 314 units of computers, LCD monitors and printers placed in recycling facilities in 10 countries. Researchers mapped what they said was the export of 11 items to Ghana, Nigeria, Pakistan, Tanzania, Thailand and Ukraine.

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