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Our polluting behaviours are subsidised by taxes and a lowering of quality of life

The “polluter pays” principle feels like natural justice. We would all agree factory owners should be responsible for the pollution they cause. But this idea is less supported when we are the polluters and have to pay more.

A European commission study found our polluting behaviours are being heavily subsidised through taxes and by those whose quality of life is most affected. Taxes and charges paid by transport users cover less than half the true cost, when infrastructure and the external costs of accidents, climate change, air pollution and noise are considered.

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One of the most distinctive features in the Solar System is no more than 100 million years old.

EUAs rose to test €24 on Thursday as financial markets drew some comfort from UK lawmaker efforts to stave off a hard Brexit.

Greg Clark knows nuclear cannot compete with the likes of wind and solar – but he is not giving up

There was excellent news within Hitachi’s decision to shelve its plan to build a £16bn nuclear plant at Wylfa in Anglesey. Finally, a government minister may have grasped the basic problem with nuclear power. It is being “out-competed” by alternative technologies, especially wind and solar, the business secretary, Greg Clark, had to concede in the Commons. Exactly. So drop the obsession with nuclear, last century’s answer to our energy needs.

As Clark also said, the package offered to Hitachi was generous. The price of the power, at £75 per megawatt hour, was lower than in EDF’s Hinkley Point C contract, but on this occasion the government would have taken a one-third stake and committed to providing all the debt financing for construction. Adjust for the different financial structure and the package looked very Hinkley-like – in other words, hugely expensive for the poor old bill payer.

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A group of former heads of the US federal reserve, Nobel Laureate economists, and past presidential advisors called for a revenue-neutral carbon tax on Thursday, coming as the appetite for climate action in Washington builds in the new Congress.

The shark, believed to be one known as Deep Blue, weighs 2.5 tonnes and is nearly 20ft long.

How green is nuclear power and what are the other options?

As Hitachi and Toshiba abandon plans for new British nuclear reactors, Damian Carrington assesses the merits of the technology

• Hitachi scraps £16bn nuclear power station in Wales

All sources of electricity face the same trilemma in the 21st century: carbon emissions, continuity of supply and cost. The UK government has placed a big bet on nuclear power, but reactors meet only two of the three challenges. Nuclear power is low carbon and a secure source of electricity – but it is hugely expensive.

In the era of climate change, generating power without belching out carbon emissions is vital. While building nuclear plants and fuelling them requires concrete, transport and so on, the overall emissions are similar to wind and solar power. All produce far less carbon than coal or gas-powered stations.

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The general public in both rich and poor countries has a consistently high level of support for a carefully designed global carbon tax, a survey found.

A complete overhaul of what we eat may be the only way to meet the needs of a planet in crisis. So what’s on – and off – the menu?

The world faces many challenges over the coming decades, but one of the most significant will be how to feed its expanding global population. By 2050, there will be about 10 billion of us, and how to feed us all, healthily and from sustainable food sources, is something that is already being looked at. The Norway-based thinktank Eat and the British journal the Lancet have teamed up to commission an in-depth, worldwide study, which launches at 35 different locations around the world today, into what it would take to solve this problem – and the ambition is huge.

The commissioners lay out important caveats. Their solution is contingent on global efforts to stabilise population growth, the achievement of the goals laid out in the Paris Agreement on climate change and stemming worldwide changes in land use, among other things. But they are clear that it depends on far more than just these basic requirements. The initial report presents a flexible daily diet for all food groups based on the best health science, which also limits the impact of food production on the planet.

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Paris agreement for the sea recommended as rates of plastic pollution to skyrocket

A new global agreement to protect the seas should be a priority for the government to stop our seas becoming a “sewer”, according to a cross-party group of MPs.

Plastic pollution is set to treble in the next decade, the environmental audit committee warned, while overfishing is denuding vital marine habitats of fish, and climate change is causing harmful warming of the oceans as well as deoxygenation and acidification.

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Nine years ago, Britain generated nearly 75% of its electricity using natural gas and coal. In 2018, this has dropped to under 45%.

The post Britain has shifted 30% of its electricity away from fossil fuels in just nine years appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Northern Territory government to build construction two new solar farms, totalling 20MW of capacity – a move it says will "catapult" its renewables share to 10% by year’s end.

The post NT on track for 10% renewables by 2020, with two new solar farms announced appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Antarctic sea ice cover fell to an all-time low recently and hasn't yet recovered. Why? The initial answers could lie in an unlikely place – the tropics. Julie Arblaster, Associate Professor, Monash University Gerald A Meehl, Senior scientist, National Center for Atmospheric Research Guomin Wang, Research scientist, Australian Bureau of Meteorology Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

LONGi Solar has achieved a new monocrystalline silicon PERC world record conversion efficiency using commercial wafer (M2) dimensions that exceeds 24% for the first time, according to tests carried out by the National Center of Supervision and Inspection on Solar Photovoltaic Product Quality (CPVT) in China.

The post LONGi Solar reaches 24.06% efficiency with its bifacial mono-PERC modules appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Impact Investment Group reopens Solar Asset Fund to new investment, to coincide with start of construction on one of its assets – the 35MW Brigalow Solar Farm in Queensland.

The post Impact launches new solar investment round, as 35MW PV farm gets underway appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The 275MW Darlington Point Solar Farm will begin construction "shortly" after reaching financial close and sealing a power off-take deal with Trevor St Baker's Delta Electricity.

The post One of Australia’s largest solar farms inks PPA with coal generator appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Of 124 coffees in the world, we only drink two, but we need to protect all of them, say scientists.

‘Planetary health diet’ would prevent millions of deaths a year and avoid climate change

The first science-based diet that tackles both the poor food eaten by billions of people and averts global environmental catastrophe has been devised. It requires huge cuts in red meat-eating in western countries and radical changes across the world.

The “planetary health diet” was created by an international commission seeking to draw up guidelines that provide nutritious food to the world’s fast-growing population. At the same time, the diet addresses the major role of farming – especially livestock – in driving climate change, the destruction of wildlife and the pollution of rivers and oceans.

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