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California regulator ARB on Friday postponed a decision until next spring on whether to approve the Tropical Forest Standard (TFS) that could allow jurisdictions to link their sector-based offset programmes to the state’s carbon market, with stakeholders warning of the standard's environmental and social ramifications.

EU carbon prices ended above €19 on Friday as the UK government stuck to its efforts to pass a Brexit deal, while a huge drop in coal prices boosted the prospects for coal generators to ramp up EUA buying.

Scientists in Brazil find first evidence of plastic pollution in Amazon basin freshwater fish

Scientists have found the first evidence of plastic contamination in freshwater fish in the Amazon, highlighting the extent to which bags, bottles and other waste dumped in rivers is affecting the world’s wildlife.

Tests on the stomach contents of fish in Brazil’s Xingu River, one of the major tributaries of the Amazon, revealed plastic particles in more than 80% of the species examined, including the omnivorous parrot pacu, herbivorous redhook silver dollar, and meat-eating red-bellied piranha.

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Nodal Exchange and IncubEx launched their first tranche of environmental products in North American carbon, renewable energy, and other environmental markets on Friday, adding another player offering futures contracts in the market.

Cuadrilla won’t say if it has halted Preston New Road exploration, at cost of £94,000 a day

The shale gas firm Cuadrilla has refused to confirm whether it has halted fracking after triggering a series of minor earthquakes near Blackpool, raising questions over the operation’s future prospects.

Dozens of small tremors have been registered near the company’s Preston New Road site, after it started pumping high volumes of water underground in October to explore for gas.

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EU carbon prices will soon rise to levels that will force the closure of a number of German coal plants, according to a member of an industry association represented on the country’s coal exit commission.

Starlings over Rome and the ‘smiling angel’ of the Yangtze are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

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While EU carbon futures prices are increasingly seen as driving fossil fuel forward prices, researchers have found a looser relationship in the spot market and differing ones when it comes to the inverse, namely how each fuel affects EUAs.

Huge expansion of agri-food industry is harming environment, say investigators

Green energy subsidies are fuelling the rise of poultry mega-farms across Northern Ireland, with owners accused of contaminating sensitive habitats with emissions from chicken faeces.

An alliance of agri-food companies enlisted the support of Northern Ireland politicians to unlock an estimated £800m in subsidies for contractors. This has paved the way for industry expansion at the expense of the environment, according to an investigation by the not-for-profit journalism group SourceMaterial.

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China Southern Power Grid Co. on Friday auctioned off a small batch of offsets eligible for use in the Guangdong ETS that cleared nearly 40% above the secondary market price for allowances.

Closing prices, ranges and volumes for China's regional pilot carbon markets this week.

Ranking of countries’ goals shows even EU on course for more than double safe level of warming

China, Russia and Canada’s current climate policies would drive the world above a catastrophic 5C of warming by the end of the century, according to a study that ranks the climate goals of different countries.

The US and Australia are only slightly behind with both pushing the global temperature rise dangerously over 4C above pre-industrial levels says the paper, while even the EU, which is usually seen as a climate leader, is on course to more than double the 1.5C that scientists say is a moderately safe level of heating.

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From Belize to Barbados, tourist beaches have been swamped by huge tides of foul-smelling sargassum – and climate change could make the problem worse

“It was like something out of a science fiction movie,” says Barbara Hall from the office of the beachside hotel she runs in Placencia, southern Belize.

“I woke up at 6am, looked out my window and realised we had a big problem. It was absolutely overwhelming.”

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New Zealand carbon allowances suffered a third straight day of losses on Friday, with the increasing gap to the de facto price ceiling  spurring sellers to come forward after months of near-zero trading.

Australia’s Clean Energy Regulator this week issued 246,157 offsets to six projects that are all under contract with the government’s Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF).

Wool-shearing footage, filmed by campaigners on 49 farms, appears to show animals being kicked, slapped and beaten with metal clippers

Footage which appears to show sheep being kicked, beaten and abused during wool-shearing on English and Scottish farms has been released by animal rights activists.

Peta Asia carried out an undercover investigation over the summer in the British sheep shearing industry. The 18 minutes of footage released today is a small part of a wider investigation, in which Peta documented alleged abuse on 25 farms in Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Suffolk, Essex, and Northumberland counties. In Scotland they have collected evidence from 24 farms in West Lothian, Fife, the Borders, Dumfries and Galloway, East Lothian, Midlothian and South Lanarkshire.

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The EU has ordered Romania to recover over €60 million from utility CE Hunedoara, deeming illegal the government loans given to help the company meet its EU carbon market obligations.

In the last 30 years, gulls have come among us as never before. But is their moment coming to an end as we tackle our waste problem?

When was the last day you didn’t see a gull? Throughout Britain we ordinarily cross paths with these birds more often than with any other wild creature. They are hard to avoid. In the last 30 years – the lifespan of a large gull – they have come among us as never before. Though still popularly regarded as seagulls, many have moved inland, far from the seaside or saltwater. They have adapted to life in many places we have made, and they have thrived.

Cities and their hinterlands where we jettison our rubbish now sustain far more gulls than the birds’ former more traditional marine habitats. Indeed, in a paradox that might define the Anthropocene era, surviving coastal birds are now regarded as threatened with local extinction, while the same gull species in urban areas are so prevalent they are thought of as pests.

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The ICE is over. But which of the new technologies will win the automotive future – batteries, hybrid plug-ins, or hydrogen fuel cells?

The post Why battery electric vehicles will beat hybrids and fuel cells appeared first on RenewEconomy.

UQ study finds hydrogen fuel cell vehicles – If charged on Australia's main grid – will have 3x the emissions of battery EVs, nearly double those of petrol cars.

The post Study shows hydrogen cars to have three times emissions of battery EVs appeared first on RenewEconomy.