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Labels will be ditched from a further 116 lines of produce to help reduce food waste

The UK’s largest supermarket is to scrap potentially confusing “best before” dates from dozens more of its fresh fruit and vegetable lines after research found ditching the labels helped customers reduce their food waste at home.

Tesco shoppers will from this week no longer find date labels on a further 116 items of produce – including own-brand apples, oranges, cabbages and asparagus. Tesco hopes this will prevent food from being thrown away while still edible. The supermarket removed guidance dates from about 70 fruit and vegetable lines earlier this year.

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PM resists calls to withdraw from Paris agreement as energy minister claims Australia is ‘well on target’ for 26% emissions reduction

Scott Morrison has resisted conservatives’ calls to withdraw Australia from the Paris climate agreement but ruled out providing more money to the global climate fund.

The prime minister made the comments on 2GB Radio on Monday, before the release of a Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, which is expected to call for a phaseout of coal power generation to help limit temperature rises to 1.5C.

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Financing secured for 250MW solar farm near Balranald that will be one of the biggest in Australia.

The post Maoneng reaches financial close on 250MW Sunraysia solar farm appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Plans for a huge wind solar hybrid project in the Pilbara region in north-western Australia have jumped from 9GW to 11GW, with Macquarie Group jumping on board to provide development capital.

The post Pilbara wind and solar plans jump to 11GW as Macquarie provides capital appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Australia must come to terms with some fundamental shifts in our weather patterns. This month, Andrew Watkins from the BOM and climate scientist Joelle Gergis explore what's in store. Madeleine De Gabriele, Deputy Editor: Energy + Environment Wes Mountain, Deputy Multimedia Editor Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Kevin Rushby joined the crew aboard the Summer Rose fishing boat seeking insight into the state of our seas. He found life hard for fishermen and marine creatures alike – but can conservation measures such as Michael Gove’s ‘blue belt’ help?

It takes 20 minutes of sailing to get into position under the cliffs, then we begin. Matthew grabs the rope connected to the marker buoy and loops it up over the winch. Mike, his father and the captain, turns the boat and starts to follow the rope as the pots come up. Each one is hauled on to the gunwale where Matthew deftly removes the creatures within. Large lobsters and edible crabs to the left, the rest thrown back overboard alive: the females with eggs, the ones with scarred tails or soft shells and the undersized, plus the cod that have unwisely ventured into the creels, the tiny green crabs and the arm-long catsharks. The crewman, Jim, grabs the empty pots, re-baits and stacks them. Some need repairs, a whip of line to tie up a hole – a job completed in a few seconds. At 20 pots the line is finished and Mike sails us back to the start point. He checks the GPS and Jim chucks the creels overboard in a steady stream. There is no time for conversation and anyway you would struggle to hear anything above the engine, the sea and the screams of the gulls. The next buoy is captured. The first pot arrives, alive with silver water and thrashing bodies. This relentless pace will be kept up for the next five hours.

I am sitting in the bows, out of the way. It is shortly after dawn on a glorious summer morning. Golden light bursts on the chalk cliffs of Flamborough, East Yorkshire. In the water are rafts of puffins and the air is filled with movement and noise: gannets, kittiwakes, sandwich terns and herring gulls. This is one of the government’s new marine protected areas (MPAs), part of a big expansion in habitat protection. Environment secretary Michael Gove has called for a third of the world’s oceans to be protected by 2030, and in June announced 41 new protected areas to add to the 50 already declared since 2013, adding 11,700 sq km to the existing 209,000 sq km of protected British seas. The stated aim is to ban damaging activities such as dredging in these areas, and to protect and restore rare or threatened marine habitats; there are more than 5,000 MPAs worldwide.

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Pressure on Philip Hammond for extra money to save grants for low-emission vehicles

Thousands of pounds will be added to the price of some electric and hybrid vehicles as one of the government’s main green initiatives falls victim to cuts, the Observer can reveal.

The Treasury is being warned that emergency funds will be needed to avoid an imminent cut in the subsidies given to people buying plug-in cars, which some fear will dent Britain’s green credentials.

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Space X's mission to the Moon will be the first lunar journey by humans since 1972.

Supporters demonstrate against ‘outrage and scandal’ of three men being imprisoned

Hundreds of supporters of the three environmental activists who became the first people to be jailed for an anti-fracking protest have demonstrated outside the prison where they are being held after an appeal against their imprisonment was lodged.

Protesters marched across Preston chanting “free the free”, “protest is not a crime”, and “we said no”, in reference to the local council’s decision to ban fracking in the county that was later overturned by Sajid Javid.

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Ukraine launches its first solar plant in the abandoned area around the former nuclear power station.

If Kevin McLeod did a series called Furry Mammal Grand Designs, the northern hopping mouse would have to be the star of the first episode.

Removing fossil fuels as our source of energy won’t be enough to fix the growing problem of excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We will need to filter it out to avoid cooking the planet.

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As a UN panel prepares a report on 1.5C global warming, researchers warn of the risks of ignoring ‘feedback’ effects

This week, hundreds of scientists and government officials from more than 190 countries have been buzzing around a convention centre in the South Korean city of Incheon.

They are trying to agree on the first official release of a report – the bit called the Summary for Policymakers – that pulls together all of what’s known about how the world might be affected once global warming gets to 1.5C.

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California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) prices rose further above the $190 mark on Thursday, nearing record highs attained this summer.

Nearly 22.1 million California Carbon Allowances were retired or shifted into the Allowance Price Containment Reserve during the third quarter, according to state data.

Italian researcher Alessandro Strumia is heavily criticised for claiming physics was "built by men".

Hemp milk hits the market; making bubbly wine the old-fashioned way; a swamp wallaby called 'Ralphie' joins the Bairnsdale police; and two race veterans call it a day at the Launceston Harness Racing track

European carbon prices rallied on Friday after another bullish auction result, hitting an eight-day high above €22 after busting through technical resistance.

Farmers aren’t waiting for handouts. They’re using new and very old farming practice to ensure the land survives

• Read parts one, two and three of The New Normal
  

At first the days are fine but slowly the dry expands and then hollows out. A realisation creeps up and niggles. Is this it? There is an optimism from knowing it will rain again, while banishing the seed of doubt about when.

But when every day dawns, you open your eyes and that seed of doubt grows, nurtured by dread. More than anything, it’s the silence. It is as if the natural energy is sucked out of the landscape and there is nothing left.

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