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The US still supports the CORSIA international flight offsetting mechanism but sees China’s early participation as essential to the scheme’s launch, an industry event heard on Wednesday.

European carbon prices clawed back above €21 on Wednesday, recovering from a three-day low hit intraday amid a firmer energy complex and a steepening EUA futures curve.

On the land and in the towns they’re affected to varying degrees; some find it harder to cope. But they all agree something has changed

• Read part one of The New Normal here
  

If you don’t fully appreciate the complexity of rural communities, farmer Peter Schmidt is not the sort of bloke you would be expecting in the Mulga Lands. His place is 21,000 hectares – 52,000 acres in the old money – and his family have been there since his grandfather selected blocks in the 1890s. The closest town is Wyandra, a blip on the highway on the way to Cunnamulla from Charleville – a drive that reveals the disused fences of smaller blocks long abandoned as unsustainable.

Schmidt though is still at his homestead at Alawoona, its sheds and outbuildings surrounded by a metre-high levee, standing like a bad joke in their sixth year of drought. He put it in after the 2012 flood, which washed a foot of water through his house. Problem is, that flood heralded the start of the dry and it pretty much hasn’t rained since. He jokes with station hand Joe that he cursed the place and might have to break the levee to bring on the rain. But far from being a man of superstition, Schmidt is a rural scientist, with two masters degrees – one each in rural education and cattle behaviour. He has a softly spoken manner and a sense of humour born in the Mulga.

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Clearing of forests in reef catchment zone show Australia a global deforestation hotspot, campaigners say

New official data shows clearing of forests near and along the Great Barrier Reef continued despite Australian government pledges to protect the natural wonder, with at least 152,000 hectares felled in 2016-17 alone.

Forests covering 770,000ha – an area about three times the size of the Australian Capital Territory – in the reef catchment zone have been bulldozed over the past five years. The area cleared last year was larger in size than that covered by new re-growth.

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The California Air Resources Board (ARB) will not submit additional appeals in the La Paloma bankruptcy case, an agency official said, after a federal judge threw out its legal challenge this summer.

Tory MEPs voted against the goal despite a UK government instruction welcoming it

MEPs have voted for a 40% cut in car emissions by 2030, in a rebuke to more cautious proposals by the European commission that signals tough negotiations with national governments ahead.

Germany has strongly opposed any increase to the 30% cut in CO2 output proposed by the European commission, although countries such as France have yet to reveal their position.

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Four pioneering women who changed the face of physics from the 1800s to the present day.

International agreement will protect vast areas of sea that have opened up as the ice melts

Commercial fishing will be banned across much of the Arctic under a new agreement signed on Wednesday in Greenland, closing down access to a vast area of sea that is newly opening up under climate change.

The moratorium on Arctic fishing will safeguard an area about the size of the Mediterranean for at least the next 16 years, as warming temperatures allow summer navigation across what was previously ice.

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Nordal Exchange and IncubEx will begin offering a suite of North American environmental products, including California Carbon Allowances (CCAs) and RGGI Allowances (RGAs), on Nov. 16 pending regulatory review.

Cases occurred after confirmed reports of invasive species feared as threat to the honeybee

A British wildlife charity has warned that a spate of bad news stories about the invasive Asian hornet is leading to the persecution of its home-grown equivalent.

Devon Wildlife Trust said it has across cases of people exterminating the European hornet (Vespa crabro) thinking it was the troublesome Asian hornet (Vespa velutina).

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EU finance ministers on Tuesday agreed to extend until mid-2022 regulations protecting the EU ETS and wider European energy markets from tax fraud.

The 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to three scientists for their discoveries in enzyme research.

Killer whale populations are facing collapse due to pollutants which were banned in the 1970's.

The administration’s lengthy slate of rollbacks will slow progress on reducing air pollution and greenhouse gases that warm the planet, health experts say

Donald Trump’s administration is racing against the clock to rescind or rewrite every major pro-environment policy enduring from Barack Obama’s presidency. But the government probably won’t be able to usher those changes through the courts before the next presidential election.

Green-minded states and advocates can’t sue until regulations are final, and it could take years for the courts to rule. In the interim, the lengthy slate of rollbacks will slow progress on reducing air pollution and greenhouse gases that warm the planet, health experts say.

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Japan’s latest push on carbon pricing was plunged into uncertainty this week after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe replaced Environment Minister Masaharu Nakugawa, who had launched twin processes to put the issue back on the government’s agenda.

IPCC scientist says there are some positive signs about our ability to keep the global temperature rise to 1.5C

More than a quarter of commercially available honeys show signs of having been bulked out with cheaper products such as sugar cane and corn syrup, a new analysis shows. Mark Patrick Taylor, Professor of Environmental Science, Macquarie University Xiaoteng Zhou, PhD candidate, Macquarie University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Australian Renewable Energy Agency announces distributed energy as a major focus for its remaining funding pool, as the transition to renewables enters its next critical – and unstoppable – phase.

The post ARENA goes behind the meter, as consumers rush to solar, storage, EVs appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Victorian government announces $1 million grant to help ChargeFox establish “ultra” fast electric vehicle charging stations at two regional locations in state.

The post Victoria chips in to install ultra-rapid EV chargers – “Australia’s fastest” appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Announcements are running hot in the solar power space, and this can be a confusing area for households to navigate. How will they help them reduce their energy bills?  Is investing in solar worth it?

The post What does Victoria’s biggest solar energy scheme to date mean for Australian families? appeared first on RenewEconomy.