Around The Web

A ‘massive’ green hydrogen company is set to be launched by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, with European industrial companies a key target market.

Global online retail firm Amazon has partnered with a Swiss battery startup to trial a new battery technology to address the limitations of solar energy storage in 24/7 operations, the two companies announced on Tuesday.

The geothermal energy deep beneath UK soil offers a huge, untapped opportunity to decarbonise the country’s heating, according to an oil and gas company developing opportunities in the sector.

BP’s pivot away from the green revolution hit a snag Tuesday after the oil major reported its weakest quarterly earnings since the fourth quarter of 2020, when industry profits cratered during the coronavirus epidemic.

Finland has become the first EU member state to announce plans to develop a framework for companies to invest in voluntary biodiversity credits that go beyond existing environmental offsetting provisions, in a bid to encourage companies to take nature action.

It was my dream job. But what’s the point of preserving masterpieces for a future being destroyed by fossil fuel companies?

• Margaret Reid is currently on remand for taking action with Just Stop Oil

I used to be part of the art world but I just can’t stomach it any more. Now I’m in prison, and it suits my conscience better. Back in the 1980s, art was my life. Aged 16, I fell head over heels for painting and could imagine nothing better than spending my life working in museums.

Looking back almost 40 years, I see my younger self, starstruck in Paris. I’m staring up with awe at Théodore Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa and greedily gobbling up the story of how it scandalised the art world. That sickening green cadaver that almost fell out of the frame had me weeping with admiration. Of course it shocked the critics. They hated the grisly truth: the emaciated corpse that was a direct challenge to government corruption and incompetence.

Margaret Reid is a former museum professional currently on remand for taking action with Just Stop Oil

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Continue reading...

Vietnam is finalising the details of a decree outlining how emitters will be allowed to meet 10% of their greenhouse gas reduction obligation with foreign offsets and is looking to South Korea and the EU as examples, officials said Tuesday.

European carbon prices resumed the recovery that began late last week, erasing Monday's loss and reconnecting with Thursday and Friday's intraday highs as buyers returned to the market and pushed prices close to technical resistance levels.

Department’s finances were slashed during austerity and campaigners say more cuts will stall progress to meet nature and climate targets

Rachel Reeves has been urged not to cut the government’s environment funding in the budget as analysis shows the department’s finances were slashed at twice the rate of other departments in the austerity years.

Between 2009/10 and 2018/19, the environment department budget declined by 35% in monetary terms and 45% in real terms, according to Guardian analysis of annual reports from the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the Environment Agency and Natural England. By comparison, the average cut across government departments during the Conservative austerity programme was about 20%. During the first five years of austerity, it was the most cut department.

Continue reading...

A biodiversity credit project developer and a data provider have announced a partnership with the aim of scaling projects in countries across Africa, South America, and Europe, Carbon Pulse has learned.

A Spanish agricultural organisation has launched a project aimed at generating carbon credits from the livestock sector, targeting pollution reduction and emissions control in pig farming.

European gas employers have rejected a draft agreement with trade unions to wind down the EU’s industry, highlighting the difficulties in managing the social aspects of the green transition.

Australia’s Clean Energy Financing Corporation (CEFC) has for the first time invested A$75 million ($49.2 mln) in the forestry sector, according to the group's annual report published this week, which details tens of billions of dollars of clean investments.

Researchers found 38,000 fewer people – 10 times number of murders – would have died if atmosphere was not clogged with greenhouse pollutants

Climate breakdown caused more than half of the 68,000 heat deaths during the scorching European summer of 2022, a study has found.

Researchers from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) found 38,000 fewer people would have died from heat if humans had not clogged the atmosphere with pollutants that act like a greenhouse and bake the planet. The death toll is about 10 times greater than the number of people murdered in Europe that year.

Continue reading...

Taiwan has given the green light to two new offset methodologies for nature-based projects, which can create carbon credits from forest and bamboo management activities.

Iceland’s Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs submitted a bill to parliament last week proposing a new mileage tax on fossil fuel-powered vehicles.

Australia’s opposition climate spokesperson has refused to say whether a future Coalition government would support the reformed Safeguard Mechanism, as the lack of certainty continues to be a headache for investors and emitters, according to conference attendants.

New economic stimulus measures to prop up household consumption could bring greater uncertainty to China’s emissions outlook, even though the country's annual emissions may fall this year thanks to the massive additions of renewables, analysts said.

Deluge of delegates at biodiversity conference has led some to impromptu accommodation

Robert Baluku, a Ugandan delegate to the UN’s biodiversity summit in Colombia, found himself between a rock and hard place when his team’s accommodation was abruptly cancelled, leaving them stranded before the start of Cop16 in Cali.

The city’s hotels were packed to capacity with thousands of country leaders, scientists, government ministers and UN negotiators, and Baluku was left scrambling for options – until the Motel Deseos (Desires) came to the rescue.

Continue reading...

Exclusive: Linked accounts on X push petrostate’s posts about climate summit and drown out criticism

Scores of apparently fake social media accounts are boosting Azerbaijan’s hosting of the Cop29 climate summit, an investigation has revealed.

The accounts were mostly set up after July, at which time seven of the top 10 most engaged posts using the hashtags #COP29 and #COP29Azerbaijan were critical of Azerbaijan’s role in the conflict with Armenia, using hashtags such as #stopgreenwashgenocide. By September this had changed, with all of the top 10 most engaged posts coming from the official Cop29 Azerbaijan account.

Continue reading...