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Shorter playtimes and shrinking outside space in England have serious implications for children’s wellbeing and mental health

• Revealed: students at top private schools have 10 times more green space than state pupils
• Indoors at breaktime: the school in a London office block
• Private schools in England should be made to share their green space, say campaigners

Children are facing a “brutal” loss of space and time for play in school, teachers, unions and academics have warned.

A combination of factors is eating into the time children spend outside, and will have serious implications for their wellbeing and mental health.

A Guardian analysis of the space available to state school children in England has revealed that thousands are attending schools with very little outside space, with government data showing that more than 300 schools have under 1,000 sq metres and at least 20 have no outside space. In nearly 1,000 schools, there is under 10 sq metres for each pupil.

New and unpublished research from the UCL Institute of Education seen by the Guardian showed a continued downward trend in the amount of time children have for playtime in the wake of the Covid lockdowns, with the youngest losing the most time.

The demands of the curriculum have increased, and continue to diminish time outside, while staffing shortages are reducing capacity to oversee playtime.

Across England and Wales schools face difficult financial decisions, which are having an impact on the funding to care for grounds. Headteachers in the state sector have said they are in desperate need of funding to improve basic facilities for children.

School buildings are crumbling, as many were built with Raac (reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete) that was not replaced within its usable lifetime, meaning in some cases playgrounds are being used to host temporary classrooms. This is squeezing out the little space some schools have for children to spend time outside.

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The G7 summit closed on Saturday without any significant progress on climate and energy, leaving ambitions unchanged from resolutions adopted at previous meetings.

Biodiversity is among the biggest concerns for companies grappling with corporate disclosures, with a quarter of them lacking confidence in their ability to meet the requirements set out by the EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), a PwC survey has revealed.

Establishing a voluntary market-based scheme that allows countries to trade ocean conservation credits could reduce the costs of marine protection by up to 98%, incentivising governments to achieve their biodiversity targets, a paper has said.

The birds have not been seen for at least a decade – some for more than 100 years – but the authors of a new list of missing species have not given up hope

The coppery thorntail and New Caledonian lorikeet are among the 126 birds “lost” to science, having not been seen for a decade or more, according to the most comprehensive list of missing species composed to date.

The new tally is based on millions of records collected by enthusiastic birders and amateur scientists documenting wildlife in some of the planet’s most remote locations. To be part of the dataset, the bird must not have a recorded sighting in at least a decade, and not be assessed as extinct or extinct in the wild by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

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With the June options contract expiry just two days away, European carbon prices appeared to find a level with sellers' efforts to drive prices lower running in to more robust buying interest, leaving EUAs lagging behind a steeper drop in natural gas and confirming that the correlation between the two has temporarily been broken.

EU environment ministers agreed on Monday to green-light a regulation that aims to restore natural habitats, ending a year-long legislative back-and-forth in what campaigners hailed as an "historic step" in the fight against the biodiversity and climate crises.

David Littleproud claims Australia doesn’t need ‘large-scale industrial windfarms’ like the planned offshore zone south of Sydney

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David Littleproud has claimed Australia doesn’t need “large-scale industrial windfarms” like the planned offshore zone south of Sydney, adding the Coalition will “cap” federal government investment into renewable energy if elected.

The Nationals leader visited Wollongong on Monday, where he promised the opposition would instead offer a “calm” and “methodical” energy pathway to net zero by 2050.

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China and Australia have signed an updated Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to cooperate more closely on climate change and energy, the two countries announced Monday.

A radical mindset change in how companies address their dependencies on nature is key to ensuring biodiversity credits emerge as an effective solution to tackle ecosystem and species loss, the founder of Germany-based tech startup Landbanking Group told Carbon Pulse.

New Zealand market participants have all but written off any chance Wednesday’s government NZU auction will clear due to the secondary market trading at prices below the auction price floor amid ongoing regulatory uncertainty.

Telstra will no longer buy carbon credits and instead invest directly in decarbonisation, a move Andrew Macintosh says others should consider.

The post Telstra dumps offsets and “carbon neutral” claims: Whistleblower says others should do the same appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Beavers’ dams have created more places for water voles to hide from predators and hopefully flourish, say experts

Beavers reintroduced to a Scottish rainforest 15 years ago may have created the right habitat for the area’s endangered water voles to flourish.

The voles, once abundant in Scotland but now one of the country’s most threatened native animals, could thrive in the “complex boundary between water and land” that beavers have created in Knapdale in Argyll and Bute since their reintroduction there in 2009.

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If Australia is to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, the Coalition needs to stump up with a plan to decarbonise the entire economy. Tony Wood, Program Director, Energy, Grattan Institute Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Massless batteries may allow wind turbines to store their own excess energy in blades, or make battery-powered planes a reality.

The post Swedish startup promises “massless” carbon fibre battery for wind blades, EVs and aircraft appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Latest levelised cost of energy report from US investment firm Lazard finds large-scale solar and wind significantly cheaper than coal and gas. Nuclear, meanwhile, just keeps getting more expensive.

The post Wind and solar power half the cost of coal and gas, one-third the cost of nuclear, says Lazard appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The government’s priorities are shifting towards adaptation to protect communities, jobs and industries. But the longer we wait to cut emissions, the more the costs of climate change will compound. Nathan Cooper, Associate Professor of Law, University of Waikato Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

While political priorities may shift following the 2024 European elections, the science remains clear: Europe must maintain momentum towards achieving its climate objectives, the EU’s scientific advisors said in a note to newly-elected MEPs on Monday.

New Zealand emissions trading scheme observers have raised concerns with the government’s consultation process on its controls and settings, saying the lack of detail on key points makes it difficult to understand the coalition’s intentions. 

Genex gets FIRB approval for the bid by J-Power, and lodges an EPBC application for its big Kidston wind farm.

The post Japanese energy giant gets FIRB tick for Genex bid, lays out plans for big wind project appeared first on RenewEconomy.