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Hurricane Helene proved a hard truth: a freezer of seeds is the literal version of putting all your eggs in one basket

About a month after Hurricane Helene devastated western North Carolina last fall, Roger Wynn and I met in an Asheville, North Carolina, supermarket parking lot. He’d driven two hours from Little Mountain, South Carolina, where the passing storm had also left its destructive mark.

“When the power finally came back on,” Wynn said, “two of my freezers didn’t work.” Wynn was worried not about spoiled food inside, but his seed collection. On that autumn day, in an act of forced downsizing and seed philanthropy, Wynn handed over two boxes filled with seeds. He wanted me, as founder of the non-profit Utopian Seed Project, to share the seeds with farmers across the region. The boxes contained a trove of Appalachian varieties: speckled field peas, white mountain half-runner beans, purple-podded bush beans and lots of butterbeans.

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Appeal court finds in favour of anglers who said plans to clean up river were so vague ​a​s to be totally ineffectual

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A group of anglers trying to restore the ecosystem of a river have seen off a challenge by the environment secretary, Steve Reed, who claimed that cleaning up the waterway was administratively unworkable.

Reed pursued an appeal against a group of anglers from North Yorkshire, who had won a legal case arguing that the government and the Environment Agency’s plans to clean up the Upper Costa Beck, a former trout stream devastated by sewage pollution and runoff, were so vague they were ineffectual.

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An EU-commissioned advisory group has recommended including more nature-based solutions (NbS) in its list of climate-related sustainable investment activities to stop investors bypassing them.

A much-anticipated new clean cooking methodology will be finalised and sent to the UNFCCC and major voluntary carbon standards this quarter after technical reviews and tweaks have been conducted.

DWS, Germany’s largest asset manager and a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank, has agreed to pay a €25 million fine to settle a long-running greenwashing investigation by the Frankfurt public prosecutor’s office.

The Swiss government formally approved on Wednesday a revised CO2 legislation, which establishes emission reduction targets across various sectors for 2030 and implements the measures adopted by lawmakers last year, with several provisions affecting the country's ETS.

The voluntary carbon dioxide removal (CDR) credit market is diversifying as corporate buyers seek high permanence, with bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) maintaining leadership but newer technologies steadily gain market share, according to an International Energy Agency report released Wednesday.

The global ocean economy could decline by 20% below 2020 levels by mid-century due to multiple threats, including climate change and biodiversity loss, according to the OECD.

Investments in activities harmful to nature are significantly outsizing nature-positive ones globally, with high-income countries performing better domestically but falling short of supporting environmental efforts abroad, a study has shown.

A new generation of European trains could reignite continental momentum for sustainability, just as the EU's carbon pricing is set to expand into road transport and the bloc's policy evolves.

The adoption of carbon compliance markets is accelerating around the world amid the impact of the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), despite the US rolling back on climate policies after the election of President Donald Trump, the IETA conference heard Wednesday.

The UK has announced it is launching a Nature Market Accelerator to stimulate green financing for activities that boost biodiversity, ranging from biodiversity net gain (BNG) to voluntary carbon markets.

European carbon was little changed on Wednesday morning as commodity markets slowed to a crawl in anticipation of the announcement of new US tariffs later in the day, while weekly position data showed a 10% decrease in speculative length but large drops in futures holdings among compliance companies.

A major energy company in Japan will invest in a US-based renewable energy project to grow its global green methanol portfolio while creating carbon removal credits.

A Tokyo-based carbon credit due diligence provider has teamed with a non-profit to develop a monitoring scheme for reforestation projects in Brazil, it announced Wednesday.

A Germany-headquartered multinational is receiving the first 250,000 carbon credits from a sustainable rice farming project in India, it announced Wednesday.

The European Commission on Tuesday released draft implementing rules for the monitoring, reporting and verification of fuels eligible under the UN’s Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA).

The emerging market for carbon credit insurance faces several barriers, with slow adoption and cost concerns holding back its wider uptake, according to industry experts.

Finnish energy company shutters its last coal-fired power plant, ending coal use in the capital Helsinki and putting Finland on the brink of eliminating coal entirely.

The post Helsinki shutters its last coal plant, as turns to heat batteries and pumps appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Local council is taking the fight against contested wind projects to the roads, saying it has no jurisdiction to approve upgrades necessary to transport turbines.

The post Council says it can’t approve road upgrades in latest attempt to stop contested New England wind project appeared first on RenewEconomy.