Feed aggregator

Newcomer on dairy alternative scene is vegan, sequesters carbon and increases biodiversity

I’m sitting in my kitchen, about to try my first sip of a milk that is vegan, sequesters carbon and increases biodiversity. Dairy milk has a high carbon footprint. Soy is linked to deforestation, almond to high water use. But how does the new kid on the scene – hemp seed milk – measure up for taste?

An Innovative Farmers project coordinated by the Soil Association is investigating how industrial hemp production could aid the transition to a low-carbon economy. In collaboration with scientists at Cranfield University and the British Hemp Alliance, research will quantify the environmental benefits of growing hemp. In farm trials that launched last month, five farmers are helping to investigate this plant’s ability to sequester or store carbon, improve soil health and increase biodiversity.

Continue reading...

The last three months have seen European power generation economics upended, as margins for gas-fired generation have been driven so low that not even a strong carbon price can restore them.

EUAs posted further gains in quiet trade on Tuesday morning, reaching a new five-week peak as energy markets also forged higher.

Obama campaigned in climate poetry and then governed in fossil fuel prose. Joe Biden may well follow in his footsteps

If after Monday’s news you didn’t feel a pang of doom, you’re either a zen master, a recluse living in a news vacuum, or a nihilist. The new United Nations report on climate change predicts an actual bona fide apocalypse unless our civilization discards our fetish for incrementalism, rejects nothing-will-fundamentally-change fatalism and instead finally takes the crisis seriously.

The bad news is that we’ve been here before during the last era of Democratic supremacy, and if the Obama era we sleepwalked through now repeats itself, we’re done. It’s that simple.

Continue reading...

Prime minister challenged on his government’s record on climate action after IPCC’s landmark report on global heating

• Download the free Guardian app; get our morning email briefing

Scott Morrison says when he declared incorrectly in 2019 that Labor policies to reduce vehicle emissions would “end the weekend” he wasn’t opposed to electric vehicles, even though he told voters they were expensive, would not tow trailers or boats, or get Australians to their favourite camping spots.

The prime minister faced sustained questioning over his government’s heavily criticised record on climate action on Tuesday after a landmark assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found human activities were unequivocally heating the planet and causing changes not seen for centuries and, in some cases, thousands of years.

Continue reading...

Andrew Constance says the second-hand market for EVs could be driven by state and federal government adoption of the new technology

New South Wales transport minister, Andrew Constance, has urged the Morrison government to accelerate the uptake of electric vehicles in Australia by using them for federal government fleets.

Speaking at a Smart Energy Council summit, Constance said state and federal governments should “drive the second-hand market” by buying up electric vehicles in order to lower the price.

Continue reading...

New Zealand carbon allowances rose to yet another record high on Tuesday, taking the spot contract to just a hair’s breadth away from the NZ$50 level that would release volume from the cost containment reserve at auction.

Project will pipe the ‘dirtiest fuel left on the planet’ across Minnesota’s pristine lakes and wetlands

More than 600 people have now been arrested or received citations over protests amid growing opposition to the Line 3 oil sands pipeline currently under construction through Minnesota.

Native American tribes including the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, the White Earth Band of Ojibwe and indigenous-led environmental organisations such as Honor the Earth are leading opposition efforts in court and on the ground, mobilizing ‘water protectors’ to try to halt the project.

Continue reading...

Two soldiers are recovering from ‘horrific injuries’ after 700km rescue mission from remote bay in state’s north

Wildlife officers have killed a crocodile that mauled two soldiers who went swimming in a remote Queensland bay where the reptiles were known to live.

The officers had no trouble identifying their target, with the reptile becoming highly aggressive as they approached it in their vessel north of Lockhart River on Tuesday.

Continue reading...

NSW government looking to use wastewater from treatment plants as key element of green hydrogen facilities in drought-affected regions.

The post NSW eyes treated wastewater as key source for green hydrogen appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The Beijing environment exchange has launched tenders for the construction of a registry and trading system for the national offset market, bringing the restart of the Chinese Certified Emissions Reduction (CCER) programme a step closer, though the exact launch date remains unclear.

The president of the upcoming Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow on Monday described the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report as a 'wake-up call' for the world. Alok Sharma urged leaders to do more so they can 'credibly say that we have kept 1.5 degrees alive'.

The report, which calls climate change clearly human-caused and 'unequivocal' and 'an established fact,' makes more precise and warmer forecasts for the 21st century than were made in the last report in 2013.

Continue reading...

Exclusive: Analysis reveals more than 1.2 million people are currently employed in low carbon industry

• Green revolution brings fresh hope to north-east England
• Abandoned pits of former mining town fuel green jobs

The UK’s low carbon economy is now worth more than £200bn, four times the size of the country’s manufacturing sector, with growth expected to accelerate in the coming years, according to new analysis.

Despite what experts say has been lacklustre and patchy support from central government, the analysis found more than 75,000 businesses from wind turbine manufacturers to recycling plants employ more than 1.2 million people in the green economy.

Continue reading...

Matt Kean says most hydrogen produced in NSW is grey, not green, and it's time to push "harder and faster".

The post “It really is a race:” NSW must get cracking on green hydrogen, experts warn appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Morrison and Taylor try to shift the blame for climate change onto poorer countries after world's scientists warn of devastating future.

The post Morrison blames China, refuses to boost climate action after bleak IPCC report appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Young Liberals sell lump of Adani coal for $2,600 to boost coffers, as scientists prepared to warn world of the impacts of burning fossil fuels.

The post Young Liberals sell lump of Adani coal for $2,600 in party fundraiser appeared first on RenewEconomy.

We owe it to young people to build a better post-CoVID world. Most importantly, we need to take climate change seriously and get to net zero emissions.

The post Younger people are bearing the brunt of CoVID and climate change appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The first wind farm in Saudi Arabia and the largest in the Middle East begins production.

The post First wind farm in Saudi Arabia and largest in Middle East begins production appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The system being tested should spot the disease long before symptoms or obvious brain signs develop.

Dire warnings about ‘irreversible’ damage to our climate fill the front pages of newspapers in Britain and around the world

The front pages are filled with alarm in the wake of the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s global climate change report – the first since 2013 – which finds that human activity is changing the Earth’s climate in “unprecedented” ways, with some of the changes now inevitable and “irreversible”.

An image of an elderly woman reacting to unprecedented wildfires on the island of Evia in Greece so perfectly encapsulates the global feeling of distress and fear that it appears on the front pages of the Guardian, Financial Times, Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph.

Continue reading...