Feed aggregator

*PREMIUM LISTING - As a Sales Trader for the Voluntary Carbon Market, you will take AFS Energy to new heights. AFS Energy is one of the leading players in Europe supporting organisations to achieve their green goals.

California’s WCI-linked cap-and-trade programme has not proved successful at decoupling emissions and economic growth, serving as a warning to jurisdictions considering such a policy, according to a new regionally focused study that employed limiting parameters and a narrow frame of reference.

A glimpse into the future sees clean hydrogen abating up to 85 billion tonnes of CO2 in cumulative emissions by 2050, equivalent to around two year's worth of current global CO2 output, according to a consultancy report published on Tuesday mapping out a net zero 2050 pathway.

University of Michigan researchers suggest findings may in future yield benefits for soldiers and healthcare workers

The sight of their dead comrades is enough to drive fruit flies to an early grave, according to researchers, who suspect the creatures keel over after developing the fly equivalent of depression.

For a species that spends much of its life feasting on decayed matter, the insects appear to be particularly sensitive to their own dead. Witnessing an abundance of fruit fly carcasses speeds up the insects’ ageing process, scientists found, cutting their lives short by nearly 30%.

Continue reading...

The European Commission published on Tuesday a first call for feedback on the bloc's carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), with the measure's transitional phase due to start in October. 

The European Commission on Tuesday expanded and updated its criteria for economic activities that can be listed as 'green' under the EU’s guidance for sustainable investing, raising the bar compared to a draft version.

An Amsterdam-based climate tech startup on Tuesday announced a $6 mln fundraise it will utilise to ramp up its CO2 storage and utilisation potential for agriculture operations and set up an American branch.

The solar power industry set a new record for new capacity installations worldwide for the tenth straight year in 2022, adding 45% or 239 GW despite supply bottlenecks, according to a report published on Tuesday that predicted continued strong growth through 2030.

Climate activist says only ‘rapid and equitable’ phaseout will keep temperatures within 1.5C limit

Rich countries are signing a “death sentence” for millions of poor people around the world by failing to phase out fossil fuels, the climate activist Greta Thunberg has told governments.

She warned on Tuesday that with annual greenhouse gas emissions at an all-time high, only a “rapid and equitable” phaseout of fossil fuels would keep global temperatures within the scientifically advised limit of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

Continue reading...

A UK forestry fund that has seen a wave of expansion over the past year expects to create around 1 million carbon credits from across its portfolio of afforestation projects, it said in quarterly results on Tuesday.

As well as defiant stories of empowered kids, we need to offer reminders that the responsibility isn’t theirs alone

When I was in primary school my favourite Baby-Sitters Club member was Dawn Schafer, the environmental crusader. This was the 1990s, when we were all very concerned about CFCs and other greenhouse gases, although not enough to lose sleep over them. I remember carefully spelling out CHLOROFLUOROCARBONS in bubble letters on poster paper for a school project. I had a thing for dolphins and wanted to be a marine biologist. Clean Up Australia Day was still in its infancy.

Our world was smaller then, information thinner on the ground. Dial-up internet was years away from being a fixture in most homes and we collected cardboard circles from chip packets for fun. It’s easy to wearily suggest kids today have it better. But we didn’t feel that we had to carry the weight of the world on our shoulders. We watched Captain Planet, recycled, sometimes picked up extra rubbish if we were being punished or feeling virtuous, but we mostly trusted adults had things in hand. There was never any suggestion it might be too late to turn the ship around.

That’s a luxury today’s kids don’t have. They navigate an increasingly complex world, with more awareness than ever before about what is going wrong – and it’s taking a toll. A survey of 10,000 young people in 2021 found 84% were at least moderately worried about climate change, 59% were extremely worried and 45% said it negatively affected their daily life and functioning. The low hum of climate anxiety is building to a roar and it’s having a profound effect on kids’ mental health.

In the summer of 2019-2020, as bushfires raged across Australia, driving species to the brink of extinction and turning air hazardous, it seemed something had finally shifted. This was our wake-up call. The world was taking notice and I was sure things would be different after this. We would recover and mobilise in a unified way. Then came Covid. The air was safe to breathe again, but only if no one else was standing nearby. Disposable masks littered the streets and KeepCups were banned. Along with the rest of the world, I fell into a deep funk. I watched a lot of TV.

One night the screen transported me to a magical place, an icy island halfway between Norway and the north pole, home to reindeer, polar bears and northern lights. On the island was a mountain, its entrance marked by a glittering green art installation. And inside the mountain was a vault filled with millions of seeds. But this wasn’t a fantasy film, it was a real place: the Global Seed Vault in Svalbard – built by the Norwegian government for the good of humanity. More than one million seed samples from almost every country in the world are stored there in case of global disaster, such as war – or climate catastrophe.

This microdose of wonder during a dark time inspired what would become my first picture book. The Garden at the End of the World is about a girl who finds a rare plant near her home and goes on an adventure with her botanist mother to deliver it to the Global Seed Vault for safekeeping. It was the lullaby I needed to get me through lockdown – an ode to nature and wonder and the helpers; the good things already being done. I didn’t realise it would resonate with so many weary kids and parents as well.

Continue reading...

The surge in global solar investments is creating cascading tipping points for the global grid, and even putting science based climate targets within reach.

The post Solar pushes world to “cascading tipping points”, and puts science targets within reach appeared first on RenewEconomy.

French President Emmanuel Macron is seeking international support for a global carbon tax on the shipping industry ahead of a summit France is co-hosting later this month.

Carbon prices were largely unchanged at midday on Tuesday after a volatile morning that saw the benchmark EUA contract reach its highest in more than three weeks, before easing as buyers held back amid falling natural gas prices.

The Galapagos Islands' record-setting debt-for-nature swap was broadly applauded as a win-win-win for Ecuador, nature, and international financiers, but now a groundswell of critical voices is pointing to problems that must be avoided as nations queue up to strike similar deals.

Central Asian country has the worst rate of climate-heating ‘super-emitter’ events in the world

The president of Turkmenistan has launched two initiatives aimed at cutting the colossal leaks of methane from the country’s oil and gas industry. Success would represent a major achievement in tackling the climate crisis.

A roadmap will pave the way towards the central Asian country joining 150 others that have already signed the Global Methane Pledge to cut global methane emissions by 30% by 2030. An inter-departmental government commission will also focus on reducing emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas.

Continue reading...

An Australian carbon accounting software provider has teamed up with a local advisory firm to help Hong Kong-based companies better track their Scope 3 emissions, following the latest ESG disclosure regulations proposed by the city's main bourse.

Japan has selected seven advanced carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects in a bid to secure an annual storage capacity of approximately 13 million tonnes of CO2 by 2030, the government announced Tuesday.

A plastics treaty is on the cards – and it could join the rescue of the ozone layer as a landmark success in environmental diplomacy

Plastic production has soared some 30-fold since it came into widespread use in the 1960s. We now churn out about 430m tonnes a year, easily outweighing the combined mass of all 8 billion people alive. Left unabated, it continues to accelerate: plastic consumption is due to nearly double by 2050.

Now there is a chance that this huge growth will stop, even go into reverse. This month in Paris, the world’s governments agreed to draft a new treaty to control plastics. The UN says it could cut production by a massive 80% by 2040.

Geoffrey Lean is a specialist environment correspondent and author

Continue reading...

A Singaporean NGO has lunched its inaugural blue carbon conservation project in Northern Sumatra under the novel OxCarbon Standard, it announced Tuesday.