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The Australian government will launch a new grants fund programme focussed on improving transparency and capacity in its carbon market, as the government and the Clean Energy Regulator detailed how it was progressing on key reforms.

US-Australia compact promises to massively boost our potential as a global renewables superpower and zero-emissions trade and investment leader.

The post Australia’s renewable superpower ambitions could be saved by Biden compact appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Think of a community battery like a bus stop. It is installed in a neighbourhood at no cost to the residents, but should provide benefits for all.

The post What role will neighbourhood batteries play in the electrification of everything? appeared first on RenewEconomy.

A deal between the Tasmanian government and two renegade Liberal MPs does not address concerns over the $3.8bn Marinus transmission link.

The post Question mark hangs over Marinus Link under Tasmania minority government appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Knowing where a weed has come from can improve its management, but this quest can be challenging. CSIRO detective work revealed an unusual pathway for the introduction of South African bitou bush. Bruce Webber, Principal Research Scientist, CSIRO John Scott, Honorary Fellow, CSIRO Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Ministers were warned about the risks of private equity entering the sector but did nothing. Now we’re paying the price

The revelation should anger all who care about England’s rivers and beaches. Two decades ago, ministers were warned about private equity firms buying up water companies. In a briefing prepared for Britain’s competition regulator prior to the takeover of Southern Water, researchers raised the alarm that private equity-owned water companies would become “impossible” to regulate. Despite the 20-year transparency rule, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has not released the briefing. Its existence was uncovered by this newspaper. Though its full contents remain secret, its implications are clear: ministers were alerted to the devastating impact that this industry could have on England’s water supply, but they chose not to act.

Since then, a tide of effluent has polluted England’s rivers. Following the privatisation of water companies in 1989, owners have enriched themselves while neglecting infrastructure and dumping vast quantities of untreated sewage. As investors have loaded water companies with debt, they have continued to pay dividends to their shareholders, which totalled £1.4bn last year. The public, meanwhile, have shouldered the costs. Water bills have risen. Last week, the industry apologised for these sewage spills and pledged to invest £10bn in infrastructure – to be paid for by increases in customer bills. Ruth Kelly, the former Labour cabinet minister who is head of the industry’s trade body, Water UK, said more should have been done to address the spillages. She was silent on the subject of dividend payments.

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The credo of Watergate is still relevant: find the best obtainable version of the truth. But doing so is only getting more complicated

We all have moments in life when we know something big is happening, that we are stepping into a new and consequential experience, and our mind takes a mental Polaroid, an intensely clear snapshot of what that moment looks like and how it feels, and then stores it away in a file marked “important”.

Well, my mind does anyway, and in my professional life so far there have been three.

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An Australian carbon industry body has hailed the nationwide progress of federal, state, and territory governments on supporting the market's development, while outlining the challenges ahead as the sector evolves. 

The Australian government has released a public consultation on its next release of offshore areas for greenhouse gas storage, in order to gain an understanding of its potential impacts.

The New Zealand government on Sunday announced an agreement to fund emissions reductions of some 800,000 tonnes per year at the nation’s biggest recipient of free carbon allowances under the NZ emissions trading scheme.

Keir Starmer has drawn flak for his revolutionary housebuilding plans, but history shows it can be achieved while still protecting the environment

Imagine a reservoir of wealth, worth very many billions of pounds, a latter-day North Sea oil, lying underneath the country. One that, what’s more, is public property. What government would not want to turn it to the benefit of its favoured policies – for example to ending the nation’s eternally unsolved housing crisis, to returning to young and not-so-young people the degree of access to decent housing that former generations enjoyed?

This reservoir exists. It consists of the potential value of land that is released when planning permission is granted for housing, or other profitable development. Thanks to the postwar government of Clement Attlee, whose nationalisation of development rights is still partly unprivatised, it belongs to government. It could be extremely helpful to a future Labour administration, if it seriously wants to restore, as Keir Starmer put it last week, both economic renewal and the housing security that “working people… desperately need”.

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Singapore and Kenya have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to develop a bilateral agreement on carbon credits generated under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.

'Enhanced rock weathering' uses tiny volcanic rocks to capture the greenhouse gas carbon from the atmosphere.

A daily summary of our news plus bite-sized updates from around the world.

The G7 on Saturday endorsed new investments in natural gas as a "temporary" solution to reduce countries’ dependence on Russian energy amid the war in Ukraine, drawing sharp criticism from climate campaigners.

The actor and ex-governor tells Laura Kuenssberg politicians must move faster to preserve the planet.

Just 192 hectares of ‘natural colonisation’ have been established in England under woodland creation offer

A government scheme to support the natural regeneration of trees has in two years created an area of new woodland smaller than Regent’s Park in London.

Just 192 hectares (474 acres) of “natural colonisation” have been established in England through the woodland creation offer, a financial support package launched by the government in May 2021 after natural regeneration was hailed as one of the cheapest, efficient and most wildlife-friendly ways of increasing tree cover and capturing carbon.

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New York government agencies on Friday announced a series of webinars next month to solicit initial input on crafting the state’s cap-and-invest regulation, as it also disclosed the rough process for completing the rulemaking and said it will consider the design of existing North American economy-wide carbon markets.

A summary of legislative, regulatory, and policy action on carbon, clean fuel standard, and clean energy markets at the US federal and subnational levels this week, including North Carolina’s Senate passing a budget that would block a RGGI-modelled cap-and-trade system, Colorado regulators considering a market-based climate programme for industrial emitters, and New York lawmakers advancing clean fuel standard legislation to the Senate floor.

Producers increased California Carbon Allowance (CCA) holdings as permit prices dipped ahead of the WCI Q2 auction, while financial entities sold down their CCA net length but added to RGGI Allowance (RGA) holdings, data from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) showed Friday.