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UN report predicts water demand will increase by 80% as crisis threatens to get out of control

The number of people lacking access to safe drinking water in cities around the world will double by 2050, research has found, amid warnings of an imminent water crisis that is likely to “spiral out of control”.

Nearly 1 billion people in cities around the world face water scarcity today and the number is likely to reach between 1.7 billion and 2.4 billion within the next three decades, according to the UN World Water Development Report, published on Tuesday ahead of a vital UN summit. Urban water demand is predicted to increase by 80% by 2050.

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Trains in the north and south of the Netherlands are affected, with some services stopping for a week.

The Australia Institute lists the nation's 116 new fossil fuel projects and the massive carbon bomb that they will set off if they all proceed as planned.

The post No new fossil fuels? Australia has 116 new coal, oil and gas projects in the pipeline appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Czech majority state-owned utility CEZ reported a 5% year-on-year drop in its EU ETS-covered thermal power output for 2022, it said on Tuesday, though its demand for carbon allowances saw less of an impact as coal output held relatively steady.

We were not given a chance to scrutinise the nuclear submarine deal, and critical questions remain unanswered

• The three big questions Australia’s leaders must answer about the Aukus deal | Gareth Evans
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On the morning of 16 September 2021, the federal ALP caucus was presented with the shadow cabinet’s fait accompli of support for the Morrison government’s Aukus submarine deal.

Caucus members were told that on the previous afternoon, the leader, Anthony Albanese and several shadow ministers had received a two-hour briefing on the proposal from the government. No documents were provided at the briefing. On the basis of that, and the shadow ministry’s endorsement, Labor MPs were expected to leap into bipartisan support for the Aukus deal.

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Avoidance-based carbon offsets will be sold for “bargain basement prices” to companies practicing "corporate charity" by the end of the decade, while demand for carbon removals will exceed the current projected supply, an analyst said Tuesday.

IPCC says solar and wind will deliver easily the biggest and lowest cost emission cuts over the next 10 years.

The post Solar and wind still best bets for deep, rapid and low cost emission cuts appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Only 19 cases of cetacean bycatch reported under Defra scheme, but experts say figure much higher

Only a handful of instances of accidental bycatch of whales, dolphins and porpoises have been recorded under the UK government’s self-reporting initiative, despite the likelihood that hundreds are being caught by fishing vessels.

Fishers have been encouraged to voluntarily record the bycatch of marine mammals in an attempt to reduce the accidental catch, which would benefit the fishing industry and the health of the seas.

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Red tingle forests in south-western Australia have the lowest fire risk when they’ve not been subjected to prescribed burning. New research explains why Philip Zylstra, Adjunct Associate Professor at Curtin University, Research Associate at University of New South Wales, Curtin University Grant Wardell-Johnson, Adjunct Associate Professor, Molecular and Life Sciences and ARC Centre for Mine Site Restoration., Curtin University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

To give native species their best chance of survival, we have to embrace ecosystem-based conservation – rather than trying to rescue individual species in isolation. William Geary, PhD Student, Deakin University Adrian Wayne, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, The University of Western Australia Euan Ritchie, Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin University Tim Doherty, ARC DECRA Fellow, University of Sydney Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Academics have fired another broadside at the voluntary carbon market (VCM) with a new paper claiming improved forest management (IFM) projects are belching out hot air.

UK power producer Drax has paused its BECCS plans in the UK until it gets more clarity over how the government will support the technology, it said on Tuesday.

The UAE has a political commitment to steer this year's UN COP28 climate negotiations that is not undermined by being an oil producing country, according to Egypt's foreign minister Sameh Shoukry, who led the COP27 event last year.

EU emissions goals could be put in jeopardy by a compromise between France and Germany as the two major powers seek to promote their own interests in separate elements of the bloc's climate policy, observers warned on Tuesday.

Councillors vote to chop down trees in Coton Orchard for busway from Cambridge to Cambourne

Hundreds of trees in an orchard designated as a habitat of principal importance in England should be felled to build a new busway to tackle climate change, councillors in Cambridgeshire voted on Tuesday.

The county council voted by 33 to 26 to approve a new public transport busway, which will use optically guided electric or hybrid buses on its route, to provide links between Cambridge and Cambourne, an expanding new town eight miles outside the city.

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Carbon trading and advisory firm ClearBlue Markets has raised $8 mln in a Series A funding round led by Royal Bank of Canada (RBC).

A pact to phase out fossil fuels in November’s UN climate talks is the only credible response to the warnings of scientists

Yesterday the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a new synthesis report. The document is important because 195 governments commissioned it and the summary was agreed line by line. It is accepted fact by nations worldwide, and a shared basis for future action.

The report’s conclusions are terrifying and wearily familiar. Every region is experiencing “widespread adverse impacts”. Almost half the world’s population is “highly vulnerable” to climate change impacts. Expected repercussions will escalate rapidly. It concludes that there is a “rapidly closing window of opportunity” to secure a livable future.

Simon Lewis is professor of global change science at University College London and University of Leeds

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European carbon prices clawed back several days of losses on Tuesday morning, rising to their highest since Mar. 16 as options traders eyed the expiry of the March contract tomorrow, while energy prices steadied after sharp declines on Monday.

South Korea has proposed to lower its 2030 target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the industrial sector, while planning to expand its domestic carbon sequestration programme and purchase more credits from abroad under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.

Calls to place quantitative limits on Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) in the Safeguard Mechanism are unfounded, and would render the scheme inert, according to analysis released Tuesday, as an industry head hinted Australia would be unsuccessful in its bid to host COP31 if it failed to get the scheme up and running.