Feed aggregator

Agricultural businesses risk closure as figures show government paid only tiny fraction of slashed EU farming subsidies

Cuts to post-Brexit farming payments mean farms risk “going out of business” as new figures reveal only a tiny fraction of slashed EU subsidies went to agriculture businesses last year.

The government is replacing the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which paid subsidies to farmers to keep them in business, with “payments for public goods”, meaning land managers get paid for improving nature.

Continue reading...

The health benefits of green or blue prescriptions are many and there are calls to integrate them more into routine care

In my mid-20s, I undertook the quintessentially Australian rite of passage of moving to London for a few years. Months into my first English winter, I started having dreams about the Australian wilderness.

The images were so vivid and specific that I jotted them down. I had a recurring dream about looking at the sea from a high vantage point, somewhere along the south-east Queensland coast that I had always taken for granted. There was “all manner of ocean life”, I noted: dolphins jumping in the shallows; two whales, a mother and calf, out in deeper water.

Continue reading...

Black Mountains College in Wales aims to prepare students for life during a planetary emergency

The lecture theatre was once a cowshed, the study centre is an old farmhouse living room and the classrooms are mostly outdoors: welcome to the newest higher educational college in Britain.

The former farm that is Black Mountains College campus is a core part of an insurgent institution that is the first entirely dedicated to adapting to the climate emergency.

Continue reading...

Japan’s Fuji and New Zealand gala could replace pippin and russet as rising temperatures threaten homegrown species

Classic British apples may die out and be swapped for varieties from New Zealand and Japan, as climate breakdown means traditional fruits are no longer viable.

Apples such as pippin or the the ancient nonpareil, grown in Britain since the 1500s, are struggling in the changed climate because there are not enough “chilling hours” for the trees to lie dormant in winter and conserve energy for growing fruit.

Continue reading...

Oxford University-led study detects 26 types of PFAS compounds in ice around Svalbard, threatening downstream ecosystems

Norwegian Arctic ice is contaminated with alarming levels of toxic PFAS, and the chemicals may represent a major environmental stressor to the region’s wildlife, new research finds.

The Oxford University-led study’s measurements of ice around Svalbard, Norway, detected 26 types of PFAS compounds, and found when ice melts, the chemicals can move from glaciers into downstream ecosystems like Arctic fjords and tundra.

Continue reading...

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

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 a proposal for the Washington state government to sell carbon offsets, and the return of a CO2 tax and dividend bill in Hawaii.

A rating agency has downgraded three Verra-accredited Brazilian REDD+ projects, amid shaken market confidence in the avoided deforestation market following reports of widespread over-crediting. 

The transfer of big-emitting assets from publicly-listed firms into private ownership is on the rise as increased shareholder scrutiny tempts companies to offload facilities to those under no obligation to disclose their carbon footprint, with such carbon arbitrage posing a real threat to climate goals.

An increasing number of investors are looking to integrate biodiversity into their investment frameworks, according to Morgan Stanley, one of the largest global investment management and financial services companies, describing options for portfolio integration.

The EU's Sentinel satellite system traces how the ground ruptured during Monday's big tremors.

Two shipping firms have signed an agreement to launch a joint venture to provide EU ETS compliance services to the sector.

The Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) can have a catalysing effect on the sector to protect and restore nature, providing a framework under which business and finance can begin to redirect capital away from negative activities towards nature-positive investment, experts from financial institutions told a webinar Thursday.

Judge says protesters who ran on to track during British Grand Prix last year posed ‘risk of serious harm’

Six Just Stop Oil protesters who ran on to the track during the British Grand Prix at Silverstone last year have been convicted of causing a public nuisance.

David Baldwin, 47, Emily Brocklebank, 24, Alasdair Gibson, 22, Louis McKechnie, 22, Bethany Mogie, 40, and Joshua Smith, 29, were convicted on Friday at Northampton crown court, after the jury deliberated for eight hours and 40 minutes.

Continue reading...

The UK's new cabinet minister for science says that she will have a "relentless focus" on using research to make people's lives better.

EUA prices posted a robust rally on Friday morning, clawing back much of the week's losses after having settled just above €90 for the four previous sessions, while energy prices ended a week-long run of losses as wind generation was forecast to drop in the coming week.

A well-known carbon analyst has launched a new venture that buys EU Allowances and turns them into digital tokens that can be traded in a virtual secondary market, offering buyers the choice of holding the permits as an appreciating asset or cancelling them to help tighten supply in the world’s largest cap-and-trade market.

Other branches of early humans, not just ancestors of Homo Sapiens, used them to cut and crush food.

Secret international court system enables fossil fuel firms to sue governments for lost future profits

Experts have urged the UK to leave the controversial energy charter treaty (ECT), a secret court system that enables fossil fuel companies to sue governments for huge sums over policies that could affect future profits.

The European Commission said this week that remaining part of the treaty would “clearly undermine” climate targets and that an exit by EU countries appeared “inevitable”. Seven EU countries, including France, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands, have already said they will quit the ECT.

Continue reading...

Japan’s Toyota Tsusho Corp. is investing in a 100MW solar power project in the Wadi ad-Dawasir region in southwestern Saudi Arabia that will generate carbon credits under the Joint Crediting Mechanism (JCM), and on Friday secured support from the government, which will co-fund the project development.