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Ministers and other top delegates have started to arrive at the UN’s COP15 negotiations ahead of the Dec. 15-17 high-level segment that is meant to polish off a new global agreement on biodiversity.

The Quebec environment ministry (MELCC) on Tuesday said the government now recognises carbon offsets from privately-owned afforestation and reforestation projects under the state’s cap-and-trade programme, with the province’s approach having several differences from WCI partner California’s forestry protocol.

The Washington State Department of Ecology (ECY) plans on issuing a guidance document concerning double compliance obligations for cap-and-trade regulated power exporters to California before the end of the year, the department told Carbon Pulse.

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NSW network draft plans for solar export tariffs could become models for other NEM jurisdictions if they're approved. Here's what they want to do.

The post Here comes the sun tax: The export tariffs proposed for households with rooftop PV appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Power generators in Virginia still face legal ramifications to meet their RGGI obligations for all of 2023 and potentially later years as well, despite the state's plan to sever the carbon market regulation before the programme’s three-year true-up deadline, experts told Carbon Pulse. 

Scientists raise concerns after annual fishing talks for key EU waters ended in quotas above those recommended

Eels are facing population collapse, conservation groups have warned, after annual fishing negotiations for key EU waters ended in the setting of quotas above those scientists have recommended.

Eels are critically endangered, and conservation groups and scientists have argued that all EU eel fisheries should be closed, to allow populations space to recover.

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Negotiators say divisions mean risk is growing of a weak final agreement similar to Denmark summit in 2009

Talks to halt the destruction of nature “very much hang in the balance”, sources have said, as environment ministers from around the world begin to arrive in Montreal amid concerns about a lack of Chinese leadership of the Cop15 talks.

At the halfway stage of the summit in Canada, negotiators at the UN biodiversity summit have said divisions are contributing to the growing risk of a “Copenhagen moment”, referring to the 2009 UN climate summit when talks ended with a weak final agreement in the Danish capital, not the “Paris moment for nature” leading environmental figures had been calling for.

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Almost 200 countries are reckoning with the world’s extraordinary loss of the variety of life at the COP15 nature summit in Canada. Here’s why Indigenous involvement is crucial. Zsofia Korosy, Postdoctoral Fellow in Law, UNSW Sydney Anthony Burke, Professor of Environmental Politics & International Relations, UNSW Sydney Daniel Robinson, Associate Professor, UNSW Sydney Katie Moon, Lecturer, UNSW Sydney Margaret Raven, Senior Scientia Lecturer (Research), UNSW Sydney Michelle Lim, Associate Professor, Singapore Management University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

We’ll need to almost double our electricity sector workforce to build renewables as quickly as we need to. Where will the workers come from amid a skills shortage and infrastructure boom? Jay Rutovitz, Research Director, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney Chris Briggs, Research Director, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney Rusty Langdon, Research Consultant, University of Technology Sydney Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

A forestry project in the Republic of Congo co-developed by oil major TotalEnergies has been criticised by investigative journalists and campaigners for its treatment of local people.

Reaching consensus on which metrics can most accurately quantify biodiversity impact is considered crucial to support streamlined government and corporate reporting, and could underpin the emergence of a voluntary biodiversity credit market, but it could also come at a great cost for some.

Lawyers for landowner Alexander Darwall argue camping is not explicitly mentioned in laws

There has never been a legal right to wild camp on Dartmoor, lawyers for a landowner have argued in an attempt to overturn the ability for people to sleep on his property – and the whole national park.

Despite an assumed right for decades, enshrined under both the 1949 National Park and Access to the Countryside Act and the 1985 Dartmoor Commons Act, a barrister acting for Alexander Darwall, a hedge fund manager, argued that no such right exists as camping is not explicitly mentioned in these laws and does not count as outdoor recreation.

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The EU is investing over €62 million in 17 small-scale clean tech projects, the European Commission said on Tuesday, detailing a fourth round of grant awards under the ETS-powered Innovation Fund.

Successful experiment could pave way for abundant clean energy in future, but major hurdles remain

Scientists have confirmed a major breakthrough has been made that could pave the way for abundant clean energy in the future after more than half a century of research into nuclear fusion.

Researchers at the US National Ignition Facility in California said fusion experiments had released more energy than was pumped in by the lab’s enormous, high-powered lasers, a landmark achievement known as ignition or energy gain.

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The US department for energy has announced that it has made a 'major scientific breakthrough' in the race to recreate nuclear fusion. At a press conference on Tuesday US energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm, said scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California 'achieved fusion ignition', which is 'creating more energy from fusion reactions than the energy used to start the process.' Describing the experiments results as a 'BFD' [Big Fucking Deal], she added that 'this milestone moves us one significant step closer to the possibility of zero carbon abundant fusion energy powering our society'

• US expected to announce ‘major scientific breakthrough’ on fusion energy – live

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In a moment scientists have dreamed of for 50 years, a single reaction has proved that star power can be harnessed here on Earth

This is a moment that scientists have dreamed of for well over half a century. The US’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) has smashed the longest-standing goal in the quest for carbon-free energy from fusion, the nuclear process that powers stars.

Researchers from NIF used the world’s most energetic laser to fire 2.05 megajoules (MJ) of energy into a millimetre-sized capsule of hydrogen fuel. Reaching temperatures many times those found in the sun’s core and pressures 300bn times those normally experienced on Earth, a wave of nuclear reactions ripped through the fusion fuel, releasing 3.15 MJ of fusion energy – 1.1 MJ more than was put in – over a few tens of nanoseconds.

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The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) published new industry documentation for the trading of verified carbon credits on Tuesday, as it seeks to develop legal and risk management standards for markets related to environmental activities.

US researchers have overcome a major barrier to achieving low-carbon nuclear fusion.

They are considered a means of levelling the playing field between countries with differing commitments to cutting carbon

• EU becomes first leading economy to legislate for ‘green tariff’ on imports

Cutting carbon places costs on some industries, particularly those that rely heavily on fossil fuels at present, such as steelmaking, or that emit carbon as part of their processes, such as cement and concrete production.

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