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Northumbrian Water admitted two breaches of law after manhole collapse led to sewer blockage

A water company has been fined £240,000 after a damaged manhole led to two unauthorised sewage discharges into a stream.

Untreated sewage leaked into Coundon Burn in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, on 13 March 2017. A member of the public rang Northumbrian Water after seeing effluent in the stream, and the firm – which had a turnover of £834.6m that year – sent workers to free a sewer blockage.

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Brussels should bring forward the phaseout of free EU Aviation Allowances (EUAAs) by one year, thus enabling full auctioning by no later than 2026, according to the European parliamentarian in charge of steering reforms to the bloc's emissions trading system for airlines.

Sadiq Khan’s pledge to cut traffic by 27% is welcome, but more must be done – not least to protect residents’ health

Last Friday, everyone living in London was told to avoid strenuous physical activity. An intense area of high pressure meant pollutants were caught in the air, rather than being blown away as usual. The government forecast the highest level of pollution – band 10 – would be reached, with air pollution at its highest recorded level since March 2018. The advice to avoid intense exercise put the onus on the most vulnerable in society – children, elderly people, those living with lung and heart conditions – rather than encouraging drivers to move to more sustainable transport options or limit their journeys. But, as a report published on Tuesday shows, we will not effectively tackle the climate crisis without real traffic reduction.

If London is to be a city that works for everyone – drivers included – it needs to move seriously towards a future with fewer private cars on its streets. That’s why I was so heartened to see the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, acknowledging that traffic needs to go down by at least 27% in the capital to meet our climate targets. While I would argue that we could be more ambitious, Khan’s target is impressive, compared with the 2018 mayoral transport strategy, and marks real progress. Around the world, cities that have reduced cars have become better places to live and work: cleaner, safer, with healthier residents who have the option to move around in different ways, rather than relying on private cars..

Hirra Khan Adeogun is head of car-free cities at the climate charity Possible

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The Bank of Canada has modelled a rising global carbon price aligned to the Paris Agreement temperature goals, outlining how the Canadian economy would need to be restructured to avoid the worst shocks that this would pose on the financial system.

Federal government's green bank makes 32nd solar farm investment, this time for a 200MW Queensland project that is using bifacial panels and half-cut solar cells.

The post Blue Grass solar farm reaches financial close, with help from CEFC appeared first on RenewEconomy.

EUAs drifted lower in line with weaker energy markets on Wednesday morning, as natural gas fell back on news of increased LNG supply.

The Guangzhou Futures Exchange has entered into a partnership with Deutsche Boerse and its subsidiary EEX as it continues to position itself to take a share of China’s emissions trading market.

Analysts at an investment bank have doubled their carbon price outlook for 2023 and by almost 50% for the 2022-30 period as a whole, judging that EU ETS allowances are becoming “increasingly scarce”.

Japan has adopted new rules for its Joint Crediting Mechanism (JCM) that may see its carbon credits over time become available to the CORSIA aviation offsetting scheme or the international voluntary carbon market.

Many urban gardens rich in pollinator-friendly plants and provide food all year round, find Bristol researchers

Small gardens are as important as big gardens for conserving bees and other pollinators in UK cities, a study has found.

Worldwide, bee populations are declining. Habitat destruction, pesticide use, and climate change have led to the disappearance of some pollinators, but researchers found that small urban gardens are some of the most pollinator-friendly places.

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Australia has adopted three new offset methodologies, including a first approach to generate carbon credits from coastal wetland ecosystems, in a bid to increase supply to a squeezed market.

The CO2 price in Guangdong’s regional carbon market has risen to its highest level since June 2014, as the government has tightened allocation settings and plans to bring in new sectors to breathe new life into the system after power producers transited to the national ETS.

For some technologies there are never any clouds to spoil the view.

Analysis suggests seven water companies illegally dumped sewage thousands of times between 2017 and 2021.

‘Urgent’ coordinated action to tackle overconsumption, farming subsidies and the climate crisis also needed to halt biodiversity loss

Expanding national parks and protected areas will not be enough to halt the destruction of nature, warn leading scientists, who say urgent action on overconsumption, harmful subsidies and the climate crisis is also required to halt biodiversity loss.

Governments are expected to commit to a Paris-style agreement for nature at Cop15 in Kunming, China, later this year, with targets that include protecting at least 30% of the oceans and land by 2030.

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One Scottish trawlerman is so incensed by the dumping of nets he’s come to me – a longstanding critic of his industry – with evidence

How could they be so careless? How do fishing vessels lose so many of their nets and longlines that this “ghost gear”, drifting through the oceans, now presents a mortal threat to whales, dolphins, turtles and much of the rest of the life of the sea? After all, fishing gear is expensive. It is either firmly attached to the vessel or, using modern technologies, easily located.

I’ve asked myself these questions for a while, and I think I now have an answer. It comes from an unlikely source: a trawlerman working in Scotland. I’m not a fan of trawling, but I recognise that some operations are more damaging than others. He and his colleagues now appear to be pulling in more nets than fish. On trip after trip they catch vast hauls of ghost gillnets and longlines, often wrapped around marine animals. He has sent me his photos, which are so disturbing I can scarcely bear to look: drowned seabirds, decapitated seals and fish and crustaceans of many species, which died a long, slow death. Where are these nets and lines coming from? He believes they’re being deliberately discarded.

I have checked his identity, but he wants to remain anonymous. Like other local trawlers, his boat brings its waste to land. The problem, he says, lies with large vessels, many from France and Spain, that spend four to six weeks at a time at sea. They don’t have enough storage space for the rubbish they generate: most of the hold is dedicated to frozen fish. Worn-out gillnets and longlines should be returned to port for disposal. But those he retrieves have a revealing characteristic: the expensive parts, those that can be reused – floats, weights and hooks – have been cut off. This, he believes, is a giveaway: if you find a net or line like that, it has been deliberately thrown overboard.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

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Leaf oysters can form reefs, produce mauve pearls, and reach the size of a dinner plate. They’ve been ignored for far too long. Kirsten Benkendorff, Associate Professor in Marine Biology, Southern Cross University Chamara Bethotage, PhD candidate, Southern Cross University Victoria Cole, Adjuct, Southern Cross University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

New BloombergNEF research says 2022 is set to mark an inflection point for global green hydrogen investment – provided governments get on board.

The post Renewable hydrogen costs “expected to plummet” by 2030 – here’s how appeared first on RenewEconomy.

New reports on the transmission and storage of hydrogen identify steps Western Australia will need to take on the road to becoming a global hydrogen powerhouse.

The post New reports help power Western Australia’s hydrogen future appeared first on RenewEconomy.

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