Feed aggregator

A global program tracking green spending by countries puts Australia at the bottom of the pile for its tiny share of clean stimulus.

The post Australia ranked worst in world on Covid recovery spending on green options appeared first on RenewEconomy.

European homes need heat. And the cheapest, lowest emissions way to get there is to use heat pumps powered by renewable electricity.

The post Electricity will beat hydrogen in the household price war appeared first on RenewEconomy.

A study by the Yarra Riverkeeper Association found about half the litter in the river was expanded polystyrene

On a two-kilometre stretch of the Yarra River east of Melbourne’s CBD a few years ago, volunteers were gathering rubbish from the banks and reeds.

Among all the discarded bottles and bits of plastic sucked up with an oversized vacuum were an estimated 5 million pieces of expanded polystyrene – some in the form of tiny white balls, others in chunks at various stages of disintegration.

Continue reading...

A seagrass that's one of the world's most powerful weapons against climate change is under threat from warming waters.

Woman, 63, taken to hospital after being bitten on hip and back

A 63-year-old woman has been taken to hospital after being bitten by a shark at Merimbula’s main beach.

The woman was bitten on her hip and back at about 7am on Saturday.

Continue reading...

OECD's new head is not a climate denier: The reality is much worse: he understands the threat, but has actively worked to make it worse through his policy actions.

The post Mathias Cormann: OECD will now be led by a clean energy and climate wrecker appeared first on RenewEconomy.

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

California Carbon Allowance (CCA) speculators bolstered their holdings closer to pre-pandemic levels this week, while emitters cut their positions for a fifth consecutive week, according to US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data published Friday.

Trilateral negotiations for the European Climate Law are showing progress but have so far not yielded major results, negotiators told Carbon Pulse late on Friday after another round of talks.

Exclusive: Government review finds no companies have been investigated or penalised over packaging in the past four years

Australia is likely to miss all of its own targets to rid the environment of plastic unless there is a major overhaul of its management and enforcement, conservationists and waste industry representatives say.

A government review found no state or territory had investigated or penalised a company over their performance on packaging waste in the past four years.

Continue reading...

EU carbon prices broke their record high for a fourth straight day on Friday, nearing €43 as bullish sentiment holds and energy markets remain supportive.

A summary of legislative and regulatory action on carbon pricing, clean fuel standards, and clean energy at the US subnational and federal level this week, including in New Mexico, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and California.

The 2,000-year-old mechanism has baffled experts since it was discovered on a shipwreck in 1901.

The Biden administration is calling out politicians, like the prime minister, who pay lip service to the climate emergency while peddling greenwash policies

It must have seemed a clever Johnsonian ruse. Build a deep coalmine – the first in decades – in Labour’s historical heartland and put yourself on the side of working-class northern voters who want jobs and against environmentalists who, one could slyly suggest, prefer saving the planet than local communities. Boris Johnson thought, no doubt, with a cunning that has wrongfooted many opponents, that he could frame the argument in such terms and still meet his “net zero” targets because the vast majority of Cumbrian coal would end up for export rather than domestic use (it’s too sulphurous to be used to make steel in Britain). The result is that the greenhouse gas emissions would end up on some other nation’s books when carbon budgets were calculated. Not dissimilar to his view of cake, Mr Johnson was saying that his policy on coal is “pro having it and pro heating it”.

The problem for Mr Johnson was that the Biden administration was having none of it. The US had the good sense to understand the implications if Britain was allowed to press ahead with a plan to dig out coal and send it abroad without busting its own carbon budget. If everyone took the same view, the world would be toast. The US reasons that if jobs are the issue, then use state investment in green technologies for coal-free steel. Within days of John Kerry, the US climate envoy, warning Mr Johnson that coal has no future, the government conceded it would be “calling in” the planning application for the Cumbrian mine. Importantly Mr Johnson would not be shamed into a U-turn in the run-up to the UN’s Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow in November.

Continue reading...

Communities secretary cited climate change and controversy for ‘calling in’ deep coalmine decision

A public inquiry is to be held into plans for the UK’s first new deep coalmine in decades after the communities secretary “called in” the decision on the project, taking it out of the hands of local government.

Facing a legal challenge, Robert Jenrick reversed his decision not to intervene in the dispute, having previously said it was a local matter. In his decision, he cited new climate change advice and rising controversy over the plans, following vocal criticism from government scientific advisers and leading scientists.

Related: Robert Jenrick orders public inquiry into Cumbria coalmine

Continue reading...

The EU has received some 232 applications for €100 million in funding for small-scale projects under the ETS-financed Innovation Fund, the European Commission announced Friday, with energy-intensive industries making over half of the applicants.

Estimate comes after government reversed its position that mine plan did not conflict with climate policy

More than 9,000 green jobs could be created in Cumbria, according to a report, far more than the 500 jobs promised by a planned coalmine in the county.

The report was published the day after the communities secretary reversed his original decision that the mine did not conflict with national policy and was a local matter. Robert Jenrick cited rising controversy and new climate advice as reasons for the U-turn.

Continue reading...

Exclusive: Roads make up 1% of the country but the pollution produced may harm wildlife everywhere

Pollution from roads affects virtually every part of Britain, with 94% of land having some pollution above background levels, according to research.

Roads, which occupy less than 1% of the country, “form vast, pervasive and growing networks, causing negative environmental impacts”, the scientists said.

Continue reading...

Paper says machine learning could prove crucial tool in efforts to improve quality of country’s rivers

Nearly 1,000 “dark discharges” of untreated sewage from two water company treatment plants in England have been detected by scientists using artificial intelligence to map spills.

The use of machine learning to shine a light on the scale of pollution from untreated effluent being spilled into rivers could be a crucial tool in efforts to improve the quality of rivers, a paper says.

Continue reading...

A Western Australia forest regeneration project this week earned its first batch of carbon credits worth A$2.3 million ($1.8 mln) at current prices, while regulator data underlined voluntary buyers' preferences for foreign offsets and a hydrogen pilot project commenced operations.