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Why there's a lot more to love about jacarandas than just their purple flowers
Puerto Rico: Iconic Arecibo Observatory telescope collapses
EU aviation carbon market revenues can spur innovation, support cleaner fuels -report
Scientists identify deep-sea blob as new species using only video
- Duobrachium sparksae is a type of ctenophore, or comb jelly
- Video identification without specimen ‘can be controversial’
Scientists have for the first time identified a small gelatinous blob in the deep sea as a new species, using only high-definition underwater cameras.
Continue reading...Germany grants awards in oversubscribed first coal plant closure tender
Verra proposes new carbon unit to scale up finance before offset issuance
Wildflower meadows to line all major new UK roads in boost for biodiversity
Highways England scheme to encourage species-rich grasslands could create hundreds of miles of rare habitats after decades of loss
Native wildflower meadows will line the verges of all new large-scale road projects under an initiative by Highways England, the Guardian can reveal.
Nodding blue harebells, clusters of yellow kidney vetch and flashes of bird’s-foot-trefoil could soon become the norm on stretches of the road network in England with the infrastructure provider committing to the creation of biodiverse grasslands as standard on all new major schemes.
Continue reading...China's sample-return Moon mission touches down
No 10 accused of 'cavalier attitude' to UK's climate summit duties
Boris Johnson’s advisers did not understand how vital UN Cop26 talks were, former minister tells MPs
Boris Johnson’s team had a “cavalier attitude” to hosting a vital UN climate summit in the UK, taking the view “they could wing it with a few press releases and that would all be fine” rather than putting serious work into the talks, the sacked former minister originally in charge has said.
Claire O’Neill was appointed by Johnson to head the Cop26 summit in September 2019 but was summarily dismissed on the eve of the launch of the UK’s presidency in February this year.
Continue reading...EU Midday Market Briefing
'Mock Cop26' activists vote on treaty ahead of 2021 climate summit
Young people from 140 countries presented policies to UK climate action champion
Young people from 140 countries who attended an online “mock Cop26” climate summit have presented a treaty of 18 policies to Nigel Topping, the UK’s high level climate action champion.
After two weeks of negotiations, delegates from the international youth-led conference presented their formal treaty to Topping during the event’s closing ceremony on Tuesday, and called on world leaders to prioritise the policies during Cop26, which was postponed for a year because of the pandemic and is now due to be held in Glasgow in November 2021.
Continue reading...Revealed: UK imported 1m tonnes of soya with deforestation risk in 2019
New analysis finds 40% was brought in without sourcing checks from Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay
More than 1m tonnes of soya used by UK livestock farmers to produce chicken and other food last year could be linked to deforestation, according to a new analysis.
Large areas of forest in Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay are being cleared to produce soya, which is then exported to the UK to be used by farmers, mainly to feed chickens and dairy cows.
Continue reading...Alok Sharma 'overloaded with day job' to juggle UN summit role
European Commission to hold MSR review workshop on Dec. 3
Neoen and Tesla get to work on Australia’s biggest battery near Geelong
Neoen, Tesla and the Victoria government hold ground-breaking ceremony for the Victorian Big Battery, which will be biggest battery in the country.
The post Neoen and Tesla get to work on Australia’s biggest battery near Geelong appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Queensland budget delivers $500m renewables fund, as coal plant revenues slump
Queensland budget delivers $500 million renewable energy fund, set to underpin wind and solar boom, while coal plant write-downs cut government revenues.
The post Queensland budget delivers $500m renewables fund, as coal plant revenues slump appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Climate crisis to triple flooding threat for low-income US homes by 2050
A new study has found that affordable housing in New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey and California will be at particular risk
The amount of affordable housing in the US vulnerable to coastal flooding is set to triple over the next 30 years, a new study has found in a further sign of the escalating hardships faced by low-income Americans amid an unraveling climate crisis.
Affordable housing in New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey and California is at particular risk of flooding from worsening storms or even high tides pushed on by rising sea levels, according to research conducted by Climate Central, a New Jersey-based science organization.
Continue reading...Trump’s border wall construction threatens survival of jaguars in the US
Wall is going up in four sections in Arizona’s mountain ranges spanning the US-Mexico border where the cats had reappeared
By the 1960s, the North American jaguar had vanished from the southern US borderland after being hunted to extinction.
Yet in the mid-1990s, there was a remarkable discovery: the jaguar had reappeared in the Sky Islands of Arizona, a region of rugged linked mountain ranges spanning the US and Mexico border that boasts the highest biodiversity in inland North America. Since then, the large cats have been seen over a dozen times in the region, reviving hopes of a full return of the elusive predators to the US.
Continue reading...Australia’s Santos brings forward net zero goal, eyes share of carbon neutral LNG market
Owls of delight! How online birdwatching became my lockdown treat | Emma Beddington
I have become obsessed with bird matters, especially the antics of Rocky, Barry and co in New York City
Birdwatching has been a Covid success story: sales of feeders have soared and birdwatchers broke a world record for the most birds observed during Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s “Global Big Day” in May.
I like watching Small Brown Bird One and Small Brown Bird Two argue over mealworms in my yard until Large Grey Rat appears to settle the squabble, but I am too lazy to make a real hobby of it: it is cold out there. Instead, I watch birdwatchers on Twitter, which brings its own satisfaction. There is a photographer who waits patiently, hand full of seed outstretched, capturing birds when they alight, and I love following my local bird-rescue lady transforming her charges from bedraggled, gloomy clumps of feather to heart-gladdening swooshes of wildness. She also keeps me informed about the shameful, often-unpunished incidents of raptor poisoning and trapping that blight the UK’s lucrative grouse moors.
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