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Fishing nets churn up carbon from the sea floor, more than half of which will eventually be released into the atmosphere

Scientists have long known that bottom trawling – the practice of dragging massive nets along the seabed to catch fish – churns up carbon from the sea floor. Now, for the first time, researchers have calculated just how much trawling releases into the atmosphere: 370m tonnes of planet-heating carbon dioxide a year – an amount, they say, that is “too big to ignore”.

Over the study period, 1996-2020, they estimated the total carbon dioxide released from trawling to the atmosphere to be 8.5 to 9.2bn tonnes. The scientists described trawling as “marine deforestation” that causes “irreparable harm” to the climate, society and wildlife.

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The Clean Energy Regulator has handed out just over 1 million Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) in its first issuance for 2024, as the government announced A$70 mln ($45.8 mln) in federal funding to develop the Bell Bay hydrogen hub in Northern Tasmania.

The ocean-poisoning superyachts of global plutocrats are a symbol of the class that’s really behind Britain’s misfortunes

Rishi Sunak is in thrall to just two syllables: small boats. Plunging wages, extortionate heating bills, collapsing public services – such trivia does not detain the UK’s first Goldman Sachs prime minister from his Peloton. But small boats crossing the Channel? These he will vow to stop, fulminating in speeches, plastering the words across his lectern as if in a deadly pandemic.

To pull it off, he is yet again this week burning through his dwindling political capital, just like those tech venture capitalists he adores. So he’s declaring Rwanda safe for refugees – which, according to our supreme court, is like claiming black is white – while handing Rwanda hundreds of millions of pounds (its president was yesterday promising a refund). Our chief lawmaker promised this week to break international law and to strip asylum seekers of court protection – or, as he termed it, “the legal merry-go-round”.

Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist

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Regional collaboration on carbon capture and storage (CCS) got another boost this week as the Asia Natural Gas and Energy Association (ANGEA) and the Global CCS Institute signed an agreement focused on policy development and advocacy for CCS.

When males die from sex-fuelled exhaustion, still-living members of the species are known to feast on fallen comrades

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If you are exploring our beautiful Australian wilderness this year, keep an eye out for animals behaving in interesting ways. You never know what you might see, as our research team discovered.

In 2023, our colleague from Sunshine Coast council, Elliot Bowerman, took a two-night trip to New England national park – its 1,500-metre-high mountain peaks are some of the loftiest on Australia’s mid-east coast.

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Dragging heavy fishing nets across the ocean floor was newly discovered to be a significant source of CO2 pollution in the atmosphere, to the extent that it could more than double the annual CO2 emissions of the entire global fishing fleet, according to a study published Thursday.

Study finds female chrysalises that develop at higher temperatures have fewer eyespots, making them harder to see in dry grass

Female meadow brown butterflies who develop in warmer weather sport fewer spots on their wings, in an unexpected adaptation to global heating.

The discovery was made by University of Exeter scientists who found that females whose chrysalises developed at 11C had six spots on average, while those developing at 15C had just three.

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New data shows Germany's market for home and commercial battery storage systems grew by over 150 per cent in 2023 – and that's with "market barriers."

The post Home battery boom: Solar batteries double to more than one million in Germany appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Clean Energy Regulator data shows Queensland reached one million rooftop solar installations in 2023, beating out every other state in the country.

The post Sunshine State milestone as Queenslanders install one million solar rooftops appeared first on RenewEconomy.

One of Australia's greatest green hydrogen hopes, singled out by the IEA for delays, will get underway this year after a federal and state funding boost.

The post Federal funding jump-starts great green hydrogen hope, the “stalled” Bell Bay hub appeared first on RenewEconomy.

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In two US Supreme Court cases whose outcomes could impact the enforcement of environmental law, justices are questioning the balance of power between the judiciary and executive branches in implementation of federal legislation.

Voluntary carbon market certifier BioCarbon Registry (BCR) has written a cease-and-desist letter to the Sri Lankan Climate Fund (SLCF) after learning that the government-backed programme was using its REDD+ methodology without permission to credit projects.

With plans locked in for a battery that could be the largest of its kind in the world, Ark Energy is seeking approval for a 500MW solar farm to go with it.

The post Ark progresses plan for solar farm next to world’s largest eight-hour battery appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Intelligence agency GCHQ say pictures of Colossus a reminder of the UK ingenuity that helped defeat Hitler.

Office for Environmental Protection report shows only four of 40 targets for England likely to be achieved

The government is failing on almost all of its environmental targets, risking an “irreversible spiral of decline” in nature, a damning report by the environment watchdog has found.

Dame Glenys Stacey, chair of the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP), has said in the report, published today, that if action is not taken England will fail to meet its goal of halting nature’s decline by 2030, as well as a host of other vital nature targets.

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The hobbled Peregrine Moon lander will be forced to burn up in Earth's atmosphere.

The peatlands finance industry should mature between 2030 and 2050, including investments in biodiversity credits bundled with water-related payments, a report has said.

A California-headquartered startup announced Wednesday a partnership with a Brazilian civil society organisation to bring carbon credits directly from Brazilian smallholder farmers to market.