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Sunak becomes first PM to address conference since Gordon Brown in 2008, as Tories court farming sector

Rishi Sunak has told farmers “I have your back”, at the National Farmers Union conference, as he promised to “change the culture” in government around farming.

Sunak was the first prime minister to address the NFU conference since Gordon Brown in 2008, and took three Defra ministers with him to put the Conservative case to farmers.

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Federal tests of one-third of water systems find 70 million Americans exposed to PFAS – suggesting 200 million affected overall

About 70 million people are exposed to toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” in US drinking water, new testing from the Environmental Protection Agency has found.

But the testing completed to date has only checked about one-third of the nation’s public water systems, meaning the agency is on pace to find over 200 million people are exposed, or at least 60% of the US population.

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Senior members of the UAE, Azerbaijan, and Brazil governments, the hosts of the three UN COP summits between 2023 and 2025, outlined the focus of a recently announced 'troika' partnership at an IEA event on Tuesday, as the agency also revealed plans to raise cash later this year to solve clean cooking in Africa "for once and for ever" as well as a new climate pledge-tracking mechanism.

Friends of the Earth dismisses government’s revised climate action plan as a ‘pipe dream’

UK ministers are facing court for a second time over plans to meet legally binding climate targets, after environmental groups branded revised measures “a complete pipe dream”.

The government has already been forced to change its climate action plan after a legal challenge by environmentalists, but the same groups are taking it back to court over updated plans they say are “riddled with holes and relian[t] on risky techno-fixes”.

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The UK government’s climate action plan will come under fire in the High Court this week, in a case brought by three NGOs arguing that it is in breach of the country’s legally binding target for net zero emissions by 2050.

Limited resources, inadequate policies, and governance issues are preventing the market under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement to gain foothold in South Asia, a study released this week found.

Astronomers report an object that shines with a brightness equivalent to 500 trillion suns.

Astronomers report an object that shines with a brightness equivalent to 500 trillion suns.

Carbon budgets that add up, proper protection for Britain’s land and sea, and replacing GDP with a wellbeing index

• Our writers and experts name the pledges Labour must include in its manifesto

I’m as likely to be selected for the national gymnastics team. But bear with me awhile, to imagine that, like David Cameron, I’m about to be wafted by the UK’s fairytale political system from my garden shed to the benches of the House of Lords, to become Labour’s shadow environment secretary. Here are the three big policies I would try to insert into the party’s manifesto.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

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Carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) and nature-based solutions are highlighted as two sectors in dire need of greater investment to achieve the UK’s net zero target, says a new report, which recommends how the public and private sectors can work together to catalyse higher levels of green finance.

Voters have made their position clear but our politicians are still not talking about how we can change the way we live and work to ease the climate crisis

• Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast

The last federal election was less than two years ago but the caravan moves on quickly. With politics dominated by cost-of-living concerns and daily distractions, it’s easy to forget the central role that dissatisfaction with the Coalition’s inaction and doublespeak on the climate crisis played in the result.

It wasn’t the only factor, but an in-depth study found it was the biggest issue in driving voters away from the major parties to independents. It was the second biggest in motivating people who changed their vote to Labor. It stands to reason it was at least as important in the Greens increasing their support and seat count.

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A study on 10 of Australia’s most-prominent companies has found their net zero plans are lagging behind international best practice and largely lack scientific rigour.

A Verra-registered REDD+ project in southern Cambodia has been using inflated baselines stemming from the source of its reference data, leading to over-crediting, according to a report released by a US-based carbon offset ratings agency.

EU co-legislators struck a deal on the EU’s first carbon removal legislation in the early hours of Tuesday morning, in which it maintained distinct definitions for permanent and impermanent carbon activities and aims to set up a bloc-wide registry for units generated under the framework by 2028.

Exposure to asbestos can cause the same cancer in dogs as it does in humans. Recent cases of asbestos-contaminated mulch highlight the need to better protect our pets. Chiara Palmieri, Professor, The University of Queensland Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Exclusive: FOI request reveals fears many would sell up if they saw assessment of post-Brexit farming payments scheme

Government officials have buried an analysis of the financial prospects for some of the most vulnerable farmers in the UK after realising it was almost entirely bad news, the Guardian can reveal.

The analysis was to have been part of an optimistic look at the financial situation for upland farmers, some of the poorest in the country, but minutes from meetings about the plans obtained through a freedom of information request have revealed concerns were raised about the negative findings.

One official commented: “Could end up with no pathways to success at the end. We only want to publish if we have something which is positive to tell people.”

Government officials admitted that upland farmers were falling into financial crisis and may go out of business.

Officials feared that when upland farmers saw the data showing how much money they would make they would sell up.

Officials believed upland farmers were dismissive of the environment.

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We talk to three industry experts on offshore wind as part of the Locking in the Green Energy Transition podcast series sponsored by Norton Rose Fulbright.

The post Podcast special: How to make offshore wind work in Australia appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Origin snaps up Walcha Energy, which has been developing the Ruby Hills wind project and the Salisbury solar project, as it continues talks on Eraring closure timing.

The post Origin snaps up another developer with 1.3GW of wind and solar appeared first on RenewEconomy.

“The challenge with large solar farms is detecting any faulty or underperforming solar panels hidden in a sea of millions." UQ start-up says it has found a way.

The post UQ start-up finds way to detect solar faults in “sea of a million panels” appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Emerging technologies like energy storage, green hydrogen and digitisation platforms may be the key to dodging a global network infrastructure supply crunch and avoiding delays in the energy transition.

The post Battery storage and green hydrogen could be key to cutting transmission bottlenecks appeared first on RenewEconomy.