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The UN Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) has published a list of potential regional support centres to promote biodiversity-related collaboration on science, technology, and innovation.

The UK national standards body has launched a consultation on a set of overarching principles for domestic nature markets including units representing biodiversity.

Momentum to introduce a carbon tax on shipping is building after delegates at a UN convention officially endorsed a framework on Friday to move forward with climate measures including the introduction of a levy on emissions.

The total global potential for voluntary carbon credits generated from water-related projects could top 1.6 billion tonnes of CO2 a year, but the sector has been overlooked by project developers and investors, partly because of a lack of methodologies, finds a new report.

It’s not as easy as it seems

• See more of Fiona Katauskas’s cartoons here

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A US-based Indigenous advocacy group sent a letter this week to US special climate envoy John Podesta urging him to oppose the development of Paris Agreement carbon markets, as communities worldwide debate their merits.

The first two areas on the register for off-site biodiversity net gain (BNG) projects in England have faced criticism for their lack of boundary details.   

European carbon prices were heading for their first gain in four days on Friday morning, with some observers saying the market was reverting to a familiar recent pattern of rising on Friday ahead of renewed weakness on the following Monday, while natural gas turned bullish amid forecasts for lower temperatures from this weekend.

The lack of diversity could mean the fruit’s extinction. It offers a stark warning of what could happen to other key foods

The meeting of the World Banana Forum last week in Rome didn’t make many headlines. But what was under discussion there has serious implications for everyone. The ubiquitous yellow fruit is the proverbial canary in the mine of our modern food system, showing just how fragile it is. And the current plight of the banana should serve as an invitation to us all to become champions of food diversity.

When you peel a banana, you’re on the receiving end of a near-miraculous $10bn supply chain. One that sends seemingly endless quantities of a tropical fruit halfway across the world to be among the cheapest, most readily available products in supermarket aisles (on average, around 12p a banana). But, incredibly, there’s no inbuilt backup plan or safety net if the one variety that most of the global trade depends on starts to fail.

Dan Saladino is a food journalist, broadcaster and author of Eating to Extinction: The World’s Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them

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Campaigners say government is failing to match major step forward as bloc prepares to introduce ‘polluter pays’ principle

New EU rules which introduce “polluter pays” principles to get pharmaceutical and cosmetic companies to pay for the pollution they cause in rivers will not be adopted by the government in England, as campaigners say the country is falling behind.

Lawmakers in Europe have signed off on an update to the urban waste water treatment (UWWT) directive, which is to further tighten restrictions on pollution. More nutrients from agricultural waste and sewage will have to be removed from waterways under the new rules. It also for the first time applies standards to micropollutants such as chemicals from pharmaceutical waste.

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The GHG Protocol has published a summary of stakeholder responses on its corporate emissions accounting standards, which includes details on market-based approaches and the use of voluntary carbon credits.

China saw liquidity in its compliance carbon market fall sharply over the past week, while permit prices held above the 80 yuan ($11.07) benchmark amid growing optimism about the sectoral expansion of the market.

Elsewhere, record-breaking snowfall in Japan and unseasonally high temperatures in South Sudan

Last week, central parts of the US experienced a severe outbreak of tornadoes with more than two dozen forming across the states of Ohio and Indiana, resulting in at least three deaths and multiple injuries.

A number of intense supercell thunderstorms travelled eastwards across central Indiana late in the afternoon and evening of 14 March, from which tornadoes formed. Many of these were weak with estimated maximum wind speeds of 65-85mph – the requirement to be categorised as an EF-0 tornado.

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Australia committed to restore 30% of degraded ecosystems by 2030 when we signed the global biodiversity framework. But what does that really mean? It’s open to interpretation. So let’s be ambitious. Justine Bell-James, Associate Professor, TC Beirne School of Law, The University of Queensland Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

The government of Thailand has put out the second draft of its climate change bill for consultation until mid-April even as it will be considered for cabinet approval not before June 2024, with provisions for several market-based mechanisms to drive emissions cuts.

Japan has updated its guidelines to provide more clarity on the quality of offsets, as the country seeks to align its domestic framework with international efforts to improve the integrity of the voluntary carbon market.

A Bolivian conservation programme has identified at least 60 'Paddington' bears in areas where they had not been spotted before. The animal is the inspiration behind the beloved fictional character Paddington, who travels to London, is adopted by a family and eats lashings of marmalade. In 2017, Chester zoo’s Andean carnivore conservation programme installed trap cameras in Tarija forest areas, and in 2023 it spotted members of the thriving bear community playing and walking among the trees. According to Ximena Velez-Liendo, the programme's coordinator, the Andean bear is vulnerable to extinction. The expert said if threats to the species, such as the loss of habitat, retaliatory hunting and the effects of the climate crisis were not addressed by 2030, the region could lose almost 30% of the population

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Prices in the EU’s ETS for transport and heating fuels (ETS2) are expected to surpass those of the existing carbon market as early as 2029, and exceed €200/tonne of CO2 by 2030, according to projections unveiled on this week.

One of the largest Korean securities firms has been designated as an official broker for the country's national emissions market, as the government seeks to open up the market to more participants.

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world

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