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Danish foundation pledges $1 mln to develop ocean impact metrics for finance
Rewilding offers similar CO2 storage potential to new native woodland -study
Canadian asset manager introduces biodiversity screen
London brokerage to expand into New Zealand carbon market via acquisition
‘Red alert’: last year was hottest year ever by wide margin, says UN report
Records being broken for greenhouse gas pollution, surface temperatures and ocean heat
The world has never been closer to breaching the 1.5C (2.7F) global heating limit, even if only temporarily, the United Nations’ weather agency has warned.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed on Tuesday that 2023 was the hottest year on record by a wide margin. In a report on the climate, it found that records were “once again broken, and in some cases smashed” for key indicators such as greenhouse gas pollution, surface temperatures, ocean heat and acidification, sea level rise, Antarctic sea ice cover and glacier retreat.
Continue reading...46C summer days and ‘supercell’ storms are Britain’s future – and now is our last chance to prepare | Bill McGuire
Neither the Tories nor Labour seem bothered by the climate mayhem that awaits us, but to save lives they must act
It’s the August bank holiday in 2050 and the UK is sweltering under the worst heatwave on record. Temperatures across much of England have topped 40C for eight days running: they peaked at 46C, and remain above 30C in cities and large towns at night. The country’s poorly insulated homes feel like furnaces, and thousands of people have resorted to camping out at night in the streets and local parks in a desperate attempt to find sleep. Hospital A&Es are overwhelmed and wards are flooded with patients, mostly old and vulnerable people who have succumbed to dehydration and heatstroke. Already, the death toll is estimated at more than 80,000.
No, this isn’t the beginning of a dystopian drama, but a snapshot of a mid-century heatwave unless we prepare for the increasingly extreme weather that will be driven by climate breakdown. To say that the government has no credible plan for this, as the UK Climate Change Committee did last week, is – if anything – an understatement. Britain is woefully underprepared for extreme weather, and in a number of key areas we are going backwards. About one in 15 of England’s most important flood defences were in a poor or very poor condition in 2022, up from roughly one in 25 just four years previously. The government’s Great British insulation scheme is operating at such a slow pace that it would take nearly 200 years to upgrade the country’s housing stock, while Labour has rowed back on its ambitious plans to insulate 19m homes within a decade.
Bill McGuire is professor emeritus of geophysical and climate hazards at UCL, and the author of Hothouse Earth: an Inhabitant’s Guide
Continue reading...Watchdogs investigating UK government over potential bird protection failures
Euro Markets: Midday Update
India urged to scrap “dangerous” forestry crediting in green scheme
DAC facility with 2 Mt of capacity to open in the US, aiming to drive tenfold cost reduction
Biochar developer secures €25 mln to build out European carbon removal network
Scientific body given just $100,000 a year to fight deadly fire ants, Senate inquiry told
The CSIRO says it only received $1m over the last ten years to combat the highly invasive pests despite pioneering research into their management
Australia’s leading scientific research body received just $100,000 a year towards combatting fire ants, a Senate inquiry into the highly invasive pests has heard.
At the third and final session of public hearings for the Senate inquiry on Monday, the committee’s chair, Senator Matt Canavan, said some of the evidence he had heard had “freaked [him] out”.
Continue reading...Global trading house, Japanese gas supplier team up for Asian nature-based projects
DAC hopeful designs digital twin for speedier deployment of the real thing
Insurer launches product to cover both physical and political risks of buying carbon credits
China thermal power generation continues to outpace total electricity output
Non-profit calls on the EU to come up with a dedicated CO2 removal strategy
Study calls for broader definition of blue carbon ecosystems to help finance conservation efforts
Finally, good news for power bills: energy regulator promises small savings for most customers on the ‘default market offer’
As a child, I roamed Dartmoor – and it shaped me. But across England, that freedom is being trampled on | Rosie Jewell
How can we expect people to care for the countryside if they are denied access to it? We must fight for our right to roam
When people ask me where I’m from, I wryly tell them “the middle of nowhere”. So, imagine my surprise when I saw that my old landlord and the remote place where I grew up were making national headlines over a court battle for the right to wild camp on Dartmoor.
Alexander Darwall bought the 1,619-hectare (4,000-acre) Blachford estate on southern Dartmoor in 2011. Dartmoor is the only place in England where wild camping is allowed, in designated areas, without permission from a landowner. Darwall successfully contested this right in court, arguing that the right to wild camp – as opposed to walking or picnicking – on the moors never existed. Then an appeal restored it. Now, he’s taking the case to the supreme court.
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