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Australia leads the world in rooftop solar per head. Can this small-scale power source be the secret weapon to fire up our struggling transition to net zero? Anna Bruce, Associate Professor in the Collaboration on Energy and Environmental Markets and the School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering, UNSW Sydney Baran Yildiz, Senior Research Associate, UNSW Sydney Dani Alexander, CEO, UNSW Energy Institute, UNSW Sydney Mike Roberts, Senior Research Fellow in the Collaboration on Energy and Environmental Markets and the School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering, UNSW Sydney Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

The year has kicked off with strong divergence between what many regard as the old and new versions of the voluntary carbon market, even before the emergence of the first credits labelled with the ICVCM’s Core Carbon Principles (CCPs) stamp of high-integrity approval.

The EU should separate emissions reductions, land-based sequestration and permanent carbon removals in its key proposal for the 2040 climate targets, scientists and climate policy experts urged the European Commission on Monday.

Nuclear power will be the main source of electricity in France, leaving little room for renewables, according to a new draft law that attempts to find alternatives to fossil fuels.

Two of the most active buyer countries in the Article 6.2 market for internationally transferred mitigation outcomes (ITMOs), still in its infancy, have stated that they will push ahead with existing Article 6 agreements and strike new ones.

Recent corporate value chain emissions reporting legislation from the EU and California, and similar policy proposals in Australia, will provide investors with the tools to identify climate-related transition risks; however, legislative goals differ, showing that projected impacts of corporate climate disclosure may vary by context.

The private sector arm of the World Bank has today announced the provision of a green and sustainability-linked loan to a European utility actively rolling out renewable energy in emerging markets, with one of the key provisions being that the company achieves its emissions-reduction trajectory as validated by the Science Based Target Initiative (SBTi).

An American spacecraft launched from Florida to land on the lunar surface encounters problems.

Abu Dhabi's ADNOC has entered the international carbon capture and storage sector, acquiring a 10.1% equity stake in UK-based developer Storegga, the state-owned oil company announced on Monday. 

James Hansen says limit will be passed ‘for all practical purposes’ by May though other experts predict that will happen in 2030s

The internationally agreed threshold to prevent the Earth from spiraling into a new superheated era will be “passed for all practical purposes” during 2024, the man known as the godfather of climate science has warned.

James Hansen, the former Nasa scientist credited for alerting the world to the dangers of climate change in the 1980s, said that global heating caused by the burning of fossil fuels, amplified by the naturally reoccurring El Niño climatic event, will by May push temperatures to as much as 1.7C (3F) above the average experienced before industrialization.

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Rishi Sunak says the policy shift towards fossil fuels will lower bills and is backed by independent advisers. Is he right?

The UK government is about to bring through legislation for an annual licensing programme for oil and gas in the North Sea.

To justify this shift in policy towards fossil fuels, ministers have made a number of claims about the impact on climate breakdown and UK bills, as well as whether it is in line with recommendations from its independent climate advisers.

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The secretariat of the ART carbon credit standard on Monday announced that it has approved documents submitted by Ghana under its TREES jurisdictional certification programme relating to a 2017-21 crediting period, moving the country one step closer to receiving unit issuances under the standard from activities undertaken in these years.

A London-headquartered intermediary announced on Monday a 20-year agreement with Kenya's Mikoko Initiative to manage at least 1 million tonnes of mainly blue carbon credits per year generated by mangrove and other forestry projects in the African country.

They know how to get fed by people – like babies, you can’t ignore their squawks

In Sydney, sulphur-crested cockatoos play when they fly, ducking under power lines and soaring up again, squawking, charging through gaps in trees, landing only to hang upside down, as though they are mocking the bats. Cockatoos know how to have as much fun as it is possible to have while flying (a lot).

In a painting by William Patrick Roberts of a mother and her children looking at parrots in a shop, the macaws and the black cockatoo perch majestically; at the bottom of the painting a cockatoo fools around on a pole, looking right at you.

Helen Sullivan is a Guardian journalist.

Do you have an animal, insect or other subject you feel is worthy of appearing in this very serious column? Email helen.sullivan@theguardian.com

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ClearVue Technologies has made a key breakthrough in its home market, signing up a partner for its first commercial rollout on Australia's east coast.

The post Australian solar glass pioneer signs partner for first commercial rollout in home market appeared first on RenewEconomy.

European carbon prices came under heavy pressure from the opening on Monday as forecasts for milder weather triggered a steep drop in natural gas prices, while the prospect of EUA auctions resuming next week added a bearish tone to the carbon market.

The first-ever Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcomes (ITMOs) for use under a national Paris Agreement emissions pledge have been delivered, with carbon units from activities in Thailand transacted to Switzerland, the parties announced Monday.

The host of the COP29 climate summit, Azerbaijan, is set to raise its fossil fuel production by one-third over the next decade and create hundreds of millions of tonnes in additional emissions, according to analysis published on Monday, with polluting firms forecast to spend some $41.4 billion on the country’s gas fields.

Research has found that several factors have hampered bees’ ability to create honey over the past decade

It’s a question that has bedeviled beekeepers across the US in recent years: where has all the honey gone? Scientists now say they have some answers as to why yields of honey have declined, pointing to environmental degradation that is affecting all sorts of bees, and insects more generally.

The amount of honey produced by honeybee colonies in the US has dropped by around half a pound, on average, per colony in the past decade, US government data shows, even as the number of managed colonies increased slightly.

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I have become obsessed from afar with Flaco, an owl who fled a zoo in New York nearly a year ago. Over Christmas, I could no longer resist the urge to track him down

I often wonder why birds speak so universally to the sagging middle-aged soul that it has become a comic trope – the vertiginously swift passage from: “Is that a robin?” to: “There’s a lesser yellowleg two hours’ drive away, start the car.”

Is it the freedom they represent? No cholesterol, no mortgage, no self-assessment tax deadline to worry about? Or a sense of wonder in the everyday miracle of their existence, induced by an awareness of mortality? Whatever it is, I am in deep: disposable income frittered on fat balls; constantly snooping on feathery goings-on in the garden; home decor reminiscent of the Portlandia “put a bird on it” sketch.

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