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Brazil will open the largest oil and gas block auction in its history on Tuesday, a move campaigners find highly hypocritical as the COP28 summit negotiations struggle to agree on phasing out fossil fuels globally even as the South American nation touts its climate leadership.

Charges would add to fund for at-risk nations but Andrew Mitchell believes colleagues would not back them

The UK’s international development minister, Andrew Mitchell, has played down the prospects of imposing a levy on frequent flyers to help fund the rescue and rehabilitation of poor countries stricken by climate disaster.

A small charge on airline tickets is one of several ideas floated by developing countries to provide cash for the loss and damage fund.

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Graham Stuart’s surprise exit leaves civil servants in Dubai to finish negotiations in his absence

• Cop28 live – latest updates

The UK minister in charge of Cop28 climate talks has returned to London, the Guardian has learned, leaving civil servants to finish the fraught negotiations in his absence.

Graham Stuart, the minister of state for climate change, left Dubai on Tuesday morning to return to his duties as an MP, the government confirmed, even as the climate talks reached crisis point.

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Pioneering efforts to store carbon from an industrial emitter base in South Africa, including from the world’s largest single-source CO2 emitter, are set to progress to pilot construction stage following completion of the geological assessment of the local area.

Study finds impact of wind farms on nearby property values finds is restricted to “homes located within 1 mile of a commercial wind turbine”, and only soon after announcement.

The post Landmark study finds negative impact of wind farms on real estate values is temporary at worst appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Leaders and activists must fight to the end in Dubai to stop vested interests sabotaging progress on fossil fuel phase-out and adaptation

As Cop28 in Dubai enters its final hours, the emotional weight of the moment is hard to bear. I find myself thinking of a six-year-old boy called Desmond I met in Turkana county, Kenya, who died from severe acute malnutrition on the same day. His death was the result of a climate-induced drought that has left millions of people on the brink of starvation in the Horn of Africa.

I want the negotiators deciding the outcome of Cop28 to know Desmond’s story. Because in the end, the climate crisis is not about pledges, statistics, reports or activists. It’s about human suffering and ruined lives. It’s about death.

Vanessa Nakate is a climate activist, Unicef goodwill ambassador and author of A Bigger Picture: My fight to bring a new African voice to the climate crisis

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New Zealand’s newly appointed Minister for Climate Change has emphasised the importance of the country’s agricultural sector – the biggest contributor to the country’s GHG emissions – and a stable Emissions Trading Scheme, in his first national statement to COP28 in Dubai.

New draft text released by presidency omits reference to phase out of ‘fossil fuels’

Tuesday morning at Cop28 and we’re back in a waiting game. Heads of delegation met until the early hours, mostly expressing their deep unhappiness with the draft text produced by the summit presidency late Monday afternoon.

The scheduled end of the two-week conference has come and gone – that was 11am local – and as yet there is no new text to replace the document from yesterday. Anybody who says they know when this will end is guessing.

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Exclusive: Report calls for new law on maximum indoor temperature to stop workers overheating

A maximum indoor temperature working law giving people a day off if workplace temperatures surpass 30C should be mandated by government, a new report recommends.

The report by the Fabian Society thinktank highlights inequalities in who bears the brunt of the impacts of climate breakdown and puts responsibility on bosses and landlords to stop people from overheating.

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South Korea has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Laos to strengthen their cooperation on REDD+ forest protection projects, as Seoul has committed to securing more international carbon credits in the next few years for its climate goals.

The Singapore-based initiative, which seeks to promote integrity and transparency in the carbon market, will incorporate data from four major carbon market standards into its public dashboard, it revealed Tuesday at COP28.

It is Day 13 of COP28 – the final day, or so those at Expo City desperately hope, and no one quite knows what to say. The last 24 hours have been a rollercoaster of action and widespread, bitter disappointments among vocal negotiators regarding the global stocktake (GST), Article 6 negotiations, adaptation, and virtually every issue on the table here in Dubai. The venue is eerily empty as country pavilions and observers are forced to vacate the premises, turning what was the equivalent of a small city into a ghost town. Those who remain are girding themselves for a long and strenuous day. Carbon Pulse correspondents have hit the ground running. In our daily blog, we will report relevant or useful updates throughout the day. Timestamps are in local time (Gulf Standard Time, GMT+4).

Australia and the UK have committed £10.5 million ($13.1 mln) to initiatives for companies to research, develop, and launch renewable hydrogen projects focusing on the industrial and transport sectors, they announced Tuesday.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala says current incentives are distorting world trade and hampering fight against climate breakdown

Governments must start to distinguish between the good subsidies they need to fight the climate crisis and the bad ones that are increasing greenhouse gas emissions, the world’s trade chief has said.

Subsidies and other incentives to burn fossil fuels and encourage poor agricultural practices, amounting to about $1.7tn a year, are distorting world trade and hampering the fight against climate breakdown, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the director general of the World Trade Organization, told the Guardian.

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A symbol of spring and rebirth, the robin is a favourite of gardeners and inspiration for poets and dreamers

What is it about the poem “Who killed Cock Robin?” It is so sad, and so coolly dark: a miniature drama played out in the shade of a single tree. The sparrow confesses right away, and nobody minds. The fly – “I, said the fly, with my little eye, I saw him die” – is a witness of whom no questions are asked. Everyone seems eager for the burial, eager to help, insincere in their mourning, “a-sighing and sobbing”.

Everything is small. The fish catching blood in his “little dish”, the rook playing parson with his “little book”. The death of a little bird, and a funeral for a bird the size, and almost the shape, of an orange, and weighing no more than an orange segment.

One of the electrons migrates a few nanometers away, where it feels a slightly different magnetic field than its partner. Depending on how the magnetic field alters the electron’s spin, different chemical reactions are produced. In theory, the products of many such reactions across a bird’s eye could create a picture of Earth’s magnetic field as a varying pattern of light and dark.

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The first big solar farm in Tasmania obtains council approval, just as rooftop PV output hits a record high in the island state.

The post Tasmania approves first solar farm and giant battery as rooftop PV hits record high appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Experts had expressed grave concerns for the 15m-long animal after it came dangerously close to shore.

The world's petrol states and the fossil fuel lobby are steering the world towards climate catastrophe. And Australia's Coalition is cheering on from the sidelines.

The post Petro-states and fossil fuel lobby steer climate deal towards global catastrophe appeared first on RenewEconomy.

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Koalas will need our help more than ever this summer as hot, dry conditions force them to seek water. Here’s how to help keep them safe and what to do if you encounter a koala in distress. Edward Narayan, Senior Lecturer in Animal Science, The University of Queensland Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.