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Industry figures and the TUC warn of missed carbon reduction targets and lost jobs unless government boosts green investment

Fears are growing that existing offshore wind projects could be shelved, after industry insiders warned that “disastrous” handling by the government had created a big shortfall in future renewable energy.

Ministers revealed last week that no additional offshore windfarms will go ahead in the UK after the latest government auction. No bids were made in the auction, after the government ignored warnings that offshore schemes were no longer economically viable under the current system.

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Ambulance service uncertain of the species that bit the man but says symptoms point to a brown snake

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A man in his 60s has died from a snake bite in central Queensland, after helping to remove a snake which had coiled around his friend’s leg.

Two men were treated by the Queensland Ambulance Service in Koumala, a town 60km south of Mackay, shortly after 6.30pm on Saturday evening.

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Conservation groups say plan contains no meaningful action to address bird’s key threat of native forest logging

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The swift parrot recovery plan announced by the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, to mark threatened species day was not actually finalised and had not been shared with the experts who helped to develop it.

Once they had seen it, conservation groups and scientists said the recovery plan released on Thursday contained no meaningful action to address the key threat to the survival of the species: the logging of native forests.

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Leaders of G20 have agreed to try to triple renewable energy capacity globally by 2030, but failed to mention the phase down of fossil fuels, according to a G20 declaration released Saturday.

Britons should learn to love onshore renewables as part of a long tradition of robust, practical, rural structures

Growing up in the countryside, it was a feature of drives with my parents that electricity pylons would be deplored. So I am familiar with the instinct to oppose wind turbines, which like pylons are large, energy-providing infrastructure, among some country dwellers, leading David Cameron to tighten up rules in 2015 in a way that led to a 97% reduction in the numbers granted planning permission.

Although the current government has just announced an easing of these rules, they still give plenty of power to objectors. But I would ask country dwellers still inclined to block them to see that they are in fact beautiful. They are prettier than power stations, less destructive than fracking, certainly lovelier than floods, fires, droughts and other effects of climate change. They enrich the nation with the help of its abundant wind, and make us less dependent on fossil-fuel despots. Wind turbines are in a long rural tradition of robust practical structures that also includes barns, mills, viaducts, canals and others that have become beloved and protected. On those same drives I was always happy to see an old windmill. It shouldn’t be too hard to love their modern equivalents.

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UN hopes to galvanise summit talks by persuading world leaders to commit to stop burning coal, oil and gas, despite industry lobbying

A global push to commit to phasing out fossil fuels is gathering new momentum before a crucial UN climate conference this autumn, despite stiff opposition from oil-producing countries.

Campaigners are ramping up efforts to put an undertaking to stop burning not just coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, but also oil and gas on the UN agenda ahead of the Cop28 summit in Dubai in late November, the Observer has learned.

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US President Joe Biden's administration has allocated $24 million in funding for over a dozen research projects that seek to sequester CO2 emissions through marine-based technologies.

Exclusive: PM risked embarrassment of downgraded status if UN deemed UK’s climate policies lacking ambition

Rishi Sunak was warned that he faced exclusion from key discussions on the climate among world leaders at the UN before he decided to snub a global summit later this month.

It was announced last month that Sunak would be the first prime minister in a decade to avoid attending the annual UN general assembly gathering of world leaders. The reason given was his busy schedule, but the Guardian has learned that turning up risked severe embarrassment for the prime minister.

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A summer of blue-green algae caused havoc, with bathing bans and pondweed complicating matters.

London Wildlife Trust asks volunteers to seek out endangered beetles’ strongholds

They were celebrated as “ye country comets” by the poet Andrew Marvell but glowworms are defying light pollution to still shine their lights in the city of London.

Now volunteers and enthusiasts are being sought to count and save the much-celebrated but declining beetles, whose females emit a remarkable bright green bioluminescent beam to attract males.

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A daily summary of our news plus bite-sized updates from around the world.

Compliance entities boosted their net length in the California Carbon Allowance (CCA) and RGGI Allowance (RGA) markets over the past week, while speculators pared back their holdings in both North American programmes, according to US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data published Friday.

An OECD committee assembled to help improve the impact of emissions reduction efforts around the world through enhanced multilateralism will meet this autumn to discuss countries' various carbon pricing approaches, as part of an initiative to take stock of global efforts, examine their effectiveness, and prevent carbon leakage.

California regulator ARB’s forthcoming Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) rulemaking package will include a strengthening in the scheme’s carbon intensity (CI) targets alongside other measures to tighten the programme and phase out avoided methane crediting pathways, the agency revealed Friday.

The Washington Department of Ecology (ECY) will offer allowances from its Allowance Price Containment Reserve (APCR) for sale at one fixed-price tier this fall, following a Q3 settlement price which triggered the second-ever reserve auction, according to a government notice published Friday. 

California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) values slid on Friday to levels not seen since late July as market participants reported compliance entities were keen to sit back, though they spiked late in the day after the state published a document detailing its forthcoming rulemaking to strengthen the programme's carbon intensity (CI) benchmarks.

A major Brazilian financial services company announced on Thursday it expects its current suite of carbon projects to produce 60 million credits over the next three decades, not counting future investments in the sector.

Small rise in global temperatures would affect hundreds of millions of people and could cause a sharp rise in deaths

Life-threatening periods of high heat and humidity will spread rapidly across the world with only a small increase in global temperatures, a study has found, which could cause a sharp acceleration in the number of deaths resulting from the climate crisis.

The extremes, which can be fatal to healthy people within six hours, could affect hundreds of millions of people unused to such conditions. As a result, heat deaths could rise quickly unless serious efforts to prepare populations were undertaken urgently, the researcher said.

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Indonesia is leading a group of 17 commodity-producing countries that are demanding to have a say in the EU's anti-deforestation law that addresses imported products.

Fish farming will not enter the EU’s list of sustainable investment activities for at least two to three years, an executive at non-profit think-tank Planet Tracker has predicted.