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Poland has filed legal challenges to the EU's highest court against the bloc's planned second carbon market and carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), the government said on Wednesday, the latest in a series of cases Warsaw has submitted over the EU's Fit for 55 climate policy package.

The election of the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has changed the environmental politics of the region. But more international assistance is needed

In last October’s Brazilian election, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeated Jair Bolsonaro by a margin of 1.8%. That narrowest of victories may have been the single most important environmental development of 2022. With Mr Bolsonaro in power, the Amazon rainforest was hurtling towards a tipping point after which it would no longer function as a climate stabiliser and the world’s biggest carbon sink. Between August 2021 and July 2022, an area of forest the size of Qatar was cleared in the interests of big business.

Lula’s government has stopped the rot. Companies involved in illegal deforestation have been sanctioned, armed interventions have taken place to end illegal mining operations, and new conservation areas have been established. Deforestation dropped by 42% during Lula’s first seven months in office, and the state has returned as a protective presence in the Brazilian Amazon. The transformed political context was the catalyst for this week’s landmark regional summit in Belém, in which the eight Latin American nations sharing the Amazon came together – for the first time in 14 years – to produce a plan for its sustainable development.

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The slow-moving real estate sector is likely to have to increasingly turn to purchasing carbon credits, as it faces growing pressure to offset the residual emissions of developments and to operate in more emissions-regulated environments, even as many in the industry are sceptical about the credibility of carbon credit projects today.

Footage captured a mobile home being swept away by floodwater on Tuesday as a powerful storm brought destruction to Norway. Landslides in some areas left an entire town stranded as meteorologists warned of the strongest rainfall in a quarter of a century.

The storm – named Hans – has killed at least two people, ripped off roofs and caused widespread disruption across northern Europe in a summer that started with wildfires across much of the region. As much as 80-100mm of rain in 24 hours was forecast in parts of the country

• Storm Hans causes havoc in Norway with heaviest rain in 25 years forecast

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Wildfires in Hawaii fanned by strong winds burned structures in areas including the historic town of Lahaina, forcing evacuations and closing schools in several communities. Rescuers pulled a dozen people from the ocean after they dived in to escape the smoke and flames; the coastguard tweeted that a crew rescued 12 people from the water off Lahaina. A firefighter responding to the West Maui fire was taken to hospital after experiencing smoke inhalation and was in stable condition, Maui county said. Because of the wind, helicopters were not able to dump water on the fires from the sky or gauge more precise fire sizes. Firefighters encountered roads blocked by downed trees and power lines as they worked the inland fires

• Hawaii wildfires force evacuations and ocean rescues as people flee into water

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A California-based developer is seeking out opportunities to invest in both project-level and larger scale jurisdictional avoided deforestation after earlier having secured up to $640 million in financing.

Experiment by Google and American Airlines reduces vapour trails, which are a source of global heating

Aircraft contrails – or clouds of condensation behind planes – have been a familiar sight in skies across the world since the start of the jet age. However, a new experiment by Google and American Airlines suggests they could soon become much rarer, in a small but significant win that could assist the battle to cut aviation emissions.

Pilots flying using artificial intelligence models to choose different altitudes were able to reduce contrails by 54%, with further improvements expected, Google said in a blog post on Tuesday night.

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The future of the Kyoto-era Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is to be discussed by governments at the upcoming COP28 climate summit in Dubai, a UN spokesperson told Carbon Pulse on Wednesday while confirming that it will still be possible to transfer and cancel CDM credits beyond a looming deadline, clearing up a point of confusion among stakeholders.

As lower costs and less need for government subsidies are sparking rapid growth in the offshore wind power sector, biodiversity considerations are likely to become decisive factors in the project selection process, according to industry stakeholders.

Labor is struggling to get its story straight on why it is helping fund a major expansion of the fossil fuel sector in the NT

Events in Canberra this week point to a significant political battleground for the next federal election.

More than 80 doctors converged on the capital to protest against government support for fossil fuel expansion in the Northern Territory. It might not sound like that many people, but it’s representative of a bigger movement backed by several crossbenchers, including David Pocock and Monique Ryan.

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Scientists say Takakia, a 390m-year-old moss found in Himalayas, is at risk despite its ability to adapt to extreme weather

The world’s oldest moss, found in the Himalayas, may not be able to survive climate breakdown, scientists have said.

Takakia, which has been growing for 390m years, is one of the fastest-evolving species ever found, but that may not be enough to save it, the researchers warned.

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Countries across the globe are facing a range of extreme weather events. In Germany, snowploughs were deployed in the middle of summer to shift ice from roads after a hailstorm. Severe flooding has affected parts of Europe including Sweden and Slovenia, with hundreds of houses submerged. Human-caused climate change is supercharging extreme weather across the world, driving more frequent and more deadly disasters, from heatwaves to floods to wildfires

• July was world’s hottest month on record, climate scientists confirm

• Extreme weather

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One of Canada’s largest financial institutions has hired a carbon trader from a competitor after recent turnover on the environmental markets desk, Carbon Pulse has learned.

A carbon credit rating agency has partnered with Brazilian scientists to improve its assessments of the South American country’s many forestry projects.

Eight countries home to the Amazon rainforest have agreed to advance innovative financing options to help protect the massive territory, according to a joint declaration issued late on Tuesday that failed to include a pledge to end deforestation by 2030.  

European carbon prices rose sharply mid-morning on Wednesday after weekly Commitment of Traders data showed that investment funds had turned a net long position into net short, surprising traders and triggering a surge of buying.

For all their talk about green energy and their windfall profits, the world's 40 biggest oil companies accounted for just 1 pct of global renewable additions in 2022.

The post Despite their big green talk, oil majors added just 1% of global renewables in 2022 appeared first on RenewEconomy.

BlackRock launches $NZ2 billion fund to support wind, solar and storage and help New Zealand accelerate its push towards 100 per cent renewables.

The post Blackrock launches multi billion fund to help drive NZ to 100% renewables appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Drone footage shows Russia's coldest city, Yakutsk, blanketed by smog as wildfires continue to burn in the region. Local residents explained how they 'annot open the windows at home or in the car to deal with the 'stuffiness' as it only exacerbates the problem. Hundreds of firefighters and dozens of vehicles have been deployed to tackle the wildfires raging in the area

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South Korea on Wednesday sold fewer than 40% of the allowances on offer in its monthly CO2 permit auction amid dwindling buy interest, with the clearing price crashing to a new all-time low.