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ARENA says solar is cheap enough to meet short term grid targets, but needs another major cost reduction to replace fossil fuels in all parts of the economy.

The post Ultra low cost solar: Why PV needs to get much cheaper to finish off fossil fuels appeared first on RenewEconomy.

New discoveries in the buried ancient city shed fresh light on Roman life before Vesuvius erupted.

Report finds government goal to plant 30,000 hectares of woodland by March 2025 unlikely to be achieved

The government has met less than half of its annual tree-planting target in England, MPs have found, putting net zero ambitions at risk.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) this year published what it called “ambitious” nature targets, a requirement under the Environment Act, including the goal of planting 30,000 hectares of woodland by March 2025. A report by the environmental audit committee (EAC) of cross-party MPs has found that this target was unlikely to be met.

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Lords committee calls for creation of advisory groups to tackle the pollutants, which may increase risk of heart disease and premature death

Light and noise are “neglected pollutants” that are causing significant harm to human health and can cause premature deaths, a group of peers have said.

The science and technology committee of the House of Lords has called on ministers to do more to tackle these pollutants, which it claims are “poorly understood and poorly regulated”.

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An object found on an Australian beach led to speculation it may be debris from India's Moon mission.

These storms are sudden and violent and can stretch across Arizona's desert landscape at any time.

Our activities now affect the entire planet. But there’s a vital debate over when we started disrupting these systems. Was it 1950 – or hundreds and thousands of years earlier? Noel Castree, Professor of Society & Environment, University of Technology Sydney Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

The alternative investment arm of a French insurance firm is committing $49 million to Amazon rainforest reforestation projects that aim to restore Brazilian lands degraded from agriculture.

The EU will need a proper strategy to reach increasingly ambitious climate targets in the decade after this, according to members of the European Parliament's environment committee (ENVI) in a preliminary exchange about setting the bloc's 2040 emissions goal on the road to reaching net zero by mid-century.  

Searing temperatures from Spain to Greece underline that the climate emergency cannot be put on hold while other crises are prioritised

The weather map of southern Europe remains a deep, sinister red, as the heat soars above 40C in places and closer to 50C in Sicily and Sardinia. In Madrid, some nights are equatorial rather than tropical, as the temperature stays above 25C. June was the hottest month recorded on Earth for 120,000 years. The hottest week came early this month. “Very dangerous long-duration heat”, to use the language of the recent alert issued by the US National Weather Service in Arizona, sums up the experience of the last few weeks across much of the northern hemisphere. Extreme heat, wildfires and floods are ravaging parts of the US, Canada, Japan, South Korea, India and China.

Global heating is not the sole explanation for the hellish impact of Cerberus and Charon, the heatwaves named after mythical denizens of Hades. As in 2016 – the hottest year ever recorded – an emerging El Niño weather pattern is helping drive the barometer upwards. But each time this natural and sporadic event recurs, typically adding 0.2C to the average global temperature, it heats up a planet that is already warmer than before as a result of greenhouse gas emissions.

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Court told wild camping is not open-air recreation as park authority appeals against recent ban

Wild camping is not recreation because sleeping is not an enjoyable activity, lawyers acting for a wealthy landowner said in court while defending a judge’s decision to ban the activity on Dartmoor national park.

In a packed courtroom at the Royal Courts of Justice in London on Tuesday, lawyers for the Dartmoor national park authority (DNPA) brought an appeal against the decision to ban backpack camping on the common land. The case hinges on whether wild camping counts as “open-air recreation” as allowed in a 1985 law.

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Green groups have criticised Serbia’s draft national energy and climate plan (NECP) for not planning for carbon neutrality for 2050 and putting forward a less ambitious renewable energy goal than in previous publicly announced commitments.

A startup investment company is planning a rapid expansion into the soil carbon market after striking a partnership with an advisory firm with the aim of generating 250,000 carbon credits by the end of the year from 100,000 hectares of agricultural land.

Gold Standard is recruiting for a Project Officer to support the implementation of capacity-building initiatives and projects, beginning with our support for the Pacific Alliance. 

Gold Standard is recruiting for a Senior Manager, Capacity Development to lead and oversee programmes and initiatives implemented by Gold Standard to develop capacity amongst governments, private actors and other entities to operate in and benefit from carbon markets and other sources of sustainable finance, as well as to promote the accessibility and integrity of these mechanisms.

An emissions-free methane pyrolysis technology firm has secured a €25 million investment from a group of investors to help it launch commercial-scale, carbon-negative hydrogen production.

Conservationists ‘utterly elated’ at arrival of first offspring since release of 25 of the eagles on Isle of Wight

A white-tailed eagle chick has been born in England for the first time in more than 240 years, and conservationists are “utterly elated” by the new arrival.

White-tailed eagles were once widespread across England but were widely persecuted by humans, and the last record of a pair breeding was in 1780. Since 2019, 25 of these eagles, which are Britain’s biggest bird of prey, have been released to the Isle of Wight as part of an effort to bring back long-lost species.

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European carbon was marginally weaker at midday on Tuesday after an early rise in prices unwound in a thin market and a prominent hedge fund manager revealed he was positioning for a sharp decline in prices.

A Zimbabwe-hosted carbon exchange has reversed course on accepting a Belarusian contribution of banned Russian credits to kick off trade, announcing that only African units will be allowed on the platform.

The US and China should use climate cooperation to redefine their troubled diplomatic relationship, US climate envoy John Kerry on Tuesday told top Chinese officials as part of his three-day visit to Beijing, as the world’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters are resuming stalled talks on more rapid action to tackle climate change.