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

Vermont is unlikely to hits its long-term climate goals under existing policies, but the US state could reach near-term targets with minimal economic impacts by using a variety of carbon pricing and investment initiatives, a study found on Wednesday.

A Virginia legislative committee will once again consider a bill to enable the state’s full participation in the northeast US RGGI programme, although the Republican-led legislature is likely to scuttle that effort for a second straight year.

California regulator ARB issued more than 600,000 California Carbon Offsets (CCOs) this week, with the majority coming from the ozone-depleting substance (ODS) protocol for the second consecutive time.

EUAs retreated nearly 2% back below €25 on Wednesday, falling after extending a three-week high as traders grew wary about the bearish impact of Germany’s coal phaseout plan.

A new pathway for the global energy transition shows how the world can meet the Paris Agreement's 1.5C warming goal without relying on carbon capture and storage, by creating a renewable gas industry. Sven Teske, Research Director, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Ancient species lives at depths of 200 to 800 metres, where key commercial fishing species are found

Species as old as the dinosaurs are swimming around in tropical waters at depths accessed by commercial fishermen, according to a world-first study conducted by Australian researchers.

The study, published in the journal Nature on Thursday, examined data on brittle sea stars pulled from 1,500 research voyages in the southern hemisphere from the equator to Antarctica.

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Embattled California utility Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) signed a financing agreement with four banks this week to provide the company with a $5.5 billion lifeline during its pending bankruptcy, according to public documents.

My father, Peter Le Mare, who has died aged 95, was a soil scientist, woodworker, yoghurt maker, occasional needleworker, environmentalist and all-round good egg.

He worked on the Tanganyika groundnut scheme at Kongwa (now in Tanzania) in the 1940s, initially living and working in tents until houses were built.

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Experts say some members of ‘enormously important’ myrtle family could be extinct within five years, with others to follow

Australia must roll out an emergency national response to an invasive plant disease that is rapidly pushing at least four plant species to imminent extinction, experts have told Guardian Australia.

A draft emergency action plan for the fungal disease myrtle rust proposes that a rapid collection of seeds and plant material needs to be mobilised before several species disappear altogether.

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My colleague John Lanchbery, who has died suddenly of sepsis aged 71, was a physicist and climate change expert.

A veteran of international climate change negotiations, John attended the Rio Earth summit in 1992, and every UN summit on climate change since, representing the RSPB and BirdLife International since 1998.

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The Amazon boss puts up his New Shepard space vehicle from Texas for a series of Nasa experiments.

Activists want 5% of transport spending to go on active travel, as happens in Scotland

It is possible a million or more people have cycled past the Houses of Parliament in the past 12 months, but you could be forgiven for thinking this has gone unnoticed by those on the other side of the black railings.

On Wednesday, as the cycle superhighway through Parliament Square whisked commuters to work, inside, the transport select committee heard the government would miss its cycling target. It is predicted to achieve just a third of the 800m hoped-for extra cycling trips by 2025, with much of that predicted growth restricted to London.

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SEI US is recruiting a highly motivated software developer with a strong background in environmental and/or social data processing and analysis to join our Transparency for Sustainable Economies – Trase – initiative in our office in Davis, California.

Scientists have long known that there is too much water being taken out of the Murray-Darling system.

Wednesday’s South Korean CO2 auction sold out with the clearing price 2% above the secondary market, reflecting a supply dearth.

Five mayors warn their towns could run out of water within weeks and call for their needs to be prioritised over irrigators

The mayors of several western New South Wales councils have warned their townships face major water crises within weeks and have urged the state government to impose a one-month embargo on irrigators pumping from the upper part of the Darling River system.

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Subsidies for coal, oil and gas are not falling despite EU pledges to tackle climate change

The UK leads the European Union in giving subsidies to fossil fuels, according to a report from the European commission. It found €12bn (£10.5bn) a year in support for fossil fuels in the UK, significantly more than the €8.3bn spent on renewable energy.

The commission report warned that the total subsidies for coal, oil and gas across the EU remained at the same level as 2008. This is despite both the EU and G20 having long pledged to phase out the subsidies, which hamper the rapid transition to clean energy needed to fight climate change.

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Statkraft to supply 3,000GWh of renewable electricity for large industrial consumers in steel, cement, metallurgy, chemical, paper, and industrial gases sectors in Spain and Portugal.

The post Statkraft signs 3,000GWh renewables PPA to power industry in Iberia appeared first on RenewEconomy.

France and Spain reject controversial STEP gas pipeline, a move which protestors hope will starve investment, and perhaps scrap the pipeline altogether.

The post France and Spain nix international gas pipeline
 appeared first on RenewEconomy.