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The European Commission has amended the EU ETS Registry Regulation to allow for the lifting of restrictions on British EUAs should a wider Brexit deal be reached.

The EU faces a tight timeline to adopt a 2050 low carbon strategy in time for UN deadlines as several environment ministers on Thursday called for more analysis and wide consultation first.

Private organisations and individuals are stepping in to protect vulnerable habitats but they are increasingly under pressure

In September the former publisher and philanthropist, John B Fairfax, quietly gave $2m to the Nature Conservancy in support of the largest private conservation project ever undertaken in New South Wales: the Gayini Nimmie-Caira project on the Murrumbidgee floodplain.

After spending a night glamping on the 85,000 hectare property near Balranald, Fairfax pulled out his chequebook and helped to make the ambitious project a reality.

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High levels of contamination in Mariana Trench show how pervasively planet has been contaminated

The deepest point on Earth is heavily polluted with plastic, scientists have discovered, showing how pervasively the world has been contaminated.

The researchers plumbed the depths of the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean, near Challenger Deep, the lowest place on the face of the planet. They found the highest levels of microplastics yet found in the open ocean, compared with surveys from elsewhere in the Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic oceans.

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Australia’s leading scientific research group and the country’s energy market operator have released a benchmark study that shows the cost of new wind and solar – even with hours of storage – is “unequivocally” lower than the cost of new coal generation. The joint study – GenCost 2018 – by the CSIRO and AEMO shows...

The post CSIRO/AEMO study says wind, solar and storage cheaper than coal appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Australia’s Clean Energy Regulator on Thursday for the first time released a set of key carbon offset market data, concluding that supply in the short term will be sufficient to meet demand as Safeguard Mechanism entities approach their Feb. 28 compliance deadline.

The InSight mission begins to lay out the sensors that will listen to the Red Planet's "heartbeat".

Engineers at the Ocean Cleanup project are working on a fix to stop collected debris leaking back out from the 600m barrier

A giant floating barrier launched off the coast of San Francisco as part of a $20m project to cleanup a swirling island of rubbish between California and Hawaii, is failing to collect plastic.

The mastermind behind the Ocean Cleanup, an ambitious plan to clear a swathe of the Pacific twice the size of Texas of floating debris, reported four weeks into testing that while the U-shaped device was scooping up plastic, it was then losing it.

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A bucolic community was reduced to ash by a new kind of wildfire – the deadliest in California’s history. Survivors recall that horrible day

William Goggia awoke to a poisonous orange atmosphere so thick with smoke he couldn’t see the sun.

It was 8am on Thursday, 8 November. He heard the piercing metallic clang of propane tanks exploding in the distance. His sister, who lived nearby, called to ask him to help a relative in the area, but Goggia told her that he couldn’t: chunks of burning wood were falling from the sky.

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A newly formed industry association is planning to develop carbon estimation and reporting standards for vegetation-based carbon credit projects to reduce risk for involved parties and increase confidence for banks lending to project developers.

More than 700,000 hectares cleared over two years, 40% of it in reef catchment, before stricter laws were passed

More than 700,000 hectares of forest and bushland were destroyed in Queensland in the past two years and 40% of it occurred in Great Barrier Reef catchments.

Environment groups have described the level of deforestation as an “environmental disaster” and called for federal intervention to end land-clearing in reef catchments and other nationally significant areas.

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Judgment details how ‘payment difficulties’ emerged in contract between AECOM and Adani subsidiary

Adani has been ordered to pay almost $12m owed to engineering firm AECOM for work on a scrapped rail line to the Carmichael coalmine.

A judgment in the Queensland Building and Construction commission details how “payment difficulties” emerged in a contract between AECOM and an Adani subsidiary company. The 1,862-point commission adjudication says Adani had “anticipated” receiving government support that did not materialise, including a $1b federal loan to build the rail link between Carmichael and the Abbot Point port.

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The TSSC is seeking comments on proposals to list the ‘Illawarra-Shoalhaven subtropical rainforest of the Sydney Basin Bioregion’ and the ‘Robertson Rainforest in the Sydney Basin Bioregion’ as threatened ecological communities. Consultation...

The TSSC is seeking comments on proposals to list the ‘Illawarra-Shoalhaven subtropical rainforest of the Sydney Basin Bioregion’ and the ‘Robertson Rainforest in the Sydney Basin Bioregion’ as threatened ecological communities. Consultation...

Coalition ends 2018 with its position on climate and energy policies even further to the right than when the year started.

The post Coalition energy and climate policies hit rock bottom at year’s end appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Tokyo denies report by Kyodo news agency that government will reveal its decision by the end of the year

Japan is to withdraw from the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and resume commercial whaling next year, a report claimed on Thursday, in a move that drew condemnation from Australia, with other anti-whaling nations expected to follow suit.

Japan will inform the IWC of its decision by the end of the year, Kyodo news agency said, months after the body rejected its latest bid to resume commercial whaling.

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Yeah, we get it – environment news can be depressing. So here are ten uplifting stories from 2018 that prove it's not all doom and gloom out there in the natural world. Happy reading! Michael Hopkin, Editor: Energy + Environment, The Conversation Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Neoen says Tesla big battery to deliver "millions" of new savings this summer because of its role in allowing more network capacity.

The post Neoen says Tesla big battery to deliver more savings this summer appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Under the terms of the binding Research Agreement, UNSW’s School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering will carry out contracted research on behalf of ClearVue. The research team will be led by Dr Shujuan Huang and supported by Assoc. Prof. Alison Lennon, Dr Yang Li and Dr Robert Patterson.

The post ClearVue signs Research Agreement with School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering at UNSW to explore Quantum Dots appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Must listen: To the tune of John Schumann's I was only 19, three energy advocates nail the state of the Coalition's energy policy.

The post Coalition’s energy policy insanity brilliantly summed up in a single song appeared first on RenewEconomy.