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Nicola Sturgeon told more vigorous action needed to achieve post-2020 emissions target

Nicola Sturgeon’s government needs much tougher policies on cutting emissions from Scotland’s roads and farms to meet its ambitious CO2 reduction targets, experts have warned.

The UK government’s committee on climate change (CCC) said the Scottish National party government was well on track to hit its 2020 target to cut emissions by 56%, reducing them faster than the UK as a whole. However, that was largely because of substantial gains from the closure of Scotland’s last coal-fired power station at Longannet in Fife in 2016 and gains from cutting CO2 emissions from waste, which were relatively easy things to achieve.

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Grattan report details how vested interests are derailing policy in Australia, particularly in energy and climate where there is a revolving door between ministers and industry advisors. It's time to drain the billabong.

The post Revolving doors, golden escalators and the demise of climate and energy policy appeared first on RenewEconomy.

AGL falls foul of Victoria energy regulator, again, this time for failing to meet its obligations under the state's energy efficiency scheme.

The post AGL slugged with $3m fine for Victorian efficiency certificate shortfall appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Synergy hit by accelerating shift to rooftop solar, as households and businesses respond to rising grid prices and the removal of subsidies that supported fossil fuels.

The post W.A.’s Synergy hit by accelerating switch to rooftop solar appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Solar roads on city streets are just not a great idea.

The post Solar panels replaced tarmac on a motorway – here are the results appeared first on RenewEconomy.

With a 369km drive from London to Brussels on a single charge, Jaguar is hoping to put EV range anxiety to rest.

The post Jaguar I-Pace crosses “Chunnel” on single charge appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Peugoet joins race to electric, with a concept of new battery model that pays homage to its classic 504 Coupe.

The post Peugeot unveils EV concept based on classic 504 appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The Sydney Opera House has committed to carbon neutrality.

The rare copperhead was discovered in a garden in Virginia and is unlikely to survive in the wild.

Exclusive: Half of LNP voters and three-quarters of One Nation supporters want water preserved for farmers

Queenslanders overwhelmingly want the state government to cancel the Adani mining company’s 60-year unlimited water extraction licence amid growing concern about the severity of the drought.

Polling conducted by ReachTel for the environmental group Lock the Gate shows concern about water extraction by Adani, and the impact on agriculture, is strong among conservative voters.

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Queensland government insists killing sharks in interest of public safety but officials say it is impossible to know if they attacked tourists

Three tiger sharks have been killed by the Queensland government after life-threatening attacks on a woman and a girl, but officials say it is impossible to know if they caused the bites. 

Hannah Papps, 12, was bitten on her right leg while swimming in Cid harbour with her father and sister on Thursday, less than 24 hours after Tasmanian Justine Barwick, 46, was bitten on her left thigh while snorkelling in the same area.

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See what life is like as a medical photographer at a city hospital.

Protesters including Billy Bragg and Chris Packham take to central London to demand pro-wildlife policies

Hundreds of people marched to Whitehall on Saturday to demand the government invests in wildlife-friendly policies and swiftly reverses the decline of British ecosystems.

Protesters including Billy Bragg delivered a radical manifesto, co-edited by the broadcaster Chris Packham, to the Department for the Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs. The manifesto called for an end to the “war on wildlife” following the decline of more than half of British species in recent decades.

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A box of archives reveals the story of a pioneering 19th century gardener who blazed a trail for women.

Lightweight bags will be rolled out within weeks to almost 1,400 stores across Britain

The Co-op is to be the first major supermarket in the UK to replace single-use plastic carrier bags with lightweight compostable alternatives that shoppers can reuse as biodegradable bags for food waste.

The bags – a stronger version of the biodegradable bags the convenience chain has been trialling since 2014 – will be rolled out within weeks to almost 1,400 stores across England, Scotland and Wales, and then to all 2,600 shops.

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Treacherous journey from Victoria to southwest Tasmania could prove too much to handle for critically threatened species

With fewer than 30 orange-bellied parrots in the wild, conservationists are not leaving anything to chance.

The critically endangered birds, which winter in Victoria’s rapidly-shrinking coastal scrubland, would ordinarily embark on the treacherous flight across the Bass Strait back to their summer breeding grounds in southwest Tasmania in the coming weeks.

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In a far-reaching human rights case, Ella Kissi-Debrah could become the first person to have toxic air given as their cause of death – and finally make this silent killer visible

From a tiny office on the top floor of the old town hall in Catford, south-east London, Rosamund Kissi-Debrah is leading a campaign to push air pollution on to the political agenda as never before. It has been claimed for years that pollution caused by motor vehicles, especially diesel cars, buses and lorries, is a killer, with talk of tens of thousands of premature deaths. But the number was always abstract, the identities of the dead unknown. Now, for the first time, campaigners have the name of a young victim they say died as a direct result of air pollution: Ella Roberta Kissi-Debrah, Rosamund’s daughter, and if they can prove it they believe an invisible killer will become all too real.

Ella, who suffered from severe asthma, died in 2013 at the age of nine. She had been suffering asthma-related seizures like the one which killed her for three years. Kissi-Debrah says her daughter, who grew up and went to school close to the busy South Circular Road in Lewisham, had cough syncope – a condition usually associated with long-distance lorry drivers who’d been driving for decades. “I couldn’t work out why a nine-year-old child should have that,” she tells me.

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Baited hooks had been set in Cid Harbour following the two attacks and victims remain in hospital

Queensland fisheries authorities have caught and killed two tiger sharks, but it is unclear if they are responsible for separate attacks on a woman and a girl in the Whitsundays.

Hannah Papps, 12, was holidaying from Melbourne with her father and sister when she received a life-threatening wound to her right leg on Thursday while swimming in shallow water in Cid Harbour.

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Margie McKenzie’s diving company was subcontracted to perform crown-of-thorns starfish removal work

A board director of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has resigned following reports of a potential conflict of interest over the allocation of publicly-funded contracts to control crown-of-thorns starfish.

Margie McKenzie told the environment minister, Melissa Price, of her plan to resign late last week over “perceived concerns of a conflict of interest”.

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Cast: AdelaideSBN