Feed aggregator

European Union funded project looks at how electric vehicles could be charged wirelessly - via the road itself.

Despite best efforts by Coalition government to stop it, Australia will end up with 33% renewables by 2020, will likely get to 40% by 2030, and has enough in pipeline to reach 85%.

Urban bumblebees have better access to food, allowing them to produce more offspring

Bumblebee colonies fare better in villages and cities than in fields, research has revealed.

Bumblebees are important pollinators, but face threats including habitat loss, climate change, pesticide and fungicide use and parasites. Now researchers say that bumblebee colonies in urban areas not only produce more offspring than those on agricultural land, but have more food stores, fewer invasions from parasitic “cuckoo” bumblebees, and survive for longer.

Continue reading...

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

In echoes of the mining lobby's war on the mining tax, the Business Council vows to fight higher renewable energy targets, even as many big corporates turn to wind and solar and new data suggests that Australia will already have reached 33% renewable by 2030.

The EPA published preliminary 2019 renewable volume obligations (RVOs) for the federal Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) on Tuesday, with the biofuels industry arguing that the modest increases in the yearly quotas were more than cancelled out by the agency’s failure to act on several compliance waivers issued this year.

There are calls from the backbench and elsewhere for the federal government to safeguard the future of coal. But do those calls make economic sense? A look at Queensland's energy landscape suggests not. Matthew Stocks, Research Fellow, ANU College of Engineering and Computer Science, Australian National University Andrew Blakers, Professor of Engineering, Australian National University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

EU carbon prices held just above €15 for the second straight day on Tuesday after the day’s auction cleared relatively strongly and despite analyst warnings that the recent rally may have petered out.

Letters from Dr Robin Russell-Jones, Les Bright and Andrew Papworth

This government’s decision to create more pollution at Heathrow (Report, 26 June) while simultaneously rejecting tidal power in Swansea Bay (Report, 26 June) shows it has no strategy for tackling climate change.

Although aviation only contributes about 2% of global emissions of carbon dioxide, it accounts for over 6% of global warming due the effects of other greenhouse gases and vapour trails. The upcoming report by the UK Committee on Climate Change shows that a third runway will increase CO2 emissions from air travel from 37 to 43 million tonnes per annum. But since our overall carbon budget will have fallen by 2030 to 344 million tonnes, the contribution from aviation will have jumped from 6.5% to 12.5% of the UK’s carbon emissions. In other words, a third runway is incompatible with the UK’s climate commitments, and things will only get worse post-Brexit.
Dr Robin Russell-Jones
Marlow, Buckinghamshire

Continue reading...

The EU ETS has witnessed a dramatic change over the past year as carbon prices have quadrupled, the market has attracted new participants, and the developments have given confidence to existing participants that the world’s biggest carbon market will remain the EU’s main climate policy tool.

A new study says that alternatives to palm oil could make matters worse for endangered species.

Speculative buying in excess of 160 million tonnes has likely helped EU carbon prices double in value over the first half of the year, analysts said.

The strange weather phenomenon was spotted in Powys, as temperatures soared across Wales.

The deforestation it causes is decimating species such as orangutans and tigers - but the alternatives could be worse, finds authoritative report

It is consumed daily by billions of people but palm oil is “disastrous” for wildlife such as orangutans and tigers, according to an authoritative new report. However, the analysis warns that alternatives are likely to drive biodiversity losses elsewhere, rather than halt them.

The analysis, from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), found that rainforest destruction caused by palm oil plantations damages more than 190 threatened species on the IUCN’s red list, particularly in Indonesia and Malaysia. It also found that palm oil certified as “sustainable” is, so far, only marginally better in terms of preventing deforestation.

Continue reading...

Sea level rises are not some distant threat. For many Americans they are very real. In an extract from her chilling new book, Rising, Elizabeth Rush details how the US coastline will be radically transformed in the coming years

In 1890, just over six thousand people lived in the damp lowlands of south Florida. Since then the wetlands that covered half the state have been largely drained, strip malls have replaced Seminole camps, and the population has increased a thousandfold. Over roughly the same amount of time the number of black college degree holders in the United States also increased a thousandfold, as did the speed at which we fly, the combined carbon emissions of the Middle East, and the entire population of Thailand.

About 60 of the region’s more than 6 million residents have gathered in the Cox Science Building at the University of Miami on a sunny Saturday morning in 2016 to hear Harold Wanless, or Hal, chair of the geology department, speak about sea level rise. “Only 7% of the heat being trapped by greenhouse gases is stored in the atmosphere,” Hal begins. “Do you know where the other 93% lives?”

Continue reading...

New Zealand carbon allowances rose to four-week highs on Tuesday as the emergence of more buyers continued to push prices up.

Japan has awarded small grants to 17 projects that aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions and generate carbon credits under its Joint Crediting Mechanism (JCM).

A national container deposit scheme should be established in response to the recycling crisis, the report says

A Senate inquiry into Australia’s recycling crisis has recommended that all single-use plastics – which could potentially include takeaway containers, chip packets and coffee cups with plastic linings – be banned by 2023.

The wide-ranging report also recommends the establishment of a national container deposit scheme as a response to an unfolding crisis in Australian recycling that forced some councils to tip their recycling into landfill.

Continue reading...

Representatives for major Australian business groups on Tuesday met with Coalition MPs to urge them to approve the National Energy Guarantee (NEG).

Leaders from the business community met Coalition MPs today in Canberra to explain the policy.