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The current wave of protests endangers environmental progress. But imaginative politics can get the green deal back on track

Another day, another tractor blockade. Earlier this week, all economic activity at the Belgian port of Antwerp ground to a halt as hundreds of farmers prevented access to freight. In Spain, tractors blocked motorways near Seville and Granada, and in Catalonia. As a rolling wave of rural discontent has made itself felt across Europe since the start of the year, only four EU member states have remained unaffected.

Numerically, farmers account for only 4% of Europe’s working population. But as Europe’s political leaders are belatedly coming to realise, the burgeoning crisis has outsize implications. A perfect storm of factors – including rising energy costs, competition from lightly regulated foreign imports and supermarket profit-gouging – have driven angry farmers off the land and on to the streets of capitals. But in disputes that touch on some of the faultlines of contemporary culture wars, there is a growing danger that the EU’s green deal takes the rap for a crisis incubated elsewhere.

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The European Commission is "not too worried" about the tumbling price of carbon allowances, Kurt Vandenberghe, director-general of DG CLIMA, told a virtual event on Wednesday.

A New Mexico bill to implement a clean fuel standard by mandating a reduction in transportation fuel carbon intensity (CI) passed the legislature on Tuesday and now awaits approval by the governor.

Members of the joint European Parliament committees for the Internal Market and for the Environment adopted on Wednesday new rules regulating the use of carbon credits by EU companies.

A Montreal-based carbon removal project developer announced partnering with another European direct air capture (DAC) company on Wednesday, to pilot new carbon removals technology in Canada.

Reaching net zero emissions by 2050 means that no new unabated coal plants should be built and no new long lead-time conventional oil and gas projects are needed, the International Energy Agency’s 31 member countries said on Wednesday.

‘We need to respond now,’ says author of study that says crucial forest has already passed safe boundary and needs restoration

Up to half of the Amazon rainforest could hit a tipping point by 2050 as a result of water stress, land clearance and climate disruption, a study has shown.

The paper, which is the most comprehensive to date in its analysis of the compounding impacts of local human activity and the global climate crisis, warned that the forest had already passed a safe boundary and urged remedial action to restore degraded areas and improve the resilience of the ecosystem.

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As much as 75% of habitats in the Americas are under protected, falling below the Convention on Biological Diversity's (CBD) target of 30% preservation due to monitoring flaws, researchers have found.

A US-headquartered food and beverage company has become the first firm to secure financing from Banco do Brasil as part of a newly-announced programme aimed at advancing the export chain of nature-friendly, low-carbon products from Brazil.

By 2050, some 10-47% of the Amazon rainforest will be threatened by increased disturbances, endangering adjacent forests through meteorological feedback loops and risking permanent degradation, according to a study published Wednesday.

Scientist behind hybrid carbohydrate praises its ‘pleasant and novel flavour experience’

Bowls of decidedly pink-tinged rice are about to feature on sustainable food menus, according to researchers who created rice grains with beef and cow fat cells grown inside them.

Scientists made the experimental food by covering traditional rice grains in fish gelatin and seeding them with skeletal muscle and fat stem cells which were then grown in the laboratory.

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The UK’s North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) on Wednesday opened a consultation looking at the kind of carbon storage information that should be made publicly available and on what timescales, in a move that it says will support project planning and decision-making.

A tool for guiding landowners on how to improve biodiversity on their property has attracted significant interest from potential customers, beyond those involved in the UK biodiversity net gain scheme, an executive has said.

A developer of gas-fired power plants able to capture CO2 from the combustion process says that the premium cost of the facilities will be offset by the sale of CO2 for industrial applications.

Even as the weather emergency was still unfolding, some commentators and politicians couldn’t resist the urge to blame renewable energy

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More than half a million electricity customers were without power in Victoria on Tuesday after storms swept across the state, downing power lines and transmission towers.

But as workers and system managers scrambled to get power back online, some commentators and Coalition MPs were unable to resist the urge to somehow blame renewable energy.

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European carbon prices rallied in Wednesday morning trade as the weekly position data from the two main exchanges showed speculative participants had increased their net short position to a new record, triggering a squeeze on short-positioned participants, while a well-known fund manager said prices could fall as much as 35% below current levels.

Republican Jeff Landry, who has labeled climate change ‘a hoax’, has elevated fossil fuel executives to key environmental posts

In his first four weeks in office, Louisiana’s Republican governor, Jeff Landry, has filled the ranks of state environmental posts with executives tied to the oil, gas and coal industries.

Landry, who has labeled climate change “a hoax”, has also taken aim at the state’s climate taskforce for possible elimination as part of a sweeping reorganization of Louisiana’s environmental bureaucracy. The goal, according to Landry’s executive order, is to “create a better prospective business climate”.

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Companies worldwide set a new record in publicly announced solar and wind energy contracts in 2023, driven by improving economics in key regions like Europe and imminent company clean energy goals, according to BloombergNEF (BNEF). 

PM2.5 from heating homes using solid fuel such as wood increased by 19% from 2021 to 2022, data shows

A rise in harmful emissions from wood-burning stoves has cancelled out decreases in particulate pollution from road and energy sources in the UK, government data reveals.

Emissions of PM2.5 from domestic combustion – heating homes using solid fuel such as wood – increased by 19% between 2021 and 2022, counteracting efforts made to travel and produce commercial energy in less polluting ways.

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The world’s first climate-focused guarantee company is looking to transform the perception that green investments in the developing world are risky - by encouraging the international private sector to jump in, and helping domestic borrowers secure better financing.