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Global climate strike: thousands join coordinated action across world
Rally to demand government action on climate crisis is first worldwide since start of pandemic
Hundreds of thousands of people in 99 countries have taken part in a coordinated global climate strike demanding urgent action to tackle the ecological crisis.
The strike on Friday, the first worldwide climate action since the coronavirus pandemic hit, is taking place weeks before the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow, UK.
Continue reading...If only we could panic buy prime ministers who know what they’re doing | Marina Hyde
Boris Johnson was in New York this week, trying to dodge awkward conversations and ignore domestic shortages
Is the government’s fabled Nudge Unit on a paddleboard somewhere in Crete? You have to ask, after Downing Street urged people not to panic buy petrol, a piece of behavioural science almost guaranteed to make people panic buy petrol. If only there’d been some kind of rehearsal event last year, when telling people not to fight over bog roll generated counterintuitive scenes of Andrex-fuelled violence in the supermarket aisles.
Having said all that, calls for the army to step in to assist with driving petrol tankers feel like dressing for the Global Britain we are, rather than the Global Britain we want to be. There’s a certain inevitability to a country without a foreign policy deploying highly trained soldiers to sit in traffic between BP forecourts. Is it OK to try and help with nation-building if the nation you’re building is your own? Either way, if you pass any troops gunning a tanker down one of our great highways and byways, make sure to say thank you for your service; or rather, for your service station.
Continue reading...Judge issues protest warning as Paralympian jailed for plane stunt
Disruptive protesters will face serious consequences, says judge in sentencing Extinction Rebellion activist
A judge has warned protesters who disrupt people’s lives they will face serious consequences, as he jailed a former Paralympic athlete who superglued himself to the roof of a British Airways plane.
Judge Gregory Perrins said the Extinction Rebellion activist James Brown, 56, who has been registered blind since birth, “cynically used” his disability and put his own life at risk to carry out the stunt at London City airport on 10 October 2019.
Continue reading...Euro Markets: Midday Update
Climate crisis: do we need millions of machines sucking CO2 from the air?
From turning CO2 into rock to capturing the breath of office workers, a growing number of companies think the answer is yes
Does the world need millions of machines sucking carbon dioxide directly out of the air to beat the climate crisis? There is a fast-growing number of companies that believe the answer is yes and that are deploying their first devices into the real world.
From turning CO2 into rock in Iceland, to capturing the breath of office workers, to “putting oil back underground”, their aim is to scale up rapidly and some have already sold their CO2 removal services to buyers including Bill Gates, Swiss Re, Shopify and Audi. Prices, however, are sky high – $600 (£440) per tonne and more. Given that humans emit about 36bn tonnes a year, that is problematic. .
Continue reading...‘Low-hanging fruit’: Insulate Britain’s message makes sense, say experts
While its tactics are controversial, there is ‘widespread agreement’ with the group’s demands
Just after 8.15am, a few dozen people split into two groups and stepped on to the A20 just outside Dover before unfurling banners and sitting down in the road.
Traffic quickly backed up, bringing widespread disruption to the country’s busiest port and an angry reaction from motorists and politicians.
Continue reading...Climate funding target for poorer countries ‘likely to be met’ by 2022
Rich states missed $100bn target in 2020 but recent pledges by US, EU and China have lifted prospects, says economist
Developing countries could receive long-promised funds to help them tackle the climate crisis as soon as next year, in a major boost for the prospects of success at the Cop26 climate summit, the climate economist Nicholas Stern has said.
Rich countries pledged in 2009 to provide at least $100bn (£73bn) a year to the developing world by 2020, a target that has been missed. But recent promises of additional cash from the US, the EU and others have lifted the prospects.
Continue reading...China's pledge to kick the coal habit comes at a critical moment for the planet | Sam Geall
The devil will be in the details, but ending investments in overseas coal shows Beijing takes the climate crisis seriously
- Sam Geall is CEO of China Dialogue and associate fellow at Chatham House
“China will step up support for other developing countries in developing green and low-carbon energy,” said China’s president, Xi Jinping, at the United Nations on Tuesday, “and will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad.”
It was a short, ambiguous and not entirely unexpected sentence, but it came at a critical moment. UN-led climate talks in November at Cop26 in Glasgow will represent the first opportunity since the signing of the 2015 UN Paris agreement for countries to ratchet up the commitments in their pledges, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs). Countries need to increase their NDC ambitions by five times if the world is to reach the goal of not warming by more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Xi’s announcement, which effectively amounts to the end of international public financing for coal power, seems to match the ambition necessary for this moment.
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures
The best of this week’s wildlife pictures, including a huge python, a baby Siamang and rewilded pigs
Continue reading...Yellowstone had 1m visitors in July alone. That’s unsustainable for US national parks | Kim Heacox
National parks are a victim of their own success. They have too many tourists – and too little funding
National parks have been called America’s best idea, and for good reason. Unlike the castles and cathedrals of Europe, they belong to everyone. They are democracy writ large, where a people otherwise fiercely devoted to capitalism say: no, not here. Here the meadow does not become a mall. Here we safeguard the beauty and sanctity of nature. Not as a potted plant or a manicured garden, but as vast, wild, largely untrammeled nature. Our original home.
Mountains, canyons, glaciers, forests, rivers, bison, bears, birds and more. National parks provoke and inspire us. They give us stories, educate us, change us. “For my life to matter, for me to do the work I’m meant to do in the world,” the wildlife biologist and author Mary Beth Baptiste writes in her park-inspired memoir Altitude Adjustment, “I have to spend my days in mountains and forests like these, among people committed to their flourishing. And all they ask in return is a simple renunciation of everything I’ve ever known to be true.”
Continue reading...Port of Dover blocked by Insulate Britain activists
Port remains open, but roads around UK’s busiest port obstructed by 40 campaigners
More than 40 climate protesters have blocked roads around the UK’s busiest port as part of a campaign to tackle fuel poverty and reduce climate emissions.
Campaigners from the group Insulate Britain blocked the A20 around Dover in Kent shortly after 8.15am on Friday.
Continue reading...Energy ministers to rethink contentious rule changes, as Schott moves on
Ministers push "coalkeeper" and "solar stopper" reforms to one side in major win for supports of a rapid clean energy transition.
The post Energy ministers to rethink contentious rule changes, as Schott moves on appeared first on RenewEconomy.
View from The Hill: Barnaby Joyce falls (sort of) into step for the 'net zero' march
NZ Market: NZUs stabilise after record run
CN Markets: China carbon price edges down, as ETS challenges remain
We have to insulate Britain, but M25 protests don't make the case for it | Gaby Hinsliff
No need to scream ‘Apocalypse!’ Showing we can make homes warmer and save cash is an easier way to bring people on board
If anything was going to make me well up in public, I never imagined it would be the joys of insulation. Loft lagging does not generally make the heart sing. People do not normally get choked up over cavity wall filling. But it turns out they probably should.
A few weeks ago someone showed me a film about a regeneration project to retrofit a social housing estate in Padiham, near Burnley, with green energy measures – and frankly, it would have melted a heart of stone.
Continue reading...Big Asian power group to ditch coal by 2040, target net zero by 2050
Energy Insiders Podcast: Sun Cable, Hornsdale, and social licence
We discuss Sun Cable expansion, Hornsdale's regulatory hit, and social licence for renewables and transmission lines with RE Alliance's Andrew Bray.
The post Energy Insiders Podcast: Sun Cable, Hornsdale, and social licence appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Records smashed again on Australia’s grid as renewables share reaches 61.7 pct
As state energy ministers met to discuss the future of the grid, records tumbled again with renewables reaching a share of 61.7 per cent.
The post Records smashed again on Australia’s grid as renewables share reaches 61.7 pct appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Morrison and Joyce need to follow the trillions shifting to zero emissions
Regardless of whether Morrison and Joyce can come to a deal, investors are already shifting trillions of dollars in preparation for net zero.
The post Morrison and Joyce need to follow the trillions shifting to zero emissions appeared first on RenewEconomy.
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