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America’s hardest-hit communities need Biden to declare a climate emergency
Wildfires, floods, heatwaves, hurricanes and drought are not waiting for politicians to act – the president must step in
Millions of people across the United States have witnessed, often tragically, how the climate crisis is here and levying steep costs on communities. Black, Indigenous, and other frontline communities, including those in my home state of West Virginia, are experiencing these impacts – measured in lives lost, homes destroyed, and livelihoods upended – first and worst.
Hurricane Fiona, which has washed away mothers and fathers from their children and left nearly all of Puerto Rico without power, and the remnants of Typhoon Merbok, which destroyed homes and inundated western Alaska with historic levels of water, underscored this reality more than a week ago. And Hurricane Ian, which is about to push into Tampa, Florida, will underscore it again as it leaves entire communities in Florida and the Southeast inundated with water and likely without power and access to essential services.
Continue reading...Labour is right: it's time for Britain to profit from its own renewables | Mathew Lawrence
The proposals would ensure the power of our wind and waves is harnessed for everyone – not just foreign governments and multinationals
How can Britain achieve 100% clean energy by 2030? Yesterday, Keir Starmer set out an answer: a new publicly owned clean energy generator. Great British Energy would own, run and invest in new, clean energy infrastructure, from offshore wind to tidal and solar. Operating as a generating company, not energy retailer, it would have the potential both to reduce our household fuel bills and create a future of clean, affordable, abundant energy.
The full scale and details of Great British Energy are yet to be determined. But though Labour’s proposal may appear novel in Britain, public ownership of renewables is already commonplace. Indeed, nearly half of the UK’s offshore wind capacity is publicly owned – just not by the British public. Instead, it is owned by foreign governments.
Mathew Lawrence is director of Common Wealth and co-author of Owning the Future with Adrienne Buller
Continue reading...EU should scrap “Fit for 55” ETS reforms to protect industrial competitiveness -lobby group
Revealed: 5,000 empty ‘ghost flights’ in UK since 2019, data shows
Exclusive: A further 35,000 flights have operated almost empty, with climate campaigners calling the revelations ‘shocking’
More than 5,000 completely empty passenger flights have flown to or from UK airports since 2019, the Guardian can reveal.
A further 35,000 commercial flights have operated almost empty since 2019, with fewer than 10% of seats filled, according to analysis of data from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). This makes a total of about 40,000 “ghost flights”.
Continue reading...New token seeks to tackle carbon, biodiversity
‘Even bankers need clean air’: Natural England chief warns Truss over threat to green rules
Tony Juniper urges government to ‘foster both economic and environmental growth’
Liz Truss has been issued a veiled warning over new government policies by the head of Natural England, who says “even bankers need to eat, drink and inhale clean air”.
Tony Juniper, chair of the nature watchdog, has outlined the vital relationship between the economy and nature in Wednesday’s Guardian, as charities across the country revolt over government plans to slash nature protections and potentially remove environmental requirements from farming subsidies.
Continue reading...Nature is not an impediment to UK economic growth: it’s vital to it | Tony Juniper
Our economic system depends on the natural world. Growth that results in the destruction of nature will, in the end, cease
As we debate how best to integrate environmental and economic goals, it is perhaps worth remembering that even central bankers need to eat, drink and inhale clean air. Food and water security, protection from climatic extremes, the carbon cycle, public health and the replenishment of the very air we breathe all depend on nature. It is less that nature is part of our economy, and rather that our entire economic system is a wholly owned subsidiary of nature.
During recent years there has been a series of expert reviews revealing the scale of the social and economic risks that accompany the continued degradation of nature. Some interpret these findings as a reason to oppose economic growth. The key question is, however, not about growth per se, but the style and quality of growth that we pursue. Growth that results in the destruction of nature will, in the end, cease. Economic development that, by contrast, moves toward net zero greenhouse gas emissions and the recovery of nature is a very different prospect.
Tony Juniper CBE is chair of Natural England. Before taking up this role in April 2019, he was executive director for Advocacy and Campaigns at WWF-UK, a Fellow with the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and president of the Wildlife Trusts
Continue reading...World’s central banks financing destruction of the rainforest
Corporate bonds intended to inject liquidity into markets profited companies engaged in deforestation
Some of the world’s biggest central banks are unwittingly helping to finance agri-business giants engaged in the destruction of the Brazilian Amazon, according to a report published on Wednesday.
The Bank of England, the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank are among the institutions that have bought millions of dollars in bonds issued by companies linked to deforestation and land-grabbing, according to the report Bankrolling Destruction, published by the rights group Global Witness.
Continue reading...Australia Market Roundup: Queensland to quit coal by 2035 as ACCU price ticks up
Cannon-Brookes nominates ex Tesla boss and former ESB chair to AGL board
Grok Ventures nominates four independent directors to AGL board, including the former heads of Tesla Energy in Australia and the ESB.
The post Cannon-Brookes nominates ex Tesla boss and former ESB chair to AGL board appeared first on RenewEconomy.
The Guardian’s fierce climate crisis reporting goes where others fear – or refuse – to tread | George Monbiot
As most of the media, beholden to those who would uphold the status quo, downplay the most critical issue of all, our mission is to put the environment front and centre
What is salient is not important. What is important is not salient. Most of the time, most of the media obsess over issues of mind-numbing triviality. Much of the world’s political journalism is little more than court gossip: who’s in, who’s out, who said what to whom. At the same time, issues of immense, even existential importance are largely or entirely ignored.
With the exception of all-out nuclear war, all the most important problems that confront us are environmental. None of our hopes, none of our dreams, none of our plans and expectations can survive the loss of a habitable planet. And there is scarcely an Earth system that is not now threatened with collapse.
Continue reading...My day on a plate – make sure you put that pesticide! | First Dog on the Moon
At 6am I have a jar of fresh steam from roasting native figs. That keeps me going until my brunch of organic twigs at 11
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Queensland takes its own road to a decarbonised grid
Queensland has made some interesting choice in its radical energy plan - a greater reliance on solar and storage, and transmission, and moving wind to the north.
The post Queensland takes its own road to a decarbonised grid appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Cause for optimism at Cop15 – but could Bolsonaro scupper the deal for nature?
There are many reasons to suggest a deal to save the natural world is possible in Montreal, if division can be overcome and the Brazilian president doesn’t cause problems
We are at the beginning of a busy end to the year. The summer holidays are over in the northern hemisphere, the world economy is creaking into recession, war is raging in Ukraine and there is the small matter of the most important biodiversity conference in more than a decade: Cop15.
Money will ultimately decide the fate of the summit and the ambition of the final text in Montreal this December, as will the mood after the climate Cop27, which ends two weeks earlier.
In a series of dispatches ahead of the Cop15 UN biodiversity conference in Montreal in December, we will be hearing from a secret negotiator who is from a developing country involved in the post-2020 global biodiversity framework negotiations.
Continue reading...“Time to shine:” Queensland plans “supergrid” and world’s biggest pumped hydro
Massive pumped hydro project dubbed Battery of the North and transmission upgrade dubbed SuperGrid are highlights of Queensland's new energy plan.
The post “Time to shine:” Queensland plans “supergrid” and world’s biggest pumped hydro appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Australian carbon network calls for more Indigenous-focussed ERF methods
How South Australia’s energy mix has changed since state-wide blackout
South Australia's state wide blackout triggered many things - a thousand headlines and a big political slap down. Most of all, it accelerated the switch to renewables.
The post How South Australia’s energy mix has changed since state-wide blackout appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Fossil fuel recruiters banned from UK university careers service
Exclusive: Birkbeck, University of London, is first institution to blacklist firms ‘most responsible for destroying the planet’
Fossil fuel companies have been banned from recruiting students through a university careers service for the first time. The new policy from Birkbeck, University of London, states its careers service “will not hold relationships of any kind with oil, gas or mining companies”.
The decision follows a campaign, supported by the student-led group People & Planet, to cut off recruitment pathways to fossil fuel companies. The campaign is now active in dozens of UK universities.
Continue reading...Half of world’s bird species in decline as destruction of avian life intensifies
State of the World’s Birds report warns human actions and climate crisis putting 49% in decline, with one in eight bird species under threat of extinction
Nearly half of the planet’s bird species are in decline, according to a definitive report that paints the grimmest picture yet of the destruction of avian life.
The State of the World’s Birds report, which is released every four years by BirdLife International, shows that the expansion and intensification of agriculture is putting pressure on 73% of species. Logging, invasive species, exploitation of natural resources and climate breakdown are the other main threats.
Continue reading...Frontier sizes up contractors for solar powered green hydrogen project
Frontier Energy narrows field of contractors to work on a WA solar plant that will be used to power a proposed 36.6MW green hydrogen electrolyser.
The post Frontier sizes up contractors for solar powered green hydrogen project appeared first on RenewEconomy.
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