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Only a fraction of voluntary carbon market (VCM) buyers chose to self-report their offset purchases in 2021, according to a new report published Monday that provided insight on entities' preferences for credit vintages, projects' geographical locations, and co-benefits.

From Barbados to Finland, we’ve seen women’s leadership on climate bring fair, innovative and ambitious policies. Jacqueline Peel, Director, Melbourne Climate Futures, The University of Melbourne Annabelle Workman, Research Fellow, Melbourne Climate Futures, The University of Melbourne Kathryn Bowen, Professor - Environment, Climate and Global Health at Melbourne Climate Futures and Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, The University of Melbourne Rebekkah Markey-Towler, PhD Candidate, Melbourne Law School, and Research fellow, Melbourne Climate Futures, The University of Melbourne Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

New research says it could be "fatally foolish" not to think the unthinkable on climate change.

Scientists say there are ample reasons to suspect global heating could lead to catastrophe

The risk of global societal collapse or human extinction has been “dangerously underexplored”, climate scientists have warned in an analysis.

They call such a catastrophe the “climate endgame”. Though it had a small chance of occurring, given the uncertainties in future emissions and the climate system, cataclysmic scenarios could not be ruled out, they said.

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Higher temperatures mean less snow snow and ice, more rockfalls and more fatalities on Europe’s overcrowded mountains. This cannot go on

The Victorian writer and mountaineer Leslie Stephen – the father of Virginia Woolf – called the Alps “the playground of Europe”. And so they have been, in winter and summer alike, for many generations. But with excessive warming now placing some of the Alps’ most iconic summits out of bounds, for how much longer can the freedom of Europe’s playground continue?

The basic problem is the warming of the Alps. Snowfall this past winter – especially in the southern Alps – was down by two-thirds from what was once considered normal. The loss of snowmelt is a direct cause of this summer’s brutal drought in the Po valley. Last month, Swiss scientists found that weather balloons were having to rise to 5,184 metres (over 17,000ft), well above the very highest peaks, before they finally reached freezing point.

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Voluntary carbon offset (VCM) prices slipped lower at the start of the week and then stabilised amid very thin liquidity with some standardised emissions reduction contracts trading only slightly above Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) credits, while nature-based credits continued to command a healthy premium.

Parts of England saw the driest July on record with serious impacts on farmland and wildfire.

EUAs kicked off the month of August, in which auction volumes are reduced by 50%, on a quiet note with very low trading volume as many participants were on holiday, while energy markets edged higher as demand for cooling was expected to increase in the coming week.

Unchecked global heating will bring once unthinkable extreme heat, with 16 US cities to rival summer highs seen in Middle East

The climate crisis risks pushing many Americans into entirely new climatic realities, with a new analysis finding there are 16 US cities at risk of having summer temperatures on a par with locations in the Middle East by the end of the century.

Heatwaves have roiled huge swaths of the US this summer, placing nearly a third of the population under some sort of heat advisory and driving temperatures to as high as 115F (46C) in parts of the Great Plains. Hundreds of heat records have tumbled, from Boston, Massachusetts, which hit 100F (37C), to Portland, Oregon, which reached 102F (38.9C) on Tuesday.

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Fears of future threats to food security if more extreme heat caused by climate crisis hits production

The UK heatwave has caused fruit and vegetables to die on the vine as growers fear the drought and further hot temperatures could ruin harvests this year.

Fruit and vegetable suppliers have been counting their losses after record temperatures in July caused crops to fail.

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China's cabinet on Monday released an implementation plan for the country's industrial sector, reiterating its commitment to peaking carbon dioxide emissions by 2030.

The Philippines’ Department of Finance (DoF) is hoping to learn from Indonesia’s foray into carbon markets as a way to develop its own carbon pricing scheme, local media reports.

Further heavy rainfall forecast after deadly lightning strikes and flooding last week

The monsoon season in India and Pakistan is well under way, with further heavy rain events expected in parts of south-west India over the next week or so. The states of Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka and Kerala in particular could experience rainfall totals above 200mm widely over the next couple of days.

Towards the weekend, this risk could transfer further north and east across India, with 200mm potentially affecting central states. This follows a week when dozens were killed by lightning strikes in India, while hundreds died in severe flooding in neighbouring Pakistan.

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India Prime Minister Narendra Modi may decide to launch a national carbon trading platform to begin on Aug. 15 to boost efforts to meet the country’s climate commitments, according to local media reports.

Nature is both the trigger for, and answer to, the grief that will increasingly be with us. Ross Westoby, Research Fellow, Griffith University Karen E McNamara, Associate professor, The University of Queensland Rachel Clissold, Researcher, The University of Queensland Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

I recycle, have cut my meat intake and don’t have kids. And now I have to care about the environment more than ever

I find the environment and the climate emergency the most boring topic on the (burning) planet. When people talk about it, it makes me wish that the planet would succumb sooner rather than later, so I didn’t have to hear one more word about plastic straws and recycling. I flunked my geology exam on purpose, because studying for it was hell. When I see the images of little polar bears on melting ice, I feel nothing.

Once, I posted a clip on Instagram from a documentary I made where I threw a set of scales into a lake to make a point about diet culture. The entire internet was enraged until I posted another video of the producer diving into the lake to pick it up again.

Sofie Hagen is a writer and comedian

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at guardian.letters@theguardian.com

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Double-lane freeways can act as lethal walls to wildlife. We found underpasses work well to give animals safe crossing. Ross Goldingay, Lecturer in Wildlife Conservation & Biology, Southern Cross University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

This role will primarily support AGL's carbon neutral program and will be responsible for conducting detailed project due diligence and quality assessments, carrying out domestic and international carbon and environmental market analysis, as well as reporting on progress against AGL's carbon neutral targets to support Trading activities and potentially, investment decisions.

Relief after backflip by coal Senator and billionaire Joe Manchin paves way for new bill that promises to slash US emissions by 40 per cent.

The post Clean energy celebrates as US coal senator supports “red, white and blue” climate bill appeared first on RenewEconomy.

If we are to lower energy bills and meet our climate targets, then households and communities must move to the centre of energy and climate policy.

The post Home is where the heart is – or should be – on energy and climate policy appeared first on RenewEconomy.