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A further attempt to reform the controversial Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) is likely to fail again at its annual meeting next week despite multiple EU nations announcing they will leave the pact due to its incompatibility with the bloc’s climate law, an environmental think-tank warned on Friday.

A Dubai-headquartered mangrove restoration firm is exploring the potential for blue carbon in Vietnam, after signing an MoU this week with a jurisdiction in the Southeast Asian country, the company has confirmed to Carbon Pulse.

The market potential for using bamboo manufacturing offcuts to produce carbon credit-generating biochar is heating up, as an increasingly attractive option for developers already generating nature-based removal credits from fast-growing bamboo plantations with excellent CO2 sequestration ability.

European carbon prices rallied modestly after Thursday's steep plunge amid a decline in selling interest as activity calmed ahead of the weekend, while energy markets weakened as the demand outlook remains lacklustre.

Rules, still subject to formal approval, stop exports to non-OECD countries and limit them elsewhere

The EU has struck a deal to stop ships of waste plastic landing in ports of poor countries.

European lawmakers and member states agreed on Friday to ban exports of plastic rubbish to countries outside the OECD group of mostly rich countries from the middle of 2026. The deal comes as diplomats meet in Nairobi, Kenya, to hammer out a global treaty on plastic pollution.

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Charges said to be needed to prevent UK companies being undercut by overseas manufacturers

The prospect of higher taxes is not usually viewed with joy by British businesses, or Conservative MPs – but when it comes to carbon, that is precisely what many are asking for.

A growing number of manufacturers, Tory MPs and experts are calling for charges to be levied on the carbon emissions associated with imports. They believe the levy is needed to create a level playing field that would enable UK companies to invest in cutting their greenhouse gas emissions, without finding themselves undercut by lower-cost but higher-carbon imports from overseas.

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Estimate in new EPA analysis is probably ‘dramatic’ undercount because ‘forever chemical’ waste is unregulated in US

US industry disposed of at least 60m pounds of PFAS “forever chemical” waste over the last five years, and did so with processes that probably pollute the environment around disposal sites, a new analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data finds.

The 60m pounds estimate is likely to be a “dramatic” undercount because PFAS waste is unregulated in the US and companies are not required to record its disposal, the paper’s author, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer), wrote.

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A removals buyers club has sealed its first offtake contracts with direct air capture (DAC) startups for the future delivery of a units totalling over 70,000 tonnes, the initiative announced this week.

Prices in China’s CO2 allowance market over the past week continued to drop even with robust trading activity ahead of the primary compliance deadline, while the offset market saw a string of new policies to support the relaunch of the voluntary programme.

Seafood companies and retailers threaten to boycott north-east Atlantic catch after two-decade failure to agree sustainable quotas

A coalition of British seafood companies and retailers, including Young’s, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Aldi and Waitrose, has condemned the “collective failure” of the UK, Norway and other states to reach agreement on the sustainable fishing of mackerel in the north-east Atlantic.

Lack of political agreement over a decade has led to an “overfishing disaster of potentially epic proportions”, conservationists say, leading to 44% more fish being caught than is sustainable.

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Directive punishes most serious cases of environmental damage, including habitat loss and illegal logging

The European Union has become the first international body to criminalise wide-scale environmental damage “comparable to ecocide”.

Late on Thursday, lawmakers agreed an update to the bloc’s environmental crime directive punishing the most serious cases of ecosystem destruction, including habitat loss and illegal logging, with tougher penalties.

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The vast majority of countries overlook or insufficiently involve Indigenous people and local communities (IPLCs) when drawing up biodiversity action plans, despite a large body of evidence that including them makes for far more effective nature conservation strategies, a report has found.

Hundreds of school students marched their way to Tanya Plibersek’s office with thousands protesting in Melbourne

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Nirvana Talukder didn’t go to school on Friday – but she says she was thinking about her future.

The 16-year-old was among hundreds of school students who marched their way to federal environment minister Tanya Plibersek’s office in Surry Hills, Sydney, calling for action on climate change. They joined thousands of students across Australia who took Friday off as part of the School Strike 4 Climate.

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Chinese regulators have published three supplementary rules for offset trading and new projects registered under the country's national voluntary scheme, a move considered essential for participants to get engaged in the undersupplied market.

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world

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From the reaction to Ulez in London to heat pumps in Germany, eco-policies are still too often felt as sanctions on working people

It began with a petition. In May 2018, Priscillia Ludosky, a gently spoken French-Martinique small-business owner who sold natural cosmetic products, launched a call on Change.org for lower prices on petrol at the pumps. It gathered steam and she was contacted by Eric Drouet, a lorry driver. Together they organised a protest against a carbon tax on petrol that was due to be implemented the following year (notably, this was not long after Emmanuel Macron cut taxes for the ultra-rich). The call was eventually answered by hundreds of thousands of people across France, in rural areas and cities. The gilets jaunes (yellow vests) movement was born.

Its participants are now celebrating the fifth anniversary of a movement that politicised many people across France, uniting them in rage at the “president of the rich”. I remember the first protest in Troyes in the Champagne region, where I was living at the time. I was taken aback by how angry people were as they banged at the gates of the town hall in their hi-vis jackets, venting their frustration at the daily struggles of life in post-2008 France, where average disposable incomes had dropped over several years. French protests are always lively, but as the journalist John Lichfield observed, “the white-hot anger” of the gilets jaunes was “something new and different”. As it turned out, Macron was surprised too. He abandoned the tax after just over three weeks of protest, leaving the French political class in total shock at what had just happened.

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As officials prepare to gather in Nairobi, Kenya, for the third stage of talks on a UN plastic pollution treaty, new photos show the scale of the waste problem less than 8 miles from the UN Environment Programme building where the talks will take place. Nairobi’s Dandora dump site is one of the largest in Africa

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The Bezos Earth Fund has granted a third donation of $30 million to the US National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), earmarked for protection of threatened longleaf pine forests and Northern Great Plains grasslands.

A New Zealand study has revealed how much organic carbon is stored in marine sediments off the country’s waters and how vulnerable it is to disruption from bottom trawling.

The resource state of Western Australia has announced a raft of new measures to incentivise hydrogen, CCUS, and renewable energy projects in a bid to gear up its energy transition and cut carbon emissions.