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A climate tech company has raised $1 million in seed funding to establish its first biochar production facility, located in Kenya, according to a press release on Wednesday.

The US Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) on Wednesday announced the formation of an international working group aimed at enhancing the transparency and reliability of methane and other emissions data in the natural gas supply chain, while a major investment bank extolled the financial benefits of mitigation efforts in the sector.

GHG emissions across the EU fell over 5% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2023, with electricity and gas sectors making the biggest decline, the statistics agency Eurostat reported on Wednesday.

A major ‘pure play’ sustainability consultancy has formed a strategic partnership with a software platform specialising in carbon and sustainability data management.

Voluntary carbon accreditation body ICROA has appointed its first independent advisory committee to oversee fundamentals and help drive integrity under its program of continuous improvements.

Rules would require firms to report emissions, find and fix leaks, and limit wasteful venting and flaring

The EU has struck a deal that will force the fossil fuel industry to rein in dangerous methane pollution.

Under the proposed law, the first of its kind, coal, oil and gas companies would be required to report their methane emissions and take steps to avoid them. The measures include finding and fixing leaks, and limiting wasteful practices such as venting and flaring gas by 2027.

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A report published by the French government, in collaboration with CDC Biodiversite, underlined that greater finance from across the spectrum of stakeholders would be needed to protect nature, while also assessing the various tools available to scale funding.

Just four countries globally have regions to have published dedicated plans for tackling the threat posed by increasing seawater acidity levels, with the US taking the lead, a report has found.

Argentina hopes to achieve the goals set out in its Paris Agreement NDC and access climate finance in part through a range of carbon market mechanisms, it affirmed in a National Strategy for the Use of Carbon Markets (ENUMeC) published Tuesday.

An international climate club for governments will be officially launched at the beginning of December at the COP28 UN climate conference in Dubai, with a particular focus on industrial decarbonisation, the EU's top climate official Kurt Vandenberge told a conference on Wednesday.

Analysis deems technology promoted by Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber ‘dangerous red herring’

Climate-wrecking emissions produced by the oil company of the Cop28 president, Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, would take hundreds of years to remove using the carbon capture technology he has been promoting.

With just weeks to go until the crucial Cop28 climate summit, Al Jaber, who is the boss of United Arab Emirate oil company Adnoc, has been backing carbon capture as one solution to the climate crisis.

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Exclusive: at least 228 water conflicts were recorded in 2022 – an 87% rise on the year before, Pacific Institute database shows

• Peter Gleick: As water becomes a weapon of war, we must focus on cooperation and peace

Water-related violence surged to an all-time high in 2022 – driven in large part by Russia’s war in Ukraine and Israeli attacks against Palestinian water resources in the West Bank.

At least 228 water conflicts were documented in 2022 – an 87% rise since 2021, according to research by the Pacific Institute shared exclusively with the Guardian.

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Record increase in water-related violence shows how urgently we need to reduce these tensions between countries

In recent months, the world has been bombarded with reports of attacks on major dams and civilian water systems in Ukraine, water being used as a weapon during the violence in Gaza and the West Bank, unrest and riots in India and Iran over water scarcity and drought, and conflicts between farmers and herders in Africa over land and water sources. Our limited and precious freshwater resources have become triggers, weapons and casualties of war and conflict.

Water is vital for everything we want to do: it allows us to grow food, run industries and businesses, cook and clean our homes, and manage our wastes. Although there is plenty of water on Earth, it is unevenly distributed in space and time, with humid and arid regions as well as wet and dry seasons. These disparities lead to competition and disputes over water access and control. As populations and economies grow, the pressure on limited water supplies and the delicate ecosystems that depend on them is intensifying. And now, human-caused climate disruptions are affecting the planet’s hydrologic cycle, worsening extreme weather events such as floods and droughts, altering rainfall patterns, melting glaciers and snowpacks, and leading to higher temperatures and increased water demands.

Peter Gleick is co-founder and Senior Fellow of the Pacific Institute, Oakland, California, and author of the new book, The Three Ages of Water (PublicAffairs/Hachette 2023)

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EUA prices made moderate gains on Wednesday morning after updated positions data showed investment funds had continued to build net short positions last week, setting a new record in the process, while energy markets also rose amid technical trading.

Progress seen in climate talks between world's two biggest carbon emitters but major hurdles remain.

A California-based carbon removals firm has purchased "groundbreaking" direct air capture (DAC) technology from a Pittsburgh-headquartered advanced materials company.

Growth in China’s thermal power output continued to grow in October with sustained expansion of coal output, though slower than the pace seen in solar and hydropower generation, government data showed Wednesday.

Buyers of Article 6-aligned carbon credits are shying away from nature-based units amid lingering quality concerns, officials have told the ongoing Asia Pacific Climate Week in Johor Bahru, Malaysia.

Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court of has ruled that a 2021 government budget act, which redirected €60 billion initially borrowed to address the COVID-19 pandemic towards climate and energy measures, is unconstitutional and therefore void.

World Meteorological Organization sees ‘no end in sight to the rising trend’, largely driven by fossil fuel burning

The abundance of climate-heating gases in the atmosphere reached record highs in 2022, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has reported.

The WMO said “there is no end in sight to the rising trend”, which is largely driven by the burning of fossil fuels.

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