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The economics of solar batteries has changed considerably in recent years, and could now reduce your total power bill – and emissions

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For many years, the idea of installing home batteries in Australia was, to put it bluntly, a bad deal.

Salespeople would spin numbers in their favour, conveniently ignoring the 20-plus-year payback period on a battery with just a 10-year warranty.

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Right this way, sir

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Exclusive: two PR professionals from national oil firm listed as providing ‘support’ to team running UN climate summit

Senior executives from the UAE’s national oil company are working with the Cop28 team as the country ramps up its PR campaign ahead of the major UN climate summit later this year, leaked internal records show.

Two PR professionals from the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) are identified as providing “additional support” to the team running the summit, according to a Cop28 communications strategy document obtained by the Centre for Climate Reporting (CCR) and the Guardian. It adds to growing evidence of blurred lines between the UAE’s Cop28 team and its fossil fuel industry.

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Brazil's supreme court has blocked efforts to dramatically strip back Indigenous land rights in what activists called a historic victory for the South American country's original inhabitants. Nine of the court's 11 members voted against what rights groups had dubbed the 'time limit trick' - an agribusiness-backed attempt to prevent Indigenous communities claiming land they did not physically occupy in 1998

• Brazil supreme court rules in favor of Indigenous land rights in historic win

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An aggressive UAE-based carbon credit developer has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Gulf nation’s biggest bank aimed at advancing green investments as the country gears up to host this year’s UN climate negotiations.

The prime minister is out of step with voters, who want to see bold action on the climate crisis, leaving an opening for Keir Starmer

On Tuesday, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, told the annual gathering of world leaders at the UN general assembly that on the climate crisis, “actions are falling abysmally short” and that leaders should take “drastic steps now”. He also reminded the world that G20 countries were responsible for 80% of greenhouse emissions and that “they must lead”.

But Rishi Sunak was elsewhere, the first British prime minister in a decade to miss this opportunity to show international climate leadership. And just hours after the speech, news broke of his plans to weaken domestic climate commitments.

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EU carbon prices headed for their biggest five-day increase in six weeks, as prices gained momentum from the combination of a short squeeze as well as a sharp rise in natural gas prices amid the end of labour strikes in Australia and a renewed focus on North Sea output.

Campaigners hit out at government for ‘ignoring science’ as it considers allowing use of a toxic neonicotinoid

Bee-killing pesticides have been found at dangerous levels in English rivers, as the government considers allowing the use of one that is banned in the EU.

Environmental groups and farmers are waiting to hear whether a toxic neonicotinoid, thiamethoxam, will be approved by the government for English sugar beet farms for a fourth consecutive year. Wildlife campaigners say it is “unacceptable” that ministers have “ignored the science” and allowed the use of these dangerous chemicals.

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Allowances in the Chinese emissions trading scheme this week rose to their highest level since the market launched two years ago, as the approaching compliance deadline for 2021 and 2022 continued to fuel steady demand.

Policy and direct investment need to match interest and rhetoric if hydrogen is to become a genuine source of large-scale clean energy, and project delays are to be expected given “stubborn” cost pressures, the International Energy Agency said Friday.

The expansion of the BRICS bloc is going to transform the group into a global leader in renewables, making it a net exporter of primary energy in the coming decades, according to a report released this week.

An Australian superannuation fund has announced emissions targets in line with the government’s plan to reduce emissions by 43% by 2030 over 2005 levels, though it will only decide on a policy towards oil and gas companies late next year.

Carbon revenues can substantially contribute to the additionality of Australian waste management projects by encouraging final investment decisions, a study has found, contradicting conclusions from previous analysis.

Country imposes first total fire ban in three years amid record-breaking September heatwave

Australia has declared the start of an El Niño weather phenomenon, with a record-breaking September heatwave gripping the south-eastern region that has prompted the country’s first total fire ban in three years. The Bureau of Meteorology reported extreme conditions, particularly prolonged heat, across parts of the continent. New South Wales (NSW) experienced temperatures soaring up to 16C above the September average, with Sydney reaching 34.4C, just shy of the all-time September record. NSW had 61 bushfires, 13 of which remained uncontained owing to forecasted strong winds, resulting in catastrophic fire danger.

El Niño typically leads to droughts in Australia, and the World Meteorological Organization had earlier predicted a 90% likelihood of El Niño conditions developing in the latter half of 2023.

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The best of this week’s wildlife photographs, including hungry bears, a goliath grouper and a dew-covered dragonfly

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There is nothing Australians like more than running over living things in their car

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The cavalier way in which the latest U-turn has been presented reveals a government and a PM scrabbling for survival

After all the turmoil of recent years, you might think British politics had lost its capacity to shock. But a week in which some of the angriest voices raised against this week’s shameful climbdown on net zero come not just from passionate greens, but from car manufacturers and the energy industry? Now we really are through the looking-glass.

What happened this week was the most surreal opening to a long election campaign – for that’s surely what it was – I can recall. For the leader of the erstwhile party of business to water down climate policy and still somehow contrive to end up getting furiously attacked for it by Big Auto is surprising enough. Managing simultaneously to leave Boris Johnson claiming the moral high ground and Liz Truss looking relevant, given she had just called for such a retreat, is something else.

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AEMC sets in motion one of the most important reforms to the Australian energy market in decades, factoring emissions reduction into rule making and decision making.

The post A final blow to fossil fuels? Environment embedded in grid rules appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Exclusive: wildfires, once rare in the UK, more than doubled last year to nearly 24,000 with devastating effects on wildlife habitats

Wildfires recorded by UK fire brigades surged in 2022 amid extreme heat and droughts, new figures show, as a growing number of fire services invest in new equipment to deal with the rising fire risk due to climate change.

Figures obtained by the Guardian under Freedom of Information Act requests show the number of wildfires recorded by fire brigades in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland more than doubled last year, reaching 23,699 in 2022, compared with 9,307 the year before.

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The dirty industries that dominate politics deceive us into accepting dangerous pollutants such as ammonia as part of life

There are some things we rightly find intolerable, such as the possession of poorly trained, aggressive dogs. There are other things, whose impacts are many thousands of times worse, that we decide just to live with. What makes the difference? Visibility is one reason: a photo of a large dog with bared teeth triggers primal fear. Ubiquity is another: the more widespread the problem, the more we normalise it. Split incentives is another: what if we are simultaneously both perpetrators and victims? But I think the most important factor is lobbying power.

There is no corporate lobby behind the sale, let alone poor training, of American bully XLs. But there are powerful corporate lobbies behind the air pollution devastating many people’s health. Oil corporations don’t want to lose their market. Car firms want to sell existing designs for as long as possible. Even the manufacturers of wood-burning stoves run a small, but surprisingly effective, persuasion operation.

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