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Fears grow that some are adopting unscrupulous tactics to profit from people, with penalties set to rise

A record number of councils in England and Wales are using private companies to issue fines for littering and fly-tipping amid concern that some contractors are adopting unscrupulous tactics to profit from people.

Littering penalties are set to rise as part of a crackdown on antisocial behaviour. The environment minister, Rebecca Pow, said the maximum amount people caught fly-tipping could be fined would more than double from £400 to £1,000. Those who breach their household waste duty of care could be fined £600, up from £400.

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Analysis by conservation group Oceana suggests areas where suspension imposed not fished by fleets anyway

Annual short-term moratoriums on squid fishing imposed by Chinese authorities are probably meaningless as there appeared to be little fishing activity in the areas before the bans were announced, analysis has claimed.

In 2020, China’s ministry of agriculture and rural affairs announced a pilot program banning fishing in parts of the south-west Atlantic Ocean from July to October, and parts of the eastern Pacific Ocean from September to December.

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Private flights pollute up to 14 times more than commercial ones – yet are taxed less. Let’s change that

The climate crisis is not in transit, it’s arrived at the gate. It’s in our skies, our water, and our land – with record-shattering heat waves, increasingly severe wildfires and flooding from superstorms and rising seas.

We have no time for delays. Tackling this crisis and protecting frontline environmental justice communities will take all of us. And the tax-dodging ultra-wealthy need to stop fueling the problem and start supporting first-class solutions.

Edward J Markey is a US senator from Massachusetts

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The case for environmental action is clear, but there are fears about personal freedom and who will bear the financial burden

In less than three decades, the UK must reach net zero to avoid the worst impacts of climate crisis for our economy and national security. We’re already halfway there, having almost halved our emissions since 1990. But to achieve this momentous goal, we must now build support for the individual policies required, while preserving the cross-party consensus on the need to act. Conservatives want to protect our planet, but that doesn’t mean they’ll agree on every policy campaigners propose to get there. The public wants the debate to focus on how, not if, we reach carbon neutrality.

There is a conservative route to net zero. It’s not a contradiction in terms. The UK has a long and rich history of conservative environmentalism. In 1989, Margaret Thatcher became the first world leader to raise the spectre of climate change in a global context. Another Conservative prime minister, Theresa May, fired the starting gun on the race to net zero by 2050, enshrining the target in law.

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The UK energy secretary Grant Shapps announced plans to host an international summit on energy security in spring 2024, stressing the need to diversify from fossil fuels and hit climate goals.

A major carbon project developer in South Korea has been selected by the government to start off three Article 6 projects abroad, as the East Asian country is seeking to acquire international carbon credits and leverage the Article 6 mechanism of the Paris Agreement to realise its climate goals.

Sales are falling due to nutritional and environmental concerns – but also because it just doesn’t taste that good

Faux meat is failing. Once championed as a way to fight the climate emergency, protein alternatives are now struggling, with plant-based pioneers Beyond Meat reporting net revenue losses of nearly 31% in the second quarter of this year.

I could say I’m surprised, but the truth is I’m only amazed that our collective love affair with fake meat lasted as long as it did. I was once a fan, but standing in front of a towering wall of hyper-processed meat alternatives in my local supermarket last year, I couldn’t help but think: are vegan burgers that bleed really the answer to our meat consumption woes?

Aine Carlin is a vegan food writer and blogger

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A former director of carbon and biodiversity non-profit Greening Australia has been appointed chief operations officer of a new Australian venture which is seeking to rapidly increase the supply of premium, nature-based carbon credits.

A New Zealand forestry group is urging the government to immediately halt its review on the ETS in order to restore stability to the carbon market and provide certainty for forest planning.

Carbon capture and storage could be easily scalable if offered similar cost incentives that have been provided to wind, solar, and EV industries, a gas industry whitepaper has claimed.

Australian Energy Market Commission flags changes to rules on community consultation for transmission projects, as opposition to "crucial" grid upgrades hits a new high.

The post AEMC sets new “rules of engagement” for community consultation on transmission projects appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Another major report details the huge cost-of-living savings Australian households can lock in by going all-electric, this time using modelling from CSIRO.

The post Quitting gas at home and petrol in the car can slash annual energy costs by up to $4,000 appeared first on RenewEconomy.

China’s CO2 emissions grew 10% annually in the second quarter of the year, bouncing back to the record levels from two years ago as widespread drought saw coal replace hydropower generation, according to analysis released Thursday.

AGL rejects Coalition call to replace its ageing coal generators with nuclear SMRs, saying they are too costly and too slow. But the anti-renewables campaign rolls on.

The post Too expensive, too slow: Australia’s biggest coal generator says no to nuclear appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Wildfires fanned by strong winds from Hurricane Dora have burned through the town on Lahaina in Maui. The US Coast Guard had to pull a number of people from the ocean beside the town after they dived in to escape smoke and flames. 'It's like an apocalypse,' said a local resident

• Six people killed in unprecedented Hawaii wildfires fanned by hurricane winds

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Virgin Galactic aims to fly an 80-year-old former Olympian, a mother and her daughter into space.

Australia’s seed industry is in dire straits and in desperate need of funding to scale up if it is expected to live up to government and industry expectations of widescale ecosystem restoration driven by carbon and biodiversity markets, industry experts say.

Not all environmental change is obvious. But incremental and cumulative changes can be just as harmful as more immediate and observable events, meaning risk management practices need to adapt. Dr Wendy Liu, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, School of Environment and Koi Tū: The Centre for Informed Futures, University of Auckland Anne Bardsley, Deputy Director - Koi Tū: The Centre for Informed Futures, University of Auckland Jennifer Salmond, Professor of Geography, University of Auckland Kristiann Allen, Associate Director, Policy and International Relations at Koi Tū Centre for Informed Futures, University of Auckland Marc Tadaki, Social scientist, Cawthron Institute Martin Brook, Associate Professor of Applied Geology, University of Auckland Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Wind turbine industry lost sight of basic manufacturing principals such as keeping production simple, focusing on repeatability. Perhaps it was scared of solar.

The post Global wind turbine industry is a mess, and scared of solar: But it will get better appeared first on RenewEconomy.

AGL is teaching its ageing coal plants how to flex and dance around rooftop solar, and for all the talk about phasing out fossil fuels, its generation will be mostly coal for years to come.

The post AGL teaches its ageing coal plants how to flex around the rooftop solar duck appeared first on RenewEconomy.