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The result of general elections in Spain on Sunday has thrown the country into political disorder that could last for months and spill over into EU climate policy.

Parts of Europe have seen ETS-covered fossil generation spike due to higher demand for air conditioning after extreme heat has swept across Southern countries such as Greece, Spain, and Italy, as analysts point to sustained consumption this summer with temperatures set to remain elevated.

European carrier Ryanair has outlined the main climate-related risks to revenues in a 2023 sustainability report published Monday, with increased carbon pricing cited as "most impactful" on strategy in the firm's net-zero outlook.

Endeavour Energy launches sestern Sydney’s first community battery and will invite residents to join the program to ‘rent’ a portion of the battery for $15 per month.

The post First community battery in western Sydney now “open to rent” by residents appeared first on RenewEconomy.

European carbon prices gave up early gains on Monday morning to stand modestly weaker at midday, as prices consolidated after six successive days of gains ahead of August's annual drop in auction supply, while gas prices held on to early advances.

The climate activist was on trial for disobeying a police order to leave the protest in Malmo last month.

Activist had pleaded not guilty on grounds she acted out of necessity at demonstration that blocked oil trucks in Malmö

Greta Thunberg has been fined by a Swedish court after she was found guilty of disobeying a police order to leave a climate protest.

The 20-year-old climate activist, who from 2018 became the face of the youth climate movement, had admitted taking part in the protest in Malmö in June, but pleaded not guilty on the grounds she had acted out of necessity.

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Licences UK has approved in last two years will result in carbon dioxide matching annual emissions of Denmark, Greenpeace finds

New oil and gas licences for the North Sea that the UK government has approved in the past two years will produce as much carbon dioxide as the annual emissions of nearly 14m cars, or the entire yearly emissions of Denmark, analysis has shown.

This amount – about 28m tonnes of carbon dioxide over the lifetimes of the fields – will be increased more than eightfold, if potential licences under consideration are also granted, according to data from public sources analysed by Greenpeace.

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Chemical production in the EU is on course to decline by about 8% in 2023 compared to the previous year, with no imminent recovery of demand in the region, a large industry group has warned, as it proposes a new climate manifesto for Brussels to follow during the next legislative cycle to keep the ETS-covered industry competitive.

Wasps have taken over my shed and are a wonder to behold – especially since I worked out how to live with them in harmony

My tiny, wonky shed has new owners. I have never had a garden shed before, so I wasn’t expecting to give it away so quickly, but once they moved in I accepted it was rightly theirs – for this summer at least. I have never had such a good view of a wasp nest. I peer in most weeks to marvel at its progress.

It is quite exquisite in its grey, papery layers. Where there was once a solitary queen, now there are many more insects building and foraging, so the nest is only going to grow in size. These are common wasps, Vespula vulgaris, and the colony will survive into early autumn, until the first queen dies. At this point, in a fit of genetics and anger, the worker bees will revolt against the collective and start to lay their own eggs.

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Discovery of dark bordered beauty males where caterpillars were released raises hopes species can be revived

A moth on the brink of extinction in Britain and reared for the first time in captivity has been found flying at a site where its caterpillars were released.

The dark bordered beauty is clinging on in just three places in Britain but its numbers are being increased by a conservation project to establish new populations in the Scottish Highlands.

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One of the largest energy solution providers in South Korea is planning to expand its renewable energy business in Vietnam and accordingly secure carbon credits, it announced on Monday.

New suit charges that the EPA disregards ethanol production’s impact on endangered species as it is directed to study under law

The US biofuel program is likely killing endangered species and harming the environment in a way that negates its benefits, but the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is largely ignoring those problems, a new federal lawsuit charges.

The suit alleges the EPA failed to consider impacts on endangered species, as is required by law, when it set new rules that will expand biofuel use nationwide during the next three years, said Brett Hartl, government affairs director with the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), which brought the litigation.

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Footage from the Greek island of Rhodes shows a huge fire and thick plumes of smoke rising, which has forced 19,000 people to flee and threatened resorts and coastal villages. Firefighters were struggling to contain 82 wildfires across the country, 64 of which started on Sunday, the hottest day of the summer so far

• Greece: wildfires break out on Corfu and Evia as 19,000 flee Rhodes blazes

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When people asked me where I drew the line, I wasn’t sure about insects – until a fateful encounter in my kitchen

The Grammy-winning American comedian George Carlin often included animal rights messages in his standup routines. He once joked that he’d like to invent a cockroach spray with a difference: “It doesn’t kill the roaches, but it fills them with self-doubt as to whether or not they’re in the right house.”

As one of those animal rights people who expounds on the virtues and benefits of being decent to all sentient beings, I’m often asked: “Where do you draw the line? What about insects?”

Ingrid Newkirk is the founder of Peta and author of Animalkind

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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Australia’s Productivity Commission used its latest report to rebuke the idea of the government introducing a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, claiming it to be unnecessary and protectionist for local industry.

The outraged reaction to Just Stop Oil’s mild protests says far more about us than it does about the activists themselves

“Play was not disrupted.” With those four words the R&A summed up its message after Just Stop Oil made their latest protest on the 17th green at the Open on Friday.

A police statement had already done the heavy lifting, with its charges of conspiracy to commit criminal damage and its stern disapproval of public disorder. That left the golfing establishment to sound cool, calm and – unusually for them – like the good guys. They had, after all, triumphed. No one had been inconvenienced in the course of watching their sporting entertainment and that, by and large, has been the focus of anger at Just Stop Oil’s activity this summer. Critics find it frustratingly hard to accuse them of anything else. The protesters haven’t endangered players, or broken equipment; they haven’t altered the course of the sporting action or brought it to an unwanted conclusion. They’ve shown up, made something temporarily orange, then disappeared peacefully in a police van.

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That would never happen to me

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Celebrity gardeners are in uproar – but abandoning perfection can both help the environment and create beautiful spaces

Celebrity gardeners have been throwing down the gardening gloves and stamping up and down on the parterre. The uproar is all about rewilding – how it cannot, must not, should not apply to gardening.

Rewilding gardens is “puritanical nonsense”, rails Monty Don. Alan Titchmarsh believes gardeners have been “brainwashed”. He’s just written to the Lords about it. The rewilding craze, he told peers, is an “ill-considered trend” loaded with “misleading propaganda” that will “deplete our gardens of their botanical riches” and be “catastrophic” for wildlife.

Isabella Tree runs Knepp Castle estate with conservationist Charlie Burrell. They are the co-authors of The Book of Wilding: A Practical Guide to Rewilding Big and Small

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Coalition turns its anti-renewables rhetoric on to rooftop solar inverters and the threat of Chinese makers as it ramps up its push for nuclear.

The post Coalition attacks rooftop solar inverters in new scare campaign against renewables appeared first on RenewEconomy.