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Most technologies for CO₂ removal are expensive. But New Zealand could be doing this cheaper than other countries, taking advantage of existing geothermal and forestry industries. David Dempsey, Senior lecturer, University of Canterbury Karan Titus, PhD Student, University of Canterbury Rebecca Peer, Lecturer, University of Canterbury Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

ACT 2023-24 budget sets aside major new funding for home energy upgrades, to get gas out of government operations, and to support electric vehicle uptake.

The post Electric homes, cars and government buildings: ACT budget boosts bid to quit gas appeared first on RenewEconomy.

"We are past 10MW pilots" says one expert, as others worry about perpetuating gas dependency with hydrogen.

The post New 10MW electrolyser to feed gas into homes, experts shake their heads appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Residents seek respite from the heat as temperatures above 40C (104F) have been recorded for a third consecutive day in Beijing for the first time

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Wind energy output records blown away by wintery conditions over the weekend, as well as records for large scale solar and wind combined.

The post Wind blows down more output records on Australia’s main grid appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Government’s buyout scheme is meeting fierce resistance from farmers in Netherlands

Veal farmer Wim Brouwer sits on his terrace, an “emergency” red flag flying outside and his laptop open on a page revealing he is one of the Netherlands’ peak polluters, due to the nitrogen excreted each year by his 1,360 calves.

His business sits in one of the most intensively farmed parts of Europe’s most intensively farmed country, a huge exporter with more than 110 million livestock, including cattle, chickens and pigs.

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Plans for the world’s first commercial octopus farm are well advanced – just as science discovers more about this curious, intelligent and affectionate animal. Can it be done ethically?

The sterile boardroom, much of it taken up by a lengthy white table, is at the heart of the sprawling building in northern Spain. The corporate chatter that fills this room these days, however, is dominated by the scene playing out one floor below, where about 50 adult male octopuses are in a tank the size of a budget hotel room.

A handful of the octopuses – the fifth generation to be born in this Spanish multinational’s concrete-and-glass office and research centre – skim through the shallow waters, some brushing up against each other while others tuck into the tank’s barren corners. A low-intensity light casts a pale glow as researchers lay the groundwork for one of the world’s most controversial endeavours: the first commercial octopus farm.

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Sir Keir Starmer doesn’t want to look like a man who makes grandiose-sounding pledges to change the world only to retreat when he encounters resistance

They’ve talked the bold talk. Sir Keir Starmer regularly claims that a government led by him will transform the UK into “a clean energy superpower”. Rachel Reeves declares that she will be “Britain’s first green chancellor”. Ed Miliband, the shadow cabinet’s most ardent champion of the green industrial revolution, proclaims that Britain can be a winner in “the biggest transformation of the global economy in 300 years”.

Talking is a whole lot easier than doing. When the crunch comes, when a Labour cabinet faces the horribly tough choices that are going to confront them in power, will their fine words turn out to be little more than hot air?

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We might be scared and not know what to do. But as a new film reveals, that can help

It doesn’t matter which week we choose. There is always a climate emergency; an emergency we can close our ears and eyes to. Two weeks ago, it was the blanketing of New York in a cloud of smoke from Canada. Last week, Beijing recorded the hottest June since records began. All over the world, sea levels rise. Drought or flooding ensues. And the loss of habitats and species. We can get frightened and find it hard to hold the knowledge of what is occurring.

As filmmaker Josh Appignanesi shows in his new film My Extinction, which will be released on 30 June, allowing himself to feel the real-time effects of climate change is uncomfortable. Appignanesi, who recycles yet makes car commercials, turns the camera on himself as his climate concerns start to make him feel disgruntled. He feels put out and inconvenienced. And he ends up getting far more involved in climate work than he’d ever thought possible.

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The successful quest to find a species last seen more than 50 years ago has added to the urgency of protecting the vanishing grassland habitat of a lizard that had been feared extinct. Brendan Wintle, Professor in Conservation Science, School of Ecosystem and Forest Science, The University of Melbourne Sarah Bekessy, Professor in Sustainability and Urban Planning, Leader, Interdisciplinary Conservation Science Research Group (ICON Science), RMIT University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

International trade practices have significantly impacted CO2 emissions by relocating production activities, creating emissions disparities between regions of production and consumption, a new study has found.

Nature restoration projects in Southeast Asia could help the region confront climate change, but these initiatives could cost an estimated $200 billion per year, says a new study.

Latest vehicle from Build Your Dreams, which in less than a year has become our second-biggest electric vehicle seller, has a starting price of $38,890

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Many Australians haven’t heard of BYD, the Chinese brand now selling the country’s cheapest new electric car.

BYD, or Build Your Dreams, is the biggest threat to Tesla globally and has garnered a cult-like following that’s translating to sales success locally.

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The result of the council’s vicious campaign means most of us will be long dead before their replacements reach maturity

In Sheffield, my home town, the council has at last apologised for misleading the public, the media and the courts during the dispute over its unfathomably stupid and vicious campaign to fell 17,500 of the city’s street trees, many of which it now accepts were perfectly healthy. This development is, of course, welcome, if long overdue. But it doesn’t really change anything. Who will ever be able to forget the chainsaws? Beloved limes and sycamores are gone. Most of us will be long dead before their replacements reach anything like maturity.

Thinking about this horrible, unnecessary business all over again, I’m struck by the default accusations of nimbyism on the council’s part, an attitude that persists even now. In its statement, it said that it had misrepresented those who protested against the destruction as “primarily interested only in their own streets”.

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Less office waste material during Covid has led big lavatory roll makers to cut amount of recycled paper in tissues, according to consumer body

Hoarding during the Covid-19 pandemic underlined just how important loo roll is to the British public. But working from home had another unexpected effect: less waste paper from offices, which means less recycled material to make toilet roll.

New research by Ethical Consumer magazine shows that the three main toilet brands have cut the amount of recycled paper in their tissues. It said the use of virgin wood pulp was fuelling deforestation, although paper-industry advocates dispute this.

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Electricity generated on Shetland could be used to fuel the proposed Rosebank field, instead of homes

Electricity from a new onshore windfarm could be used to power the biggest undeveloped oilfield in the North Sea, campaigners are warning, ahead of an imminent decision over whether to approve the project.

The huge Rosebank oilfield is three times bigger than the controversial Cambo field that was put on hold more than a year ago. It has the potential to produce 500m barrels of oil and its final approval is expected to reach the energy secretary, Grant Shapps, in the next few weeks. It is expected to be approved after Rishi Sunak hinted last month that it would be “economically illiterate” not to invest in UK oil and gas because Britain will remain reliant on fossil fuels for “the next few decades”.

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German national Marcus Decker in prison for climbing Dartford bridge faces automatic deportation, say campaigners

Hundreds of protesters were expected to march to the Home Office on Saturday demanding deportation proceedings be called off for an environmental activist imprisoned for scaling the Dartford Crossing.

Marcus Decker is serving one of the longest sentences ever passed for a non-violent protest in British history after a Just Stop Oil demonstration in October. He is a German citizen with leave to remain in the UK, but he faces automatic deportation after serving the two years and seven months sentence.

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Emmanuel Macron’s government is at least doing the bare minimum to avert the planetary crisis – and putting the UK to shame

While we remain transfixed by a handful of needy egotists in Westminster and the crises they manufacture, across the Channel a revolution is happening. It’s a quiet, sober, thoughtful revolution, but a revolution nonetheless. France is seeking to turn itself into an ecological civilisation.

Like every government, the French administration should be going further and faster to address the greatest predicament humankind has faced: the gathering collapse of Earth systems. But you can measure the seriousness of the government’s plan by its institutional commitment. France now has a ministry for ecological transition. By the end of next year, the nation’s 25,000 most senior civil servants will have been trained in the principles behind this transition. By the next presidential election, in 2027, every public sector worker will have had this training, tailored to their sector. Think about that: 5.6 million people will be taught about the biodiversity crisis, the climate crisis and the natural resources crisis – how these phenomena relate to the public services they supply and how public sector workers can use this knowledge to change the way they work.

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Planet is being hit by double whammy of global heating and emerging El Niño

The planet is being hit with a double whammy of global heating in 2023. On top of the inexorable rise in global temperature caused by greenhouse gas emissions is an emerging El Niño. This sporadic event is the biggest natural influence on year-to-year weather and adds a further spurt of warmth to an already overheating world. The result is supercharged extreme weather, hitting lives and livelihoods.

The last major El Niño from 2014 to 2016 led to each of those years successively breaking the global temperature record and 2016 remains the hottest year ever recorded. However, El Niño has now begun and may already be driving new temperature records, with record heatwaves on land from Puerto Rico to China and record heatwaves in the seas around the UK.

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