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As well as defiant stories of empowered kids, we need to offer reminders that the responsibility isn’t theirs alone

When I was in primary school my favourite Baby-Sitters Club member was Dawn Schafer, the environmental crusader. This was the 1990s, when we were all very concerned about CFCs and other greenhouse gases, although not enough to lose sleep over them. I remember carefully spelling out CHLOROFLUOROCARBONS in bubble letters on poster paper for a school project. I had a thing for dolphins and wanted to be a marine biologist. Clean Up Australia Day was still in its infancy.

Our world was smaller then, information thinner on the ground. Dial-up internet was years away from being a fixture in most homes and we collected cardboard circles from chip packets for fun. It’s easy to wearily suggest kids today have it better. But we didn’t feel that we had to carry the weight of the world on our shoulders. We watched Captain Planet, recycled, sometimes picked up extra rubbish if we were being punished or feeling virtuous, but we mostly trusted adults had things in hand. There was never any suggestion it might be too late to turn the ship around.

That’s a luxury today’s kids don’t have. They navigate an increasingly complex world, with more awareness than ever before about what is going wrong – and it’s taking a toll. A survey of 10,000 young people in 2021 found 84% were at least moderately worried about climate change, 59% were extremely worried and 45% said it negatively affected their daily life and functioning. The low hum of climate anxiety is building to a roar and it’s having a profound effect on kids’ mental health.

In the summer of 2019-2020, as bushfires raged across Australia, driving species to the brink of extinction and turning air hazardous, it seemed something had finally shifted. This was our wake-up call. The world was taking notice and I was sure things would be different after this. We would recover and mobilise in a unified way. Then came Covid. The air was safe to breathe again, but only if no one else was standing nearby. Disposable masks littered the streets and KeepCups were banned. Along with the rest of the world, I fell into a deep funk. I watched a lot of TV.

One night the screen transported me to a magical place, an icy island halfway between Norway and the north pole, home to reindeer, polar bears and northern lights. On the island was a mountain, its entrance marked by a glittering green art installation. And inside the mountain was a vault filled with millions of seeds. But this wasn’t a fantasy film, it was a real place: the Global Seed Vault in Svalbard – built by the Norwegian government for the good of humanity. More than one million seed samples from almost every country in the world are stored there in case of global disaster, such as war – or climate catastrophe.

This microdose of wonder during a dark time inspired what would become my first picture book. The Garden at the End of the World is about a girl who finds a rare plant near her home and goes on an adventure with her botanist mother to deliver it to the Global Seed Vault for safekeeping. It was the lullaby I needed to get me through lockdown – an ode to nature and wonder and the helpers; the good things already being done. I didn’t realise it would resonate with so many weary kids and parents as well.

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The surge in global solar investments is creating cascading tipping points for the global grid, and even putting science based climate targets within reach.

The post Solar pushes world to “cascading tipping points”, and puts science targets within reach appeared first on RenewEconomy.

French President Emmanuel Macron is seeking international support for a global carbon tax on the shipping industry ahead of a summit France is co-hosting later this month.

Carbon prices were largely unchanged at midday on Tuesday after a volatile morning that saw the benchmark EUA contract reach its highest in more than three weeks, before easing as buyers held back amid falling natural gas prices.

The Galapagos Islands' record-setting debt-for-nature swap was broadly applauded as a win-win-win for Ecuador, nature, and international financiers, but now a groundswell of critical voices is pointing to problems that must be avoided as nations queue up to strike similar deals.

Central Asian country has the worst rate of climate-heating ‘super-emitter’ events in the world

The president of Turkmenistan has launched two initiatives aimed at cutting the colossal leaks of methane from the country’s oil and gas industry. Success would represent a major achievement in tackling the climate crisis.

A roadmap will pave the way towards the central Asian country joining 150 others that have already signed the Global Methane Pledge to cut global methane emissions by 30% by 2030. An inter-departmental government commission will also focus on reducing emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas.

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An Australian carbon accounting software provider has teamed up with a local advisory firm to help Hong Kong-based companies better track their Scope 3 emissions, following the latest ESG disclosure regulations proposed by the city's main bourse.

Japan has selected seven advanced carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects in a bid to secure an annual storage capacity of approximately 13 million tonnes of CO2 by 2030, the government announced Tuesday.

A plastics treaty is on the cards – and it could join the rescue of the ozone layer as a landmark success in environmental diplomacy

Plastic production has soared some 30-fold since it came into widespread use in the 1960s. We now churn out about 430m tonnes a year, easily outweighing the combined mass of all 8 billion people alive. Left unabated, it continues to accelerate: plastic consumption is due to nearly double by 2050.

Now there is a chance that this huge growth will stop, even go into reverse. This month in Paris, the world’s governments agreed to draft a new treaty to control plastics. The UN says it could cut production by a massive 80% by 2040.

Geoffrey Lean is a specialist environment correspondent and author

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A Singaporean NGO has lunched its inaugural blue carbon conservation project in Northern Sumatra under the novel OxCarbon Standard, it announced Tuesday.

A Japanese carbon project developer has launched a joint study with the Vietnam National University of Agriculture on methane emissions from rice paddies, with an eye on rolling out carbon credit-yielding projects across the Southeast Asian nation.

The Sundarbans is the world’s largest mangrove forest and one of the most climate vulnerable locations on the planet. Climate change has taken an enormous toll on the rainforest in recent years, repeatedly uprooting families and decimating the incomes of residents who have traditionally relied heavily on agriculture and fishing for their livelihoods.

Now, repeated natural disasters and environmental changes to the region have created a highly vulnerable population increasingly at risk of participating in or becoming victims of child trafficking.

29 year old Subhasree Raptan started her fight against human trafficking a decade ago. As a coordinator of Goranbose Gram Bikash Kendra (GGBK), a non-profit organisation, Subhasree has been educating women and children on dangers of trafficking and is helping police to track down those who have gone missing.

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New analysis lays out the safest path to limit global warming to 1.5°C – and to slash future reliance on unproven methods of carbon removal.

The post World must add 1.5TW of new wind and solar each year to keep to 1.5°C of warming appeared first on RenewEconomy.

China is still facing the risk of near-term power shortages as the current tariff-setting mechanism has led to distorted incentives for power capacity operations and investments across the country, a report has found.

The Japan-Cambodia Joint Committee has registered a first REDD+ project under the JCM, seen as a breakthrough as the government is working to include REDD+ and CCS programmes in its bid to increase credit supply from the mechanism.

REDD+ project operator New Ireland Hardwood Timber (NIHT) has refuted claims made against it in the ongoing court case between itself and a local community incorporated land group in Papua New Guinea.

"The most significant investment ever:" Queensland government allocates $19 billion over four years to ensure the state meets its renewable energy targets.

The post Queensland budgets $19bn for shift to renewables, in huge push away from coal appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The Bosque de Niebla-El Globo habitat bank in Colombia has sold out all its awarded 600 biodiversity credits, ensuring the area will remain protected for three decades, and is now seeking to expand.

Number of coal outages hit grid over long weekend as generator warns of more price hikes.

The post Coal outages strike across two states as power prices march up appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Australia urged to set "bold" 1.5°C target to try and break regulatory deadlock and investment blockage that threaten to derail its transition to renewables.

The post Australia needs 1.5°C target to break regulatory deadlock and kick coal out of grid appeared first on RenewEconomy.