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A UK company specialising in assisting carbon project developers has established an office to expand its activities into the fast-growing Southeast Asian market.

Chris Bowen also pledges A$50m to a fund to help the world’s most vulnerable people repair the damage from climate breakdown

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The Australian climate change minister, Chris Bowen, has declared the landmark Paris agreement “is working” as it had brought the world back from “the brink of catastrophic 4C warming”, but argued countries must set the most ambitious emissions targets possible for 2035 to limit worsening global heating.

Giving Australia’s national statement on the conference floor at the Cop29 summit in Azerbaijan, he also pledged A$50m (US$32.5m) towards a global loss and damage fund to help the world’s most vulnerable people to repair the damage from climate breakdown.

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Nearly 80 civil society are calling on UN Climate Change to facilitate the allocation of climate finance to farmers to help them engage in more sustainable practices like restoring degraded soils, in an open letter published on the sidelines of the COP29 climate conference.

Thousands of farmers from across the UK protested in central London against changes in the 2024 budget that will mean some farmers paying inheritance tax. Farmers were previously exempt. The farmers, who were joined by Jeremy Clarkson and seveal MPs, fear the new levy will affect food prices and harm their businesses

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Military conflicts account for around 5.5% of global emissions, yet countries are not obliged to report them under the UN climate body’s framework, research bodies highlighted at the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan.

The Namibian government will release draft carbon market regulations in 2025, once it has clarity of the rules underpinning the UN's international market mechanism, an official told Carbon Pulse at the COP29 climate summit in Baku.

A Durham-based fintech has purchased 25 acres (10,1 hectares) of new woodland in Northeast England as part of a commitment to become climate positive by 2035, the company announced on Tuesday.

Uganda is looking to Article 6 projects to help finance sustainable development, particularly given the limitations of the voluntary carbon market (VCM) and international finance goals, a senior official told Carbon Pulse on the sidelines of COP29.

EU carbon prices stalled on Tuesday morning after their 2.2% jump on Monday, trading in a relatively narrow range as gas prices also stabilised and traders waited for signs of new price direction.

An update on our progress from the Guardian’s head of sustainability

• The Guardian environment pledge 2024
• Support urgent, independent climate journalism today

Five years ago the Guardian made a pledge that we would “play a part, both in our journalism and in our own organisation, to address the climate emergency” with our first annual environment pledge. That commitment reflected our long history of environment reporting and our view that individual companies had to take greater responsibility for their impact on the natural world. We wanted to demonstrate to readers that we were taking the action that our journalism showed was so necessary, and to be transparent about our progress. Today we publish the 2024 pledge.

Since then we have worked hard to measure and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, to understand our impact on nature and to share our results openly with readers. In our latest sustainability report, published last month, we show that our emissions have fallen by 43% since 2020, putting us well on track to achieve our goal of a 67% cut by 2030.

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Project and credit data from Gold Standard will be available on the Climate Action Data Trust (CAD) platform by the end of the year, it was announced Tuesday.

The Norwegian government has pledged an additional NOK 670 million ($60 mln) to the Amazon Fund to help conserve the rainforest region, it announced on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Brazil.

Senegal’s environment ministry is preparing to leverage Article 6 carbon markets in support of national and international climate goals, according to statements made on Tuesday by a senior official at the COP29 global climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Nearly 40% of food sector lobbyists have travelled to Baku as part of countries’ delegations

• Cop29 climate summit – live updates

Hundreds of lobbyists for industrial agriculture are attending the Cop29 climate summit in Baku, analysis shows.

They include representatives from some of the world’s largest agribusiness companies including the Brazilian meatpacker JBS, the animal pharmaceuticals company Elanco, and the food giant PepsiCo, as well as trade groups representing the food sector.

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Singapore and Japan have formulated purchase targets for Paris-aligned carbon credits through 2030.

Have you heard of the 3+30+300 rule for urban forestry? See how Melbourne and Sydney compare to New York, Denver, Seattle, Buenos Aires, Amsterdam and Singapore on trees, canopy and park proximity. Thami Croeser, Research Fellow, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

The imposition of tariffs and regulatory barriers on clean technologies may initially benefit countries wanting to protect nascent industries from competition, but they will backfire in the long run and ultimately hurt consumers, warned a senior official at UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

Refurbishing an old building is subject to full VAT, but it isn’t if you build a polluting new one. The government’s priorities are all wrong

You can damn oil companies, abuse cars, insult nimbys, kill cows, befoul art galleries. But you must never, ever criticise the worst offender of all. The construction industry is sacred to both the left and the right. It may be the world’s greatest polluter, but it is not to be criticised. It is the elephant in the global-heating room.

It’s hard not to feel as though we have a blind spot when it comes to cement, steel and concrete. A year has now passed since the UN’s environment programme stated baldly that “the building and construction sector is by far the largest emitter of greenhouse gases”. The industry accounts for “a staggering 37% of global emissions”, more than any other single source. Yet it rarely gets the same attention as oil or car companies.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

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Dutch-headquartered bank Triodos announced on Tuesday it will invest a minimum of €500 million in nature-based solutions (NbS) by the end of 2030 as part of its biodiversity strategy.

The G20 reaffirmed a broad commitment to climate finance efforts in a communique following the conclusion of its summit in Brazil, but observers say more is needed from the world’s wealthiest countries to adequately address climate change globally.