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One of China's largest cities has given the green light to a methodology for seagrass bed restoration, as regional governments in the country are seeking to unlock the potential of blue carbon.

These spaces are crucial for our wellbeing, but cash-strapped councils are being forced to treat them as revenue earners

My local green space, Brockwell Park in Brixton and Herne Hill, south London, is an oasis of calm in the busy city. Friends catch up in the walled garden, where wisteria trails over pillars and roses and bluebells explode from the earth. In the community garden, local people work together to grow vegetables and run sessions to connect nature-deprived children to the land.

In the centre of the sometimes crushing metropolis, this park means everything to me – it keeps me sane, and it gives me hope. But this green lifeline is, every summer, taken away, as I await the arrival of the park’s music festival season with dread. As huge metal walls go up, dividing us from the green, and HGVs begin flattening the grass and soil, I feel a genuine sense of horror. A large part of the park is cut off for weeks, and our community’s heart is pulled out as people stream into events whose expensive tickets most people living round here could never afford. And the same is happening in shared green spaces all over the UK.

Rebecca Tamás is a writer of environmental nonfiction and a poet. Her most recent book is Strangers: Essays on the Human and Nonhuman

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The Clean Energy Regulator (CER) has pressed company executives with facilities covered under the Safeguard Mechanism to invest in research, development, and deployment of technology to cut emissions at source as soon as possible, warning that relying on carbon credits alone will not be sufficient.

Five years after her last companion died and the aquarium’s owner pledged to free her, Bella still languishes in a tiny tank amid shops

In the heart of Seoul, amid the luxury shops at the foot of the world’s sixth-tallest skyscraper, a lone beluga whale named Bella swims aimlessly in a tiny, lifeless tank, where she has been trapped for a decade.

Her plight is urgent, with campaigners racing to rescue her from the bare tank in a glitzy shopping centre in South Korea’s capital before it is too late.

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Native forest logging was meant to be over in Victoria. Why are the chainsaws still going? David Lindenmayer, Professor, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University Chris Taylor, Research Fellow, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University Kita Ashman, Visiting fellow, Australian National University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

The price for NZUs sunk by around 15% on Monday as the market continued to react poorly to the government's consultation on the ETS released last week. 

A 441MW wind farm being proposed for development in the central west region of NSW has joined the queue of projects seeking the all-clear from the federal environment minister.

The post A 441MW wind farm opposed by David Littleproud joins queue for federal green tick appeared first on RenewEconomy.

If governments won't ban new gas connections for fear of limiting consumer choice, they must ensure all new gas connected homes can be easily and cheaply electrified.

The post Rules should ensure households have the financial freedom not to choose gas appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Network company switches on community battery in Sydney suburb of North Epping, its third to be underpinned by federal government funding.

The post Ausgrid installs third solar-soaking community battery backed by federal funding appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Why a $300 one-off energy bill rebate misses an opportunity for permanent bill relief.

The post SwitchedOn Podcast: Energy rebates and missed opportunities appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Draft planning changes will force developers of projects like coal mines to provide "robust and consistent information" on potential greenhouse gas emissions.

The post Big polluters will be forced to come clean on emissions under proposed rule change appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Investment giant backs plans to convert Gladstone ore into green iron using hydrogen created from state's massive wind and solar resources and tapping in to federal "Made in Australia plan.

The post Plans unveiled for massive $3.5 billion wind and solar powered green iron project for Queensland appeared first on RenewEconomy.

California's big batteries remain top supplier in evening demand peaks for more than three hours, extending their dominance of the grid powering the world's fifth biggest economy.

The post Deeper, longer, cleaner: Big batteries extend domination of California’s evening demand peaks appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Brookfield reportedly looking at Andrew Forrest's Windlab to boost its ambitious Australian renewable project plans.

The post Brookfield targets Forrest’s Windlab renewable developer after Origin snub appeared first on RenewEconomy.

A state industrial strategy is needed to reduce carbon output, produce cleaner growth and redistribute jobs around the UK

Theresa May and Boris Johnson both argued for levelling up and for a state-supported green transition undergirded by an industrial strategy. Neither delivered and their successor, Rishi Sunak, has repudiated their legacy as prime minister. He looks to the City to deliver growth, with banks determining the rate of investment to meet the challenge of the climate emergency. This is a recipe for failure. The Climate Change Committee (CCC), the government’s independent advisers on cutting carbon emissions, warned last year of “worryingly slow” progress to meet net zero targets. The government is not engaging on what it will take to decarbonise.

Weaning the country off fossil fuels and on to green energy is a complex transition that should be a job for the state, not the free market. Yet Britain is bottom of the league for state spending on renewables in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. In the offshore industry alone 30,000 workers could end up with nowhere to go by 2030 without new roles in green industries. Relying on big finance to meet that gap will entrench today’s failing model, which emphasises the need to attract significant capital flows through deregulation and privatisation, strengthening the hand of boom-and-bust financial services and weakening labour rights. The flipside is a bigger trade deficit and a destructive politics of redistribution to asset holders and to London.

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Milford Haven, Southampton and Immingham top the list for emissions of gases and particulates

Ships calling at the UK’s most-polluted ports produce more nitrogen oxides than all the cars registered in the same cities or regions, analysis has shown.

A report from Transport & Environment (T&E) said that ships were continuing to discharge huge quantities of air pollutants at ports, with Milford Haven, Southampton and Immingham topping the list for emissions of harmful sulphur oxides and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) as well as nitrogen oxides (NOx).

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A new exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London includes ‘tragic’ tales of species wiped out from their natural habitats

Douglas Russell, a senior curator at London’s Natural History Museum, was examining a collection of nests gathered on the island of Guam when he made an unsettling discovery.

“The nests had been picked up more than 100 years ago, and I was curating them with the aim of adding them to the museum’s main collection. They turned out to be one of the most tragic, saddest accumulations of objects I’ve ever had to deal with,” Russell told the Observer last week.

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Environment minister rejects proposed solar and green hydrogen project surrounded by hundreds of coal seam gas wells and which was to be sited next to a big gas refinery.

The post Plibersek says no to solar project surrounded by coal seam gas fields appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Popular among teenagers, the large electric bikes have triggered numerous complaints to councils as fears grow for the safety of riders and pedestrians

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If you frequent coastal towns or suburbs around Australia, you might be familiar with the sight of large, speedy ebikes zooming along the footpath. Fat bikes, as they’re commonly known, have been described as the monster trucks of the cycling world. With wide, thick tyres and seats big enough for two, the electric bicycles are designed to handle sand and off-road terrain.

But they have also garnered a cult status among young people, who are using them to get around with friends, take their surfboard to the beach and commute to school.

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PFAS chemicals present in air, rain, atmosphere and water in basin, which holds nearly 95% of US freshwater

Toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” are ubiquitous in the Great Lakes basin’s air, rain, atmosphere and water, new peer-reviewed research shows.

The first-of-its-kind, comprehensive picture of PFAS levels for the basin, which holds nearly 95% of the nation’s freshwater, also reveals that precipitation is probably a major contributor to the lakes’ contamination.

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