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Improving the climate resilience of smallholder farms while strengthening coffee supply chains is the focus of a Swiss-Colombian startup looking to apply carbon-rich biochar to the soils of coffee plantations, with the sequestration monetised through the sale of removals.

A voluntary carbon standard has made a step forward on a deforestation risk mapping tool for jurisdictional REDD projects by advancing work across the first set of forest-rich nations, it said Thursday.

Key differences between the most prominent biodiversity disclosure initiatives have been examined in a report published by the EU Business & Biodiversity (B&B) Platform.

Employees at SBTi have called for their CEO to resign over controversial plans which they fear will enable greenwashing

Staff at one of the world’s leading climate-certification organisations have called for the CEO and board members to resign after they announced plans to allow companies to meet their climate targets with carbon offsets.

They fear that companies will use the offsets for greenwashing, while avoiding making the necessary cuts in greenhouse gas emissions – without which the world faces climate catastrophe.

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The Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI) has maintained that it still has an important role in providing guidance for corporate climate claims and voluntary carbon credit use, in light of an announcement this week from the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) that signalled the body would undergo a major position change and also endorse offset use towards net zero goals.

The European Parliament voted on Thursday to approve a reform of the EU electricity market design aiming to protect consumers from sudden price shocks, along with a plan to facilitate the uptake of 'low-carbon gases' such as hydrogen.

Government recovery fund stipulates affected areas must be less than 150 metres from a ‘main’ river

Farmers who have their entire cropping land submerged underwater have found they are ineligible for a government flooding hardship fund – because their farms are too far from a major river.

According to the Met Office, 1,695.9mm of rain fell from October 2022 to March 2024, the highest amount for any 18-month period in England since the organisation started collecting comparable data in 1836. Scientists have said climate breakdown is likely to cause more intense periods of rain in the UK.

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A California-based direct ocean capture (DOC) company has raised additional funding to support the commercialisation of its technology to harness the ocean's role in carbon absorption.

European carbon prices rose sharply on Thursday morning, erasing Wednesday's losses and setting a new 11-week high, as energy prices surged after Russia attacked Ukrainian energy and gas facilities.

Serbia will join Hungary and Slovenia’s regional energy exchange to encourage development and as part of the country’s efforts to avoid having to pay the EU’s new Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) fee, it announced this week.

Leaders have failed to tackle invasion of sargassum, which may have a bumper year in 2024

Schools evacuated due to toxic gas. Smelly tap water at home. Tourist operators and fishers struggling to stay in business. Job losses. Power outages affecting tens of thousands of people at a time. Dangerous health problems. Even lives lost.

Such crises were some of the consequences of sargassum seaweed in the islands of the Caribbean in 2023, which have become common in the region since 2011, when massive blooms began inundating the shorelines in the spring and summer months.

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A Japanese project developer has entered into an agreement with a Bangkok-based firm for an afforestation project in Thailand under Japan’s Joint Crediting Mechanism (JCM), the companies announced Thursday.

A UK waste-to-energy company announced Thursday that it is moving ahead with plans to invest £200 million in carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology at a site in Wales, which it says will turn the plant into a carbon-negative power producer.

Almost 1.4 million kilometres of roads not marked in official road maps and often built illegally, known as “ghost roads”, are presenting a grave threat to tropical forests in the Asia-Pacific region, researchers have found.

China has introduced state-level regulations governing compensation for ecological protection, as the government aims to encourage the use of market-based instruments such as carbon credit purchases. 

An internal letter to the Science Based Targets initiative’s (SBTi) board and CEO has called for the non-profit's chief executive to resign and to reverse the decision to allow companies to use carbon credits to meet Scope 3 emissions targets, Reuters reports.

Global coal capacity rose last year, with China – the world’s largest LNG importer and biggest developer of new solar and wind capacity – accounting for two-thirds of that growth, according to a think tank report published Thursday.

Archaeologists unearth significant new paintings in the ancient Roman town buried by a volcano in AD79.

Environmental market standards are intensifying their push to establish an international framework for plastic credits under the UN plastics treaty, even as experts raise concerns over the viability of recycling at scale.

Visitors to the countryside objecting to a variety of rural noises are such a problem that legislators feel compelled to act

The French parliament is taking aim at noise complaints in the countryside. Lawmakers say they are well acquainted with the problem of residents who have moved to the countryside from the big cities bemoaning the way livestock, church bells and other rural sounds impinge on their newly claimed right to pastoral quiet.

A new law aims to stop these néoruraux (rural newcomers) from taking farmers to court over farming activities that were already happening long before they arrived. Opposition MPs have derided the new bill as hot air, because it mostly just reorganises existing bits of legislation. But what is new is an emphasis on what the justice minister, Éric Dupond-Moretti, calls le vivre-ensemble: living together in a respectful way – something I feel is sorely needed.

Dale Berning Sawa is a freelance writer based in London

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