Feed aggregator

As nations meet in Colombia to confront species and ecosystem loss, the onus is on the global north to put science and collaboration at the heart of the issue

• Angela McLean is chief scientific adviser to the UK government

Biodiversity, the incredible variety of life on Earth, is the backbone of the ecosystems that allow life on this planet to flourish. From the rich soil that nurtures our food and stores our carbon, to the green spaces that improve our mental health, biodiversity is an unsung hero upon which our societies and economies thrive.

Despite the clear benefits of – and moral arguments for – protecting nature, human activities are accelerating biodiversity loss at unprecedented rates. We are destroying habitats, overexploiting natural resources and introducing invasive species, which put plant and animal species at risk of extinction. Human-induced climate change is intensifying biodiversity loss and altering ecosystems, reducing their ability to provide natural climate solutions. Right now, in South America, devastating drought and fires – exacerbated by climate change – are destroying millions of acres of forest habitats.

Continue reading...

Windstorms could significantly reduce the ability of forests to act as carbon sinks, posing a major threat to national climate mitigation strategies that rely on these ecosystems to absorb greenhouse gases, according to researchers.

The German government has opened its first online consultation to assess CO2 removal and storage methods as part of the country’s planned long-term negative emissions strategy, according to media sources.

Verra will restructure its organisation and cut its workforce by around a quarter, it announced Monday, as the voluntary carbon standard and registry deals with slowing market demand and mounting financial losses.

Global heating particularly increasing risk of death from smoke inhalation in Australia, South America, Europe and parts of Asia

Global heating is causing more of the planet to be burned from wildfires and probably killing an extra 12,000 people a year from breathing in smoke, according to new research.

Global heating was particularly increasing the risk of death from wildfire smoke in Australia, South America, Europe and the boreal forests of Asia, one modelling study found.

Continue reading...

A Brazilian jurisdictional REDD+ (J-REDD) saga continues to unfold, RenovaBio sees a mixed bag of outcomes, and the world prepares to descend on Cali, Colombia, for the COP16 UN biodiversity conference.

WWF on Monday released the conditions it requires for it to be able to potentially endorse the sale of voluntary biodiversity credits, including no offsetting.

Brazilian public prosecutors sent a letter last week to the environmental secretariat of Para, demanding transparency in information and public consultation with local stakeholders in the state’s $180-million jurisdictional REDD+ (J-REDD) deal announced last month.

The UK government’s recent £21.7 billion funding announcement for carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) projects “is low on details and high on rhetoric”, and will likely result in “the waste of public money”, according to new analysis.

Indonesia will work to enhance its food and energy security with a place for coal in the energy mix, incoming President Prabowo Subianto said in his inauguration speech Sunday, after winning the election in February.

Hauliers’ group Transport in Nood BV launched judicial review earlier this year over fines issued in Ulez and Lez

Transport for London (TfL) could be forced to pay back millions of pounds in low emission zone fines issued to Dutch lorry drivers after agreeing they had been issued unlawfully.

The body said it had agreed to settle a claim regarding the Ulez fines after a company representing dozens of Dutch haulage companies launched a legal challenge into the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) and low emission zone (Lez) fines earlier this year.

Continue reading...

The cost and performance of an innovative type of direct air capture technology are heavily influenced by local environmental conditions, a new study has found.

European carbon allowances handed back gains of as much as 1.1% on Monday morning to reach midday marginally weaker on the day, as EUA prices broke away from their link to natural gas amid a resumption of the selling pressure that drove the market down last week.

Government-backed Taiwan Carbon Solution Exchange on Monday unveiled a platform exclusively for the trading of domestically issued carbon credits, as the island seeks to complement its carbon pricing framework.

A Japanese blue carbon hopeful has set its sights on Dec. 2025 as the date by which it expects to gain J Blue credit certification for its seaweed farming project, though has made no mention of the numbers of credits it plans to generate.

Solar power will grow four-fold by 2030, overtaking nuclear, hydro and gas, and then coal by 2033. By 2050, it will produce more than all these technologies combined.

The post Solar will leap four-fold by 2030, ending the rule of King coal and overtaking all other grid supplies appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Oscar, 10th hurricane of 2024 season, batters Turks and Caicos and Bahamas and threatens Cuba and Canada

Hurricane Oscar has become the 10th hurricane of the 2024 Atlantic season, battering the Turks and Caicos Islands on Saturday night and the far southern Bahamas on Sunday.

The disturbance that eventually became Oscar was initially given a low chance of tropical development by the US National Hurricane Center. It began on 10 October as a tropical wave across western Africa, bringing thunderstorms and gusty winds to the Cabo Verde Islands, before moving westwards over the Atlantic. However, it struggled to become sufficiently organised at it progressed, as dry air inhibited further thunderstorm development.

Continue reading...

The Russian Carbon Units Registry has conducted its first international sale of carbon credits from a forest project in Krasnoyarsk to an investment fund in the United Arab Emirates, local media reported last week.

Japan’s largest LNG developer has partnered with a local power company for a joint study on capturing post-combustion CO2 in Japan for transport to Australia for permanent sequestration.

Exclusive: Researchers find 61% of fresh waters in the UK contain high levels of phosphate and nitrate

The UK’s rivers contain a cocktail of chemicals and stimulants including caffeine, antidepressants and painkillers from water company sewage releases, polluting freshwaters at levels which can pose a risk to aquatic life, testing has found.

Results from three days of testing in rivers by 4,531 volunteers for the environmental research group Earthwatch showed that, in addition to the chemical mix in rivers, 61% of fresh waters in the UK were in a poor state because of high levels of the nutrients phosphate and nitrate, the source of which is sewage effluent and agricultural runoff. England had the worst level of poor water quality in rivers, with 67% of freshwater samples showing high levels of nitrate and phosphate.

Of the 91 samples already analysed, 100% contained caffeine, with levels in 80% of these samples presenting some risk to aquatic life, said Woods.

Nicotine was found in 25% of samples, with concentrations that present some risk to aquatic life found in 7% of samples. The antidepressant venlafaxine was found in 30% of samples analysed, with 13% of samples containing levels that posed a risk to aquatic life.

The antibiotic trimethoprim was found in 10% of samples, all at concentrations that posed some level of risk to aquatic life.

Diclofenac, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, was in 11 % of samples, all of which showed some level of risk.

In 5% of samples, the fungicide tebuconazole was present as a result of agricultural runoff.

The neonicotinoid acetamiprid, used for pet flea treatment, was present in 19% of samples, all showing some level of risk to aquatic life.

Earthwatch said the results showed the strong contribution that citizen science played in presenting a clearer picture of the health of rivers.

Continue reading...