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Turnbull's purchase of Snowy Hydro means he is now both utility owner and policy maker. More concerning is that the newly purchased Snowy Hydro has a strong economic interest in preventing the battery storage market from taking off.

Government-funded researchers urge change in way clean energy is funded to reduce burden on poorest households

The richest households should pay £410 a year more towards supporting energy subsidies for wind farms, solar rooftops and home insulation schemes, government-funded researchers have urged.

The UK Energy Research Centre (Ukerc) said that shifting environmental and social levies off electricity bills and instead loading them on to general taxation would reduce the cost of energy for more than two thirds of households.

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Whitehaven Coal receives second extension while it continues to bulldoze critically endangered NSW forest to make way for mine

Five years after the controversial Maules Creek coalmine in north-east New South Wales was given approval to clear critically endangered native ecosystems, Whitehaven Coal has still not secured the biodiversity offsets demanded by the federal government, receiving a second extension in February.

The delay has led opponents to call for offsets – intended to make up for lost ecosystems – to be established prior to the destruction taking place.

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Deal worth $6bn allows Malcolm Turnbull to proceed with plan to expand hydro to boost east coast grid

The federal government has reached an agreement to buy the stakes held by New South Wales and Victoria in the Snowy Hydro project for $6bn.

The agreement, clinched late on Thursday by Malcolm Turnbull, allows the federal government to proceed with its $4.5bn plan to expand Snowy Hydro to benefit the east coast electricity grid.

Related: Snowy Hydro 2.0 is viable but will cost billions more than predicted, study says

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Burning wood releases more CO2 than gas, oil and even coal, so to make it climate neutral we need an increase in forests

With snow on the ground, many people will have been huddling around a wood fire, but researchers are questioning if wood burning is really climate neutral. Burning wood is not CO2 free; it releases carbon, stored over the previous decades, in one quick burst. For an equal amount of heat or electricity, it releases more CO2 than burning gas, oil and even coal, so straight away we have more CO2 in the air from burning wood. This should be reabsorbed as trees regrow. For logs from mature Canadian woodland, it could take more than 100 years before the atmospheric CO2 is less than the alternative scenario of burning a fossil fuel and leaving the trees in the forest.

Related: Wood fires fuel climate change – UN

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The Environment Secretary attacks water industry bosses' salaries and lack of investment.

Deal with Eastern Australia Agriculture raises, which was done without a tender, raises questions over taxpayer value

One of Australia’s largest cotton companies, Eastern Australia Agriculture (EAA), sold water rights to the federal government in July last year for $79m and then booked a $52m gain on the sale.

The deal, which was done without tender, will raise questions about whether the government paid over the odds for the water in southern Queensland.

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Has an earlier than usual spring in some parts of the northern hemisphere affected the wildlife near you?

What sort of wildlife will we all discover on our doorsteps this month? We’d like to see your photos of the March wildlife near you, whether you’re a novice spotter or have been out and about searching for creatures great and small for years.

Related: 'A first in my 60 years': readers spot early signs of spring

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The birds were captured at about 14:30 GMT on Wednesday at Flitcham, near King's Lynn.

A new study finds that waiting 5 extra years to peak carbon pollution will cost 20 cm sea level rise

A new study published in Nature looks at how much global sea level will continue to rise even if we manage to meet the Paris climate target of staying below 2°C hotter than pre-industrial temperatures. The issue is that sea levels keep rising for several hundred years after we stabilize temperatures, largely due to the continued melting of ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland from the heat already in the climate system.

The study considered two scenarios. In the first, human carbon pollution peaks somewhere between 2020 and 2035 and falls quickly thereafter, reaching zero between 2035 and 2055 and staying there. Global temperatures in the first scenario peak at and remain steady below 2°C. In the second scenario, we capture and sequester carbon to reach net negative emissions (more captured than emitted) between 2040 and 2060, resulting in falling global temperatures in the second half of the century.

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Woodland Trust records show more evidence that spring is arriving earlier in the UK

Winter in the UK has become a landscape of yellow hawthorn, the orange flash of red admiral butterflies, blackbirds nesting, and bumblebees feeding on mauve chives, pink valerian and lavender.

Before the white-out of snow which covered much of the country on Wednesday, reports by the Woodland Trust charity showed yet more evidence that spring is arriving earlier and earlier.

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New, solar-focused energy retailer DC Power Co is set to disrupt the market, and it hopes to be majority owned by Australia's rooftop solar households.

At current rates of progress no African country will meet the UN goal set for 2030, a study reveals.

Researchers discover the oldest figurative tattoos in the world on two mummies from Egypt.

AEMO highlights critical role played by rooftop solar in meeting a week of demand in "remarkable" heatwave in Queensland in February.

Overseas, new EV sales make up from 5% in California to more than 25% in Norway. In Australia, it’s less than 0.1% (and falling). Why?

Shared electric vehicles, or "robo-taxis" could become the dominant form of car transport in Australia within 10 years – taking the share of EVs to 95 per cent and accelerating the push to a 100 per cent renewable grid.

Clean Energy Regulator's latest list of Australia's top 10 corporate emitters shows the biggest emitter has twice the emissions of the next biggest.

Powershop announces 5% price drop for Victorian customers, one month after huge deal to buy three hydro plants, output of solar and wind farms.

This rural Georgia highway has become a proving ground for cutting-edge clean energy technologies.