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The galaxy resembling Christmas lights hanging in the cosmos has space scientists feeling festive

A Scottish carbon removals company has signed a deal to permanently store 50,000 tonnes of CO2 in a depleted North Sea oilfield, it announced on Wednesday.

A US oil and gas company announced plans Wednesday to plough up to $30 billion in "low emissions opportunities" between 2025 and 2030, with almost 65% spent on reducing climate impact for third-party customers.

An international consultancy has secured a contract to manage the world’s first gas-fired power station with carbon capture and storage (CCS), which could sequester up to 2 million tonnes of CO2 a year, and received financial approval on Tuesday.

Biodiversity credit markets are unlikely to be effective for nature if they function as offsets, as they will require an excessive amount of regulation to check they are achieving credible gains for nature, according to a group of UK academics.

Mapping based on documents released under right-to-information laws show proposed areas include habitats for 37 threatened species

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Environmentalists have released what they say are the first maps of nearly 40,000 hectares of protected Tasmanian native forests that the state government plans to open to logging in what critics have described as “political point scoring”.

They suggest significant parts of the state’s north-east around the Ben Lomond national park and near the town of Scottsdale could be made available to the forestry industry if the Liberal government wins support for the changes in parliament. A smaller area of forest could be opened up in the north-west between Smithton and Wynyard.

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Europe still has a chance to compete with China and the US on clean technologies like offshore wind, power grids, heat pumps, and electrolysers, provided it can make the right decisions and act swiftly, according to the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Access to balanced diet also affected by inflation and Brexit, hitting most vulnerable households hardest

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Numbers of hungry and malnourished households in the UK are on the rise because of climate breakdown and inflation, government figures show, with poorer, younger and disabled people hit hardest.

Many households worry about food running out, cannot afford balanced meals, experience hunger and have missed meals in the past 30 days, the figures reveal.

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Researchers have found a potential new way of using CO2 to create valuable products such as fuel, a Korean university announced on Wednesday.

Environmental corporate commitments have broadened over the past couple of years, driven by an unprecedented increase in biodiversity-related target setting among some of the world's biggest companies, according to global consulting firm McKinsey.

European carbon prices strengthened on Wednesday morning as the market focused on the expiry of the December options contract shortly after midday, while weekly positioning data showed investment funds continued to add to their net long positions last week, amassing the biggest bullish bias in 20 months.

Ships may have to transport some 100 million tonnes of CO2 annually between jurisdictions by mid-century, which will require huge advance efforts in terms of funding and other preparations, according to a report released Wednesday.

The production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is growing in volume, but at a very slow rate, industry association International Air Transport Organisation (IATA) said this week.

A Stockholm-based climate funding platform has secured $5 million from US software giant Salesforce to scale early-stage carbon removal funding, the company announced on Wednesday.

The Bursa Carbon Exchange (BCX), subsidiary of Bursa Malaysia, has initiated trading of Gold Standard-certified voluntary carbon credits, it announced Wednesday.

Andrew Powell first said he was not ‘100% convinced’ 12 years ago while holding the portfolio during the Campbell Newman era

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Queensland’s environment minister has told parliament he stands by his comments more than a decade ago that he was “a bit sceptical” about human involvement in climate change.

Andrew Powell returned to the environment, tourism, science and innovation portfolio last month, having held it under the former premier Campbell Newman in 2012.

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Research done with the help of citizen science shows male humpback completed almost twice the typical migration distance

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A humpback whale has journeyed more than 13,000km from South America to Africa, which researchers say is the longest distance ever recorded for an individual whale.

New research published in Royal Society Open Science recorded sightings of a male humpback whale, initially spotted near the coast of Colombia and recorded nearly a decade later near Zanzibar, Africa.

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From rural buses to solar panels, our Green agenda has been transformative. Yet, vested interests and big polluters helped to poison the well of public thinking

• Eamon Ryan was Irish Green party leader from 2011 to 2024

Ireland’s Green party went into government in 2020 determined to bring Ireland from laggard to leader on the climate crisis. Public opinion was with us, and we won more than 7% of the national vote. This mandate allowed us to negotiate a coalition agreement with Ireland’s two large centrist parties that was recognised by European Green colleagues as one of the greenest deals they had seen.

Over the past four and a half years we worked flat out to implement that programme. I think most independent experts would say the impact has been transformational. Last year Ireland’s emissions fell 6.8%, despite having one of Europe’s fastest growing economies and record population growth. The Greens switched spending in favour of public transport, cycling and walking. We rolled out a new rural bus service every week, while cutting young people’s fares by 60%. Passenger numbers took off immediately and we are only at the start of the transformation. A pipeline of big new projects is coming through our planning system, ready to go.

Eamon Ryan served as the minister for the environment and transport in Ireland’s outgoing coalition government and was Green party leader from 2011 to 2024

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Pesticide Action Network analysis of government testing data finds chemicals linked to cancer and harmful to bees

Imported food has been found to have residues of 48 pesticides that have not been approved for use by British farmers, including chemicals linked to cancer and imidacloprid, which is harmful to bees, analysis shows.

Pesticide Action Network (PAN) went through UK government testing data, comparing the results for pesticide tests on imported and domestically produced food. They found there were residues of 46 cancer-linked pesticides in imported produce, compared with 19 in food of UK origin.. Importers include the EU, Peru, Thailand, Turkey and the US.

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Research shows UK police arrest environmental and climate protesters at three times the average global rate

British police arrest environmental protesters at nearly three times the global average rate, research has found, revealing the country as a world leader in the legal crackdown on climate activism.

Only Australia arrested climate and environmental protesters at a higher rate than UK police. One in five Australian eco-protests led to arrests, compared with about 17% in the UK. The global average rate is 6.7%.

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