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Anna McMorrin says Labour ‘absolutely determined’ on net zero after visiting Antarctica and finding report by her father, a polar researcher

When Anna McMorrin MP visited the Antarctic as part of a government inquiry, she stumbled upon a report in the Rothera Research Station library that her father, a polar researcher, had written in 1962.

It described the Larsen ice shelf, a beautiful stretch of thousands of miles of thick, white, crystalline snow – which has now almost completely melted away.

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Dithering on renewable energy and insulation will leave people in Britain ‘colder and poorer’, campaigners warn

Rishi Sunak is facing further attacks on his plans to expand oil and gas exploration in the North Sea this week. The Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill – to be debated in the Commons on Monday – has already triggered widespread protests, including the resignation of Chris Skidmore, a former Conservative energy minister.

The bill aims to boost fossil fuel extraction by establishing a new system under which licences for North Sea oil and gas projects will be awarded annually.

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Nuclear power went backwards last year despite the renaissance hype. Meanwhile, renewables enjoyed record growth and within two years both wind and solar will overtake nuclear.

The post Nuclear goes backwards, again, as wind and solar enjoy another year of record growth appeared first on RenewEconomy.

I discovered the Roma Street parkland as a place to run. It’s a wondrous oasis. Tip: there’s quite a bit of my love left on Banyan Lawn

• This is part of a series in which writers tell us about their summers away from the beach
• Find more essential summer reading

Maiwar is the heart of Meanjin in summer. It’s running or walking along its banks under the shady canopy of the jacaranda and poinciana trees of the West End, past the vibrant, human-made beach at South Bank, and around the winding, bustling paths at the base of the Kangaroo Point cliffs, where the whiff of mangroves reminds me of their place in the ecosystem, holding the banks in place.

I run at daybreak in summer to beat the humidity, yet beads of sweat still form before I hit my first kilometre. And while anxiety often plagues me, the sky’s reflection in the glassy river offers tranquillity and calm in an otherwise turbulent world.

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With foul rivers and polluted soil, the ‘conserve’ in Conservative clearly does not extend to our natural world

As we sip our pints of wine, clutching our blue passports, we could be forgiven for taking a deep breath when told of the benefits of Brexit. Yet this could become increasingly hard to do, as the promise to maintain or even enhance our environment now that we have left the EU is being broken.

While no campaign bus was ever emblazoned with promises of foul rivers and polluted soil, post-Brexit it is becoming clear that the “conserve” in Conservative doesn’t extend to our natural world. European directives previously accounted for 80% of our laws in this area – creating shared standards we helped write to prevent contamination, reduce emissions and preserve habitats. By working collectively, we could also ensure no country was economically harmed because no border can stop pollution.

Stella Creasy is the Labour and Cooperative MP for Walthamstow

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MEPs react to ‘tragic’ findings revealing UK falling behind EU in key environmental policies since Brexit

• Brexit divergence from EU destroying UK’s environmental protections
• Northern Ireland ‘dirty corner of Europe due to lack of governance’
• Explainer: UK environmental protections dropped since Brexit

European lawmakers have lamented the UK’s decision to weaken environmental rules since leaving the EU, after the Guardian revealed it is falling behind in almost every policy area.

One Green group MEP said the findings were “tragic” while a centre-right MEP said the divergences were “particularly bad” for companies that want to do business on both sides of the Channel.

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A daily summary of our news plus bite-sized updates from around the world.

California electricity sector CO2 emissions for November fell below levels for the same month seen in a decade, continuing the decreasing monthly trend in GHG output observed throughout the year, as the grid's share of natural gas receded following a surge in October, data published Friday showed.

Almost 350,000 tonnes worth of carbon offsets have been used against the carbon tax of a Mexican state, according to an official presenting a report by the environmental market platform of the Mexican Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

For the second week in a row, regulated entities reduced net holdings of California Carbon Allowances (CCAs) as speculators built positions, while both groups trimmed RGGI net length, amid an absence of reported data yet again for Washington Carbon Allowances (WCAs), according to information published by the US Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Friday.

Most of the 1 billion people in informal settlements are in the tropics where the threat of humid heat is rising. Poor weather station coverage that misses local hotspots puts them even more at risk. Emma Ramsay, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Nanyang Technological University, and Research Affiliate, School of Biological Sciences, Monash University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Reef, which extends for 310 miles from Florida to South Carolina and at some points is 68 miles wide, called ‘breathtaking in scale’

Scientists have mapped the largest known deep-sea coral reef, stretching hundreds of miles off the US Atlantic coast.

While researchers have known since the 1960s that coral is present off the Atlantic, the reef’s size remained a mystery until new underwater mapping technology made it possible to construct 3D images of the ocean floor.

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US lawmakers have introduced legislation that would require the Department of Energy (DOE) to invest in direct air capture (DAC) or other technology-based solutions for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) to establish a long-term market for such projects.

It becomes only the fifth country to soft-land on the Moon but power supply problems may hinder its mission.

Chile’s environment ministry has codified the names of three carbon credit standards into law, recognising them as sufficiently robust to qualify credits for compliance purposes under the country’s carbon tax scheme.

California gasoline sales and emissions trailed 2022 levels for the second month in a row in October, although by a smaller margin, while monthly diesel sales and emissions exceeded those from the previous year for only the second time in 2023, according to state data released Friday.

France has amended a controversial bill aimed at ensuring energy sovereignty, getting rid of any specific targets for low-carbon sources such as renewables and nuclear, EU-focused media Euractiv reported on Friday.

Exclusive: Britain is falling behind the bloc on almost every area of green regulation, analysis reveals

• Northern Ireland ‘dirty corner of Europe due to lack of governance’
• Explainer: UK environmental protections dropped since Brexit

Vital legal protections for the environment and human health are being destroyed in post-Brexit departures from European legislation, a detailed analysis by the Guardian reveals.

The UK is falling behind the EU on almost every area of environmental regulation, as the bloc strengthens its legislation while the UK weakens it. In some cases, ministers are removing EU-derived environmental protections from the statute book entirely.

Water in the UK will be dirtier than in the EU.

There will be more pesticides in Britain’s soil.

Companies will be allowed to produce products containing chemicals that the EU has restricted for being dangerous.

EU-derived air pollution laws that will be removed under the retained EU law bill.

Dozens of chemicals banned in the EU are still available for use in the UK.

Thirty-six pesticides banned in the EU have not been outlawed in the UK.

The UK is falling behind on reducing carbon emissions as the EU implements carbon pricing.

The EU is compensating those who are struggling to afford the costs of the green transition, while the UK is not.

The EU is implementing stricter regulations on battery recycling, while the UK is not.

Deforestation is being removed from the EU supply chain, while the UK’s proposed scheme is more lax and does not come in until a year later.

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The first UNFCCC-approved sovereign credits from REDD forestry protection, that can be used towards climate targets, will appear for sale in the middle of the year, and prices will likely be fixed annually in an OPEC-like cartel to counter market volatility, Kevin Conrad, the chief executive of the Coalition of Rainforest Nations (CfRN), told Carbon Pulse this week.

The world’s top food producers could use their combined purchasing power to create demand of up to $20 billion a year by 2030 for agricultural commodities that are produced sustainably, industry figures said in Davos this week.