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AusNet seeks approval to spend $3.5bn on upgrading its network over a five-year period it says will bring "significant changes" to the electricity market.

The post Flexible exports and solar soaks: Network shoots for “flat bills” as electrification era takes off appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Australia, as expected, has missed the official but largely symbolic deadline for its 2035 emissions targets. Only one country submitted a target close to 1.5°C goal.

The post Australia formally misses UN climate deadline, only one country makes pledge close to 1.5°C appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Workers cut transmission lines to Russia grid and hand out chopped wire to bystanders in dramatic switch to join EU network.

The post “Freedom from blackmail:” Baltic states cut their link to Russia grid in dramatic switch to EU network appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Managed well, golf courses can bring nature back to our cities. Here’s how to balance the good and bad for urban biodiversity. Jacinta Humphrey, Research Fellow in Urban Ecology, RMIT University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

New BNEF report expects the cost of clean power technologies to fall by between 2-11% in 2025, breaking last year’s record and sending batteries below major benchmark.

The post Battery costs plunge, solar and wind undercut new coal and gas “in almost every market” appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Bureau of Meteorology warns severe conditions will continue as parts of NSW coated in hail

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Thunderstorms across New South Wales and eastern Victoria on Monday brought flash flooding, destructive winds and hail, as the Bureau of Meteorology warns severe conditions would continue.

A major storm rolled across the Sydney CBD around midday on Monday, bringing dark skies and heavy rainfall. The city had recorded 40.6mm of rain at Observatory Hill since 9am, according to the BoM.

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The latest price blowout for Transgrid's EnergyConnect project begs the question: when will transmission companies be held to account for cost underestimates, false assurances and poor project delivery? 

The post Déjà vu on transmission project cost blowouts as price of EnergyConnect doubles appeared first on RenewEconomy.

China is scaling back renewable energy subsidies after breaking its records for new solar installations and hitting its 2030 target six years ahead of schedule.

The post China to roll back wind and solar energy subsidies after hitting targets six years early appeared first on RenewEconomy.

While the world sweated through consecutive "warmest years on record" in 2023 and 2024, a surge of fossil fuel cash continued to pour into the accounts of Australia's major political parties.

The post How fossil fuel cash is powering Peter Dutton’s anti-climate election push appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Restoring mangrove forests could generate billions of dollars in economic and climate benefits, with a global benefit-cost ratio (BCR) as high as 15 to 1, according to a new study.

A new study has found the cost of installing rooftop solar is dramatically lower in Australia than the US and Canada – even in the most expensive Australian state for installation.

The post Rooftop solar three times cheaper to install in Australia than US, Canada appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Much of the Grampians National Park (Gariwerd) has already burned this summer – and the fire is not out yet. What does this mean for the animals that live there? John White, Associate Professor in Wildlife and Conservation Biology, Deakin University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Canada will need to scale up its CO2 removal (CDR) efforts significantly beyond its current net-zero commitments if it is to meet global climate fairness standards, according to a new analysis.

A Florida-based company specialising in converting green waste into biochar-rich products has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, according to court documents.

Another two giga-scale battery storage projects are taking shape, with one likely to have a major shock absorber role for the grid.

The post Another two giga-scale battery storage projects take shape, adding more shock absorbers to the grid appeared first on RenewEconomy.

There’s no point trying to make plans around the whims of Trump. The PM instead needs to turn to Europe

To Elon Musk, I say this! To perform one Nazi salute at Donald Trump’s inauguration, while simultaneously offering full support to European neo-Nazis, might be considered a misfortune. To perform two Nazi salutes at Donald Trump’s inauguration, while simultaneously offering full support to European neo-Nazis, begins to look like carelessness.

I didn’t write that joke. I have cannibalised it from one by the gay Irish Victorian Oscar Wilde, a typical diversity hire who would have achieved nothing had his work not been promoted by the famously woke 19th-century British establishment. Luckily, Wilde was dead long before he had the opportunity to emigrate to the US and take an air traffic controller job from a more deserving straight white male, where his gayness would have caused planes to crash.

Stewart Lee tours Stewart Lee vs the Man-Wulf this year, with a Royal Festival Hall run in July

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk

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Heading off the environmental crisis and growing the economy are not at odds. They are two sides of a coin – as our politicians should realise

If you care about the world we are handing on to future generations, the news on Thursday morning was dramatic. This January was the warmest on record; temperatures in 18 of the past 19 months have exceeded pre-industrial averages by 1.5C. There can be no comfort that the epoch-changing climate crisis is 20 or even 10 years away. It is already upon us.

Temperatures should have been moderated this winter by cooler air over the Pacific; it did not happen. Scientists are bewildered and scared. James Hansen, doyen of climate crisis research, believes that, unless this pace of deterioration is reversed, warm ocean waters flowing from the southern to the northern hemisphere will be trapped as vast sea currents cease. Sea levels will rise to impose a civilisational threat. It is a global imperative to dial down the rate of carbon emissions.

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Keir Starmer’s rhetoric against green campaigners appears to have taken a playground turn

Before the last election, in what was billed as his “most personal interview yet”, Keir Starmer said: “I’m not in the habit of bandying insults around”. It was once part of his appeal, or meant to be, that his speech was polite, even to the point of colourless, in contrast to the ugly gibberish streaming out of Boris Johnson, then Liz Truss. When the Tories went low, Starmer went sorrowful headteacher. “I don’t think Boris Johnson is a bad man,” he said in one speech, “I think he is a trivial man.”

His favourite word, these days, is “nimbys”. Starmer uses it so freely he’s personally breathed new life into the original acronym (“not in my back yard”), revealing along the way its largely unexplored potential to create national disharmony. Why restrict such a genius jibe to arguments about ring roads and executive homes? Last week’s headlines about his plan for nuclear power expansion – typically, “Starmer to ‘push past nimbyism’ in pledge to expand nuclear power sites” – are only the latest in which Starmer demonstrates how any opposition to any scheme with environmental consequences can be represented, by a skilled litigator like himself, as nimbyism: purely selfish, irrational and against the common good. Unlike the visionary tech overlords such as Google, Meta and Amazon, which Starmer invited, in the same speech, to profit, with their data centres, from the UK nimbys’ certain defeat. His government’s pro-nuclear press release featured praise from similarly patriotic, non-nimby-infested corporations, such as EDF and Microsoft.

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Leading climate group warns of damage to green agenda if giant project goes ahead

Keir Starmer will do huge damage to the global fight against climate change if he gives in to political pressure and allows the development of a giant new oilfield in the North Sea, according to an analysis by the country’s leading environmental institute.

Chaired by Nicholas Stern, the Grantham Institute on Climate Change will fire a warning shot to ministers not to give the green light to the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields, after suggestions that the Treasury is now in favour of allowing drilling to maximise economic growth.

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An interministerial decree in Brazil released this week seeks to regularise access to undesignated federal public forests in the Legal Amazon for Indigenous and traditional communities.