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Low-emissions technology, both new renewables and recently resurgent nuclear, will generate half the world's power demand by 2030, yet without investment in electricity grids in particular, global warming is headed for 2.4C above pre-industrial temperatures by the end of the century, according to the International Energy Agency's (IEA's) World Energy Outlook (WEO) on Wednesday. 

European carbon prices continued to track the TTF market on Wednesday morning, falling away as warmer temperatures dampened demand for gas and power, while weekly positioning data showed investment funds marginally trimmed their bearish bets last week.

Exclusive: proposal to Cop16 could see ‘funga’ get global legal consideration distinct from flora and fauna

A new era of mycelial conservation could begin this month when the UK and Chile propose that fungi should be placed alongside animals and plants as a separate realm for environmental protection.

Mushrooms, mould, mildew, yeast and lichen would all receive elevated status under the plan, which will be submitted to the UN convention on biological diversity (CBD) during the Cop16 meeting in Cali, Colombia, which opens on 21 October.

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Marine scientists have urged governments at the upcoming biodiversity COP16 to ramp up funding for research for ocean acidification (OA) to avoid disaster, in a report published on Wednesday.

South Korea’s latest monthly CO2 permit auction was again oversubscribed, with analysts expecting allowance prices to remain stable around the 10,000 won ($7.35) level in the near term.

A Brazilian Indigenous association has released a methodology to issue biodiversity units in partnership with a carbon project developer and a US-based non-profit, planning to soon launch the first pilot across almost 190,000 hectares of forest in the Amazon, the parties announced on Wednesday.

A carbon removal buyers club has signed a deal with an enhanced rock weathering (ERW) company, adding credits from Asia to its portfolio for the first time at an average price of $200 per tonne.

The Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) has launched a facility to support scaling of international carbon trading under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement and catalyse up to $500 million solely for the transactions of Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcomes (ITMOs) by 2030, it announced Wednesday.

Tech barons are forever predicting some amazing new technology to fix the climate crisis. Yet fixes already exist

There are so many ways to fiddle while Rome burns, or as this season’s weather would have it, gets torn apart by hurricanes and tornadoes and also goes underwater – and, in other places, burns. One particularly pernicious way comes from the men in love with big tech, who are forever insisting that we need some amazing new technology to solve our problems, be it geoengineering, carbon sequestration or fusion – but wait, it gets worse.

At an artificial intelligence conference in Washington DC, the former Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently claimed that “[w]e’re not going to hit the climate goals anyway because we’re not organized to do it” and that we should just plunge ahead with AI, which is so huge an energy hog it’s prompted a number of tech companies to abandon their climate goals. Schmidt then threw out the farfetched notion that we should go all in on AI because maybe AI will somehow, maybe, eventually know how to “solve” climate, saying: “I’d rather bet on AI solving the problem than constraining it.”

Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of Orwell’s Roses and co-editor with Thelma Young Lutunatabua of the climate anthology Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility

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The Asia Pacific region will need energy sector investments of around $89 trillion from now to 2050 to achieve net zero by mid century, according to a report released Wednesday.

An environmental legal group has submitted a greenwashing complaint to Australia’s consumer watchdog over airline Qantas’ “fly carbon neutral” product and its broader sustainability claims. 

Chris Bowen questions why gas companies who already produce energy should get windfall gain under opposition’s plan

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Labor says a Coalition pledge to offer subsidies to existing and new gas power plants makes “no sense” and would ensure fossil fuel plants that are already in the grid receive windfall gains.

In a speech to an Australian Pipelines and Gas Association Convention in Adelaide, the opposition’s climate change and energy spokesperson, Ted O’Brien, said that gas would be “here to stay” under the Coalition.

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Bring in ‘future homes standard’ or leave families at risk of higher bills and emissions for decades, MPs and experts say

Ministers must take steps now to ensure that all homes are built to the most efficient low-carbon standards, or risk locking households into higher bills and greenhouse gas emissions for decades to come, a group of MPs and experts have urged.

The government is mulling changes to the building regulations in England to bring in a “future homes standard” that would require all new homes to be built with low-carbon equipment such as heat pumps and solar panels.

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International Energy Agency says transition to clean energy means there will be a surplus of oil, gas and coal

Fossil fuels could soon become significantly cheaper and more abundant as governments accelerate the transition to clean energy towards the end of the decade, according to the International Energy Agency.

The world’s energy watchdog has signalled a new energy era in which countries have access to more oil, gas and coal than needed to fuel their economic growth, leading to lower prices for households and businesses.

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The UK's burden of waste is disproportionately falling on deprived areas, where residents have spoken to the BBC.

Surfers were seen catching waves near a suspected oil slick off the coast of Coogee in Sydney a day after hundreds of pieces of black debris washed up along the beach. The beach was closed and beachgoers warned not to touch the material, which could be 'tar balls' formed from oil spills or seepage at sea

• Suspected oil slick spotted off Sydney's Coogee beach after mysterious black balls wash ashore

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The Pacific nation of the Solomon Islands has launched a carbon trading policy project with help from the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) and the New Zealand and Irish governments.

Energy minister Chris Bowen suggests the federal government already knew Equinor and its local partner Oceanex had backed out of Illawarra offshore zone.

The post Federal government says it already knew of withdrawal of key offshore wind project in Illawarra appeared first on RenewEconomy.

UK banks have invested more than £1 billion in companies tied to deforestation risks worldwide since COP26, defying the country’s 2021 Glasgow climate commitments, according to analysis released on Wednesday.

IEA says rapid deployment of low cost wind and solar the key if world is to navigate narrow path to 1.5°C climate target.

The post Solar and batteries steal the show, but world needs more renewables quickly to meet 1.5°C target appeared first on RenewEconomy.