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Severe flooding is, unfortunately, inevitable. What isn’t inevitable is how ready we are, from early warning systems to emergency services

• Friederike Otto is a climatologist and co-founder of World Weather Attribution

At the time of writing, the death toll has risen to 214. Battered cars and other debris are piled up in the streets, large swaths of Valencia remain underwater, and Spain is in mourning. On Sunday, anger erupted as the king and queen of Spain were pelted with mud and other objects by protesters. Why were so many lives lost in a flood that was well forecasted in a wealthy country?

From the global north’s vantage point, the climate crisis, caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas, has long been seen as a distant threat, affecting poor people in the global south. This misconception has perpetuated a false sense of security.

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Senior executives and a major investor in beleaguered developer C-Quest Capital (CQC) have launched their own company, Bridge Carbon, acquiring CQC’s best projects as the firm is wound down after its founder was indicted on fraud charges.

Detailed plans from 30 oil and gas producers come amid historic levels of potent planet-heating emissions

A powerful US oil and gas industry lobby group has drawn up detailed plans to kill off penalties for emitting methane, a potent planet-heating gas that’s increasing at the fastest rate in decades, with this effort led by a major donor to Donald Trump whose company has just been fined for methane pollution.

Leaked internal documents from the American Exploration & Production Council (AXPC), a group of 30 oil and gas producers, outline a push to repeal a fee levied on methane emissions should the former US president win this week’s election and Republicans gain control of Congress.

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The shipping industry as well as environmental NGOs have criticised the European Commission’s definition of offshore ships to be included in the EU ETS from next year, saying it will lead to confusion, market distortion, and unaccounted emissions.

Taiwan's fledgling voluntary carbon market has seen emerging demand for nature-based credits, particularly from the tech sector, an executive at a government-backed exchange has told Carbon Pulse.

Singapore-based Climate Impact X (CIX) announced Monday it will collaborate with one of the market's carbon ratings agencies to bring greater transparency to the market via a new ratings system on its trading platform.

Coalition Senator takes aim at Australian solar innovators looking to tap into the Solar Sunshot program, accusing them of being "shell companies for rent seekers."

The post “Shell companies for rent seekers:” Coalition attacks solar innovators, including Turnbull-backed SunDrive appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The COP16 summit has the potential to drive an increasing number of governments to set up compliance nature credit schemes, which carbon players see as a key condition for swarming into the biodiversity space, a consultancy firm has told Carbon Pulse.

Nine Vietnamese carbon credit projects have been approved for Japan’s Joint Crediting Mechanism (JCM) after the latest meeting of the Joint Committee for the Implementation of the JCM in Hanoi last week, the first new approvals under the scheme in the Southeast Asian country for five years.

Exclusive: Researchers find treatment plants designed to clean up leachate liquid waste boost levels of banned PFAS

Processes intended to decontaminate noxious liquid landfill waste before it enters rivers and sewers have been found to increase the levels of some of the worst toxic chemicals, a study has shown.

Landfills are well known to be a main source of PFAS forever chemicals – or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances – but the new study shows that the treatment plants designed to clean up the liquid waste can instead boost the levels of banned PFAS such as PFOA and PFOS, in some cases by as much as 1,335%.

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A Swiss carbon removals developer alongside a UK-based building materials supplier have launched their first site to remove carbon and permanently store it in recycled concrete in south London.

Representatives at the Cop16 summit in Colombia negotiated against a backdrop of extreme weather and ecosystem collapse

As world leaders gathered in Colombia this week, they also watched for news from home, where many of the headlines carried the catastrophic consequences of ecological breakdown. Across the Amazon rainforest and Brazil’s enormous wetlands, relentless fires had burned more than 22m hectares (55m acres). In Spain, the death toll in communities devastated by flooding passed 200. In the boreal forests that span Siberia, Scandinavia, Alaska and Canada, countries were recording alarming signs that their carbon sinks were collapsing under a combined weight of drought, tree death and logging. As Canada’s wildfire season crept to a close, scientists calculated it was the second worst in two decades – behind only last year’s burn, which released more carbon than some of the world’s largest emitting countries.

In global negotiations, climate and nature move along two independent tracks, and for years were broadly treated as distinct challenges. But as negotiations closed at the Cop16 biodiversity summit in Cali on Saturday, ministers from around the world underscored the crucial importance of nature to limiting damage from global heating, and vice versa – emphasising that climate and biodiversity could no longer be treated as independent issues if either crisis was to be resolved. Countries agreed a text on links between the climate and nature, but failed to include language on a phase out of fossil fuels.

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Ausgrid want to put two large batteries in Sydney and Newcastle, as part of the company's first foray into big installations.

The post Ausgrid pitches its first big batteries for Newcastle and Sydney appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Rosemary Grundy is on a mission to demonstrate that going renewable and electric is not only good for the climate, but makes financial sense.

The post SwitchedOn Podcast: Breaking even on solar, storage and two Teslas in under nine years appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Australian-owned electricity retailing upstart Energy Locals is set to change hands, after Quinbrook agrees to sell the company.

The post Retail electricity upstart Energy Locals to get new owner after Quinbrook sale appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Snowy Hydro annual earnings double, helped by its ability to cash in on extreme pricing events such as those triggered by grid outages, and from higher power bills to consumers.

The post Snowy Hydro profits double as it cashes in on grid outages and higher retail prices appeared first on RenewEconomy.

New research shows how river flows in the once-mighty Murrumbidgee have dwindled over time, leaving the floodplain high and dry. But the main culprit is not climate change and we can fix it. Jan Kreibich, PhD Candidate, Centre for Ecosystem Science & Water Research Laboratory, UNSW Sydney Richard Kingsford, Professor, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, UNSW Sydney Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

NSW gives planning approval for amended proposal to boost rated capacity of a gigawatt scale wind project by nearly half with fewer but bigger turbines.

The post NSW approves supersized 1.3 GW wind project with fewer but bigger turbines appeared first on RenewEconomy.

There will be a small silver lining from BHP's shock closure of its Nickel West mine in Western Australia, with its unneeded renewable power to be sold into the local grid.

The post New solar-battery at shuttered BHP nickel mine to be repurposed to power Kalgoorlie appeared first on RenewEconomy.

New Queensland government says it received confirmation that the pumped hydro project it scrapped within days of taking office had suffered a cost blowout to $37 billion.

The post Queensland premier says costs of dumped Pioneer pumped hydro project blew out to $37 billion appeared first on RenewEconomy.