Feed aggregator

A twice-weekly summary of our biodiversity news plus bite-sized updates from around the world. All articles in this edition are free to read (no subscription required).

Certifier Gold Standard on Tuesday said it had opened an investigation into the Bachu Biomass Power Generation Project in China in the wake of media reports that suggested the initiative may be at risk of being implicated in potential forced labour. 

Accredited REDD+ developers in an Amazonian Brazilian state have more than doubled after the jurisdiction's Secretariat for the Environment (SEMA) confirmed that an additional 14 entities were awarded the title of executing agents.

A Google DeepMind tool predicted where one would hit three days ahead of existing methods.

The worst of this year's acrimony among EU lawmakers over green issues may now have passed after a deal was found on the bloc’s nature bill, MEPs suggested at an event in Brussels on Tuesday as a leading global climate policy expert eyed the importance of next year’s elections for determining the bloc's level of climate ambition.

The proposed EU target to scale up annual operational CO2 injection capacity to 50 million tonnes by 2030 is "aggressive" but "possible with better policy and regulatory support", an event heard this week.

Here are some of the standout images from the 2023 Nature Conservancy photo contest. Entries from more than 80,000 photographers in 191 countries and territories were judged across 12 categories

Continue reading...

It has a complicated face, like an intricate chest of drawers, or a jewellery box: press on this part and it opens to reveal a mouth, on that, and an eye pops out

This is a recipe for moéche, the green, soft-shelled crabs that live in Venetian lagoons: mix a batter of flour, eggs, salt and parmesan cheese in a bucket. Drop live crabs into the batter, which must be cold so that the crabs will feel at home. For 30 minutes, the last of their lives, let the moéche scuttle around in the batter, eating it. Then drop them into a pot of boiling hot oil: self-stuffing crabs.

The moéche are crabs – “true crabs” – that have moulted: they have soft shells for just a few hours, before their exoskeletons turn hard. To climb out of their too-small skins, they fill themselves up with water, so that the carapace splits. Then, they pull every part of themselves from their own skins – from the tips of their legs to their eyeballs.

The first thing the intellect does with an object is to class it with something else. But any object that is infinitely important to us and awakens our devotion feels to us as if it must have been sui generis and unique. Probably a crab would be filled with a sense of personal outrage if it could hear us class it without ado or apology as a crustacean, and thus dispose of it. ‘I am no such thing,’ it would say, ‘I am MYSELF, MYSELF alone.’

Continue reading...

EUA prices are likely to stagnate in 2024 as the Eurozone economy treads water and the build-out of renewable energy generation continues to forge ahead, according to bank analysts, who have adjusted downward their price forecast for the end of 2024.

The UK-French led international initiative on biodiversity credits established earlier this year will launch a public consultation process on the framework next week, according to one of the co-chairs.

AEMO warns of long hot summer as it seeks more resources in the case of fires, storms and heat that could cause failures in generation and transmission. But it has a lot more big batteries.

The post AEMO prepares for extreme El Nino summer, but at least it has more battery storage appeared first on RenewEconomy.

EUA prices were marginally weaker at midday on Tuesday as the prices continued to seek direction amid a slight downturn in energy markets and in anticipation of the publication of Commitment of Traders data on Wednesday.

There were 1,200 more buyers in the voluntary carbon market than last year, according to data from an analytics provider, as analysts calculate that if all active firms in the market were to offset just 1% of emissions, carbon credit demand would rise fourfold.

Current national climate action plans are still insufficient to limit global temperature increases to 1.5C, a UN report released Tuesday said, adding that the upcoming climate talks in Dubai must turn things around.

A new report says many countries are increasing their oil and gas production. Delegates to Cop28 must confront this crisis

Let me see if I have this right.

A vast majority of the world’s best climate scientists have told us again and again that to maintain a stable and liveable planet, we, the human race, must reduce the burning of fossil fuels – and emissions of greenhouse gases – by half by 2030. And end emissions altogether by 2050. Knowing this, what are we on track to do?

Continue reading...

Hungarian fertiliser producer Nitrogenmuvek has closed its plant at Petfurdo, citing losses due to the country’s recently-introduced levies on free carbon allowance allocations, according to media reports.

Negotiators on behalf of the 27 EU member states agreed on carbon capture targets and obligations on Monday as part of the bloc’s legislative proposal to accelerate the EU’s clean technologies, according to a source close to the matter.

Government assessment said extreme weather events mean country suffers a disaster every three weeks costing at least $1bn

The US is warming faster than the global average and its people are suffering “far-reaching and worsening” consequences from the climate crisis, with worse to come, according to an authoritative report issued by the US government.

An array of “increasingly harmful impacts” is hitting every corner of the vast country, from extreme heat and sea level rise in Florida to depleted fish stocks and increased food insecurity in Alaska, the new National Climate Assessment has found.

Continue reading...

A South Korean ministry has teamed up with three domestic companies to reduce greenhouse gases in the livestock sector, with plans to secure carbon credits generated from biochar production, it announced Tuesday.

Traditional custodians of lands in West Papua have refused a carbon project in their forests, which they use for medicine and other purposes and suggest they were not adequately consulted about the project.