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Rio Tinto signs contract to buy all the output for what will be the biggest solar project on Australia's main grid, and will help power its smelters and refineries.

The post Rio Tinto signs contract for Australian grid’s first gigawatt scale solar project appeared first on RenewEconomy.

An industrial multinational announced Tuesday a partnership with a European firm specialising in carbon capture technology to tap opportunities in the North American market.

Researchers from a US academic institution have detailed recommendations for developers and buyers of such projects to help ensure quality in the voluntary carbon market (VCM) following their publication Tuesday morning a paper finding over-crediting in cookstove offset projects to be prevalent at a much higher level than previously thought.

The UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders is right to warn that a pillar of democracy is under threat in Britain

In the last few years, environmental protesters in Britain have pulled off some striking – and strikingly irritating – acts of civil disobedience. These have caused indignation and aggravation, especially by disrupting people’s lives. But their actions grabbed our attention. The purpose is to denounce an injustice by intentionally breaking the law in a non-violent way. The justification is a climate emergency that threatens humanity’s future.

There is nothing new in this: the suffragettes smashed windows and set buildings alight. Today we honour their cause and courage. Yet the government appears intent on criminalising protest, a move rightly criticised by Michel Forst, the UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders. He warns that a pillar of democracy – the right to protest – is under threat in Britain. The demonisation of environmental activists and the erosion of civil rights without adequate scrutiny from lawmakers, or protection by the courts, are undermining the UK’s guarantees of freedom and the rule of law. It had been almost unheard of since the 1930s for demonstrators to be imprisoned for peaceful protest in the UK. Last month, he said, a climate protester got six months behind bars for slow-walking on a road.

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The partners behind a US forest carbon crediting programme highlighted their project's use of dynamic baselines in an academic article and interview with Carbon Pulse on Tuesday, hoping to boost environmental integrity in the voluntary carbon market (VCM), with first issuance expected soon.

The removal of the federal goods and services tax (GST) typically applied to Canadian carbon pricing would reduce federal revenues by C$1.0 billion ($741 million) in 2030-31, Canada’s government budget watchdog reported on Tuesday.

We crave certainty in our weather forecasts. But that’s only possible for big weather events such as cyclones and major storms. Everything else is probability. Christian Jakob, Director, ARC Centre of Excellence for the Weather of the 21st Century, Monash University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) generated more finance towards green projects last year than ever before, thanks to new contracts for climate action and environmental sustainability, according to data published Tuesday.

EU agriculture ministers called on Tuesday for greater measures to protect the agricultural sector, which is battling a number of challenges, but omitted any specific mention of how to tackle the related emissions.

The US oil company is off to court to try and block a green activist motion aimed at accelerating the company’s attempts to cut emissions

ExxonMobil is “committed to responsibly meeting the world’s energy needs”, according to the corporate blah blah, but it is clearly not committed to allowing its shareholders to express their own opinions on the “responsibly” bit of the boast. The US oil company is off to court in Texas to try to block a vote on a resolution tabled by Follow This, a Dutch green activist investor group that would like Exxon to move faster (a lot faster) on reducing emissions.

Exxon has an argument of sorts, one might say, in that Follow This tabled similar-sounding resolutions at the last two annual meetings and neither passed. Some 27.1% of shareholders aligned with the rebels in 2022 and 10.5% last year. Why go through the same process again, the company will argue. And, since last year’s meeting at Exxon contained 13 shareholder motions in total, haven’t US regulators allowed agendas to become overcrowded?

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Nature restoration credits are bouncing higher to buck the trend of the general slide in voluntary carbon market prices, a webinar heard Tuesday.

An international development company with a carbon and nature focus has launched its first crowdfunding equity raise campaign in support of a nature-based solutions (NBS) project in Malawi, aiming to generate nature-based carbon credits as well as units linked to women’s empowerment.

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).

Scientists have mapped the diverse land uses following deforestation across Africa, revealing significant regional variations in the causes of forest loss.

Robust criteria must be applied to identify areas of importance for biodiversity under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), as the lack of a clear definition could undermine nature recovery efforts, a study has warned.

A venture cultivating sea kelp in the waters off Namibia is making headway on proving the carbon sequestration benefits, while harvesting the kelp to produce biostimulant for farmer’s fields.

Most leading banks in the Asian continent still include coal in their investment portfolios and continue to make investments in "climate destruction", according to a report released Tuesday.

The discovery reveals how Arabica coffee got its sweet flavour and may help future-proof the drink.

Berkeley Earth’s Robert Rohde discusses the latest climate science and whether even 2°C is achievable. Plus: All the renewable and storage news from the first few weeks of 2024.

The post Energy Insiders Podcast: The climate crisis and the energy transition appeared first on RenewEconomy.