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Rapid US coal exit has lessons for Australia as it faces down fossil lobby once again
Maintaining the planned schedule for coal closures is crucial to the successful transition of the grid. Just look at the US.
The post Rapid US coal exit has lessons for Australia as it faces down fossil lobby once again appeared first on RenewEconomy.
World is installing 1GW of solar a day, new figures show
An average of more than 1GW a day of new solar is being installed around the world, according to data from BNEF, with China well and truly leading the charge.
The post World is installing 1GW of solar a day, new figures show appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Takahē bird continues its journey of recovery with release into New Zealand tribal lands – video
Large flightless birds, thought to be extinct for 100 years, have been returned to the wilderness of the Greenstone Valley in New Zealand's south island.
Continue reading...They sense electric fields, tolerate snow and have 'mating trains': 4 reasons echidnas really are remarkable
Coal clean-up begins, as Stanwell starts shift to renewables
Queensland government reveals transition plans for one of the state's biggest coal plants, starting with a research, development and training centre.
The post Coal clean-up begins, as Stanwell starts shift to renewables appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Look, no offsets: Fortescue refines green energy plans as it heads to “real zero”
Fortescue says it has a "good idea" of how to eliminate 90 pct of its emissions by 2030, and looking at options for the other 10 per cent as it vows to stop burning fossil fuels.
The post Look, no offsets: Fortescue refines green energy plans as it heads to “real zero” appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Gas led calamity: The shocking failure of Australia’s climate efforts over two decades
Australia's modest 2030 emissions targets are looking harder each quarter as the country's obsession with gas offsets gains in the grid from renewables.
The post Gas led calamity: The shocking failure of Australia’s climate efforts over two decades appeared first on RenewEconomy.
China’s summer of climate destruction
Indigenous rangers are burning the desert the right way – to stop the wrong kind of intense fires from raging
The Guardian view on hydrogen hype: it’s perhaps not as green as you think | Editorial
Low carbon emissions in Europe cannot come at the cost of environmental destruction abroad
Tunisia is one of the driest countries in Africa, and has just suffered three years of drought. Yet the EU sees the country as key to producing “green hydrogen” for export to Europe. The trouble is, this fuel is obtained by splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen with electricity generated by renewable sources. Tunisia has lots of sun but precious little fresh water.
The only way of producing the raw material needed for green hydrogen is sucking up Mediterranean water and desalinating it. But a report last year for the Heinrich Böll Foundation, affiliated to Germany’s green political movement, warns that this would be a dirty, energy-intensive, water-guzzling process – and put the high cost of decarbonising the rich world on to the shoulders of poorer nations.
Continue reading...London Ulez residents ‘offered £100 a month’ for parking spaces to avoid fee
Drivers want to park on Moor Lane and Bridge Road, a charge-free corridor in Chessington
Residents of a road that will form a charge-free corridor through London’s expanded ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) say they have been offered “£100 a month” to let people park on their driveways and avoid paying the fee.
Motorists travelling along Moor Lane, which becomes Bridge Road, in Chessington, south-west London, do not have to pay the Ulez charge, but should they turn off at any stage they will immediately enter the zone.
Continue reading...How 18th-century pineapple plantations turned Maui into a tinderbox
Land privatization and water depletion set the stage for the Lahaina fire 150 years ago. Now, land companies may benefit even more
In the late 18th century, when the Hawaiian Kingdom became a sovereign state, Lahaina carried such an abundance of water that early explorers reportedly anointed it “Venice of the Pacific”. A glut of natural wetlands nourished breadfruit trees, extensive taro terraces and fishponds that sustained wildlife and generations of Native Hawaiian families.
But more than a century and a half of plantation agriculture, driven by American and European colonists, have depleted Lahaina’s streams and turned biodiverse food forests into tinderboxes. Today, Hawaii spends $3bn a year importing up to 90% of its food. This altered ecology, experts say, gave rise to the 8 August blaze that decimated the historic west Maui town and killed more than 111 people.
Continue reading...Put ‘pest’ animal species on the pill, don’t cull them, says scientist
Humane alternatives to killing rampant creatures such as wild boar, deer and grey squirrels are being developed
Conflicts between humans and wildlife are triggering growing numbers of disease outbreaks, road accidents and crop damage. And the problem is likely to get worse unless new, humane measures to curtail animal numbers are developed in the near future, say scientists.
It is a critical environmental issue that will be debated this week at a major conference in Italy where experts will discuss how best to limit numbers of grey squirrels, wild boar, deer, feral goats, pigeons, parakeets and other creatures that are causing widespread ecological damage in many countries.
Continue reading...Australia to host global nature positive summit
The indigenous groups fighting against the quest for 'white gold'
Melbourne has treated the Yarra River terribly – but it doesn’t have to stay that way
The city’s largest waterway has been abused for so long we’ve forgotten what it could be like if it ran clear again
In 2017, on a hot March day, I went looking for azure kingfishers. Tiny, elusive and even bluer than their name suggests, they’d been seen several times on the Yarra River in the outer north-eastern suburbs of Melbourne.
I rode to the river from Lilydale station along the busy roads that pulled like taut wire between the paddocks and empty lots out there, nearly crashing at the bottom of a fast, steep hill while cars and trucks whooshed past me.
Continue reading...Met police vows to combat protests against London’s Ulez rollout
Threats of violence as ultra-low emission zone expansion begins – but mayor defends it as essential for health
• Read more: how Ulez expansion is affecting lives of Londoners
The Metropolitan police has vowed to throw “considerable resources” at protecting this week’s expansion of the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) amid fears the rollout will prompt a spike in vandalism and disruptive protests.
The force’s declaration came as London mayor Sadiq Khan issued a fierce defence of his bitterly contested policy, saying he was acting to tackle “toxic air” and prevent the capital’s children “growing up with stunted lungs”.
Continue reading...Europe hits roadblocks in the race to switch to electric cars
Despite progress towards a 2045 zero-emission goal, the high price of EVs has created a headache for governments
European countries are struggling to persuade people to switch from combustion engine cars to electric ones, experts warn.
Europe sells 10 times more electric cars today than it did just six years ago, according to the International Energy Agency, but its fleet is cleaning up too slowly to meet its climate goals. Governments across the continent are struggling with the price-tag of electric vehicles, which can cost several thousand euros more upfront than comparable ones that burn fossil fuels.
Continue reading...Health alarm as tide of rotting seaweed chokes UK holiday beaches
Potentially lethal to fish and dangerous for humans, the summer’s toxic invader is caused by warming seas and strong winds
When Owen Francomb from Margate set out on a walk with his dog Gertie along Kent’s picturesque Thanet coast early this month, he didn’t imagine he’d need to be rescued from a tide of toxic sludge. But on the beach at Newgate Gap, French bulldog Gertie started sinking into a thick carpet of rotting seaweed and began to panic.
“She couldn’t move,” Francomb. says. “So I scrambled down the slipway and jumped down on to the beach, expecting the seaweed to be a foot deep, but it came up to my belt. I really struggled to wade through it.” Another dog walker had to help him and Gertie out of the stinking slime.
Continue reading...After America’s summer of extreme weather, ‘next year may well be worse’
A freakish season of record temperatures, wildfire smoke and the destruction of Lahaina could soon become normal, climate experts say
It’s been a strange, cruel summer in the United States. From the dystopian orange skies above New York to the deadly immolation of a historic coastal town in Hawaii, the waning summer has been a stark demonstration of the escalating climate crisis – with experts warning that worse is to come.
A relentless barrage of extreme weather events, fueled by human-caused global heating, has swept the North American continent this summer, routinely placing a third of the US population under warnings of severe heat and unleashing floods, fire and smoke upon communities, with a record 15 separate disasters causing at least $1bn in damages so far this year.
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