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From the Akbelen forest in Turkey to northern India to Brazil, rural women are standing up against the power of the corporate chainsaw

This summer, as Rhodes was ravaged by wildfires and the world witnessed the destruction of precious trees and fragile ecosystems, on the opposite shore in Turkey, only miles away, ancient forests were being felled for the sake of more coal, more profit. But what the energy company hadn’t reckoned with was the resistance of local women.

Akbelen, in the province of Muğla, is a woodland of about 730 hectares (1,800 acres) that provides a natural habitat for a diverse range of flora and fauna. It is this beautiful place that YK Energy, a private energy company, has been aiming to occupy in order to expand an open-pit lignite mine to supply a thermal power plant. The combustion of lignite (brown coal) generates more CO2 emissions than hard, black coal, making it the most health-harming variety. For the last four years, villagers and environmental campaigners have been holding vigils to protect the forest. But the company has carried on.

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Large-scale study indicates population declines after collation of data from country’s conservation organisations and birdwatchers

A report on India’s bird population has painted a grim picture for many of the country’s species.

The State of India’s Birds (SoIB) report – published on Friday – showed worrisome declines, with 178 species of wild birds identified as needing immediate priority for conservation.

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Mexico latest country where government is considering passing new laws to criminalise environmental destruction

A growing number of countries are considering introducing laws to make ecocide a crime.

Mexico is the latest country where politicians are seeking to deter environmental damage – and to get justice for its victims – by criminalising it. Karina Marlen Barrón Perales, congresswoman for Nuevo León, has submitted a bill to the Mexican congress introducing a new crime of “ecocide”.

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Try to look on the bright side

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Which? advises drivers paying London ultra-low emission zone fee to make sure they’re using official TfL website

Drivers are being ripped off by copycat websites that add extra fees to the ultra low emissions zone charges in London, consumer champion Which? has warned.

As Ulez expands across all boroughs in the capital from Tuesday, Which? has found a series of identical, unofficial websites targeting people trying to pay the charge. This has led to drivers paying more than the £12.50 daily fee.

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A daily summary of our news plus bite-sized updates from around the world.

Regulated parties picked up California Carbon Allowances (CCAs) before the publication of historic WCI Q3 auction results and sold off RGGI Allowances (RGA), while speculators let go of permits in both markets, data from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) showed Friday.

The Quebec government this week released draft regulations to amend one of its compliance offset protocols, after finding that evolving processes have rendered some of the activities non-additional and ineligible for credit generation.

The California Senate on Thursday approved legislation to clarify the eligibility of state-funded projects to generate carbon offsets, while a large business lobby ramped up its opposition to a bill that would mandate Scope 1-3 GHG reporting requirements within the state.

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The US government in general is unaware of the UK’s biodiversity net gain (BNG) policy, the executive director of a policy-focused company has claimed.

Open letter warns that ascribing aggression to rammings puts animals at risk of human violence

Orcas are not “attacking” boats, leading scientists have said, warning that the false narrative is putting the animals at risk of retribution from humans.

Iberian orcas started ramming vessels along the Spanish and Portuguese coast in July 2020, with at least 11 juveniles and four adult females believed to be involved. Some boats had toothmarks on them, while others appeared to have been rammed with the head or body multiple times, leading them to being towed into port. Since spring 2021, at least five boats have sunk as a result of damage.

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Simone Weil’s life illustrates the capacity to give up the things we feel we’re owed – such as a carbon-intensive consumer-driven lifestyle

Nero fiddled while Rome burned. The saying takes on new meaning after the hottest July ever, devastating wildfires in Greece and Canada, and the declaration by the UN secretary general, António Guterres, that we’ve left behind “global warming” for “global boiling”.

But this time our Neros – AKA governments – aren’t the only ones shirking their responsibilities. What are the rest of us doing while the world burns?

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Publisher Springer Nature says 2022 article ‘not supported by available evidence’ as editors launch investigation

One of the world’s biggest scientific publishers has retracted a journal article that claimed to have found no evidence of a climate crisis.

Springer Nature said it had retracted the article, by four Italian physicists, after an internal investigation found the conclusions were “not supported by available evidence or data provided by the authors”.

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Governments spent a record $7 trillion in fossil fuel subsidies in 2022, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has calculated, more than governments spent annually on education and about two thirds of what they spent on healthcare.

Philanthropic funding has a “potentially vital” role in driving investment towards tackling biodiversity loss, the sustainability research arm of Swiss bank UBS has said.

A carbon markets integrity body has issued a call for analysis to better understand how voluntary carbon markets (VCM) can boost investment in resilient water systems.

European carbon prices reversed direction after reaching a two-week low on Friday morning, halting a two-day drop as levels bounced back along with energy, while one of the strongest auction results this year encouraged short-positioned traders to take some profit.