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Privatised water firms are imperiling our health and poisoning our rivers. Act now: flood the streets with rage | Feargal Sharkey

The Guardian - Wed, 2024-08-21 19:00

It is time to say this privatisation zealotry has been a disaster. March with us and let ministers know – enough is enough

You’ve been lied to, you’ve been misled, you’ve being extorted, you’ve been cheated, and you’ve been abused. For the last 35 years, you have been subject to nothing more than possibly the greatest organised ripoff perpetrated on the British people, and you have had little in return apart from greed, profiteering, financial engineering, political failure and regulatory incompetency. You’ve been had.

Thirty-five years after we were promised a utopian, market-driven vision of greatness, a future in which we would glory in the delights of an unlimited supply of clean water; in which our sewage would be quietly, efficiently collected, treated and disposed of, while our rivers, lakes and seas would teem with an abundant, diverse array of flora and fauna; and to top it all off we would have the cheapest water bills on earth.

Feargal Sharkey is a campaigner and former lead singer of the Undertones

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Foresters shouldn’t shy away from difficult NZ ETS conversations, expert says

Carbon Pulse - Wed, 2024-08-21 18:21
Challenges facing the New Zealand emissions trading scheme in the near term that have yet to be resolved will have a direct impact on foresters, and those in the sector should not be afraid from having the difficult conversations, a conference heard Wednesday.
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The livestock lobby is waging war on ‘lab-grown meat’. This is why we can’t let them win | George Monbiot

The Guardian - Wed, 2024-08-21 17:00

These new proteins could be our best hope of averting catastrophe. But governments are trying to have them banned

For many years, certain car manufacturers sought to obstruct the transition to electric vehicles. It’s not hard to see why: when you have invested heavily in an existing technology, you want to extract every last drop before disinvesting. But devious as in some cases these efforts were, they seem almost innocent in comparison with the concerted programme by a legacy industry and its tame politicians to suppress a far more important switch: the essential transition away from livestock farming.

Animal farming ranks alongside fossil fuel production as one of the two most destructive industries on Earth. It’s not just the vast greenhouse gas emissions and the water and air pollution it causes. Even more important is the amount of land it requires. Land use is a crucial environmental metric, because every hectare we occupy is a hectare that cannot support wild ecosystems.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

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Clean cement outfit raises $85 mln in Series C round

Carbon Pulse - Wed, 2024-08-21 15:55
A US-headquartered low carbon cement developer with some 100 patents to its name and plans to grow to global scale has raised $85 million in Series C funding from a conglomerate of clean energy financiers.
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Sweden to kill 20% of its brown bears in annual hunt

The Guardian - Wed, 2024-08-21 14:00

Conservationists say the number of hunting licences granted is too high and condemn it as ‘pure trophy hunting’

Sweden has issued licences to kill 20% of its brown bear population in the country’s annual bear hunt, which begins today, despite concerns from conservationists.

Officials have granted licences for just under 500 brown bears to be culled by hunters. That equates to about 20% of the total population, according to official figures, and would bring the number of bears in Sweden down to approximately 2,000 – a drop of almost 40% since 2008.

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Huge NT solar farm backed by Mike Cannon-Brookes gets environmental approval

The Guardian - Wed, 2024-08-21 13:07

Go-ahead given for first stage of $30bn SunCable project, which minister says will be ‘transformational’ for Northern Territory

The Australian government has given the green light to the first stages of what it describes as the country’s “biggest renewable energy project ever” – an ambitious proposal to send energy from a solar farm in the Northern Territory outback to Singapore via subsea cables.

The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, said the approval under conservation law of SunCable’s $30bn-plus Australia-Asia Power Link was a “massive step towards making Australia a renewable energy superpower” and that the project would be “economically and socially transformational” for the NT.

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Placing agriculture into NZ ETS would have “torpedoed the economy”, minister says

Carbon Pulse - Wed, 2024-08-21 12:28
The New Zealand economy would have been torpedoed had agriculture been folded into the emissions trading scheme next year, the country’s climate minister told a conference Tuesday, despite a senior Nestle executive warning the sector is not doing enough to reduce emissions to remain internationally competitive.
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Poor compliance and broad exemptions mean land clearing continues apace in northern Australia – despite our laws and pledges

The Conversation - Wed, 2024-08-21 11:04
Three years ago, Australia pledged to end deforestation by decade’s end. But land clearing continues due to legal exemptions and a lack of enforcement Hannah Thomas, PhD student in ecology, The University of Queensland Martine Maron, Professor of Environmental Management, The University of Queensland Martin Taylor, Adjunct senior lecturer, The University of Queensland Michelle Ward, Lecturer, School of Environment and Science, Griffith University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
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Researchers urge US industrial carbon utilisation to reach net zero goals

Carbon Pulse - Wed, 2024-08-21 10:57
CO2 utilisation can produce goods such as aviation fuels, pharmaceuticals, and concrete, but US federal agencies must develop systems that drive commercialisation and market demand, according to a report mandated by Congress and the Department of Energy (DOE).
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RGGI compliance entities expand allowance holdings in Q2, secondary market activity jumps -report

Carbon Pulse - Wed, 2024-08-21 10:52
RGGI compliance entities expanded their allowance holdings during the April-June period even as their surplus shrank, while futures and options trading also grew substantially as credit prices rose to new records, according to a report published Tuesday.
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Sweden, Zambia sign Article 6 MoU

Carbon Pulse - Wed, 2024-08-21 10:45
Sweden and Zambia have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for bilateral climate cooperation under Article 6.2 of the Paris Agreement, according to a statement by the Swedish Energy Agency (SEA) on Tuesday.
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Brazilian carbon credit alliance defends REDD+ following Amazonas controversy

Carbon Pulse - Wed, 2024-08-21 10:43
A Brazil-based nature-based solutions (NBS) industry group defended REDD+ projects on Monday in wake of recent recommendations by the public prosecutor of Amazonas state to halt all related activities affecting Indigenous and traditional communities.
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Compliance frameworks using offsets and CDR may steer VCM evolution, but quality concerns persist

Carbon Pulse - Wed, 2024-08-21 10:31
Compliance-focused schemes that allow the use of offsets could shape the future of the voluntary carbon market (VCM) along with an increase in the usage of CO2 removal (CDR) credits, but quality concerns must be addressed to ensure growth, panellists told a webinar Tuesday.
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US carves out nearly $300 mln from IRA for SAF

Carbon Pulse - Wed, 2024-08-21 10:23
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has announced $291 million in grants from Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funds to projects that facilitate development and implementation of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF).
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Badger cull may have increased bovine TB risk in neighbouring herds – study

The Guardian - Wed, 2024-08-21 09:01

England’s controversial eradication scheme may have caused higher rates of disease in surrounding areas, research shows

England’s controversial badger cull may have increased the risk of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) among herds in neighbouring areas, according to new research.

Researchers at the University of Oxford found that although badger culling reduced incidences of tuberculosis in the areas where it took place, in neighbouring areas the risk of the disease in cattle increased by almost a third.

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