Feed aggregator

Cost of living is trumping climate at this election, but the issue won’t disappear. Here’s what major parties are offering – and what we actually need. Johanna Nalau, Senior Lecturer, Climate Adaptation, Griffith University Madeline Taylor, Associate Professor of Energy Law, Macquarie University Tony Wood, Program Director, Energy, Grattan Institute Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

The EU’s push to expand its Emissions Trading System (ETS) to transport and buildings faces a delicate balancing act, as policymakers grapple with the social impact of carbon pricing and the rollout of a Social Climate Fund (SCF) aimed at supporting vulnerable groups in the transition.

Carbon removal (CDR) buyers on a webinar Thursday called for proper recognition by standards bodies such as the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) to help scale CDR and trigger buying from a wider cohort of companies.

The CEO of the new carbon project developer born out of the C-Quest Capital scandal has promised that the market has "grown up" and is entering a new generation for integrity.

The EU and UK are preparing to integrate carbon removals into their emissions trading systems (ETSs) as net zero targets draw closer — but exactly how they do that is still an open question with multiple options on the table, a conference in Lisbon heard on Thursday.

A tidal lagoon should be created in the Severn Estuary according to a new report.

The voluntary carbon market faces huge challenges amid the current geopolitical environment, experts told an industry conference on Thursday, but there is quiet momentum building behind the scenes with billions of additional dollars invested in the first quarter of the year.

Politicians across Europe will be tempted to pull the plug on the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS) if the bloc’s flagship climate policy instrument brings factory closures and job losses, industrialists said at IETA's European Climate Summit in Lisbon.

Delaying the EU’s Emissions Trading System for road transport and heating fuels (ETS2) won’t solve implementation issues faced by member states, a senior official has said, as European countries drag their feet in adopting legislation for the bloc's second carbon market.

Climate finance can be strengthened by drawing on experiences from market mechanisms, while carbon markets can benefit from being blended with financial instruments — thereby scaling climate action, particularly in Africa, a webinar heard this week.

Restrictive methodology exclusions in the aviation industry's international emissions offsetting scheme could see a lasting shortage of eligible carbon credits, potentially leaving airlines unable to meet their climate obligations, a group representing project developers has warned.

A France-based organisation involved in the emerging biodiversity market has set up an expert group with the aim of expanding its work to tropical forests.

Some 92% of businesses have found the implementation of biodiversity net gain (BNG) in England difficult, causing development delays, a small survey has suggested.

The UK government will publish a net zero public participation strategy later this year setting out how it intends to help people adopt low-carbon technologies — as the burden of decarbonisation the country shifts from power generation to consumer-facing sectors such as road transport and heating. 

I bought it to be part of a greener future, but that was before Musk proved so awful. I’d sell it now, but prices have dropped

After our children left home, my wife and I decided to treat ourselves and buy a new car for a driving holiday in Europe. We’d been driving a family estate car for years, loading it up with kids and making trips to and from universities, but we wanted something for ourselves.

As a surprise, she booked a test drive for the Tesla Model S for my birthday. It was unlike any car I’d been in before. I thought “Wow, this is amazing.” It felt like the future: a computer on wheels that was constantly updating with new features. I can’t say I feel that way now – and many people seem to share that view. Tesla sales figures declined by 13% in the first few months of this year. Others feel even more uneasy: more than 200 demonstrations happened last weekend outside company facilities around the world to protest against Elon Musk and the wrecking ball he has taken to the federal government.

Continue reading...

Application, submitted by Cranswick, would have created one of the largest industrial poultry and pig units in Europe

A megafarm that would have reared almost 1 million chickens and pigs at any one time has been blocked by councillors in Norfolk over climate change and environmental concerns.

Councillors on King’s Lynn and West Norfolk borough council unanimously rejected an application to build what would have been one of the largest industrial poultry and pig units in Europe.

Continue reading...

China’s carbon price will need to rise if cleaner and greener forms of steelmaking are to take hold despite a ‘tsunami’ of scrap steel that can be fed into cleaner furnaces coming in 2035, a consultancy said this week.

A California-based enhanced rock weathering (ERW) project developer announced Thursday a deal to provide Microsoft 12,000 carbon removal (CDR) credits, in a move the pair said seeks to advance the emerging technology.

Maintaining seed diversity and abundance is essential – and requires constant work. It’s time for Congress to return to the seed business

From 1862 until 1923, US senators and members of Congress provided vast numbers of seeds to constituents. At its peak, the congressional seed distribution program delivered over 60m seed packets directly to farmers and market gardeners every year, helping introduce new varieties of everything from wheat and corn to oats, soybeans, flowers and vegetables. A century later, far fewer Americans till the soil for a living, but seeds remain central to our lives.

To understand the importance of seeds, try to imagine a morning without them. It would begin naked on a bare mattress, with no cozy sheets or pajamas, and there would be no fluffy towel to wrap up in after your shower. All of those things come from the seeds of the cotton plant. Stumbling wet into the kitchen, you would find no coffee, and no toast or bagel to go with it. There would be no eggs, no bacon, no cereal, no milk. All of those staples come from seeds or from livestock raised on seed crops. And if you thought you might console yourself with a chocolate bar, you can forget it. Cocoa powder, and the cocoa butter that makes it melt in your mouth, are both derived from seeds.

Continue reading...

European carbon prices headed for their biggest daily loss in a month on Thursday, after the market gapped lower at the open as traders reacted to Washington's announcement of new import tariffs on all major trading partners, and dropped again in mid-morning as early US selling weighed on the market.