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Dolbenmaen, Gwynedd: As a climber, I’d often pass within metres of the peregrine falcons on the cliff face, harsh chattering between the pair echoing from the rock walls

The huge dolerite cliff at the head of the valley glows in afternoon light. A pale green algal cast accentuates white streaks and fresh spatterings. This is peregrine and raven territory, the latter maintaining a respectful distance from the former. They’ve been present here for at least 50 years.

I first saw the falcons at their inaccessible eyrie under the great overhang in 1968. That was the time when peregrine and raven populations in Wales were recovering from dramatic postwar declines caused by organochlorine pesticides, used in dusting racing pigeons for fleas, treating crops, dipping sheep for parasites. The DDT, particularly, concentrated in the birds’ food chains, led to the thinning of eggshells and repeated brood failures.

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Slovakia broke EU law by imposing a tax on sold or unused EU carbon allowances, Europe’s top court has ruled, a verdict that could cost the government tens of millions of euros.

EDF's Global Climate team seeks a Senior Analyst to provide critical research and analysis in support of our U.S. focused efforts to advance market-based policy solutions to address climate change. As a key player on a growing team, the Senior Analyst will inform our advocacy as we work to strengthen and expand carbon pricing regimes at the state level, and begin to lay the foundation for ambitious carbon pricing policy at the federal level.

The Bank seeks a Climate policy post-doctoral research contractual to work in partnership with stakeholders across the IDB Group, Latin America and the Caribbean, and provide excellent technical support in designing, executing, procuring, monitoring and disseminating cutting-edge and relevant research to inform the design of effective and acceptable climate policies in the region.

The concept of a marine heatwave is relatively new to science. In fact, climate scientists have focused their attention on terrestrial heatwaves to date.

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

EU carbon prices ended higher for the sixth straight session on Friday, briefly climbing above €14 and near their seven-year high, though some warned weak auction demand could soon signal a correction.

Shipping firms to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 as part of historic agreement

Carbon dioxide from ships at sea will be regulated for the first time following a historic agreement reached after two weeks of detailed talks in London.

Shipping companies will halve their greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 under the plan, brokered by the International Maritime Organization and binding across its 170 member states.

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The Alaska government produced a draft climate change policy this week that instructs the US state to begin looking at how carbon pricing may help achieve the state’s climate goals, though the text remained sparse on details.

Call by Cristiana Pașca Palmer comes ahead of a major biodiversity conference in Beijing in 2020

At least half of the world should be made more nature-friendly by 2050 to ensure the wellbeing of humanity, according to the UN chief leading efforts to create a new global pact on biodiversity.

The call to strengthen the world’s life support system comes ahead of a major conference in Beijing in 2020 that many hope will be the biodiversity equivalent of the Paris climate agreement.

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A new study shows that some species may become victims of their own prestige.

Karen state activists mourning community leader Saw O Moo, who campaigned to protect a local forest and for residents’ land rights

Indigenous activists in Myanmar’s Karen state are mourning the killing of a community leader who campaigned for a peace park to protect a local forest and its residents’ land rights.

Saw O Moo was ambushed by government troops on 5 April as he was riding a motorbike with a soldier from the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), a rebel group that is fighting for autonomy.

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Both the New Jersey Assembly and Senate approved two bills on Thursday to expand the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) for conventional and solar renewable energy, as well as establishing a Zero Emission Certificate (ZEC) programme aimed at supporting struggling nuclear plants.

Governments at the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) adopted on Friday an initial strategy to address international shipping emissions, including setting a 2050 target to cut emissions by at least 50% under 2008 levels.

Orphaned baby elephants and mating hamlets are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

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How close the world is to a catastrophic collapse of giant ocean currents is unknown, making halting global warming more critical than ever, scientists say

Serious disruption to the Gulf Stream ocean currents that are crucial in controlling global climate must be avoided “at all costs”, senior scientists have warned. The alert follows the revelation this week that the system is at its weakest ever recorded.

Past collapses of the giant network have seen some of the most extreme impacts in climate history, with western Europe particularly vulnerable to a descent into freezing winters. A significantly weakened system is also likely to cause more severe storms in Europe, faster sea level rise on the east coast of the US and increasing drought in the Sahel in Africa.

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Committees seek clarity on indecision over taxpayer support and price guarantees for flagship tidal clean energy scheme to harness tide power

MPs are to press ministers on why they have left investors hanging in limbo over taxpayer support for a pioneering £1.3bn tidal lagoon in Swansea.

The business, energy and industrial strategy (BEIS) committee and Welsh affairs committee will call on government to explain why no decision has been forthcoming on the flagship scheme. The government has still not indicated whether it is minded to support the lagoon, 15 months since an independent review told ministers to back the clean energy project.

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An experienced Singapore-based energy markets executive has left Engie Global Markets.

We’d like to hear from people who have crossed from one side of the debate to the other

A heated debate among evangelicals is taking place across the US, with some Christians protesting in the name of protecting the Earth and others not seeing it as existing at all.

Evangelicals have traditionally been the bedrock of conservative US politics, including on climate change, but some are taking action. One group has even built a chapel in the way of an oil pipeline and a radical pastor has encouraged his congregation to put themselves in the way of the diggers. However some resistance remains – a climate scientist who denies the world is warming and a preacher in Florida who sees the fact his home was flood as a welcome sign of divine presence.

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Below is a table of the closing prices, ranges and volumes for China's regional pilot carbon markets this week. All prices are in RMB, and volumes in tonnes of CO2e. Data sourced from local exchanges.