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California Low Carbon Fuel Standard net credits exceeded the 1 million mark for the fourth straight quarter during the January-March period, though the total additions to the programme's surplus bank slowed for the second three-month stretch in a row, according to state data published Monday.

RGGI Allowance (RGA) values kept up recent momentum to new register new year-to-date highs this week amid the latest spike in California Carbon Allowance (CCA) prices, while the first legal challenge to Virginia's planned cap-and-trade repeal regulation was announced Monday.

Prime minister unveils plan to authorise more than 100 new North Sea licences on visit to Scotland

Rishi Sunak has pledged to “max out” the UK’s oil and gas reserves as he revealed a new round of intensive North Sea drilling, which experts said could be catastrophic for the climate.

Unveiling a plan to authorise more than 100 new North Sea licences on a visit to north-east Scotland, the prime minister also indicated he would approve drilling at the UK’s largest untapped reserves in the Rosebank field, which hold 500m barrels of oil.

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Benchmark California Carbon Allowance (CCA) prices on Monday traded at a record high for the third time in the past four sessions, as market participants pointed to the impact of state regulator ARB’s potential cap-and-trade allowance budget cuts and options volatility sellers raced to cover their deltas amid the rally.

Pervasive growth in retail consumers purchasing offsets to mitigate the environmental impact of their expenditures will drive voluntary carbon market growth to outsized proportions, a global consultancy outlined in its annual financial predictions on Monday.

The ban on gas connections to new homes in Victoria reflects global trends and will ultimately save households money and cut their emissions. Trivess Moore, Senior Lecturer, School of Property, Construction and Project Management, RMIT University Alan Pears, Senior Industry Fellow, RMIT University Joe Hurley, Associate Professor, Sustainability and Urban Planning, RMIT University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Climate change is going to bring social change. Will it drive ever-faster efforts to stave off the worst – or trigger social upheavals making it harder for us to respond? Sonia Graham, DECRA Fellow, University of Wollongong Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Governments' recent declarations to exercise more control over carbon market activities in their jurisdictions are far less an example of “nationalisation risk” than a case of a maturing market where countries are making an understandable and arguably inevitable assertion of sovereignty over their natural resources, writes Verra's Robin Rix.

The prices of most standardised voluntary carbon market contracts fell over the past week with volume concentrated on project-specific nature-based projects, one exchange noted, as the market digested the publication of a much-awaited set of guidelines for carbon credit supply.

US tree nurseries do not grow enough trees and lack the plant species diversity to meet ambitious plans, research says

In an effort to slash carbon emissions and provide relief from extreme heat, governments across the nation and globally have pledged to plant trees. But the US is not equipped with the tree seedlings to furnish its own plans, according to a new study.

US tree nurseries do not grow nearly enough trees to bring ambitious planting schemes to fruition, and they also lack the plant species diversity those plans require, according to research published in the journal Bioscience on Monday,

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The Qatar-based Global Carbon Council (GCC) and Seoul-headquartered Climate Change Center (CCC) on Monday said they will form a partnership to promote voluntary carbon markets in their respective geographic areas.

The EU will commit €466 million to green initiatives in the Philippines and relaunch negotiations for a free trade agreement with the Southeast Asian country, the European Commission announced on Monday.

Ministers urged to learn from success of single-use bag fee, amid criticism that other measures have been delayed

Environmental campaigners have called on the government to learn from its own successes after official figures showed the use of single-use supermarket plastic bags had fallen 98% since retailers in England began charging for them in 2015.

Annual distribution of plastic carrier bags by seven leading grocery chains plummeted from 7.6bn in 2014 to 133m last year, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said on Monday.

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Taking Root is seeking a  Senior Product Manager to manage the ongoing development of Taking Root’s core technology product – our project-management mobile and web applications. Our mobile  and web applications work together to collect high-quality data and provide our reforestation partners user-friendly data analysis tools to improve their operations and sequester carbon more efficiently.

Verra’s SD VISta Nature Framework and biodiversity methodology will provide an overarching global framework for projects to meet, complemented by localised modules based on biomes or eco-regions, and may also incorporate the issue of biodiversity significance.

A carbon credit rating agency has teamed up with an environmental intelligence company to deploy satellite technology for monitoring carbon stocks in the Amazon.

The carousel of changing Tory prime ministers made the latest seem moderate. Now, with his eagerness to trash green policies, we can see he is anything but

I had a premonition that Rishi Sunak was about to do something deeply ungreen. I didn’t know exactly what, and definitely couldn’t have named which oil and gas licences he wanted to issue, but I knew that, whatever it was, it would spell the end of our commitment to net zero. I figured it would shift our international alignment away from the countries taking the climate crisis seriously, because it’s right in front of them and they are not psychopaths, towards the countries strutting their indifference to it, for the complicated but demonstrable political mileage in the message: “Follow me to hell – it’ll be fun there.”

It was written right there in his holiday house. Why would a British prime minister have a second home in California? It’s such a forceful statement – I don’t care how rich I look, I don’t care how much I fly, I don’t care what eco-nerds think – and so unforced. He could have sold it, waited till he was no longer the prime minister – he must have known it wouldn’t be for ever – and bought a bigger one.

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The UK prime minister visited Aberdeenshire on Monday to announce more than 100 new licences for drilling oil and gas in the North Sea. Rishi Sunak insisted the announcement was 'entirely consistent with our plan to get to net zero', adding that domestic oil and gas saved 'two, three, four times the amount of carbon emissions' of 'shipping it from halfway round the world'. Environmental groups said the licences would obliterate the UK's climate commitments. Jess Ralston from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit said it would jeopardise the UK's international standing on the climate emergency, adding that the government would export oil and gas 'to the highest bidder'

• New North Sea oil and gas licences will send ‘wrecking ball’ through climate commitments

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UN scientific advisors stressed the reef was under ‘serious threat’ in a report detailing progress on protecting the World Heritage site from the climate crisis

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UN scientific advisors have recommended the Great Barrier Reef not be placed on a list of World Heritage sites “in danger” but stressed the planet’s biggest coral reef system remains under “serious threat” from global heating and water pollution.

Unesco said in a report that the Australian government had taken positive steps to protect the reef since a UN monitoring mission visited Queensland in March last year.

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Massive agri-solar and battery storage project gets planning approval from NSW government, just days after farming lobby called for moratorium.

The post Australia’s biggest agri-solar and battery storage project wins planning approval appeared first on RenewEconomy.