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US President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House and an upcoming EU review are raising uncertainty about whether the UN Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) will be implemented by enough countries to take a bite out of the sector's rising emissions.

Front-December European carbon prices rose to their highest in just over a year on Wednesday morning as an opening spike amid reports of Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure was sustained by Commitment of Traders data that showed investment funds now hold their largest total long position in EUAs in more than three years.

The scope of the Cop26 net zero banking alliance may have been limited, but the exodus of six US banks signifies a seismic political shift

Last week, as flames began tearing through greater Los Angeles, claiming multiple lives and forcing more than 100,000 people to evacuate, JP Morgan became the sixth major US bank to quit the Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) since the start of December. A smaller story, certainly, but the departure of top US banks from the NZBA in the weeks since Donald Trump’s re-election nonetheless speaks to a seismic political shift prompting major financial institutions to turn away from the climate-related commitments they made in the optimistic years after the Paris agreement.

The NZBA is a voluntary network of global banks committed to “align lending and investment portfolios with net zero emissions by 2050”. It is part of the umbrella Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), which counts among its membership dozens of “alliances” covering the various segments of global finance. For its part, the NZBA requires new members to submit science-aligned targets within 18 months of joining, alongside disclosing plans for and status updates on meeting them.

Adrienne Buller is director of The Break Down and the author of The Value of a Whale: on the illusions of green capitalism

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Iraq signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the British government on Tuesday that would support carbon market development, among other decarbonisation aims, according to the Iraqi Prime Minister’s Office.

A large-scale floating solar PV plant has been completed at a former industrial site and will now generate electricity equivalent to the needs of over 7,000 homes.

The post Floating solar project converts former gravel pit into 20 MW power generating pond appeared first on RenewEconomy.

France and Czechia support a reform of the Market Stability Reserve (MSR) to prevent price spikes on the EU’s incoming Emissions Trading System for road transport and heating fuels (ETS2), with Prague going a step further by calling to delay the scheme by one year, Carbon Pulse has learned.

I feel like I am safe in saying that we are not thriving on our changing planet – and we will not in the coming decades

My house in Altadena burned down in the wildfires on Wednesday. It all happened quickly. On Tuesday around 7pm, my wife and daughters went to a hotel as a precaution. I left the house with the dogs when the mandatory evacuation order came in around 3am. As best as I can put the timeline together, our home burned down around the same time that the sun came up, and I was able to drive in and see the damage around 2pm.

Neighbors that went in after said it looked like a “war zone”. I have never been in a war zone thankfully, but I didn’t think so. There was nothing violent or chaotic about it. No one stopped me from driving in. There were no sirens. I stood alone – no one else around – in front of my house that was at that point just a fireplace and chimney. The house across the street was about halfway done with burning down, and the house behind ours had just started to burn.

Benjamin Hamlington is a research scientist at Nasa Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a team lead at Nasa Sea Level Change team

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An Arkansas-based forest project developer has verified the release of over 400,000 carbon credits under the American Carbon Registry (ACR), it announced on Tuesday.

Landlocked Hunan province has become the latest region in China to announce guidelines for the development of its own forest carbon credit scheme.

Exclusive: Sampling results show ‘extremely concerning’ concentrations of PFOS and PFOA at sites across UK

• Where are the UK’s ‘forever chemical’ hotspots?

RAF bases are hotspots of toxic “forever chemical” pollution in water, analysis of Ministry of Defence documents has revealed.

Moreover, some of the highest concentrations of these chemicals in British drinking water sources are near RAF bases, official sampling results obtained by the Guardian and Watershed Investigations show.

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British arm of Heartland, which has taken oil and Republican funding, to be led by ex-Ukip head Lois Perry

Climate science deniers are lining up a political offensive in Britain after a US lobby group opened a UK branch which is already working with Nigel Farage.

The Reform UK leader was the guest of honour at the launch of Heartland UK/Europe, which is to be headed by a former leader of Ukip and climate denier.

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The number of carbon allowances for the New Zealand emissions trading scheme in the country's registry shrank by almost 10 million last year as the several failed quarterly auctions meant the permits used for compliance were not fully replaced.

California’s delay in finalising changes to its cap-and-trade scheme could affect the linkage timeline between existing WCI partners and Washington, panellists said at a conference Tuesday.

British firm in the vanguard of companies arguing SMRs are a quicker and cheaper option than large Hinkley-sized plants

The Hinkley Point C power plant in Somerset is gargantuan. The 176-hectare (435-acre) plant will provide 3.2 gigawatts of power, enough for 6m homes. It is not just the project that is huge: the cost is as well. With a price tag that has ballooned to a reported £48bn, and delayed by at least five years, it has become a symbol of the pitfalls of nuclear power.

But a clutch of companies argue they have a quicker, cheaper option than large Hinkley-sized plants in the form of small modular reactors (SMRs), which can be built in a factory and then slotted together on site.

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State agencies are expected to design New York's ETS without provisions for carbon offsets that may allow participants to increase emissions, an analyst said at a conference on Tuesday.

The year 2024 was the world’s warmest on record globally, and the first calendar year in which global temperatures exceeded 1.5°C above its pre-industrial levels.

The post As Los Angeles burns, 2024 is declared Earth’s hottest on record appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Pigs, donkeys and even a mini cow named Cuddles found a temporary home after the LA fires.

Project Green Poly must be approved by the environment minister to go ahead.

The post Quinbrook backed “green” polysilicon plant must pass federal green test first appeared first on RenewEconomy.

New modelling corrects "three huge mistakes" underpinning traditional solar PV projections and smashes the myth that global energy decarbonisation will cripple the economy.

The post It’s the S-Curve, stupid: New model predicts half of world’s energy will come from solar by 2035 appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Taiwan is planning to accelerate the construction work for a planned emissions trading scheme (ETS), which could be launched as early as 2026, according to local media reports.