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Exclusive: The kaputar slug, which can grow longer than a human hand, was almost wiped out in the black summer bushfires of 2019-20

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A giant, fluorescent pink slug’s comeback on Mount Kaputar has been mapped by eager citizen scientists.

The kaputar slug grows up to 20cm long – outstripping the average human hand – and 6cm wide. The only place it exists in the entire world is on an extinct volcano in NSW’s Mount Kaputar national park.

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Experts recorded 45 entanglements off Australia’s east coast in 2024 – but believe that’s ‘the tip of the iceberg’

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At least 45 whales were entangled by fishing ropes and line on the east coast in 2024, and experts are calling for better management of fishing gear in Australia to prevent marine suffering.

Dr Olaf Meynecke, a marine scientist at Griffith University, said the issue of preventing whale entanglements was “largely ignored in Australia”.

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The possible inclusion of waste incinerators in the EU ETS will incentivise them to capture CO2 to both reduce their compliance payments and to generate carbon removals from the biogenic portion, according to a Norwegian project developer.

Europe is falling short on its annual goal of building 30 gigawatts (GW) of new wind farms, undermining the EU's energy transition and making the expansion of the bloc's carbon pricing scheme to building and transport fuels more challenging, new industry data shows.

Those who lived in regions with firefighting training areas earned about 1.7% less later in life, research shows

Early life exposure to toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” could impact economic success in adulthood, new first-of-its-kind research suggests.

The Iowa State University and US Census Bureau working paper compared the earnings, college graduation rates, and birth weights of two groups of children – those raised around military installations that had firefighting training areas, and those who lived near bases with no fire training site.

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European carbon prices stabilised on Friday morning as buyers stepped in to accumulate length after early weakness, leaving the market little-changed by midday, while prompt natural gas headed for its fifth decline in the first seven sessions of the year even as storage levels dropped below 70%.

A UK charity has announced plans to create 250,000 hectares of nature-rich landscapes in the country over the next 10 years in a bid to support national efforts to meet biodiversity goals.

Prices in China's national emissions market continued to fall over the past week with decreasing trading volumes, while observers remained cautious about the supply outlook of the long-stalled offset market, given the slower-than-expected project registration progress.

A company already backed by the Australian government for its cement decarbonisation solution announced that two of its projects have now been selected for US Department of Energy (DOE) funding.

A Japanese conglomerate is partnering with a coal miner and an agricultural startup in a further step toward sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in Australia this week, with a view to earning carbon credits.

Existing emission inventories may underestimate methane emissions from China's coal mines, partly because of their reliance on aggregated statistical data, according to a recent report using satellite-based monitoring methods.

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world

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Last year was the world's warmest on record, bringing temperatures above a politically symbolic milestone.

Traders scrambled for reasons to explain the start of year weakness in California Carbon Allowances (CCA) as macro risk-off sentiment spread across broader markets.

This record-breaking heat is primarily driven by humanity’s burning of fossil fuels. The warming won’t stop until we reach net-zero emissions. Andrew King, Associate Professor in Climate Science, ARC Centre of Excellence for 21st Century Weather, The University of Melbourne David Karoly, Professor emeritus, The University of Melbourne Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Highest recorded temperatures supercharged extreme weather – with worse to come, EU data shows

Climate breakdown drove the annual global temperature above the internationally agreed 1.5C target for the first time last year, supercharging extreme weather and causing “misery to millions of people”.

The average temperature in 2024 was 1.6C above preindustrial levels, data from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) shows. That is a jump of 0.1C from 2023, which was also a record hot year and represents levels of heat never experienced by modern humans.

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Last year was confirmed by multiple scientific agencies on Friday as the warmest year on record and the first calendar year that average global temperatures have exceeded 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

The Australian government has yet to decide on reforms for its troubled voluntary corporate offsetting programme, even as speculation swirls that it may be scrapped altogether.

A US business lobby group this week sued the US EPA over two waivers recently granted to California, one of which allows the state to adopt a set of regulations that would ban the sale of new gasoline vehicles by 2035.

Understanding this migration is crucial. New developments proposed in Bass Strait, particularly offshore wind farms, may introduce challenges for migrating birds. Jessica Wei Zhou, Researcher in Ecology, Monash University Rohan Clarke, Associate Professor, School of Biological Sciences, Monash University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.