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The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must improve its information system to prevent fraud in its Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) and comply with mandates to study the programme's impact on air quality, according to a report with a list of recommendations from the agency's watchdog.

The UK trade body for electrical equipment manufacturers is calling on the government to conduct an electricity price review, in order to rebalance electricity prices relative to gas to create a stronger incentive for consumers to switch to low-carbon products.

The UK's cap on emission allowances in the market will need to decline over the longer term to make room for new greenhouse gas removals allowances while keeping the country on track for net zero by 2050, according to the ETS Authority.

A UK-France led international panel said a survey on the supply of biodiversity credit projects found a need for access for finance at all stages, technical capacity, and tenure rights to help scale the market, in results published on Friday.

Aircraft operators, including a number of private jet companies, have been fined around £700,000 in civil penalties for failing to surrender UK ETS allowances for the first year it was established, according to data published by the UK government.

A US-based carbon removals company has filed a permit application to develop what it claims could become the world’s largest direct air capture (DAC) facility.

A carbon capture technology provider has announced the initial closing of its Series A funding.

A carbon project developer is rebranding and shifting its focus to climate finance in Latin America, and away from Africa and project development consulting services.

Spain's socialist ecological transition minister, Teresa Ribera, a long-time political standout on climate action, may be set to surge to a top job in Brussels overseeing EU climate policies over a period that could largely determine the bloc's ability to fulfil its promises without damaging its economy.

Flea treatments for dogs, ant killer, washing-up liquid and herbicides may be partly to blame for decline in UK

Insect numbers are in freefall and most people know that pesticide use in agriculture is partly to blame.

But many domestic products including flea treatments for dogs, ant killer applications, washing-up liquid and herbicides can also contribute to the problem.

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New research shows toxic ‘forever chemicals’ gas may escape landfills and threaten the environment

Toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” that leach from landfills into groundwater are among the major pollution sources in the US, and remain a problem for which officials have yet to find an effective solution.

Now new research has identified another route in which PFAS may escape landfills and threaten the environment at even higher levels: the air.

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Most data stored on power-hungry servers is used once then never looked at again

When “I can has cheezburger?” became one of the first internet memes to blow our minds, it’s unlikely that anyone worried about how much energy it would use up.

But research has now found that the vast majority of data stored in the cloud is “dark data”, meaning it is used once then never visited again. That means that all the memes and jokes and films that we love to share with friends and family – from “All your base are belong to us”, through Ryan Gosling saying “Hey Girl”, to Tim Walz with a piglet – are out there somewhere, sitting in a datacentre, using up energy. By 2030, the National Grid anticipates that datacentres will account for just under 6% of the UK’s total electricity consumption, so tackling junk data is an important part of tackling the climate crisis.

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More appropriate indicators are needed to measure progress towards the species target of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) beyond the Red List, an academic paper said on Thursday.

European carbon prices traded rangebound on Friday morning, initially following TTF gas higher amid supply concerns due to geopolitical uncertainty, before easing back, as they moved on course for a thin 1% weekly gain.

CO2 allowance prices in China’s carbon market remained rangebound over the past week amid improved liquidity, though participants expect a pick-up in trading activity as the compliance deadline is approaching.

Scotland’s Flow Country is the first peatland to become a world heritage site. It’s time we cherished these biodiverse landscapes

For centuries, peatlands have had a bad reputation. Possessing neither the majesty of the mountains nor the pastoral beauty of a meadow, they have been tarred as dangerous, ugly and useless. Travellers have long feared being swallowed into their murky depths: “If his foot slip … it is possible he may never more be heard of,” wrote the cleric William Gilpin in 1772, expressing a common sentiment at the time.

But now the image of this ecosystem is finally on the mend. Unesco has inscribed the Flow Country as a world heritage site – the first peatland to make the list. From now on, this 190,000-hectare (470,000-acre) expanse of the Scottish Highlands will sit alongside the Great Barrier Reef and the primaeval forests of the Carpathians as a landscape of international significance.

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China's national emissions market will likely see tight supply-demand dynamics around the end of this decade, given a downward trend in the cumulative balance, according to analysis released this week.

The government of Para discussed this week ways to include family farming in the development of jurisdictional REDD+ (J-REDD+) systems in the Brazilian state, according to Agencia Para, the state’s official news agency.

A London-headquartered startup at the intersection of AI and chemistry is hoping to speed up the discovery, reduce the costs, and successfully scale new green materials, driving climate breakthroughs in areas ranging from carbon removal to sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and low-impact mining.

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

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