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The Philippines has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with a local climate tech firm which will help the nation to build an ITMO registry, setting the stage for the country to enter the carbon market, local media reported Friday.

The Global Investor Commission on Mining has been backed by 82 investors with over $11 trillion in assets collectively under management, with the aim of making the sector more socially and environmentally responsible by 2030.

Study’s author says ‘we need to reduce exposure in order to ensure men who want to conceive are able to without interference’

Exposure to several widely used insecticides probably decreases sperm concentration and may have profound effects on male fertility, new US research finds.

The George Mason University paper analyzed five decades of peer-reviewed studies to determine if organophosphates and carbamate-based pesticides exposure correlated with decreased sperm concentration.

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European carbon prices advanced for a second day, giving rise to speculation that the month-long decline fuelled by speculative selling may have come to an end as the expiry of the December contract approaches, while energy markets were slightly weaker as the weather outlook remained uncertain.

Global fall averaged 4.2% between 2010 and 2022 but would have been far more if vehicle sizes stayed same

Emissions from the motor sector could have fallen by more than 30% between 2010 and 2022 if vehicles had stayed the same size, a report has found.

Instead, the size of the average car ballooned as the trend for SUVs took off, meaning the global annual rate of energy intensity reductions – the fall in fuel used – of light-duty vehicles (LDV) averaged 4.2% between 2020 and 2022.

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Project aims to release hundreds into lochs and streams after centuries of habitat loss and exploitation

The medicinal leech is one of nature’s least loved hunters. Armed with three strong interlocking jaws and with a taste for blood, they will swim hungrily towards humans, deer or cattle that wander into their ponds to bathe, fish or drink.

Yet this small predator is the focus of an unlikely reintroduction programme by conservationists working in a small laboratory deep in the Scottish Highlands, at a wildlife park best known for its polar bears, wildcats and wolves.

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Trading volume in China's carbon market plunged over the past week despite stable allowance prices, as most major Chinese emitters have fulfilled their obligations now that the primary compliance deadline set by the government has passed.

Revenues from carbon pricing mechanisms reached $93 billion last year, slightly lower than the prior year, with more than half of this total specifically redirected towards climate activities, according to a report from a group of climate economics researchers.

More than 50 people dead in Tigray and Amhara regions while UN warns of ‘crisis-level hunger or worse’ in Somalia

The regions of Tigray and Amhara in northern Ethiopia have continued to experience severe drought conditions with more than 50 people dead, as well as 4,000 cattle.

While northern Ethiopia suffers from droughts, the southern and eastern parts of the country, along with Kenya and Somalia, have been hit by flooding. Somalia suffered the worst of the flooding, with 50 people reported dead. According to the Somali disaster management agency almost 700,000 people have been forced to leave their homes.

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South Korea may push back the timeline for the release of a basic plan underpinning the next phase of the domestic carbon market, which has been hampered by an oversupply of emissions permits, local media reported. 

The federal government of Pakistan is considering a cap-and-trade model for its imminent carbon market, an official said according to local media.

European Environment Agency says half of deaths could have been avoided by cutting pollution to recommended limits

Dirty air killed more than half a million people in the EU in 2021, estimates show, and about half of the deaths could have been avoided by cutting pollution to the limits recommended by doctors.

The researchers from the European Environment Agency attributed 253,000 early deaths to concentrations of fine particulates known as PM2.5 that breached the World Health Organization’s maximum guideline limits of 5µg/m3. A further 52,000 deaths came from excessive levels of nitrogen dioxide and 22,000 deaths from short-term exposure to excessive levels of ozone.

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A Japanese university will invest in a direct air capture (DAC) venture that aims to begin capturing CO2 via nano-separation membranes later this decade.

A Swedish drone firm has been granted a €2.7-million grant by the government for a three-year project to refine forest-thinning technology it says will reduce the need for energy intensive, habitat-wrecking heavy machinery on the ground.

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

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Letter says government pushing ahead with new fossil fuel projects while criminalising activists who raise alarm

Emma Thompson, Stephen Fry and Ben Okri have joined the former archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and leading climate scientists to highlight what they describe as a “collective act of madness” that is driving “the destruction of life on Earth”.

A letter signed by more than 100 actors, authors, scientists and academics says the UK government is ignoring the scientific reality of the climate and ecological crisis, pushing ahead with new fossil fuel developments and criminalising peaceful protesters who raise the alarm.

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Yes, the fallen foliage can be messy. But the trees know just what they’re doing – and they won’t thank you for interfering

It’s a 66m-year-old decision. Some trees got there much quicker; some took a little longer. But most of the broad-leaved trees that we know and love – the magnolias, plane trees, elms, beech, walnuts, limes, oaks, maples and horse chestnuts – made a calculated decision to drop their leaves come autumn. Large, soft leaves are hard to protect in the winter weather, so the trees evolved to lose them, but not their valuable resources.

Leaf fall is a precision art for a deciduous tree – it’s a salvage operation on the greatest scale as the tree works quickly to bank the resources hidden inside the pigments of the leaves. The greens of chlorophyll go first, then the yellows of the xanthonoids, and then the orange carotenoids, until all that is left is brown – at which point the tree lets its foliage go.

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‘Bog oak’ study finds more than 400 well preserved yews, which could help solve mystery of historic rapid sea level rise

The flat landscape of the East Anglian Fens is known for its vast arable fields and absence of trees. But just over 4,000 years ago, these lowlands were dominated by dense woods of ancient yew trees.

A study of hundreds of tree trunks inadvertently dug up by fenland farmers has found that this woodland abruptly disappeared 4,200 years ago, probably because a rapid rise in the North Sea flooded the low-lying region with saltwater.

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Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto has bought a stake in a local Australian carbon project developer to secure a supply of carbon credits to offset emissions from its operations under the Safeguard Mechanism.

Brad Hopkins, from AEMO Services, discusses the successful battery storage tender in NSW that could serve as a blueprint for Chris Bowen's massive 32 GW capacity scheme.

The post Energy Insiders Podcast: Bowen’s capacity scheme, and NSW’s “free” batteries appeared first on RenewEconomy.