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Battery storage prices are trending downward as newcomers to the Australian market follow the Tesla Powerwall 2 to lower and lower price points.

Herbert Smith Freehills has advised Infrastructure Capital Group (ICG) and the Energy Infrastructure Trust (EIT) on the successful acquisition of the Bald Hills Wind Farm.

Kagoshima Prefecture-based project is scheduled for installation in Q3 2017 as part of Japan’s popular Excess Energy Purchasing Scheme and Feed-in Tariff

EV rental company launches sharing plan where owners of Tesla and other EVs can help pay off their investments or simply share the love of EV driving.

In an 11th-hour deal, Opal Solar has secured prime real-estate on the jerseys of NRL premiers the Cronulla Sharks as their 2017 Naming Rights Partner.

Spain reboots its renewable energy program, while India has said the country will double the installed capacity in solar parks to 40 gigawatts.

Engie & Schneider Electric have signed a MoU to explore and deploy new digital solutions for operational efficiency of renewable assets.

Australian specialist infrastructure fund manager Infrastructure Capital Group (ICG) has acquired Bald Hills Wind Farm from Mitsui & Co.

China is now well past its 2013 coal peak, while the utilization rate for coal-fired generators declined to 47.5% - an all time low.

Radio signals from tags are helping hunters and harming conservation, warn scientists.

‘Citizen science’ project launched as FoE survey indicates population outside London overestimates air quality

People across the UK are underestimating the impact of the air pollution crisis in their local areas, according to a new survey.

Almost two thirds of respondents said they were concerned about the issue of air pollution, but only one in 10 said they thought the air they breathe is bad.

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French renewable energy firm Neon aims for 1GW wind and solar in Australia after completing the finance of the 109MW Hornsdale 3 wind farm in South Australia.

Data released this week is hard evidence Australia’s pollution is going up and that means Turnbull and Frydenberg’s policies are failing.

Two private citizens are reported to have paid large deposits to fly around the moon in 2018

Plants from semi-tropical climes are overtaking native British species and choking habitat as they flourish in warmer conditions

A half-degree increase in the average temperature in September and October in East Anglia this century has made an already troublesome plant invader even more of a nuisance. While the change in climate has been hardly noticeable to humans, it has made an enormous difference to the floating pennywort, Hydrocotyle ranunculoide, which already threatens to choke slow-moving rivers and the Broads.

The extension of warmer weather into autumn has give this semi-tropical South American plant the opportunity to produce viable seeds for the first time enabling it to spread even faster.

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Member states approve changes, including €12bn innovation fund, to emissions plan for cleaner technology and pollution cuts

An overhaul of the EU’s flagship trading scheme for cutting carbon emissions by European industries has been approved by the member states.

The agreement to reform the emissions trading system comes after almost two years’ of discussions but just two weeks after the European parliament voted in favour of a new directive.

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Farmers face falling crop yields and growing food demand. Shutterstock

Climate change and extreme weather events are already having impacts on our food, from meat and vegetables, right through to wine. In our series on the Climate and Food, we’re looking at what this means for the food chain.

While increases in population and wealth will lift global demand for food by up to 70% by 2050, agriculture is already feeling the effects of climate change. This is expected to continue in coming decades.

Scientists and farmers will need to act on multiple fronts to counter falling crop yields and feed more people. As with previous agricultural revolutions, we need a new set of plant characteristics to meet the challenge.

When it comes to the staple crops – wheat, rice, maize, soybean, barley and sorghum – research has found changes in rainfall and temperature explain about 30% of the yearly variation in agricultural yields. All six crops responded negatively to increasing temperatures – most likely associated with increases in crop development rates and water stress. In particular, wheat, maize and barley show a negative response to increased temperatures. But, overall, rainfall trends had only minor effects on crop yields in these studies.

Since 1950, average global temperatures have risen by roughly 0.13°C per decade. An even faster rate of roughly 0.2°C of warming per decade is expected over the next few decades.

As temperatures rise, rainfall patterns change. Increased heat also leads to greater evaporation and surface drying, which further intensifies and prolongs droughts.

A warmer atmosphere can also hold more water – about 7% more water vapour for every 1°C increase in temperature. This ultimately results in storms with more intense rainfall. A review of rainfall patterns shows changes in the amount of rainfall everywhere.

Maize yields are predicted to decline with climate change. Shutterstock Falling yields

Crop yields around Australia have been hard hit by recent weather. Last year, for instance, the outlook for mungbeans was excellent. But the hot, dry weather has hurt growers. The extreme conditions have reduced average yields from an expected 1-1.5 tonnes per hectare to just 0.1-0.5 tonnes per hectare.

Sorghum and cotton crops fared little better, due to depleted soil water, lack of in-crop rainfall, and extreme heat. Fruit and vegetables, from strawberries to lettuce, were also hit hard.

But the story is larger than this. Globally, production of maize and wheat between 1980 and 2008 was 3.8% and 5.5% below what we would have expected without temperature increases. One model, which combines historical crop production and weather data, projects significant reductions in production of several key African crops. For maize, the predicted decline is as much as 22% by 2050.

Feeding more people in these changing conditions is the challenge before us. It will require crops that are highly adapted to dry and hot environments. The so-called “Green Revolution” of the 1960s and 1970s created plants with short stature and enhanced responsiveness to nitrogen fertilizer.

Now, a new set of plant characteristics is needed to further increase crop yield, by making plants resilient to the challenges of a water-scarce planet.

Developing resilient crops for a highly variable climate

Resilient crops will require significant research and action on multiple fronts – to create adaptation to drought and waterlogging, and tolerance to cold, heat and salinity. Whatever we do, we also need to factor in that agriculture contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs).

Scientists are meeting this challenge by creating a framework for adapting to climate change. We are identifying favourable combinations of crop varieties (genotypes) and management practices (agronomy) to work together in a complex system.

We can mitigate the effects of some climate variations with good management practices. For example, to tackle drought, we can alter planting dates, fertilizer, irrigation, row spacing, population and cropping systems.

Genotypic solutions can bolster this approach. The challenge is to identify favourable combinations of genotypes (G) and management (M) practices in a variable environment (E). Understanding the interaction between genotypes, management and the environment (GxMxE) is critical to improving grain yield under hot and dry conditions.

Genetic and management solutions can be used to develop climate-resilient crops for highly variable environments in Australia and globally. Sorghum is a great example. It is the dietary staple for over 500 million people in more than 30 countries, making it the world’s fifth-most-important crop for human consumption after rice, wheat, maize and potatoes.

‘Stay-green’ in sorghum is an example of a genetic solution to drought that has been deployed in Australia, India and sub-Saharan Africa. Crops with stay-green maintain greener stems and leaves during drought, resulting in increased stem strength, grain size and yield. This genetic solution can be combined with a management solution (e.g. reduced plant population) to optimise production and food security in highly variable and water-limited environments.

Other projects in India have found that alternate wetting and drying (AWD) irrigation in rice, compared with normal flooded production, can reduce water use by about 32%. And, by maintaining an aerobic environment in the soil, it reduces methane emissions five-fold.

Climate change, water, agriculture and food security form a critical nexus for the 21st century. We need to create and implement practices that will increase yields, while overcoming changing conditions and limiting the emissions from the agricultural sector. There is no room for complacency here.

Andrew Borrell receives funding from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and is an associate investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis.

Of course the unacceptable levels of air pollution in our cities is an issue that central and local government must urgently tackle (Report, 25 February). However, the elephant in the room is that millions of city dwellers routinely make unnecessary car journeys and they need to accept their responsibility and switch to alternative means of transport. Ironically, those children at London schools and nurseries you highlight are often being poisoned by their own parents’ vehicles and those of their classmates’ parents on the school run. I walk my children the mile to their school, while most of their friends are driven through the traffic-choked streets. It takes about the same time, but those families have contributed to the toxicity of the air and have done no exercise.
Adam Manolson
London

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I am completely appalled to read that an organisation that is supposed to promote wildlife and nature in this country should be recruiting volunteers to kill the UK’s grey squirrels in the north (Thousands of volunteers wanted to save red squirrel, 24 February).

This diminishes the ethos of the Wildlife Trusts. I do not believe that the culling process can ever be made humane and the idea of bludgeoning squirrels to death is barbaric. In addition I fear that the cull will need to be extended to all of the UK’s regions to prevent replenishment of culled areas by southern squirrels. The enhanced transmissibility of the squirrel pox virus among red squirrels suggests the solution should be to work to increase their resistance to this disease, rather than trying to eliminate it in its entirety by culling grey squirrels in case they harbour it.

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Exclusive: Plan also targets local air and noise pollution but critics say long-term solutions to environmental challenges are no closer to reality

The huge growth in flights from Heathrow’s planned new runway could be carbon neutral, according to an ambition revealed by the airport.

The 260,000 extra flights a year anticipated from the third runway would make the airport the UK’s largest source of carbon emissions. But Heathrow’s new sustainability plan suggests other ways to offset the leap in emissions, including by restoring British peat bogs.

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