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A carbon product specialist has returned to the market after over a year’s absence to take up the position as head of emissions trading at one of Australia’s big four banks.

Mari Luz Canaquiri Murayari led a successful legal battle to protect the Marañon River in the Peruvian Amazon

• Prize recognises seven activists fighting corporate power

An Indigenous campaigner and women’s leader from the Peruvian Amazon has been awarded the prestigious Goldman prize for environmental activists, after leading a successful legal campaign that led to the river where her people, the Kukama, live being granted legal personhood.

Mari Luz Canaquiri Murayari, 57, from the village of Shapajila on the Marañon River, led the Huaynakana Kamatahuara Kana (HKK) women’s association, supported by lawyers from Peru’s Legal Defence Institute, in a campaign to protect the river. After three years, judges in Loreto, Peru’s largest Amazon region, ruled in March 2024 that the Marañon had the right to be free-flowing and free of contamination, respecting an Indigenous worldview that regards a river as a living entity.

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Seven winners of environmental prize include Amazonian river campaigner and Tunisian who fought against organised waste trafficking

• Indigenous river campaigner from Peru honoured

Grassroots activists who helped jail corrupt officials and obtain personhood rights for a sacred Amazonian river are among this year’s winners of the world’s most prestigious environmental prize.

The community campaigns led by the seven 2025 Goldman prize winners underscore the courage and tenacity of local activists willing to confront the toxic mix of corporate power, regulatory failures and political corruption that is fuelling biodiversity collapse, water shortages, deadly air pollution and the climate emergency.

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Japan is seeking project proposals that can provide benefits beyond emissions reductions under the bilateral Joint Crediting Mechanism (JCM).

Contrary to Opposition claims, renewable energy is exerting downward pressure on residential electricity prices.

The post More gas is not needed in push for high renewables, but we need to get cracking with wind and transmission appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Scientists are investigating for the first time how dangerous the island's next big one could be.

In Pakistan, it's hoped newly-developed AI cameras could warn villagers via text to move their livestock if snow leopards enter the area.

Ten start-ups pursuing innovations across battery chemistry, recycling, second-life systems, and EV charging selected to join inaugural incubator program.

The post Ten start-up battery innovators tapped to join Supercharge Australia incubator appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Australia's most advanced renewable state sets new wind output record with the help of a new wind farm, a new battery and a major new transmission link.

The post South Australia breaks wind output record for first time in two years as new projects boost capacity appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Exhaustion. Sleep deprivation. Feeling depressed and guilty. Lingering doubts and regret. If you’ve had a puppy, this may all sound grimly familiar. Susan Hazel, Associate Professor, School of Animal and Veterinary Science, University of Adelaide Ana Goncalves Costa, Researcher, Animal Behaviour, Welfare and Anthrozoology Lab, University of Adelaide Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Safeguard mechanism revamp leads to overall emissions fall but 70% of coal and gas facilities covered by scheme increased direct pollution

• Get Guardian Australia environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as an email

Australia’s biggest industrial climate polluter – Chevron’s Gorgon gas export plant in Western Australia – received the equivalent of millions of dollars in carbon credits from the federal government last year, despite increasing its emissions.

The revelation in government data last week has sparked calls for changes to the safeguard mechanism, the government policy applied to the country’s 219 largest industrial climate polluting facilities.

Get Guardian Australia environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as an email

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Cuts to science, environmental and safety agencies are a rejection of hard-won knowledge gained from studying the disaster that occurred 15 years ago

Last month, I joined nearly 500 former and current employees of National Geographic, where I was executive vice-president and chief science and exploration officer for 17 years, urging the institution to take a public stance against the Trump administration’s reckless attacks on science. Our letter pointed out that the programs being dismantled are “imperative for the success of our country’s economy and are the foundation of our progress and wellbeing. They make us safer, stronger and more prosperous.” We warned that gutting them is a recipe for disaster.

In the face of this danger, none of us can remain silent.

Terry Garcia was National Geographic’s executive vice-president and chief science and exploration officer for 17 years. He also served as the assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and deputy administrator of Noaa, as well as its general counsel

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Lack of investment and vision has dogged UK industry, while China has literally forged ahead

The fate of incoming Labour business and industry secretaries seems to be to launch emergency rescue packages for industries that would otherwise face imminent closure.

Witness Jonathan Reynolds at last Saturday’s extraordinary parliamentary recall arguing for the legal right to take over the running of British Steel from its Chinese owner, Jingye, in order to save up to 3,500 jobs and Britain’s strategic capacity to make steel. And witness Tony Benn, in 1974, offering a financial lifeline to 3,000 workers forming a cooperative to save motorcycle manufacture at the failed BSA plant in Meriden, near Coventry.

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A capsule with Don Pettit and his two Russian crewmates lands in Kazakhstan after a space station mission.

The energy secretary has accused Reform UK’s leader of peddling dangerous falsehoods about renewable power

• Tories and Reform use the steel crisis to knock clean energy. They’re wrong: it will secure all our futures

Ed Miliband has torn into Nigel Farage and the Tories for peddling dangerous “nonsense and lies” by suggesting the UK’s net zero target is responsible for destroying Britain’s businesses, including its steel industry.

Cabinet ministers are determined to fight back against the way Reform UK and the Conservatives have unceremoniously lambasted the climate crisis agenda for what they believe are nakedly political reasons before important local elections next month.

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If green policy is going to survive the backlash, it needs a new pitch – cleaner air, cheaper bills and healthier cities

For a decade, green activists in Britain have been congratulating themselves on their luck. Unlike in many countries in Europe, where motorists, farmers and rightwing groups have been driving anti-climate action, the UK has long enjoyed a comfortable political consensus on the subject. But conditions for a greenlash are assembling.

Most Britons still say they support climate efforts, but the price of decarbonising may at last be about to hit our wallets. Meanwhile, the Conservative party has come a long way since it sported a little green oak tree as its logo. Last month, Kemi Badenoch declared a full culture war against net zero, which she said couldn’t be achieved “without a serious drop in our living standards or by bankrupting us”.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk

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Bases in Norfolk, Devon and Hampshire face MoD investigation over possible leaching of dangerous PFAS into environment

Three UK military bases have been marked for investigation over fears they may be leaking toxic “forever chemicals” into drinking water sources and important environmental sites.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) will investigate RAF Marham in Norfolk, RM Chivenor in Devon and AAC Middle Wallop in Hampshire after concerns they may be leaching toxic PFAS chemicals into their surroundings. The sites were identified using a new PFAS risk screening tool developed by the Environment Agency (EA) designed to locate and prioritise pollution threats.

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In the 2022 federal election, the "teals" and other independents had their finger on the voter pulse. What are they pushing for in 2025 as cost-of-living flavours energy policy?

The post As the major parties duke it out over energy, here’s what teals and key independents have to say appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Dolphin-watching tour witnesses four adult bottlenose dolphins kill a common dolphin calf in Cardigan Bay

They had been hoping for a nice day out on the bay. Instead, dolphin-watching tourists in Wales were confronted with the shocking and grisly sight of four adult bottlenose dolphins pursuing and killing a common dolphin calf.

The trip, in Cardigan Bay, was operated by Dolphin Spotting Boat Trips and the Sea Watch Foundation (SWF), a charity that monitors the dolphins in the bay to inform and advise on their conservation status and protection.

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Prof Shane Ahyong discovered ‘brutish’ mantis shrimp so unusual it needed its own new genus

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When Prof Shane Ahyong was seven, his mum came home with a bag of prawns from the fish shop – but one of those things was not like the others.

“It just looked different,” said Ahyong.

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