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UK-headquartered conservation company Environment Bank has announced a 30-year restoration and rewilding project within over 178,000 hectares of low-yielding land in North Yorkshire, England.

It could have been better designed, but Rachel Reeves’s inheritance tweak will help farmers with mud on their boots

Should multimillionaire landowners benefit from a tax break designed to help small family farms pass down their land to their children? This is a hotly contested question, given last week’s budget. Labour has reintroduced 20% inheritance tax for farms that are valued at more than £1m, meaning the children of farmers will no longer inherit land tax-free. Granted, 20% is still only half of the standard inheritance tax rate, and it probably sounds more than generous to an ex-miner, foundry worker or shipbuilder. But today, £1m would only buy you about 40 hectares (100 acres) of farmland, which is far short of a viable farm.

Farming is a long-term business that requires substantial assets and often makes only meagre returns. Farming families have not had to consider tax planning for family succession since 1992. As a second-generation farmer, I support much of the budget. But on the inheritance tax threshold, I thought, the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, had got it wrong. The positive reading of her decision is that she was trying to close a loophole whereby wealthy people buy up farmland and pass it, tax-free, to their children. If that was the main objective, though, the threshold should have been set substantially higher than £1m.

Guy Singh-Watson is the founder of the organic veg box company Riverford and a member of Patriotic Millionaires UK. He grows organic vegetables on 60 hectares (150 acres) in Devon and 120 hectares (300 acres) in the French Vendée. He sold Riverford in 2018 to its 1,000 employees, and the company is now 100% employee-owned

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Prices in China’s national emissions market hit a fresh all-time high again the past week while trading volume surged, buoyed by growing compliance demand, though a newly introduced carryover policy may complicate the price growth outlook.

Opposing views on climate, and the need to ramp up spending on defence and clean energy in the wake of Donald Trump’s election in the US, all played a part in the fall of the German government coalition, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said.

The emergence of carbon border adjustment mechanisms (CBAM) has created a heightened sense of uncertainty among Chinese exporters, despite China's recent policy progress in expanding its mandatory carbon market, analysts said this week.

A Vancouver-based carbon credits project developer has completed its business combination with a ‘blank cheque’ company, securing an additional $43 million to go public on the US stock exchange.

October saw a big month-on-month jump in the retirement of credits tagged with ICVCM’s Core Carbon Principles (CCPs) high-integrity label, carbon registry data analysed by Carbon Pulse shows.

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

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Undercover filming shows COP29 chief exec discussing new oil and gas projects ahead of climate summit.

Prospects of strong outcome appear dim but there is hope the talks will address pressing issue of climate finance

More than 100 heads of state and government are expected to land in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, over the next few days and the first thing they are likely to notice is the smell of oil. The odour hangs heavy in the air, evidence of the abundance of fossil fuels in this small country on the shores of the Caspian Sea.

Flaring from refineries lights up the night sky, and the city is dotted with diminutive “nodding donkey” oil wells raising and lowering their pistons as they draw from the earth. Even the national symbol is a gas flame, epitomised in the shape of three skyscrapers that tower over the city.

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One of Australia's first offshore wind projects has been given a lifeline after a court ordered a review of its rejected bid for a key licence.

The post Offshore wind project wins court appeal over rejected licence in Gippsland appeared first on RenewEconomy.

On the eve of Cop29 in Baku, António Guterres says dangers are underestimated as irreversible tipping points near

The world is still underestimating the risk of catastrophic climate breakdown and ecosystem collapse, the UN secretary general has warned in the run-up to Cop29, acknowledging that the rise in global heating is on course to soar past 1.5C (2.7F) over pre-industrial levels in the coming years.

Humanity is approaching potentially irreversible tipping points such as the collapse of the Amazon rainforest and the Greenland ice sheet as global temperatures rise, António Guterres has said, warning that governments are not making the deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions needed to limit warming to safe levels.

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Now is a good time to remember that efforts to tackle the global climate crisis are much bigger than one man. Here are 10 reasons to remain hopeful.

The post 10 reasons why Donald Trump can’t derail global climate action appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Remote mine microgrid transitions from hydrocarbons off (HOFF) to hydrocarbons on (HON), demonstrating its ability to run on 100% renewables.

The post “HOFF and HON:” Gold mine passes key test, shifts to 100 pct renewables and back again appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Alinta signs early contracting deal for proposed multi-billion dollar pumped hybrid project in NSW.

The post Alinta signs early contractor deal for first multi-billion dollar pumped hydro project appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Land deal signed for long duration compressed air storage facility at Broken Hill that the government says will avoid future outages. But it still needs some rule changes to get going.

The post Land deal signed for deep storage to create Broken Hill mini grid, but network rules still stand in the way appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Efforts to tackle the climate crisis – both in Australia and globally – are much bigger than one man. Here are ten reasons to remain hopeful. Wesley Morgan, Research Associate, Institute for Climate Risk and Response, UNSW Sydney Ben Newell, Professor of Cognitive Psychology and Director of the UNSW Institute for Climate Risk and Response, UNSW Sydney Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Donald Trump is back. Richie Merzian from the CEIG joins the podcast to discuss the likely impact on climate efforts, COP29, and the outlook in Australia as its big renewable tender is accelerated.

The post Energy Insiders Podcast: Trump is back, and the frog is still boiling appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Just six years remain to reach Canada’s target of 40-45% emissions reductions below 2005 levels, but efforts led by the federal government to reduce emissions face considerable implementation challenges, a report from the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) said Thursday.

Private jets are contributing an increasingly significant share to global carbon emissions, with emissions rising nearly 50% over the last four years, according to a new study.