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The EU’s sustainable finance policy for the next five years will focus on implementing legislation agreed under the European Green Deal, said the EU’s commissioner-designate for financial services during a confirmation hearing on Wednesday.

Overblown concerns about potential dangers of a common chemical threaten to undermine scientific evidence to the contrary

Because of his job as a dermatologist, Dr Deshan Sebaratnam frequently gets asked questions by friends, family and strangers about skin treatments. But lately, he says, he has been confronted by “a lot of myths around sunscreens”, especially on his social media feed.

Among the most frequent is “that sunscreen can actually cause skin cancer”, says Sebaratnam, a conjoint associate professor at the University of New South Wales.

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Murrumbidgee River, in New South Wales, had 55% less water in 2018 than it did in 1988, with the Lowbidgee Floodplain hardest hit

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A section of one of Australia’s longest rivers, the Murrumbidgee, lost more than half of its water over a 30-year period due to dams and other diversions, according to new research.

Scientists at the University of New South Wales examined the impacts of dam infrastructure and irrigation on natural water flows in the lower Murrumbidgee River since 1890.

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Millionaire points to Broken Hill’s blackout to attack the energy transition but experts say he should look at South Australia and Europe

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For 15 minutes on Sunday morning, ABC local radio listeners were treated to a rant from Dick Smith as the millionaire attacked Australia’s transition away from fossil fuels, claiming renewables would make electricity unaffordable and cause sweeping blackouts.

“It seems we have been sold a pup and we are not getting the full truth all the time,” responded Ian McNamara, the host of Australia All Over. “There are lots of people who will back you up.”

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The Green Climate Fund’s (GCF) recently adopted policy on REDD+ results-based payments could drive "hundreds of millions" to developing nations, the organisation said this week.

Trump's sweeping victory is bad news for climate action and the US energy transition, but it leaves China as the big winner.

The post Trump’s return is a catastrophe for climate and US energy transition, and China wins the cleantech race appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Warm air from the London Underground could be used to heat homes in the heart of the UK capital in a new £1 billion scheme that is expected to create 500 jobs and save 75,000 tonnes of CO2 every year.

European carbon prices fell for the fifth time in the last six days on Wednesday as energy markets reacted to the election of Donald Trump in the US, with an increase in selling interest also coming after weekly position data showed investment funds had reduced their bearish bets to the lowest total in more than two months.

A carbon standard will pilot its methodology for nature stewardship credits across two sites in Canada and Zambia, with plans to onboard additional projects in the coming months, the company told Carbon Pulse. 

Land reform charities call for better regulation of UK’s carbon market so profits can be shared with public

Nature campaigners have called for taxpayers to take stakes in forest and peatland projects designed to store carbon, to avoid all the profits from carbon credits going to private investors.

A report from the Revive Coalition, an umbrella group for Scottish land reform and conservation charities, says carbon credits also need to be used much more effectively to bolster demand and help the UK meet its net zero targets.

Government-owned banks such as the Scottish National Investment Bank should invest in carbon projects, including on public land.

It becomes mandatory for all large and medium-sized companies to have audited carbon reduction targets to avoid greenwashing.

All carbon offsetting projects must register with the official schemes, the Woodland carbon code and the Peatland carbon code.

A new land tax is set up that is reduced if the land is managed to protect the climate and promote nature recovery.

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The victory of Donald Trump in the US election on Tuesday has cast doubt among observers and negotiators over whether progress is still feasible on Article 6 at COP29 in Baku despite the previous optimism.

Donald Trump's re-election as US president will likely usher in another era of loosening environmental standards in the US and a bigger step-back in climate action internationally -- at a time when the Paris Agreement's 1.5C goal is slipping out of reach and emissions have yet to peak.

An India-based carbon credit developer and supplier has teamed up with a local partner to tap into the US market, targeting potential clients from the aviation sector.

Gold Standard has opened consultations on multiple guiding documents relating to carbon crediting projects this week as the registry builds on recent approval obtained from the UN to supply the current phase of the CORSIA international aviation offsetting scheme.

US e-commerce giant Amazon will support a new voluntary certification programme in Ireland aimed at restoring 700,000 hectares of degraded peatlands that could avoid up to 2 million tonnes of CO2 emissions annually.

Donald Trump’s return to the White House following the 2024 US presidential election is seen as a setback for global efforts to tackle climate change, just days before the COP29 UN climate summit opens in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Earlier this year, families from the Indigenous Guna people on the tiny island of Gardi Sugdub became the first to undergo a climate-related relocation by the Panamanian government because of the threat of rising sea levels. Hundreds of residents moved to Isber Yala, a new town built on the mainland. But many fear that the relocation has put their traditions and culture in peril

Photographs by Euan Wallace

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Washington voters appear to have decided to retain the state’s cap-and-trade programme by rejecting a ballot measure that sought to dismantle it, preliminary election results showed.

The rightwing regional authorities ignored the climate-crisis science and dismissed the weather forecast – the consequences are their responsibility

• Juan Bordera is a climate journalist and an independent MP for Compromís in the Valencian parliament

It’s almost impossible to describe what we have experienced in the flooded villages and towns around the city of Valencia. Many of those villages and towns are in ruins, with at least 217 dead and others to be pulled out of the mud. There are many areas that still need urgent help. There are towns without water or electricity that have not been able to clean up. There are still flooded garages, buildings on the verge of collapse, and health problems that may result from the accumulated water.

But what also defies belief is the regional Valencian government’s sheer negligence in its pre- and post-disaster management. Let me try to summarise some of the most serious shortcomings.

Juan Bordera is a climate journalist and an independent MP for Compromís in the Valencian parliament. He has donated his fee for this article to a fundraiser for those affected by the storm

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My mother showed me the importance of Indigenous and Afro-descendant women in protecting the natural world. Yet they continue to face barriers and discrimination in their work

I learned about the importance of women in small communities from my mother. She was a peasant woman – a campesina as we say in Colombia – in the mountains near Cali, where I grew up. She searched the forest for food and cultivated the earth to grow vegetables to feed me and my four siblings. It is women like her that I try to empower with my work supporting the collective rights of Indigenous and Afro-descendant women in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

In an era of environmental crises, people from such communities have an outsized role in preventing the destruction of nature and slowing the climate crisis. Colombia, where the biodiversity Cop16 was held last week, is home to 10% of all life on Earth, stretching from thick mangrove forest of the Pacific coast to the Amazon rainforest. Many of the communities I work with live alongside this rich nature and have made its survival part of their culture, something increasingly recognised in conservation. This is true from the Arctic Circle to the Indonesian forest. My job is to make sure women in these places receive practical support and a fair share of growing financial assistance.

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