Feed aggregator

As prime minister Justin Trudeau trails in polls, opposition seek to persuade voters environmental policy is a burden

Mass hunger and malnutrition. A looming nuclear winter. An existential threat to the Canadian way of life. For months, the country’s Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has issued dire and increasingly apocalyptic warnings about the future. The culprit? A federal carbon levy meant to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

In the House of Commons this month, the Tory leader said there was only one way to avoid the devastating crisis: embattled prime minister Justin Trudeau must “call a ‘carbon tax’ election”.

Continue reading...

Exclusive: Farmers still awaiting promised payments for uninsurable damage caused by Storm Henk

Labour may cut financial support for flooded farmers, the Guardian has learned, while money to compensate them for deluges in January has still not hit their pockets.

The previous Conservative government earlier this year promised up to £25,000 in payments for uninsurable damage from flooding caused by Storm Henk. However, the eligibility criteria for these grants has still not been set out, leaving farmers out of pocket. The scheme has been plagued with delays, with some affected farmers not being paid because they live too far from a river.

Continue reading...

Oregon released draft rules to update their Clean Fuels Program (OCFP) after market close Friday, following in the footsteps of California’s near midnight Eastern publication earlier in the week of their Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) rulemaking changes.

Traders increased net length across their holdings of California Carbon Allowances (CCAs), RGGI Allowances (RGAs), and Washington Carbon Allowances (WCAs), according to this week's data released Friday from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

The sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) industry is unlikely to scale without cohesive policy measures across jurisdictions, the sustainability lead at a major US airline said Thursday.

Washington state’s Department of Ecology (ECY) will offer the most number of current year permits of all the auctions held in 2024 at its final sale in December, along with future vintage allowances despite the looming risk of programme repeal in November, according to a notice published by the agency on Friday. 

An Emirati resolution to establish a national registry of carbon credits aligned with Article 6 of the Paris Agreement earned special mention at the World Green Economy Summit held in Dubai this week.

The US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has denied stay applications filed by Republican-backed states against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s rules to limit methane output from the oil and gas sector.

Talks at the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) this week concluded with some promising signs for the introduction of a carbon levy but still no significant advances.

At least 14 people died in floods in Bosnia and Herzegovina on Friday and others were missing as torrential rain and landslides destroyed homes, roads and bridges across the centre of the country, officials said. Bosnia's presidency said it had requested military help for the wider Jablanica area, and engineers, rescue units and a helicopter were deployed, including to rescue 17 people from a mental health hospital. Neighbouring Croatia was hit by floods on Friday, though there were no reports of casualties. Authorities issued a severe weather warning for the Adriatic coast and central regions of the country

Continue reading...

A proposal to impose tariffs on China-made electric vehicles has received clearance from the EU's 27 member states, in efforts to support the competitiveness of the bloc's auto industry.

The inclusion of the maritime sector in the EU ETS has not led to a reduction in port calls or container movements at EU ports, nor in trans-shipment activity, according to a preliminary report by the European Commission.

Prime minister suggests there will be more public money made available for new technologies

• What is carbon capture, usage and storage?

Keir Starmer has signalled his government will drastically increase its green investment plans in an attempt to avoid a rerun of 1980s-style industrial decline by safeguarding jobs in heartland manufacturing communities.

On a visit to a Merseyside glass factory on Friday to unveil billions of pounds in funding for carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects, the prime minister suggested there would be more public money made available for new technologies.

Continue reading...

Recycling is, by its nature, complicated. The imperfections in the process don’t mean the whole system is a con

The process of recycling is, by its nature, complicated. We put our mix of rubbish in the right bins, and from that point onwards hope that those we entrust it to – be it local councils picking up rubbish or supermarket recycling schemes – will do the rest. If this is you, then you may be dismayed to learn that a recent Everyday Plastics report found that most soft plastics collected by two of Britain’s biggest supermarkets are not being recycled and are, instead, incinerated.

Soft plastics are anything flimsy that you can scrunch in your hand: think bread bags, pouches, clingfilm, chocolate wrappers and crisp packets. But as this latest report shows, they aren’t as easily recyclable as you might think. Here’s why.

James Piper is the co-host of the Talking Rubbish podcast and author of The Rubbish Book

Continue reading...

Project developers should embed gender considerations into the design, implementation, and monitoring of carbon credit projects to boost market integrity and improve project outcomes, according to recent research.

Demand for carbon credits aligned with Article 6 of the Paris Agreement is not going to suddenly spike if an agreement on rules to operationalise UN international carbon markets is found at COP29 at the end of the year, a senior EU negotiator told Carbon Pulse.

The largest solar flare since 2017 has been spotted erupting from the Sun’s surface.

European carbon prices were set to record their sixth five-day decline in the last seven weeks, coming within range of a key suport level as selling pressure continued to push the market to new six-month lows, while gas markets stalled and UK Allowances resumed their decline.

The government of Western Australia announced Friday the first cohort of six early-stage nature tech startups that will receive seed capital and expert support to scale their businesses under a newly launched accelerator programme.

Behind the violence of extreme weather is that of the fossil fuel industry, and Americans are suffering for it

The weather we used to have shaped the behavior of the water we used to have – how much and when it rained, how dry it got, when and how slowly the snow in the heights melted, what fell as rain and fell as snow. Climate chaos is changing all that, breaking the patterns, delivering water in torrents unprecedented in recorded history or withholding it to create epic droughts, while heat-and-drought-parched soil, grasslands and forests create ideal conditions for mega-wildfires.

Water in the right time and quantity is a blessing; in the wrong ones it’s a scourge and a destroying force, as we’ve seen recently with floods around the world. In the vice-presidential debate, Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor, noted that his state’s farmers “know climate change is real. They’ve seen 500-year droughts, 500-year floods, back to back.” Farmers around the world are dealing with flood, drought and unseasonable weather that impacts their ability to produce food and protect soil.

Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of Orwell’s Roses and co-editor with Thelma Young Lutunatabua of the climate anthology Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility

Continue reading...