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Researchers call for urgent action to protect large species in international waters

The world’s shark populations are at increasing risk of becoming bycatch of international fishing fleets, which harvest them in open oceans where no legal protections exist, Australian researchers have said.

Prof Rob Harcourt, from Macquarie University, said large sharks were more vulnerable to longline fishing and called for urgent action to protect them by implementing management strategies on the high seas.

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After Sydney mining investor David Glasheen lost millions in the 1987 stock market crash, he decided to make a drastic change.

A daily summary of our news plus bite-sized updates from around the world.

Incoming British Prime Minster Boris Johnson on Wednesday named new minsters in charge of climate change and energy after more than half of the Conservative cabinet resigned or was sacked upon his arrival at Downing Street earlier today.

Victoria's recycling system remains in limbo after a court yesterday granted a major recycling company 10 days to pay its creditors or be dissolved.

The New York Independent System Operator’s (NYISO) planned imposition of a carbon adder in the state’s wholesale electricity market could trigger the northeast US RGGI ETS’ Emissions Containment Reserve (ECR) in the next decade as more low-carbon generation come online, analysts said Tuesday.

California regulator ARB issued over 900,000 new offsets (CCOs) this week, while Quebec resumed its issuances with more than 50,000 of its own compliance-grade credits, according to jurisdictional data.

A new study, published in today's Nature journal, gives an insight into the threat sharks face from longline fishing.

The clearest picture yet of the past 2,000 years of global temperatures has shown warming in the last 50-odd years is unprecedented in the last two millennia. Ben Henley, Research Fellow in Climate and Water Resources, University of Melbourne Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Queensland Council of Civil Liberties says banning them reporting near Carmichael mine ‘entirely inappropriate’

Bail conditions imposed on four French journalists – banning them from reporting near Adani’s Carmichael mine site – are an “abuse of police power” and “entirely inappropriate”, says the head of the Queensland Council of Civil Liberties.

Michael Cope, a lawyer in Queensland for more than 30 years, says he has never heard of the sorts of bail conditions imposed after protests at Adani’s Abbot Point coal terminal on Monday.

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The speed and extent of global heating exceeds any similar event in the past two millennia, researchers say.

The call for corporate bosses to be heroes in the fight against climate change and inequality is misplaced, writes Ian Bretman

Although former Unilever boss Paul Polman is rightly acknowledged as a pioneering champion of corporate sustainability, his call for a team of “heroic chief executives to tackle climate change and inequality” (Report, 22nd July) may be a case of trying to solve problems with the same thinking that created them. The complex and interconnected challenges of building an equitable society and economy that meets the needs of nine billion people while living within our finite planetary resources is likely to require a different kind of leadership in business and politics.

Rather than people who see themselves as the heroes of the story, these challenges call for leaders who can make heroes of others by enabling and empowering them to achieve change.
Ian Bretman
London

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Connecticut is hoping to finalise its RGGI Model Rule update in the next two weeks and send it to a state committee for final approval, after an initial proposal was rejected for regulatory inconsistencies, an official told Carbon Pulse.

Energy Aspects has lifted its Q3 EUA price forecast back to near the analysts’ previous levels after the benchmark contract hit a fresh 11-year high, with the analysts also playing down the market impact of a recent EU court ruling involving oil major ExxonMobil.

Spain-based utility Iberdrola reported a 72% rise in its ETS-regulated thermal output over H1, as gas-fired output ramped up to cover for low hydro generation, the company said in its financial results on Wednesday.

As temperatures soar you might be wondering what exactly is causing this heatwave... and it boils down to three words - the jet stream.

EUAs set a new 13-year high of €29.95 early on Wednesday, but sank back after failing to top the €30 milestone as key energy prices also eased.

Australia's Queensland government has picked another six projects that will receive a total A$4 million ($2.8 mln) in grants under a programme designed to catalyse action and generate carbon credits for the state’s Land Restoration Fund.

Call for new Geneva convention to protect wildlife and nature reserves in conflict regions

International lawmakers should adopt a fifth Geneva convention that recognises damage to nature alongside other war crimes, according to an open letter by 24 prominent scientists.

The legal instrument should incorporate wildlife safeguards in conflict regions, including protections for nature reserves, controls on the spread of guns used for hunting and measures to hold military forces to account for damage to the environment, say the signatories to the letter, published in the journal Nature.

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British utility Drax opted to buy back some of its forward hedged coal power output over the first half of 2019 as higher emission costs ensured more of its generation would be unprofitable.