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Plantations are an excellent way to combat climate breakdown, writes Andrew Weatherall, of the National School of Forestry. And Rachel Kerr says heather moorland is rarer than rainforest and the underlying peat is more effective at carbon storage than trees

The Forestry Commission was established 100 years ago to create a “strategic reserve of timber” after Lloyd George stated “Britain had more nearly lost the war for want of timber than of anything else”. The UK is 50% self-sufficient in food, but only 20% self-sufficient in wood, so we still want timber more than anything else.

Any call to redirect subsidies to restore woodlands is welcome (Use farm subsidies to rewild quarter of UK, urges report, 21 May). The Rewilding Britain report states: “Commercial conifer plantations should not be eligible, except where they are removed and replaced with native woodland.” This approach is understandable if the aim is to increase habitat for wildlife. However, plantations are an excellent way to combat climate breakdown, because the growing trees sequester carbon and the forests store it, just like in more natural woodlands, but harvested wood products also provide a carbon substitution effect when used instead of concrete or steel.

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Hundreds of thousands of young people walk out of lessons around the world as the movement snowballs

• Latest school climate strikes

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UN aviation body ICAO will restrict attendance at technical meetings for the CORSIA offsetting programme to members of the scheme’s 19-person advisory board, snubbing a central demand of environmental groups that have called for greater outside participation and transparency in developing the international carbon market.

Albatross lovebirds, white storks in England and a walrus mother and baby

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Closing prices, ranges and volumes for China's regional pilot carbon markets this week.

Got a question for the Swedish 16-year-old who started a youth climate revolution? Here’s your chance to ask her...

On 20 August 2018, Greta Thunberg, then aged 15, did not attend her first day back at school after the summer holidays. Instead, she made a sign that read “School strike for climate change” and stood in front of the Swedish parliament in Stockholm, demanding the government reduce carbon emissions in accordance with the Paris climate agreement.

Her protest sparked the international movement Fridays for Future, in which schoolchildren around the world skip class to insist their governments take urgent action to halt the ongoing climate crisis. Since then, Thunberg has given a TED talk on the subject, been named one of the world’s most influential teens by Time magazine, and been nominated for the Nobel peace prize. After she addressed the Houses of Parliament in April, MPs endorsed Jeremy Corbyn’s call to declare a climate emergency, aiming to “set off a wave of action from parliaments and governments around the globe”.

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A satellite spotted an oil slick trailing from a tanker mysteriously attacked off the UAE on 12 May.

Students around the world are walking out of lessons to demand politicians take urgent action on climate change

• Are you taking part? Share your photos, videos and experiences

11.44am BST

Hundreds of school children have gathered outside Parliament in London for the latest school climate strikes. By 11am Parliament Square was packed with young people waving homemade placards and chanting.

Among them was 14 year old Ivy from Surrey. “I am here because I believe there is no point having an education if there is no future... I am so frustrated the only people who really care about this are the ones who can’t vote.”

11.35am BST

School pupils living in the Western Isles have come up with a smart compromise today, as this climate strike falls on the day of their annual Mod, the Gaelic language festival involving competitions in music, song and dance. While competing in the Mod they wore “I’m with Greta!” badges, designed by 12-year-old Méabh Mackenzie, who attends Daliburgh Primary on Uist and has led previous strikes.

Mackenzie said: “We want to show our solidarity with other young people who are on climate strike, and to show our continuing concerns for the threats to our home from climate change.

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Use of terms ‘climate crisis’ and ‘global heating’ prompts reviews in other newsrooms

The Guardian’s decision to alter its style guide to better convey the environmental crises unfolding around the world has prompted some other media outlets to reconsider the terms they use in their own coverage.

After the Guardian announced it would now routinely use the words “climate emergency, crisis or breakdown” instead of “climate change”, a memo was sent by the standards editor of CBC, Canada’s national public broadcaster, to staff acknowledging that a “recent shift in style at the British newspaper the Guardian has prompted requests to review the language we use in global warming coverage”.

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GHG removal credits were sold for an average €26.92 on Friday on a platform led by Finnish utility Fortum, the first of three pioneering auctions designed to test the trade in the voluntary carbon market.

From Australia to Europe, school children are skipping classes to call for action on climate change.

Seven have died climbing the world's highest peak in a week - more than for the whole of last year.

Australia’s biggest-emitting company earned the lion’s share of this week’s newly issued carbon credits, receiving over 140,000 offsets.

Regional centres including Dubbo and Tamworth are expected to face a water supply crisis within months.

A Falcon-9 rocket launches from Florida, packed with 60 satellites capable of giving users on the ground high-speed connections to the internet.

Queensland Premier issues expedited deadline for Adani environmental approvals, just days after company reaches agreement on water contamination breaches

The post Adani approvals could be granted within weeks as Palaszczuk sets deadline appeared first on RenewEconomy.

One day in 2009, fires swept across Victoria, leaving 173 dead. It became known as Black Saturday. When it emerged that not all of these disasters were natural, local detectives sprang into action. By Chloe Hooper

The patient had been in a coma for 12 days. Strange dreams were all he could remember. He dreamed he was in a red room, then a green room, and when, finally, he woke, the walls were orange. There was flame even in the paint colour, and he knew without being told that his wife was dead. He checked his hands and was surprised to find that his fingers – put back together now, bandaged – had been saved.

His children sat next to his bed while a young police officer had positioned his chair further away, towards the back of the hospital room. All of them were waiting to hear what had happened to him two weeks earlier, on the day of Australia’s worst recorded natural disaster. It would become known as Black Saturday: 400 separate fires had burned across the southern Australian state of Victoria, giving off as much energy as 1,500 atomic bombs.

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Labor under Anthony Albanese may look overseas in its search for a way to re-engage voters on climate change, and rebrand its policy suite.

The post Albo and the Green New Deal: Sounds like a name for a band, but is it good policy? appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The California firm launches the first spacecraft in its multi-billion-dollar broadband project.

"Crazy" new laws, along with delays to auctions and grid upgrades, is raising question about how serious the Queensland Labor government is about its 50% renewables target.

The post How serious is Queensland about its 50 per cent renewable energy target? appeared first on RenewEconomy.