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Andrew Forrest says abandoning renewables for nuclear would risk border tariffs and decimate Australia's export economy.

The post Andrew Forest says Coalition’s nuclear push will decimate Australian economy appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Recent public workshops and literature published by California regulator ARB demonstrate significant uncertainty in the price pathway forward for the state’s cap-and-trade scheme, while legislative developments could also complicate programme extension, the state’s carbon market watchdog said Monday.

A native forest restoration firm announced on Tuesday that it had sold the first carbon credits generated from its global accelerator.

Market participants expressed trepidation over the possibility of a dive in RGGI Allowance (RGA) values after prices retreated from their peaks at the end of the week.

A report published Monday by a US-based nonprofit found that obligating the electricity sector and including facility-specific caps under New York's future cap-and-invest programme (NYCI) - which is set to exclude the use of offsets - would help to reduce leakage and protect disadvantaged communities (DACs) from the adverse effects of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Jetcharge cofounder Tim Washington on how bidirectional electric vehicle charging will change the energy game for consumers – and maybe even make electricity free.

The post SwitchedOn Podcast: How electricity can be free appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Clean Energy Council's Con Hristodoulidis on the huge, universal value of home battery storage – and why education will be crucial to unlocking it. Plus: Rooftop solar has a big month, with a small twist.

The post Solar Insiders Podcast: How millions of batteries can deliver billions in savings appeared first on RenewEconomy.

For years, the ‘duck curve’ of low daytime demand due to cheap solar power has challenged energy planners. California is showing the solution is storage. Asma Aziz, Senior Lecturer in Power Engineering, Edith Cowan University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Most EU leaders expressed their support for the 90% greenhouse gas emissions reduction target by 2030 put forward by the European Commission earlier this year during an Environment Council on Monday.

Light trading volumes and a slide in carbon credit retirements continued to sap confidence in the voluntary market last week, even before the usual slowdown over the summer holiday season has started.

A group of voluntary carbon market entities have launched a coalition Monday to lobby for forestry credits as part of proposed EU removals law.

New EU reporting requirements for imports of certain goods could soon fuel a small, nascent voluntary trading market for one potent climate-warming pollutant — methane — and help to clamp down on its emissions.

In more than one image from 1900s Japan, they look hungover

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We had gone to Japan, we told our daughter, to get her a maneki-neko: the good luck or beckoning cat. She is almost three. She would stay home with my mother, her grandmother. There is a maneki-neko that lives at the till of a manicure shop near our house, and she likes to stop and greet it. Japanese folklore has cats for many things, and we were grateful for this one. Before we left, we wrote letters outlining our progress towards this goal. I put the letters in envelopes for my mother to give to her, one each day. As the week passed, we would meet a mouse in the street, travel to Kyoto to catch goldfish in the river, buy a pizza – extra cheese – for the keeper of the cats.

Why we had actually gone there was to be cats ourselves: to do precisely what we felt like doing whenever we felt like doing it. We roamed the streets, we sat in sunny cafe windows. We hung out at an onsen, which cats would probably not do. We went to an exhibition about animals in arts and crafts and learned that in the late 1800s, people in Japan would affectionately greet cats and dogs using the honorific -san, like Mr or Miss.

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Stalled talks on a new goal for global climate finance marred tentative progress made on Article 6 negotiations at the mid-year UN climate summit in Bonn last week, which also saw the historic December agreement made by countries to transition away from fossil fuels pushed into the background, observers said.

The EU’s 27 environment ministers reached a common position on the EU’s Green Claims Directive on Monday, introducing a new definition for climate-related claims that distinguishes between “contributions” to greenhouse gas reduction efforts and those relying on carbon “offsets” such as reforestation projects.

Group that runs Oasis Academy South Bank warns councils prioritise private housing over space for children to breathe

• Children facing a ‘brutal’ loss of time and space for play at state schools
• Revealed: students at top private schools have 10 times more green space than state pupils

Oasis Academy South Bank in Waterloo sits in a densely built-up corner of south London – so densely that the only space found for the school was in a recommissioned office block. There is no playground, no sports pitch, nowhere to play football at break time.

Steve Chalke is the founder of Oasis Charitable Trust, the organisation that runs the school, one of 54 in their charge across England. He admits it is a challenging environment.

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Shorter playtimes and shrinking outside space in England have serious implications for children’s wellbeing and mental health

• Revealed: students at top private schools have 10 times more green space than state pupils
• Indoors at breaktime: the school in a London office block
• Private schools in England should be made to share their green space, say campaigners

Children are facing a “brutal” loss of space and time for play in school, teachers, unions and academics have warned.

A combination of factors is eating into the time children spend outside, and will have serious implications for their wellbeing and mental health.

A Guardian analysis of the space available to state school children in England has revealed that thousands are attending schools with very little outside space, with government data showing that more than 300 schools have under 1,000 sq metres and at least 20 have no outside space. In nearly 1,000 schools, there is under 10 sq metres for each pupil.

New and unpublished research from the UCL Institute of Education seen by the Guardian showed a continued downward trend in the amount of time children have for playtime in the wake of the Covid lockdowns, with the youngest losing the most time.

The demands of the curriculum have increased, and continue to diminish time outside, while staffing shortages are reducing capacity to oversee playtime.

Across England and Wales schools face difficult financial decisions, which are having an impact on the funding to care for grounds. Headteachers in the state sector have said they are in desperate need of funding to improve basic facilities for children.

School buildings are crumbling, as many were built with Raac (reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete) that was not replaced within its usable lifetime, meaning in some cases playgrounds are being used to host temporary classrooms. This is squeezing out the little space some schools have for children to spend time outside.

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The G7 summit closed on Saturday without any significant progress on climate and energy, leaving ambitions unchanged from resolutions adopted at previous meetings.

Biodiversity is among the biggest concerns for companies grappling with corporate disclosures, with a quarter of them lacking confidence in their ability to meet the requirements set out by the EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), a PwC survey has revealed.

Establishing a voluntary market-based scheme that allows countries to trade ocean conservation credits could reduce the costs of marine protection by up to 98%, incentivising governments to achieve their biodiversity targets, a paper has said.