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Scientists say they have new evidence that complex life on Earth began much earlier than previously believed.

Hailing the success of carrier bag laws, the Marine Conservation Society urges nations to push forward with plans for other single-use items

The number of plastic bags washed up on UK beaches has fallen by 80% over a decade, since a mandatory fee was imposed on shoppers who opt to pick up single-use carrier bags at the checkout.

According to the Marine Conservation Society’s (MCS) annual litter survey, volunteers found an average of one plastic bag every 100 metres of coastline surveyed last year, compared to an average of five carrier bags every 100 metres in 2014.

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You’ve probably heard the arguments against electric cars, but most of them are getting weaker as the technology, markets and infrastructure mature. John Rose, Professor of Sustainable Future Transport, University of Sydney Andrea Pelligrini, Lecturer, Sustainable Mobility, University of Sydney Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Toxic ‘forever chemicals’ linked to low birth weight, reduced sperm counts and infertility

Several brands of condoms and lubricants contain alarming levels of toxic PFAS “forever chemicals”, including styles of Trojan and K-Y Jelly, new research finds.

The testing conducted by the Mamavation consumer advocacy blog comes just as researchers found human skin absorbs the chemicals at much higher levels than previously thought.

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The mothballing of its nickel plans means BHP has suspended plans for what have been the world's biggest renewable energy micro-grid.

The post World’s biggest renewable energy micro-grid suspended appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Our response to global heating and the decimation of animal species is to marginalise the Green party and lock up protesters

Signs and wonders. Omens of black portent. Part of an American looney’s ear has been shot off by another American looney. The proposed presidency of the earless looney had been endorsed by Atomic Kitten’s Kerry Katona. A computer went wrong and everything in the world stopped working everywhere. On Tuesday it was reported that Chris Packham regretted having once ridden an elephant. Last Sunday was the hottest day ever. A lioness hath whelped in the streets. Graves have yawn’d and yielded up their dead. Suella Braverman sat in for James O’Brien on LBC and the last surviving member of the Four Tops died. Surely we are living in The End Times. The optics, as they say, are not good.

But last week I sat outside at night alone on my Welsh mountain holiday, drinking draught Bwtty Bach beer from a plastic flask and reading an old Brigid Brophy paperback. For a moment I was happy beyond measure, forgot the world beyond, and stopped worrying. And then I saw something was awry in my idyll. I looked up at a security light, a stark halogen glow between the grey stone wall and the bright buck moon. Not long ago, in such a night as this, such a lamp as that would always have been hazed by a fuzzy penumbra of buzzy invertebrates. But tonight the air around it was hungry and dead, the entomological equivalent of an empty Republican convention room, where no one at all turns up to listen to Boris Johnson.

Stewart Lee’s Basic Lee is available to stream on Now TV. He is previewing 40 minutes of new material in Stewart Lee Introduces Legends of Indie at the Lexington, London, in August with Connie Planque (12), Swansea Sound (13) and David Lance Callahan (14)

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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Head of Neoen says battery storage market is constantly evolving, and developers need to constantly re-invent their business models.

The post “You have to be creative:” Why Australia’s most successful grid-scale battery developer reinvents itself appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Albanese names new assistant minister for climate and energy after Jenny McAllister was promoted to a full ministerial role in Labor reshuffle.

The post Albanese names new assistant minister for climate and energy appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The group scored an own goal if their intention was to influence public opinion

Thank you, Sonia Sodha, for bursting the bubble (“Yes, five years in jail is too harsh, but the Just Stop Oil Five shouldn’t have done it”, Comment). Party A seeks something that Party B refuses to grant. Party A therefore – usually indiscriminately – targets Party C, who must be entirely innocent for this to work, and threatens to harm them unless given what they want.

It’s called hostage taking. In their latest indulgence of the practice, Just Stop Oil once again comes across as implacable yet patronising absolutists: “Yes, we’re hurting you, but we know that it’s for the best.” Their pretence of intellectual coherence is betrayed by the essential crudeness of their message: “Give us what we want, or the bunny gets it.” I cannot believe that their antics attract more people than they alienate.
Peter Millen
Huddersfield, West Yorkshire

I can’t think of anyone less “self-indulgent” than Louise Lancaster, one of the Just Stop Oil Five, imprisoned for four years last week.

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Woodside’s designs on the country’s largest untapped gas basin around Scott Reef are, some say, just another example of fossil fuel companies getting their way in what has become a petrostate

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Australia’s next wave of fossil fuel expansion is planned for environments far from where most people will ever see it. Places like Scott Reef.

Once part of an interconnected coral ecosystem that rivalled the Great Barrier Reef in scale, Scott Reef now sits in a remnant group of atolls near the edge of the Australian continental shelf, nearly 300km from its sparsely populated north-west coast.

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Compliance entities built their California Carbon Allowance (CCA) and RGGI Allowance (RGA) net positions this week, while speculators continued to favour 2025 CCA holdings, weekly data from the Commitment of Traders' (CFTC) report released Friday showed.

Large corporations are increasingly looking to bundle carbon credits into agreements for tax equity investments for carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects in the US, conference attendees heard this week.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D) vetoed an ethanol tax credit from the state budget on Wednesday to the dismay of the biofuels industry, although a market observer considered the subsidy to have a minimal impact on Renewable Identification Number (RIN) prices.

The Chilean government released a draft climate change plan for the energy sector late on Friday for public consultation, proposing an ETS pilot and broaching a carbon border adjustment mechanism.

An oil and gas producer announced on Thursday its second carbon capture and storage (CCS) deal with an ammonia producer aiming to reduce up to 500,000 tonnes of CO2 per year at a US fertiliser plant.

The US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA’s) 2022 decision to deny small refinery waivers under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) was rejected in a federal appeals court Friday.

Egypt is slated to receive $6 billion in loans from the World Bank by 2027 contingent in part on meeting Article 6 carbon trading infrastructure milestones – but the North African country’s proclivity for renewables projects could compromise credible additionality.

The government of Djibouti has granted a concession and produced a Letter of Authorisation (LoA) for a mangrove restoration project, committing to corresponding adjustment of the resulting mitigation outcomes, according to documents seen by Carbon Pulse.

Energy secretary seeks to reestablish UK as a global leader on the climate crisis with meeting of Cop presidents

Labour will honour a pledge of £11.6bn in overseas aid for the climate crisis, the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, told an unusual meeting of Cop presidents past and present on Friday, as he sought to reestablish the UK at the heart of international climate discussions.

As the Labour government prepares for this year’s climate change summit in November, Miliband hosted Mukhtar Babayev, the Azerbaijan government minister who will lead Cop29, and Ana Toni, the top official on the climate for Brazil, which will host Cop30 in the Amazonian city of Belem in 2025 in a meeting to discuss what steps are needed to make a success of the next two UN climate Cops, as the “conferences of the parties” under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change are known.

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A French food startup submitted an application to the European Commission for what would be the first ever sale of cultivated meat in the 27-country bloc.