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How can Australia get to net zero by 2050 while approving projects that will run for decades beyond that date?

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The sham of Australia’s climate change policy has been made clear in the past two weeks. No, not nuclear power. Last Friday, while everyone was racing down nuclear-powered rabbit holes, the environment department (led by the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek) approved a coal seam gas pipeline in Queensland. This approval “has effect until 30 June 2069”. And on Tuesday the department approved the Atlas stage 3 gas project in Queensland out to June 2080.

Those dates are rather beyond 2050 when we’re supposed to be at net zero emissions. They are also when temperatures will be well over 2C above the preindustrial average.

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Paper outlines different legal theories that could help governments pursue accountability for harms

Companies have spent decades obstructing efforts to take on the plastics crisis and may have breached a host of US laws, a new report argues.

The research from the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) details the widespread burdens that plastic pollution places on US cities and states, and argues that plastic producers may be breaking public-nuisance, product-liability and consumer-protection laws.

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Climate campaigners and scientists disturbed over claims about global warming found in document obtained through Gipa laws

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The New South Wales government is facing criticism over a review of how to cut emissions from coalmines that claims the goal of limiting global heating to well below 2C will not be met – a position at odds with the state’s laws and policies.

Climate campaigners and scientists said the claim in the report, prepared for the planning department, is inconsistent with state legislation that commits to pursuing efforts to limit temperature increases to 1.5C.

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When the new European Commission takes office later this year, it will have a tricky question to answer – how to find €1.5 trillion per year to finance the EU’s net-zero transition. As EU governments tighten their belts, revenues from carbon trading could provide a much-needed source of income, experts say.

A group of 204 investors have joined forces to back an initiative on nature stewardship, seeking to pressure 60 companies to improve biodiversity-related risk management and help shape better environmental policies.

Forest conservation and restoration “have a solid scientific basis for mitigation in which we should have full confidence”, according to a group of leading scientists in a new report funded by Verra.

World’s first emissions tax on agriculture will require farmers to pay for greenhouse gas pollution from livestock

Farmers in Denmark will have to pay for planet-heating pollutants that their cattle expel as gas, after the government agreed to set the world’s first emissions tax on agriculture.

The agreement – reached on Monday night after months of fraught negotiations between farmers, industry, politicians and environmental groups – will introduce an effective tax of 120 kroner (£14) per ton of greenhouse gas pollution from livestock in 2030, which will rise to 300 kroner per ton in 2035.

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Ukrainian industries risk incurring financial losses from the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), unless the two sides can quickly agree to recognise a 'force majeure' and exempt the war-torn country from incoming carbon fees, according to a Ukrainian think-tank.

Boom in air cargo due to shoppers’ expectations of speedy delivery and shift in post-pandemic economy, researchers say

Air freight operators have increased their greenhouse gas emissions by 25% compared with 2019, analysis has found.

In 2023, air freight operators ran about 300,000 more flights than in 2019, an increase in flight volume of almost 30%. The US accounted for more than 40% of global air freight emissions, according to the report by campaign group Stand.earth.

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Ageing gas fired power station to have one of its units converted into a syncon to help accommodate more solar on the Top End grid.

The post Fuel-free spinning machine to help ease more solar into Top End grid appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The voluntary market is inherently limited in its ability to deliver large-scale carbon reductions, so policies should focus on the Paris Agreement's Article 6, as well as compliance markets, to drive market growth, a prominent academic said at an event in London. 

After making early gains in line with natural gas, European carbon prices broke away and fell back to reach midday nearly unchanged, even as weekly position data showed investment funds had reduced length for a fourth consecutive week and UK Allowance prices continued to rally after last week's profit taking.

Expanding protected areas (PAs) to include 1.2% of the world’s terrestrial surface would help save the most threatened species from extinction at a lower cost than expected, a paper has said.

Higher PFAS exposure could cause lactation to slow or stop altogether within six months, new research finds

Women exposed to toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” prior to pregnancy face an elevated risk of being unable to breastfeed early, new research finds.

The study tracked lactation durations for over 800 new moms in New Hampshire and found higher PFAS exposure could cause lactation to slow or stop altogether within six months.

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A national system for the issuance and trading of China's Green Electricity Certificates (GECs) will be officially launched at the end of this week to underpin the development of the renewable sector, though the linkage between the GEC scheme and the national carbon market remains unclear.

A Tokyo-based project developer has teamed up with a biochar producer in the Philippines to generate carbon credits across the Southeast Asian region, it announced Wednesday.

Canada's federal government announced on Tuesday a C$335 million ($245 mln) allocation in blended finance to support First Nations in the preservation and stewardship of the Great Bear Rainforest's marine and coastal environment.

A new forest carbon standard is looking to take an area-based model to how it generates revenue, rather than being paid for how many credits it issues to a project, and will require transparent benefit sharing among all project stakeholders to ensure community approval.

Study finds carbon credits could raise billions for climate action but only with changes, such as rigorous standards

The carbon-credit market must reform or “go out of business”, leading scientists have concluded in an international review of the offsetting industry.

The market for carbon offsets shrank dramatically last year after a series of scientific and media reports found many offsetting schemes had little environmental impact.

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Statutory nuisance complaint lodged by Save Windermere against United Utilities is a first over sewage pollution

Campaigners fighting to stop sewage discharges into Windermere, the Lake District’s largest lake, have made a statutory nuisance complaint against a water company in the first legal action of its kind.

The civil complaints are normally used in noise disputes, or over noxious smells. But the environmental barrister Nicholas Ostrowski has for the first time lodged a complaint on behalf of campaign group Save Windermere against United Utilities over raw sewage discharges into the lake.

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