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Water campaigner Feargal Sharkey says newly designated sites will join ‘ignoble, floundering list of failure’

Twenty-seven new bathing sites will be designated in England ahead of this summer’s swimming season, the government has announced.

Giving waterways bathing status means the Environment Agency has to test them for pollution during the summer months, putting pressure on water companies to stop dumping sewage in them.

Church Cliff beach, Lyme Regis, Dorset

Coastguards beach, River Erme, Devon

Coniston boating centre, Coniston Water, Cumbria

Coniston Brown Howe, Coniston Water, Cumbria

Derwent Water at Crow Park, Keswick, Cumbria

Goring beach, Worthing, West Sussex

Littlehaven beach, Tyne and Wear

Manningtree beach, Essex

Monk Coniston, Coniston Water, Cumbria

River Avon at Fordingbridge, Hampshire

River Cam at Sheep’s Green, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire

River Dart estuary at Dittisham, Devon

River Dart estuary at Steamer Quay, Totnes, Devon

River Dart estuary at Stoke Gabriel, Devon

River Dart estuary at Warfleet, Dartmouth, Devon

River Frome at Farleigh Hungerford, Somerset

River Nidd at the Lido leisure park in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire

River Ribble at Edisford Bridge, Lancashire

River Severn at Ironbridge, Shropshire

River Severn at Shrewsbury, Shropshire

River Stour at Sudbury, Suffolk

River Teme at Ludlow, Shropshire

River Tone in French Weir Park, Taunton, Somerset

River Wharfe at Wetherby Riverside, High St, Wetherby, West Yorkshire

Rottingdean beach, Rottingdean, East Sussex

Wallingford beach, River Thames, Berkshire

Worthing Beach House, Worthing, West Sussex

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Japan's main trading bourse is planning to add emissions reductions issued under the GX League to its carbon trading platform, expanding the scope of units tradable beyond offsets from the national J-Credit programme.

Hadean wins a grant for a UK project backed by French nuclear giant EDF, and follows a separate demo project at Port Kembla this year.

The post French nuclear giant taps CSIRO spinout Hadean to build an electrolyser demo appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Wind, solar and hydro provide 95 per cent of Portugal's power needs in April, hailed as "historic" by the grid operator.

The post Renewable energy averages 95 per cent share in Portugal in April appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The next tender for long duration storage and the first auction of access rights to one of the state's biggest renewable energy zones will commence this month.

The post NSW seeks a gigawatt of long duration storage, and access rights to 4GW in new renewable zone appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Among world’s top 60 banks those in US are biggest fossil fuel financiers, while Barclays leads way in Europe

The world’s big banks have handed nearly $7tn (£5.6tn) in funding to the fossil fuel industry since the Paris agreement to limit carbon emissions, according to research.

In 2016, after talks in Paris, 196 countries signed an agreement to limit global heating as a result of carbon emissions to at most 2C above preindustrial levels, with an ideal limit of 1.5C to prevent the worst impacts of a drastically changed climate.

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Expensive filters imposed on wind, solar and battery projects weakened rather than strengthened the grid. Politicians want to make the same mistake with their obsession for "baseload".

The post Harmony on the grid: Wind, solar and battery projects made to pay for sins they could not commit appeared first on RenewEconomy.

An Islamic finance group has teamed up with a Saudi Arabian carbon specialist firm to explore the potential for reducing emissions and earn carbon credits from the vast seagrass meadows and mangrove forests in the Maldives.

A ruling that effectively charges wind and solar farms for twice actual transmission losses represents a large risk to developers of new generation assets, and consumers.

The post A rule change on transmission losses for wind and solar farms could save billions for consumers appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Reintroducing locally extinct species is a challenging affair, but with the right partnerships everyone can help make it happen. Sean Buckley, Lecturer in Molecular Ecology and Environmental Management, Edith Cowan University Luciano Beheregaray, Matthew Flinders Professor of Biodiversity Genomics, Flinders University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

UK-based company secures planning approval for its third solar and battery project this year.

The post UK developer wins approval for third solar and battery project in Australia this year appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Twenty-seven new sites have been designated for summer pollution monitoring.

Twenty-seven new sites have been designated for summer pollution monitoring.

Government subsidies to fossil fuel producers have risen sharply in the past year, triggering calls for the Commonwealth to scrap the concessions.

The post Australian fossil fuel producer subsidies jump 31 pct to $14.5 billion appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Global food production is under threat from the spread of carbon projects that interfere with the livelihoods of small-scale farmers and indigenous peoples worldwide, particularly in sub-Sahara Africa and Latin America, research released Monday has found.

States are once again turning to desalination to secure freshwater supplies. The problem is, they’re often choosing the wrong spot for ecosystems and fisheries Jochen Kaempf, Associate Professor of Natural Sciences (Oceanography), Flinders University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

The commonwealth had state electrical vehicle taxes struck down in court. Now reform is stuck in the slow lane

Tax reform is hard. It creates winners and losers.

But there are some taxes that seek to correct unfairness and share the load more evenly.

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Frantic efforts are being made to save the endangered mountain chicken frog, native to just two Caribbean islands.

Alok Shukla has spent years fighting to protect a key Indian forest from mining companies.

On her @brutalistplants Instagram page, Olivia Broome collects photographs that combine the angular shapes of raw concrete with the greenery of the natural world. “I really enjoy the aesthetic of eco-brutalism and tropical modernism,” she says. “I love mezzanines and ziggurats, and when you pair them with plants it softens them up. Brutalism can be this quite harsh, austere architecture style, but with nature involved, it balances it all out.” Now collected in a book, the images bring together buildings from across the globe, from Hong Kong to Sri Lanka, London to Mexico. “It’s a pleasant movement that people can get behind, especially in smaller spaces and modern cities – it’s nice to fill them with plants and nature.”

• Brutalist Plants (Hoxton Mini Press, £20) will be published on Thursday

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