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Investor appetite for climate tech deals in industry and carbon was particularly strong last year, even as overall investment dropped 30% on the year prior, say analysts.

Exclusive: Head of government taskforce calls for evidence not anecdote in debate over the beaver, white-tailed eagle and others

Culture wars by ministers over the reintroduction of animals such as the beaver and the lynx must end if we are to restore nature in England, the head of the government’s taskforce on the issue has said.

Dr Andy Clements, an ornithologist who helped establish the government regulator Natural England, runs the species reintroduction taskforce, and he’s well placed to do so. He was one of those behind the hugely successful reintroduction of red kites into England.

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A fresh expose this week about over-crediting in cookstoves projects has been met with a muted voluntary carbon market (VCM) reaction, although the sector is ‘well offered’, according to sources.

Oil and gas companies that have signed up to a COP28 sectoral decarbonisation pact are set to use over 60% of the world’s remaining carbon budget under a 1.5C warming scenario, according to an NGO.

A nature scientist clashed with a farming industry representative about how agriculture should address biodiversity loss, during an Ireland-focused webinar.

European carbon allowance prices posted modest gains on Friday after early weakness was erased by an unusually strong auction result that sparked a sharp rise in prices, even as traders continued to try to establish the market's overall direction with EUAs beginning to find a short-term level.

Claims that Icon of the Seas, the vast new ship described as ‘human lasagne’, runs on clean fuel have been labelled greenwashing as LNG’s methane emissions are a more potent climate gas than CO2

The largest cruise ship in the world, which embarks on its first commercial voyage from Miami on Saturday, was launched amid a fanfare of superlatives. Longer than the Eiffel Tower is tall, the Icon of the Seas towers 20 decks above the waves, can accommodate more than 7,000 passengers and crew, and, at a quarter of a million gross tonnes, could swallow five Titanics for breakfast.

Coloured slides on its upper deck mark out “Thrill Island”, the largest waterpark at sea, and it boasts a 17-metre (55ft) indoor waterfall. The president of Royal Caribbean, Jason Liberty, told reporters it was the “biggest, baddest ship on the planet”, though it quickly became known on social media as “human lasagne”.

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A startup based in Singapore focused on delivering data on biodiversity and carbon credits has closed its seed funding round.

Allowances in the Chinese carbon market rose slightly over the past week amid lukewarm demand, while the national offset market saw liquidity remain sluggish even after the official restart of the national voluntary programme.

A fresh initiative is spearheading the idea of compensating resource-rich nations for leaving oil reserves untapped, with potentially significant benefits for climate mitigation and the carbon markets.

Japan’s J-Credit certification committee on Friday registered 32 new projects to start earning credits under the scheme, while issuing some 75,000 units to existing programmes.

Exclusive: Actors and musicians condemn ‘harsh deportation’ of Dartford Crossing protester Marcus Decker

Leading actors and musicians including Bob Geldof, Olivia Colman and Emma Thompson are calling on the Home Office to reconsider the “harsh deportation” of a climate activist who is serving one of the longest prison sentences in modern British history for peaceful protest.

Along with the musicians Brian Eno and Jacob Collier, they are among about 600 artists who are urging James Cleverly to withdraw the deportation order issued to Marcus Decker.

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Cyclone downgraded after dense fog hits parts of the US and India while drought affects Philippines and southern Africa

Tropical Cyclone Kirrily made landfall on the coast of Queensland on Thursday night (local time). Kirrily originated as a tropical low over the Coral Sea, and gradually intensified over several days. The tropical cyclone then quickly intensified on Thursday, reaching a category 2 system by 10am AEST, and category 3 by 3pm, producing gusts of 170 km/h (105mph). As Kirrily moved inland five hours later, it left more than 34,000 homes and business without power in Townsville. However, the cyclone was quickly downgraded back to a category 1 by midnight.

Earlier in the week, dense fog developed from Montana all the way south to the Gulf of Mexico, reducing visibility on Tuesday to less than a quarter mile for many. The combination of last week’s arctic blast, followed by the introduction of warmer air from the south this week, allowed water vapour to condense closer to the surface, which is also known as advection fog. Dense fog reappeared on Thursday morning, affecting just under 99 million people from North Dakota across to central Pennsylvania, and as far south as New Orleans.

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A Japanese trading house has teamed up with a Nordic biomaterial solution provider for the sustainable utilisation of woody biomass, targeting emissions reductions from use of forest resources in Indonesia, it announced Friday.

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world

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Deaths due to wood-burning stoves are comparable to those of ‘black summer’ bushfires, says Australian study

Scientists are starting to count the health cost of heating our homes with wood. One study, in Canberra in Australia, has found that deaths from everyday exposure to smoke from wood burners is comparable with those during the unprecedented “black summer” bushfires of 2019/2020.

Prof Sotiris Vardoulakis, part of the research team and director of the Healthy Environments and Lives (Heal) National Research Network, described winter in the city: “When I take my two boys to play basketball outdoors in winter, or when we walk the dog before dinner, there is always a smell of wood smoke in the air.”

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People encouraged to record sightings of mohican-sporting birds in RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch this weekend

The scale of this waxwing winter will be revealed this weekend when people are encouraged to spend an hour recording the birds they see in their gardens, balconies, parks and school grounds.

The spectacular migratory, mohican-sporting birds have been spotted across Britain during the colder weather and will be recorded alongside more familiar sparrows, blackbirds and robins in the RSPB’s annual Big Garden Birdwatch.

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The lag between project inception and receipt of financing in the world’s first internationally transferred mitigation outcomes (ITMOs) - transacted in January from Thailand to Switzerland - is raising questions about the financial additionality of these credits traded under the Paris Agreement's Article 6.2, experts have told Carbon Pulse.

A daily summary of our news plus bite-sized updates from around the world.

Greenfinches, sparrows and starlings have declined the most but other species including goldfinches are thriving.