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Cross-party committee says government has not built enough new flood defences or properly maintained the old ones.

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

A nature-based annual award worth CHF 100,000 ($116,100) will aim to scale a minimum of 100 nature-positive startups by 2030, World Economic Forum attendees heard Tuesday.

MPs find agency has reduced number of properties it aims to protect in England despite more new homes being built on floodplains

Deteriorating flood defences mean more than 200,000 homes in England are at risk of flooding, with MPs blaming Environment Agency budget shortfalls.

A report by MPs on the public accounts committee said the EA had failed to meet a target of maintaining 98% of “high consequence” flood defences. The agency has had to downgrade the number of properties it aims to protect by 2027 from 336,000 to 200,000.

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A new study has found that off-grid direct air capture and storage (DACS) systems can significantly reduce carbon emissions when powered by renewable energy sources like solar and integrated with heat pumps and battery storage.

British electrification outfit Octopus Energy invests in technology that can re-use heat generated by data centres to heat pools, distilleries or precincts.

The post From heat pumps to pumped heat: Octopus backs tech that reuses data centre heat appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The world’s first floating offshore wind farm in Scotland is being temporarily brought offline for a service, its 6MW turbines towed to Norway.

The post Turbines towed as world’s first floating offshore wind farm undergoes “heavy maintenance” appeared first on RenewEconomy.

New Mexico state representatives this month introduced legislation for a clean fuel standard that aims to mandate a reduction in transportation fuel carbon intensity (CI) beginning July 2026, following previous similar but unsuccessful attempts.

Verra provided early-stage details and a preliminary outline of a new Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) methodology for reducing emissions from the cultivation of rice in a webinar Tuesday, as the international standard seeks to replace a formerly popular but now discredited Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) methodology that prompted integrity concerns last year.

Legal experts discussed the potential that enforcement action by the US Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) against carbon trading misconduct could place a damper on the voluntary carbon market (VCM), while the rollout of California’s climate disclosure bill is mired in ambiguity.

American Carbon Registry (ACR) issued the first credits from its new protocol aimed at plugging abandoned oil and gas wells to an Oklahoma-based project developer.

A twice-weekly summary of our biodiversity news plus bite-sized updates from around the world. All articles in this edition are free to read (no subscription required).

Some $2.5 billion per year is needed to revitalise deforested lands in the Amazon basin, the Colombian president has said, as his government prepares to host UN biodiversity talks later this year.

Several lawmakers belonging to the governing British Conservative Party have expressed concern over integration of carbon capture technology with a wood-burning power plant, as well as the possible deployment of hundreds of millions of pounds in subsidies towards the facility that underpins one of the world's biggest removals projects.

A large commodity trading firm said on Tuesday that it has agreed to buy carbon dioxide removal credits from 1PointFive, a carbon capture, utilisation, and sequestration company with an industrial-scale direct air capture (DAC) facility under construction in Texas.

The UK government’s advice on the biodiversity net gain (BNG) has incorrectly suggested the order of preference for how developers handle nature impacts is mandatory, a lawyer has said.

COP28 created a “paradigm shift” for the global economy, setting in motion a low-carbon transition that will continue regardless of who wins the US elections this year, outgoing US climate envoy John Kerry said in Davos on Tuesday.

Voluntary carbon stakeholders have expressed an optimistic outlook for the market over the next 12 months, with robust year-end credit retirements, a swathe of imminent developments aiming to boost integrity, and expected price support from the UN's CORSIA aviation offsetting scheme, all cited as reasons for why the VCM will be able to move forward after a bumpy 2023.

RGGI allowance (RGA) values dipped from all-time highs recorded during the week prior, as activity quieted ahead of the US long weekend.

Converting organic matter, such as crop residues and livestock manure, into biomethane and biogenic CO2 using anaerobic digestion, could facilitate the capture of 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to an academic study.