Feed aggregator

Deputy environment minister calls for urgent action as Riyadh prepares for global summit on issue next month

The degradation of the world’s soils and landscapes is threatening human life, and must be addressed as a matter of urgency, the government of Saudi Arabia has said.

Neglect of the land is wiping trillions of dollars from global economies, hampering agricultural production, disrupting water supplies, threatening children with poor nutrition, and destroying vital ecosystems, according to the country’s deputy environment minister.

Continue reading...

Populist groups capitalising on costly environmental policies that affect farmers by offering them support

• What are farmers in the EU required to do to protect the environment?

The painful impacts of the climate crisis and globalisation have left farmers in Europe marginalised and vulnerable to populist politicians, warn anti-racism campaigners and academics.

They argue that if the transition to a low-carbon economy is not properly funded, planned and equitable, it risks fuelling a resurgence of the far right across the continent.

Continue reading...

An international insurance broker has launched a new facility to help organisations manage fraud risk associated with carbon credits, it said Monday.

Tyre Extinguishers group stencils ‘These cars kill Valencians’ on 4x4s in city to highlight SUVs’ role in climate crisis

Climate activists in Scotland have carried out a series of actions against SUV cars, saying they are acting in solidarity with the victims of the Valencia floods.

The Tyre Extinguishers have called on their supporters to take actions against SUV cars in their areas, after members of the group in Edinburgh stencilled the sides of targeted vehicles on Sunday night with the words: “These cars kill Valencians.”

Continue reading...

An exchange has completed the first two block trades of its physically-settled carbon futures, including volume for credits eligible for the current phase of the CORSIA international aviation offsetting scheme.

One sucker is precariously attached to some flimsy reality – a wet leaf, a slippery rock – the other one pointed at the future

Imagine if your Wikipedia page described you as a “segmented or parasitic worm” with “two head segments” and “suckers at both ends”. You might turn to the Bible, instead – here is the Book of Proverbs on leeches: “The horseleech hath two daughters, crying, Give, give. There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, four things say not, It is enough: The grave; and the barren womb; the earth that is not filled with water; and the fire that saith not, It is enough.”

The daughters are the leech’s words (though some interpret the daughters as the suckers): “Give, give.” Within this damp, humid, leech-infested jungle is the surprisingly sweet idea of the words you say as daughters you have given birth to.

Continue reading...

European carbon prices rose strongly on Monday morning amid healthy increases in gas and power as traders pointed to weather forecasts supporting thermal generation, with markets also preparing themselves ahead of Tuesday's US presidential election.

A ratings agency has published its first score for a carbon project whose credits have been authorised for Article 6 international transfer, it announced Monday.

Severe flooding is, unfortunately, inevitable. What isn’t inevitable is how ready we are, from early warning systems to emergency services

• Friederike Otto is a climatologist and co-founder of World Weather Attribution

At the time of writing, the death toll has risen to 214. Battered cars and other debris are piled up in the streets, large swaths of Valencia remain underwater, and Spain is in mourning. On Sunday, anger erupted as the king and queen of Spain were pelted with mud and other objects by protesters. Why were so many lives lost in a flood that was well forecasted in a wealthy country?

From the global north’s vantage point, the climate crisis, caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas, has long been seen as a distant threat, affecting poor people in the global south. This misconception has perpetuated a false sense of security.

Continue reading...

Senior executives and a major investor in beleaguered developer C-Quest Capital (CQC) have launched their own company, Bridge Carbon, acquiring CQC’s best projects as the firm is wound down after its founder was indicted on fraud charges.

Detailed plans from 30 oil and gas producers come amid historic levels of potent planet-heating emissions

A powerful US oil and gas industry lobby group has drawn up detailed plans to kill off penalties for emitting methane, a potent planet-heating gas that’s increasing at the fastest rate in decades, with this effort led by a major donor to Donald Trump whose company has just been fined for methane pollution.

Leaked internal documents from the American Exploration & Production Council (AXPC), a group of 30 oil and gas producers, outline a push to repeal a fee levied on methane emissions should the former US president win this week’s election and Republicans gain control of Congress.

Continue reading...

The shipping industry as well as environmental NGOs have criticised the European Commission’s definition of offshore ships to be included in the EU ETS from next year, saying it will lead to confusion, market distortion, and unaccounted emissions.

Taiwan's fledgling voluntary carbon market has seen emerging demand for nature-based credits, particularly from the tech sector, an executive at a government-backed exchange has told Carbon Pulse.

Singapore-based Climate Impact X (CIX) announced Monday it will collaborate with one of the market's carbon ratings agencies to bring greater transparency to the market via a new ratings system on its trading platform.

Coalition Senator takes aim at Australian solar innovators looking to tap into the Solar Sunshot program, accusing them of being "shell companies for rent seekers."

The post “Shell companies for rent seekers:” Coalition attacks solar innovators, including Turnbull-backed SunDrive appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The COP16 summit has the potential to drive an increasing number of governments to set up compliance nature credit schemes, which carbon players see as a key condition for swarming into the biodiversity space, a consultancy firm has told Carbon Pulse.

Nine Vietnamese carbon credit projects have been approved for Japan’s Joint Crediting Mechanism (JCM) after the latest meeting of the Joint Committee for the Implementation of the JCM in Hanoi last week, the first new approvals under the scheme in the Southeast Asian country for five years.

Exclusive: Researchers find treatment plants designed to clean up leachate liquid waste boost levels of banned PFAS

Processes intended to decontaminate noxious liquid landfill waste before it enters rivers and sewers have been found to increase the levels of some of the worst toxic chemicals, a study has shown.

Landfills are well known to be a main source of PFAS forever chemicals – or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances – but the new study shows that the treatment plants designed to clean up the liquid waste can instead boost the levels of banned PFAS such as PFOA and PFOS, in some cases by as much as 1,335%.

Continue reading...

A Swiss carbon removals developer alongside a UK-based building materials supplier have launched their first site to remove carbon and permanently store it in recycled concrete in south London.

Representatives at the Cop16 summit in Colombia negotiated against a backdrop of extreme weather and ecosystem collapse

As world leaders gathered in Colombia this week, they also watched for news from home, where many of the headlines carried the catastrophic consequences of ecological breakdown. Across the Amazon rainforest and Brazil’s enormous wetlands, relentless fires had burned more than 22m hectares (55m acres). In Spain, the death toll in communities devastated by flooding passed 200. In the boreal forests that span Siberia, Scandinavia, Alaska and Canada, countries were recording alarming signs that their carbon sinks were collapsing under a combined weight of drought, tree death and logging. As Canada’s wildfire season crept to a close, scientists calculated it was the second worst in two decades – behind only last year’s burn, which released more carbon than some of the world’s largest emitting countries.

In global negotiations, climate and nature move along two independent tracks, and for years were broadly treated as distinct challenges. But as negotiations closed at the Cop16 biodiversity summit in Cali on Saturday, ministers from around the world underscored the crucial importance of nature to limiting damage from global heating, and vice versa – emphasising that climate and biodiversity could no longer be treated as independent issues if either crisis was to be resolved. Countries agreed a text on links between the climate and nature, but failed to include language on a phase out of fossil fuels.

Continue reading...