Feed aggregator

If the entirety of Brazil’s blue carbon stock from mangroves were converted into tradeable tonnes of carbon, its value would total billions, as per an NGO study launched Thursday at COP16 in Cali, Colombia.

The European Parliament voted a resolution on Thursday questioning the choice of hosting the United Nation's upcoming COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, a country it accuses of human rights violations and whose revenues come chiefly from the extraction of natural gas.

The certification bodies that will issue carbon credits under the EU's new Carbon Removal and Carbon Farming (CRCF) regulation could be accredited for a specific type of removal, the European Commission suggested on Wednesday.

European carbon prices advanced strongly for a second session on Thursday amid renewed short-covering in high volume, as the secondary market breached key technical levels and pulled energy prices higher, while UKAs ended their recent winning run.

Real-time atmospheric monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) could help restore credibility to nature-based carbon projects, the CEO of a greenhouse gas monitoring firm told Carbon Pulse.

The rejection of methodologies by the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) is not a sign that they are not good, but that they need improvement as part of a collective process, the body's chief executive said on Thursday.

Leaders are eager to fill us with positivity, but research shows people in distress are more likely to take collective action

If despair is the most unforgivable sin, then hope is surely the most abused virtue. That observation feels particularly apposite as we enter the Cop season, that time of United Nations megaconferences at the end of every year, when national leaders feel obliged to convince us the future will be better, despite growing evidence to the contrary.

Climate instability and nature extinction are making the Earth an uglier, riskier and more uncertain place, desiccating water supplies, driving up the price of food, displacing humans and non-humans, battering cities and ecosystems with ever fiercer storms, floods, heatwaves, droughts and forest fires. Still worse could be in store as we approach or pass a series of dangerous tipping points for Amazon rainforest dieback, ocean circulation breakdown, ice-cap collapse and other unimaginably horrible, but ever more possible, catastrophes.

Continue reading...

A US-based voluntary carbon market intermediary has added the first biochar project to its portfolio amid growing interest in CO2 removal (CDR) credits, the firm told Carbon Pulse.

Oil and gas exploration licensing is set to surge despite COP28 pledge to phase out fossil fuels, according to a new report.

Citizen power forced Germany’s greenest city-state into a binding agreement balancing housing and nature

When Fritz Schumacher laid out his vision for Hamburg a century ago, the sketch looked more like a fern than a town plan. Fronds of urban development radiated from the centre to tickle the countryside, bristling with dense rows of housing. The white spaces in between were to be filled with parks and playgrounds.

Schumacher was Hamburg’s chief building officer in the early 20th century, and a pioneer of green cities with widespread access to nature. “Building sites emerge even if you don’t invest in them,” he warned in 1932. “Public spaces disappear if you don’t invest in them.”

Continue reading...

A provider of ocean-based carbon removals has signed an agreement with a tech giant to provide carbon removals over the next 10 years.

An Italian waste-to-energy plant will apply carbon capture and storage to its processes, spending money collected through the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS).

Expert reminds owners ‘freeze it, don’t squeeze it’ when it comes to a tick, ideally with a tick-freezing spray from a chemist

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

Dog owners have been warned about a tick boom unfolding along Australia’s east coast, with some experts predicting an unusually bad season for furry friends.

Veterinary scientist and parasitologist Peter Irwin, an emeritus professor at Murdoch University, said the severity of a tick season was largely determined by the preceding weather, and last summer had been very hot and wet along the east coast”.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Means to stop catastrophic global heating exist, says UN chief, but political courage is needed to end world’s fossil fuel addiction

The huge cuts in carbon emissions now needed to end the climate crisis mean it is “crunch time for real”, according to the UN’s environment chief.

An unprecedented global mobilisation of renewable energy, forest protection and other measures is needed to steer the world off the current path towards a catastrophic temperature rise of 3.1C, a report from the UN environment programme (Unep) has found. Extreme heatwaves, storms, droughts and floods are already ravaging communities with less than 1.5C of global heating to date.

Continue reading...

The goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C is slipping quickly out of reach, although it is still “technically possible” - and relatively inexpensive - for the world to roughly halve emissions within this decade, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) warned on Thursday.

The European Commission presented draft rules on Tuesday to measure CO2 removals from agriculture and forestry, saying future EU carbon removal credits could help mobilise finance for nature restoration.

The Netherlands is "extremely unlikely" to reach the legal climate goal of a 55% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 under current or scheduled policy, and will need additional policy fast to bring the climate goal for 2030 back in sight, according to the country's environmental assessment agency.

A carbon removal registry has issued a “minor update” to its Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW) methodology to add more detail and clarity around monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) requirements, the platform announced on Thursday.

A cookstove manufacturer and project developer has secured $15 million from the European Investment Bank (EIB) to scale electric cooking in east Africa, avoiding 12 million tonnes of carbon emissions over a period of five years.

Colombia-based carbon standard Cercarbono is looking to establish projects in Indonesia, its chairman told a conference Thursday, as market participants wait for more detail on the new Indonesian government's plans for the country’s carbon markets.