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Footage on social media showed roads full of cars evacuating the suburbs of Fort McMurray in the western Canadian province of Alberta. A growing blaze threatened the city and its surroundings, which experienced devastating fires in 2016. Local officials have ordered thousands to evacuate as the fire grows in size and strength, with winds fanning the flames. 'We’re seeing extreme fire behaviour. Smoke columns are developing and the skies are covered in smoke. Firefighters have been pulled from the fire line for safety reasons,' Josee St-Onge of Alberta Wildfire told reporters

• Canada city devastated by 2016 wildfire faces evacuations as new blaze nears

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An Indian renewable energy company has signed a $1 billion MoU to finance and develop energy transition projects both within India and globally.

South West Water has detected ‘small traces’ of parasite in drinking supply that can cause diarrhoea-type disease

Boil your tap water before you drink it, residents in Devon have been told, after 22 cases of a parasitic disease were confirmed.

South West Water has detected what it calls “small traces” of a parasite that can cause a diarrhoea-type disease in the drinking supply around the town of Brixham.

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A startup focused on exchange traded voluntary carbon investment products has secured a fatwa for a carbon credit asset class that it hopes will tap into the deep pockets of the Islamic finance market.

Swedish-Swiss drink packaging giant Tetra Pak has developed a reporting framework to track its progress towards nature targets with UK-based consultancy Biodiversify.

Conservoltaics uses the land under solar panels as a home for biodiversity-boosting native flora and fauna, while improving farm efficiency.

The post “Conservoltaics:” Developers urged to think of solar farms as artificial reefs appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The UK’s local governments are anxiously looking to London to enact policies that could help to clean up household rubbish in the coming years, in the hopes of minimising hefty new carbon costs for waste incineration. 

A single wind turbine produces enough energy to offset that required to make, install and decommission it in just 6 months.

The post Wind turbines pay back life cycle carbon emissions in less than 2 years, NZ study finds appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Missing a target doesn’t mean the sense of emergency should fade. What it must do is stop politicians dithering – and fast

I remember the first time I heard the 1.5C target. It was in a room at the Copenhagen climate talks in 2009. With the expectation of a binding agreement slipping away and negotiations failing, some of us activists joined delegates from vulnerable African and island nations in chanting “1.5 to stay alive”. It was a frank recognition that the 2C goal the climate diplomats were endlessly talking about – though not pursuing – was insufficient to deal with the increasingly clear realities of climate science.

Since then, three things have happened.

Bill McKibben is the founder of Third Act, which organizes people over 60 for action on climate and democracy

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Labour MP says privatisation is a failure and industry incapable of building infrastructure to deal with effects of climate breakdown

The privatisation of the water industry has failed and it should be brought into public ownership, the Labour MP Clive Lewis has said.

In an early day motion laid before parliament, Lewis said the industry had proved it was not capable of building the infrastructure required to deal with the impact of climate breakdown, including increased flooding and droughts.

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European carbon prices appeared to be settling into a channel between €70-€75 on Wednesday morning as early selling drew out support at the lower end of the range, though an attempt to move higher also ran into resistance, while energy markets firmed slightly despite broadly stable fundamentals.

Marketplace ConnectGreen on Wednesday launched a platform for voluntary carbon credits with biodiversity co-benefits focused on smallholder projects in the Republic of Ireland.

A consortium of cement and lime producers together with an energy company are calling on the UK government to speed up routes to market for commercially mature carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects in order to unlock private investment and allow the country to meet its net zero target.

Ban Khun Samut Chin, a coastal village in Samut Prakan province, Thailand, has been slowly swallowed by the sea over the past few decades. This has led to the relocation of the school and many homes, resulting in a dwindling population. Currently, there are only four students attending the school, often leaving just one in each classroom. The village has experienced severe coastal erosion, causing 1.1-2km (0.5-1.2 miles) of shoreline to disappear since the mid-1950s

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PepsiCo has teamed up with a Canadian conservation charity to provide financial incentives for producers committed to improving biodiversity on their lands.

With the Green Claims Directive, EU legislators seem to be mistakenly seeking to regulate the voluntary carbon market rather than laying down rules for companies to communicate their green credentials to consumers, according to a leading climate think tank.

Free-roaming animals reintroduced in Romania’s Țarcu mountains are stimulating plant growth and securing carbon stored in the soil while grazing

A herd of 170 bison reintroduced to Romania’s Țarcu mountains could help store CO2 emissions equivalent to removing almost 2m cars from the road for a year, research has found, demonstrating how the animals help mitigate the worst effects of the climate crisis.

European bison disappeared from Romania more than 200 years ago, but Rewilding Europe and WWF Romania reintroduced the species to the southern Carpathian mountains in 2014. Since then, more than 100 bison have been given new homes in the Țarcu mountains, growing to more than 170 animals today, one of the largest free-roaming populations in Europe. The landscape holds the potential for 350-450 bison.

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Indonesia is expanding its carbon capture and storage (CCS) plans after its state oil company signed an agreement with US oil giant ExxonMobil and South Korea’s KNOC, while the former two also signed another agreement to develop a CCS ‘hub’ in the Sunda and Asri basins.

A large voluntary carbon credit issuing body has released a methodology crediting the electrification of energy supply for ships when shore-side or offshore, active from Wednesday.

A Japanese carbon project developer has partnered with a regional government-backed agricultural organisation to promote credit-generating rice projects, as it seeks to broaden its presence in Vietnam's voluntary market.