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The key players at the Paris climate summit
The draft negotiating text for a global deal is in. These are some of the people who will now decide the outcome of the talks
As ministers from countries around the world fly in for the crunch second week of the UN climate talks in Paris there are still significant areas of disagreement, but also optimism at the talks that a deal can be done. The negotiating text has been pared back to just over 20 pages – a much better position than at the equivalent point at the Copenhagen talks in 2009. Here are some of the key individuals who will decide the outcome of the talks.
Continue reading...Threatened ecological community listing
Green is good for the planet, but it’s no go for reindeer
Norway’s geography is ideal for hydro power. But clean energy schemes have cut reindeer grazing habitats by up to 40%
It’s cold. Minus 10, 12 perhaps, and getting dark; the butter-fingers of a rising moon evident on the eastern horizon. Ill-equipped (the forecasts were for minus five), my ears start to hurt, and I pull in my hood. By the time you read this it will be colder still. And there are still no reindeer to be seen.
Olav hands me his binoculars and tells me to focus on a hillside about three miles away across the snowy vastness of Norway’s Forollhogna National Park, a tract of ancient, ice-scoured mountains and mire, three hours’ drive inland from Trondheim.
Continue reading...Michael Bloomberg to head global taskforce on climate change
Former New York City mayor charged with helping companies gauge exposure to global warming costs
Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor, is to head a new global taskforce aimed at highlighting the financial exposure of companies to the risk of climate change.
Investors, insurers, banks and consumers will be provided with more information under plans for a voluntary industry-led code announced by the Financial Stability Board (FSB), the G20 body that monitors and makes recommendations about the financial system, at the COP21 Paris climate change conference on Friday.
Continue reading...Climate change is threatening the seabirds of St Kilda
Puffins and kittiwakes on Unesco world heritage site are at risk from warming seas, National Trust for Scotland findings show
The survival of seabirds including puffins and kittiwakes on St Kilda – the island archipelago home to one of the world’s most important seabird populations – is being threatened by climate change, striking new evidence shows.
Naturalists have discovered that the kittiwake, a small migratory gull with ink-black wing tips, is on the brink of disappearing from St Kilda. The remote cluster of Scottish islands in the eastern Atlantic is the UK’s only place with two Unesco world heritage site listings – for its culture and natural history – and one of only 24 sites with a dual listing worldwide.
Continue reading...Reef Trust Investment Strategy Phase III
The contrails conspiracy is not only garbage, it's letting aviation off the hook too | George Monbiot
The real issue – global warming caused by aircraft emissions – calls on us to act. But focusing on ‘chemtrails’ absolves people of the responsibility to do so
You spend years trying to get people to take an interest in aircraft emissions. Then at last the issue gets picked up – but in the most perverse way possible.
The pollutants spread by planes are a major issue. They make a significant contribution to global warming, yet they are excluded from international negotiations, such as the conference taking place in Paris. As a result, aviation’s expansion is unchecked by concerns about climate change.
Continue reading...Six mammal species added to the list of threatened species under the EPBC Act
Two mammal species removed from the list of threatened species under the EPBC Act
Manslaughter charges dropped against two BP employees in Deepwater spill
US federal prosecutors have ended the government’s pursuit of criminal charges over the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 which resulted in 11 deaths
US federal prosecutors have dropped manslaughter charges against two BP employees connected to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster, making it highly unlikely that anyone will ever serve prison time over the far-reaching calamity.
Related: Louisiana five years after BP oil spill: 'It's not going back to normal no time soon'
Continue reading...Uruguay makes dramatic shift to nearly 95% electricity from clean energy
In less than 10 years the country has slashed its carbon footprint and lowered electricity costs, without government subsidies. Delegates at the Paris summit can learn much from its success
As the world gathers in Paris for the daunting task of switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy, one small country on the other side of the Atlantic is making that transition look childishly simple and affordable.
In less than 10 years, Uruguay has slashed its carbon footprint without government subsidies or higher consumer costs, according to the country’s head of climate change policy, Ramón Méndez.
Continue reading...National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy
Botswana sells fracking rights in national park
Licences for more than half of the Kgalagadi transfrontier park, one of Africa’s largest conservation areas, have been granted to drill for shale gas
The Botswana government has quietly sold the rights to frack for shale gas in one of Africa’s largest protected conservation areas, it has emerged.
The Kgalagadi transfrontier park, which spans the border with South Africa, is an immense 36,000 sq km wilderness, home to gemsbok desert antelope, black-maned Kalahari lions and pygmy falcons. But conservationists and top park officials – who were not informed of the fracking rights sale – are now worried about the impact of drilling on wildlife.
Continue reading...Climate activists stage tattoo protest against BP at Tate Britain – video
Liberate Tate are the artists’ collective who for five years have campaigned against BP’s sponsorship of the Tate. In this performance at Tate Britain in London, held two days before the opening of the Paris summit on climate change, 35 protesters take part in a project called Birthmark. Protestors tattoo each other with a number that represents the parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in the year of each person’s birth
Fly eyes inspire solar panels
When I'm sixty-four: world's oldest tracked bird returns to refuge with mate
Wisdom, a Laysan albatross, was spotted at mating ground on Midway Atoll after a year’s absence and is expected to grow her brood, estimated at 36 chicks
The world’s oldest living tracked bird has returned to US soil to lay an egg at the sprightly age of 64.
Wisdom, a Laysan albatross, was spotted at the Midway Atoll national wildlife refuge with a mate, following a year’s absence. It’s expected that Wisdom will use the world’s largest nesting albatross colony, located north-west of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean, to raise another chick.
Continue reading...Japanese whaling fleet to set sail for Antarctic
Fleet to leave on Tuesday to carry out ‘lethal research’ despite UN court ruling that the hunts are a cover for commercial whaling and have no scientific merit
Japan’s whaling fleet will set sail for the Antarctic on Tuesday despite international pressure to end its annual hunts, as Australia said it was considering sending a vessel to track the fleet in waters which Canberra considers a whale sanctuary.
Related: Japan under fire over decision to resume whaling
Continue reading...The Australian Cornish Mining Sites - Burra and the Copper Triangle proposed National Heritage Listing
Independent review of the water trigger legislation – public consultation
Groundwater Purchase Tender in Queensland Upper Condamine Alluvium now open
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