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UN’s top climate official warns ‘no country is immune’ from climate disaster as conference begins in Azerbaijan

Businesses in the private sector must stump up cash for the developing world to invest in a low-carbon economy or face the consequences of climate breakdown, the president of the UN climate summit has said.

Mukhtar Babayev, the environment minister of Azerbaijan, the host of this year’s climate conference, wrote in Monday’s Guardian: “The onus cannot fall entirely on government purses. Unleashing private finance for developing countries’ transition has long been an ambition of climate talks.

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This emergency will cost trillions of dollars, and is beyond the reach of developing nations. Private investors have to step up

• Mukhtar Babayev is president of the Cop29 UN climate change conference

To avert climate catastrophe, the world needs more climate finance. At Cop29, the UN climate summit in Baku that begins today, agreeing a new climate finance goal is the top priority of Azerbaijan’s Cop presidency.

Developing countries require assistance to tackle their emissions and build resilience against growing climate threats. The $100bn annual target, set in 2009, was intended to be fulfilled by 2020. It is now outdated and falls far short of what is needed for countries at the sharp end of the climate crisis.

Mukhtar Babayev is president of the Cop29 UN climate change conference

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The Bahamas envoy to the COP29 UN climate summit has called out Europe for seeking “business as usual” commercial relationships in bilateral green development talks, saying cooperation with China has yielded more results, particularly in areas like electric mobility.

Meanwhile, unseasonable heat will continue across parts of Australia this week

The northern Philippines is experiencing its fourth tropical cyclone in three weeks. Typhoon Toraji, also known as Nika, is passing westwards over the island of Luzon, with winds equivalent to a category 1 hurricane. Toraji follows cyclones Trami, Kong-rey, and Yinxing, which combined left 159 people dead and more than 700,000 displaced. The ongoing recovery efforts are being frustrated by the repeated onslaughts of dangerous weather.

The Philippines is no stranger to cyclones, with about 20 hitting the nation each year, but it is unusual for the same region to experience so many in such a short space of time. The main concern for authorities is the sheer amount of rainfall in recent weeks, with torrential rain from Toraji falling on to soils that are saturated and waterways that are already full. About 2,500 villages have been evacuated, mainly due to the extreme risk of landslides, while dams are carrying out controlled releases of water in an effort to counteract flood risks.

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The ‘theme’ chosen for Cop29 must be some kind of dark joke. This summit, like those before it, is a mere act of greenwashing

During rapidly escalating climate and humanitarian crises, another authoritarian petrostate with no respect for human rights is hosting Cop29 – the UN’s latest annual climate summit that starts today and is being held after the re-election of a climate-denier US president.

Cop meetings have proven to be greenwashing conferences that legitimise countries’ failures to ensure a livable world and future and have also allowed authoritarian regimes like Azerbaijan and the two previous hosts – the United Arab Emirates and Egypt – to continue violating human rights.

Greta Thunberg is a Swedish activist and international climate crisis campaigner

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Producing something ‘living, fresh and green’ for astronauts to eat on the moon and Mars among ultimate aims but first test is whether plants can survive

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An Australian-led project to grow plants on the moon has secured a ride on a lunar mission scheduled for takeoff in 2025.

Plants and seeds ensconced in a carefully engineered capsule will make the 380,000km trip aboard an Intuitive Machines lunar lander.

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A huge solar and battery project near Tamworth gets IPC approval despite Barnaby Joyce putting out a call for objections.

The post Huge solar farm farm and big battery project gets IPC approval in New England, despite food concerns appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Nationals senator Matt Canavan and MP Keith Pitt both spoke out about the party’s climate policy in the wake of Donald Trump’s win

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Nationals leader David Littleproud, shadow transport minister Bridget McKenzie and Senate Liberal leader Simon Birmingham have all rejected a backbench push to use Donald Trump’s election in the US to abandon support for net zero by 2050.

The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has said he is completely committed to the target, attempting to fight the next election on the Coalition’s vague taxpayer-funded nuclear plan that will likely extend the use of coal and gas rather than the 2050 target.

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Global solar PV capacity has reached 2 terawatts, and is forecast to quadruple by 2030.

The post It took 68 years for the world to reach 1 terawatt of solar PV capacity. It took just two years to double it appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Government and industry are pushing consumers to join virtual power plants, but our energy system is full of roadblocks and disincentives.

The post SwitchedOn Podcast: Why virtual power plants will fail unless the energy system changes appeared first on RenewEconomy.

A man has died have being crushed beneath a turbine blade at the site of Australia's biggest wind project.

The post Man dies after being crushed by turbine blade at Australia’s biggest wind project appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Central Queensland has become a koala refuge. But heavy traffic on one highway is threatening a vital population of these threatened marsupials Rolf Schlagloth, Koala Ecologist, CQUniversity Australia Charley Geddes, Research technician, CSIRO Douglas Kerlin, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Environmental Futures Research Institute, Griffith University Flavia Santamaria, Lecturer in Biology, CQUniversity Australia Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Early signs of success seen in area where native European oysters were fished to local extinction by early 1900s

Thousands of oysters released into the Firth of Forth appear to be thriving again after a century-long absence from the Scottish estuary since they were lost to overfishing.

Marine experts from Heriot-Watt University who have helped reintroduce about 30,000 European flat oysters to the estuary said divers and underwater cameras showed they were doing well.

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The central focus of COP29 negotiations is on a bigger target for climate finance – the money rich nations provide poor nations to help with their energy transition and climate resilience. Matt McDonald, Professor of International Relations, The University of Queensland Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Months of hot and dry weather, with only 23mm of rain recorded over seven months, drove some species to seek food and water in the city. Harry Moore, Adjunct Research Fellow, School of Agriculture and Environment, The University of Western Australia Anna Cresswell, Adjunct Research Fellow, UWA Oceans Institute, The University of Western Australia Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Verse’s connection to nature can inspire awareness and hope amid the climate crisis, offering clarity beyond data

Poetry has a big debt to nature, its muse and source of metaphor for centuries. As the UN climate conference begins, it is time to pay it back. Poetry must give nature a voice to express its dire predicament. “I will rise,” declares the furious river in the Scottish makar Kathleen Jamie’s poem What the Clyde Said, After Cop26 – just as the River Xanthus in Homer’s Iliad rose in revenge against Achilles for filling it with so many bodies.

Ms Jamie’s poem appears in a new anthology, Earth Prayers, edited by the former poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy. “We are in the age of anthropogenic climate breakdown, possibly the Age of Grief,” Ms Duffy writes in the foreword. The 100 poems, ranging from classics such as Matthew Arnold’s 1867 Dover Beach to #ExtinctionRebellion by Pascale Petit, remind us not just of the beauty of the natural world, but its fragility.

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Once heavily scorned because of fraud and poor outcomes, carbon trading is likely to be high on the agenda in Baku

For the next two weeks, countries will gather on the shores of the Caspian Sea in Baku, Azerbaijan, to discuss how to increase finance for climate crisis adaptation and mitigation. A global agreement on carbon markets will be high on the agenda as countries try to find ways of generating the trillions they need to decarbonise in order to limit heating to below 2C above preindustrial levels.

Here is what you need to know.

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Colombian carbon body Asocarbono and the National Federation of Timber Industries (Fedemaderas) have rejected a peer-reviewed study criticising Colombia’s afforestation, reforestation, and revegetation (ARR) projects.

Australian Automobile Association analysis notes hybrids are exempt from fringe benefits tax until 1 April 2025, which can save consumers thousands of dollars

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Battery-powered electric vehicle sales fell sharply last quarter and may have peaked as consumers increasingly turn to hybrid models that attract tax concessions, according to new analysis.

Quarterly vehicle sales data released by the Australian Automobile Association (AAA) on Monday reveals petrol-powered cars continued to decline in popularity, with sales falling by 9.16% in the three months to 30 September.

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A doubling in battery storage projects and a rebound in wind energy puts Australia back on track to meet its renewable energy target - if it can be sustained.

The post “Terrific news:” Battery boom and rebound in wind projects put renewables target back on track appeared first on RenewEconomy.