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Critically endangered flowers get stay of execution after local environmental group threatens legal action against Victorian government

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A critically endangered orchid has received a late reprieve after a local environmental group threatened legal action against the Victorian government, prompting officials to cancel a planned burn of its habitat.

The bald-tip beard orchid – a species with fewer than 10 plants remaining in the Australian wild – was thought extinct until rediscovered in 1968 at a site near Whroo, in central Victoria, where the last surviving wild population has persisted.

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Taiwan is planning to introduce its own version of a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) as a supplementary measure to an upcoming carbon levy programme.

Harvesting in Bulga state forest, inland from Port Macquarie, is just 400km from global nature-positive summit the government is hosting

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Forest campaigners have accused the federal government of hypocrisy for hosting a global nature-positive summit in Sydney while logging resumed in public forest 400km away in mid-north New South Wales.

The NSW Forestry Corporation has started its harvesting operations in Bulga state forest, inland from Port Macquarie. The area is a stronghold for threatened species including endangered koalas and the endangered greater glider – Australia’s largest gliding possum.

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A proposed biodiversity measuring metric initiative needs to factor in the interplay of climate change and proposed actions, rather than simply focusing on observing changes, an expert told the Global Nature Positive Summit in Sydney Tuesday.

Exclusive: Environment groups urge government to stick to its promises and refuse pesticide application

UK ministers are considering allowing the use of a bee-killing pesticide next year despite promising during the election to ban it.

Neonicotinoids are banned in the EU because they are toxic to bees, but have been authorised for use every year in the UK since 2021.

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Vietnam won’t allow the sales of any carbon units from its emissions trading scheme until after the pilot phase ends in 2028, local media reported Tuesday, citing the deputy prime minister.

The world’s largest miner, BHP, is partnering with a steelmaker to start addressing its iron ore Scope 3 emissions, it announced Tuesday. 

Ofwat reviews water companies against metrics including pollution, customer service and leakage.

How much microplastic does a city produce? To find out, we looked at Brisbane’s Moreton Bay, where microplastics build up without being washed away Elvis Okoffo, PhD candidate in Environmental Science, The University of Queensland Alistair Grinham, Honorary Associate Professor in Civil Engineering, The University of Queensland Ben Tscharke, Research fellow, Analytical Chemistry, The University of Queensland Helen Bostock, Associate Professor in Marine Geology, The University of Queensland Kevin Thomas, Professor of Environmental Health, The University of Queensland Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Protections for the Heard and McDonald islands, one of Australia’s wildest and most remote areas, don’t go far enough Andrew J Constable, Adviser, Antarctica and Marine Systems, Science & Policy, University of Tasmania Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

The Sphinx, a patch of snow thought to be the longest-lasting in the UK, has melted for the fourth consecutive year.

Items such as cables and old tech could contain £266m worth of metal vital for decarbonisation drive, study finds

Scientists have called for people to go “urban mining” after a study revealed that old cables, phone chargers and other unused electrical goods thrown away or stored in cupboards or drawers could stave off a looming shortage of copper.

The research found that in the UK there are approximately 823m unused or broken tech items hiding in “drawers of doom” containing as much as 38,449 tonnes of copper – including 627m cables – enough to provide 30% of the copper needed for the UK’s planned transition to a decarbonised electricity grid by 2030.

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Wasps released on Nightingale Island have protected Wilkins’ bunting by halting spread of mould-causing insects

A tiny parasitic wasp has given a lifeline to one of the world’s rarest bird species by killing off an invasive insect that was threatening its survival.

The Wilkins’ bunting lives on Nightingale Island, part of the Tristan da Cunha group; the world’s most remote inhabited archipelago. It eats the fruit of the Phylica arborea, the island’s only native tree.

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Victoria is seeking federal environmental approval for a transmission project that will be crucial to the state's target of 2GW of installed offshore wind capacity by 2032.

The post VicGrid seeks green tick for transmission line to connect Australia’s first offshore wind farms appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Global deforestation rates are on the rise despite international high-level commitments towards 2030, with a loss of over 6 million hectares of forests only in 2023, according to an annual assessment released Tuesday.

Demand for beef, soy, palm oil and nickel hindering efforts to halt demolition by 2030, global report finds

The destruction of global forests increased in 2023, and is higher than when 140 countries promised three years ago to halt deforestation by the end of the decade, an analysis shows.

The rising demolition of the forests puts ambitions to halt the climate crisis and stem the huge worldwide losses of wildlife even further from reach, the researchers warn.

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The first battery containers have been installed in what will likely be the country's first 2 gigawatt hour (GWh) battery project being built in the Western Australian coal town of Collie.

The post First units installed at Australia’s first 2 GWh big battery project appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Food Standards Agency says applications for cultivated steak, chicken and foie gras have already been submitted

Cell-cultivated meat could be on sale in the UK within a few years, the food regulator has said, with applications for lab-grown steak, beef, chicken and foie gras already submitted, while another 15 applications are expected in the next two years.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) was awarded £1.6m of government funding on Tuesday to develop an efficient safety assessment process for the novel foods. It said the UK was an attractive market as it had a high number of vegans, vegetarians and flexitarians, a higher openness to new foods than many other European countries and a large financial sector to back startup companies.

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GridBeyond says community batteries offer a range of benefits over home batteries and – with the right software and settings – can deliver significant returns for their owners.

The post A smart community battery in right location could earn $250,000 a year, report says appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The Australian government has expanded its protected waters, claiming it now protects more waters than any other nation on earth, it said as host of the first Global Nature Positive Summit in Sydney.