Feed aggregator

Victoria has a plan for the state to electrify, but how do we make the transition fair and equitable for everyone? New research suggests a way forward. Sangeetha Chandrashekeran, Senior Research Fellow, Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course, The University of Melbourne Julia de Bruyn, Associate Investigator, ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course, The University of Melbourne Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Australia has committed A$50 million ($33 mln) to support clean energy supply chains in the Indo-Pacific the government announced over the weekend, as the issuance of Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) rose, according to a regulatory update.  

A daily summary of our news plus bite-sized updates from around the world.

The public defender of a forest-rich Brazilian state has launched legal action against several organisations and a local government over allegations of land theft linked to a REDD+ project.

Bidders in the NSW auction for "firm capacity" to partially replace the country's biggest coal generator given an extra month to lodge financial value offers.

The post Battery developers given extra month to bid for 2GWh of storage to fill coal gap appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Black rockfish caught in May close to disaster-hit nuclear power station is one of dozens caught in the past year above the legal safety limit

A fish living near drainage outlets at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in May contained levels of radioactive cesium that are 180 times Japan’s safety limit.

The black rockfish caught on 18 May was found by plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) to have 18,000 becquerels per kilogram of cesium-137, compared with the legal maximum level of 100 becquerels per kg.

Continue reading...

Biden says wind farms don't cause cancer - as Donald Trump suggested - but some new offshore wind projects are causing indigestion at the price bid in auctions.

The post Biden says wind farms don’t cause cancer, but offshore industry faces headwinds appeared first on RenewEconomy.

It’s not as well-known as the Hills Hoist clothesline, but here’s another Aussie invention worth celebrating: Glide poles are reconnecting severed landscapes for a special group of marsupials. Brendan Taylor, Adjunct Research Fellow in the Faculty of Science & Engineering, Southern Cross University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Continue reading...

A terrible lesson is being taken from the Uxbridge vote. Labour must stick to its green agenda, and decent Tories must raise a voice

One news story defines this summer: the fact that average global temperatures have recently reached record-breaking levels. Baking European weather is now seared into our consciousness in the form of those heat maps coloured red and orange; as wildfires spread across the Greek island of Rhodes, thousands of people have been evacuated. In the US, China and no end of countries besides, the idea of planetary heating as a looming threat whose worst effects might yet be averted feels like it is turning to ash.

In the UK, unfortunately, the past 48 hours has seen a political story whose parochialist absurdity is off the scale: Conservative voices undermining the fragile cross-party consensus on reaching net zero by 2050 and calling for many of the UK’s tilts at climate action to be either slowed or stopped. The reason? The results of three parliamentary byelections – and, in particular, the views of 13,965 Conservative voters in the outer London suburbs.

Continue reading...

Downpours affect Open golf tournament and fourth Ashes Test and festivalgoers also drenched

Flood alerts have been issued across the north of England where heavy rain disrupted sporting events and left festivalgoers drenched.

It has been a soggy final day of the Open Championship golf tournament in Liverpool and downpours have blighted the fourth Ashes cricket Test in Manchester on Sunday.

Continue reading...

London mayor is open to ideas to mitigate impact on residents, but not on scheduling of policy some blame for loss of byelection

Sadiq Khan is open to new ideas for mitigating the impact of the anti-pollution levy in London being expanded next month, but refusing to back down on the planned timing of its implementation.

Despite pressure from some in Labour for city hall to rethink the policy they believe lost the party the Uxbridge and South Ruislip byelection on Thursday, the mayor is determined for it to come into force.

Continue reading...

A new push to offer free school meals across the globe won’t end world hunger but it’s a very good start

During the pandemic the Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford turned food into a hot political issue in the UK with his campaign for every child in a low-income family to be guaranteed a free school meal.

Since then, things have moved on. The problems facing low-income families – not just in Britain but everywhere – have worsened owing to rising global food prices. Consumers in the western economies have seen the cost of their weekly shop rise sharply. Food bank use in Britain has surged as a result of a cost-of-living crisis that has seen grocery bills rise by almost a fifth in the past year.

Continue reading...

A species almost wiped out by tree snakes is being returned to the wild and, eventually, to its Pacific island home

As arks go, the shipping container that has been placed inside Sedgwick County Zoo, in Wichita, Kansas, looks an unlikely vehicle for saving species.

Nevertheless, work there is expected to play a key role in undoing one of the world’s worst conservation disasters: the accidental introduction of brown tree snakes to the Pacific island of Guam. The snakes’ arrival, at the end of the second world war, eventually wiped out huge numbers of indigenous birds, mammals, and lizards including the Guam kingfisher, the Guam rail, and the Guam flycatcher.

Continue reading...

Lounging by the pool is at best ill-advised, but for residents daily life has turned into an ordeal

I’ve had my fair share of messages from friends abroad recently asking if it really is as hot as “they say” in Greece. Hot, I usually retort, doesn’t say it all. “It’s mind-meltingly blistering, baking from morning to night. You struggle to sleep, you struggle to eat, you’re ill-tempered and you can’t even drink; a consolatory sundown cocktail is usually the kiss of death.”

After the emojis and exclamation marks, the response has invariably been: “Well, over here it’s all cloud and rain, I’ll make sure to pack my factor 30+. Looking forward!”

Continue reading...

Experts say pest eradication program is underfunded and it is a ‘matter of time’ before ants move beyond Queensland

• Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast

Fire ants have breached containment zones in south-east Queensland six times in the past six weeks, triggering the expansion of biosecurity controls at the New South Wales border.

The imported red fire ants – considered one of the world’s worst invasive species – were detected at a site at Tallebudgera last week, about 5.5km from the NSW border. The find was the farthest south the pest has been detected in Queensland.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

G20 energy ministers wrapped up their meeting in Goa on Saturday without any progress on ambition to ratchet up renewable energy production and cut the use of fossil fuels.

The Forest Carbon's Blue Carbon Program Manager will be responsible for the overall implementation and effective project management of the program's activities in Papua.

Science and business leaders say lurch away from climate agenda after byelections would be deeply unpopular with voters and damage UK’s reputation

Britain’s leaders have been warned against a “politically suicidal” lurch away from their green pledges as concerns grow that both major parties may dilute their plans to combat the climate crisis in the wake of a shock byelection result.

Senior figures from business, the scientific community and across the political divide warned that any watering down of climate policies would be deeply unpopular with voters, set back the international fight to reach net zero and damage Britain’s green reputation.

Continue reading...

Energy sector stakeholders have urged the Ugandan government for bolstered support to solidify the country’s standing in global carbon markets, as ministers acknowledged domestic fragmentation and a need for more regulatory enhancements.