Feed aggregator

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

California Carbon Allowance (CCA) prices traded through a volatile week in line with the risk-off tone sweeping across markets amidst the spate of banking collapses on either side of the Atlantic, while Washington Carbon Allowances (WCA) held above the scheme's Tier 1 reserve price on the secondary market.

A Paris-headquartered environmental services firm on Thursday said it helped corporates buy €1 mln worth of carbon removal units from tech-based endeavours.

A California-headquartered climate tech firm on Thursday announced it has completed its $30 mln Series A fundraise, and will use the money to market its mineralisation-based carbon removal units.

The Canadian Clean Fuel Regulations' (CFR) first obligation period begins on July 1, triggering greater demand for US renewable fuel imports to satisfy compliance obligations, experts who spoke to Carbon Pulse agreed.

After three long years of rainy weather, La Niña is over. But that doesn’t mean El Niño is a certainty. Here’s why. Nandini Ramesh, Senior Research Scientist, Data61, CSIRO Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Most food in Australia remains free of PFAS, but a new study has found it can build up in cattle on PFAS-affected farms. But there are ways to manage the land and livestock to reduce the risks. Antti Mikkonen, Principal Health Risk Advisor – Chemicals, EPA Victoria, and PhD Candidate, School of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences, University of South Australia Mark Patrick Taylor, Victoria's Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

A carbon credit ratings agency has downgraded its scores of two previously highly-ranked African projects, while upholding the scores of several others in a review of afforestation offset activity.  

There is considerable potential for the Biodiversity Credit Alliance (BCA) to serve a similar function to the cross-stakeholder Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (IC-VCM), though a key difference will be that this initiative is not two decades overdue, a panel heard Thursday.

A significant rise in both coal and gas output last year increased fossil power generation across Enel's Italian and Iberian assets by almost one-third year-on-year, according to its annual results published late on Thursday.

A hybrid standardised contract aiming to provide a single global price for the voluntary carbon market is about to undergo its first annual reweighting, which will see fewer forestry credit prices and more renewable and energy efficiency credit prices included.

Destruction of more than 100 trees in Plymouth highlights weakness of protections, says Woodland Trust

Veteran trees should have the same protections as heritage buildings to stop destruction on the scale carried out in Plymouth this week, campaigners have said.

The Woodland Trust is calling for an English Heritage-style body to enforce greater protection for trees – including those which have value to the attractiveness of a town or city.

Continue reading...

It seems like every single Kiwi has some kind of bird madness, and I know now that I am infected (and loving it)

This week, during a visit to the Wellington zoo, I had a realisation about myself. No, it’s not that I wish to strip off all my clothes and live out my days swinging nude from the trees like a spider monkey, although that does sound great. It’s that after spending time on and off in Aotearoa the last couple of years (due to lesbian love), I have now fully become entrenched in the New Zealand mindset.

Walking around the zoo lesbianly, we checked out the extremely cute otters, met the adorable lemurs, raised our eyebrows at the capuchins (not because we were surprised to see them at a zoo, it’s a sign of friendliness) and encountered all sorts of beautiful creatures. But as it turns out, the animal I was personally most excited to see, the one that made me gasp out loud upon entering its habitat? The one I made sure to return to before leaving?

Continue reading...

Government accused of hypocrisy for pushing global target but not following Natural England’s advice at home

The UK government ignored scientific warnings from Natural England that its nature restoration target was inadequate and would not meet its commitments, new documents show, undermining efforts to protect threatened species.

In December the environment secretary, Thérèse Coffey, unveiled targets at the biodiversity Cop15 in Canada to reverse the decline of nature in England. They included plans to improve the quality of marine protected areas, reduce pollution and nitrogen runoff in the river system, and restore more than half a million hectares of wildlife-rich habitat outside protected areas by 2042.

Continue reading...

EUA prices plunged by more than €4 on Thursday morning after a relief rally on news that bank Credit Suisse would receive a bailout gave way to renewed selling, while the daily auction cleared at the biggest-ever discount to prevailing market prices.

The European Commission presented its Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) proposal on Thursday, seeking to reduce the bloc’s dependency on third-countries in sourcing raw materials indispensable for the development and building of clean technology.

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) this week approved $587.4 million in new funding for seven mitigation and adaptation projects at this year’s first board meeting, including a payment to a cross-country programme aiming to cut carbon emissions by over 55 million tonnes of CO2e.

The European Commission's publication of its proposal for a Net Zero Industrial Act (NZIA) is facing last-minute uncertainty, with sources citing internal disagreements about how nuclear technologies should be dealt with.

A weekly summary of our biodiversity news plus bite-sized updates from around the world. All articles in this edition are free to read (no subscription required).

It took decades to force banks to abandon racist redlining. We don’t have decades to avert catastrophic climate crisis

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank will bring many forms of fallout. One of the most obvious consequences is that the biggest banks – Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, Bank of America – will probably get even bigger. That is why we’re joining protests across the United States outside hundreds of those banks’ branches on Tuesday, 21 March: if they’re going to hold that much power over the planet’s economy, we need them to recognize and help with our great crises. We need them not to do what they did last century, which is to ignore or exacerbate our deepest troubles.

Beginning in the 1930s, the federal government mapped America, grading neighborhoods to decide which ones were worthy of investment, literally drawing red lines on maps to make it crystal clear. Many mainly Black and Brown neighborhoods ended up with low grades, and most US banks made sure money didn’t flow in their direction. Nearly a century later, these neighborhoods still suffer. Lacking trees and parks, they are degrees warmer than nearby leafy communities. Their residents are condemned to a myriad of health issues, from asthma to kidney stones.

Ben Jealous is the executive director of the Sierra Club, the former executive director of the NAACP, and the author of Our People Have Always Been Free

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

Continue reading...