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Rich nations should pay for biodiversity loss, which disproportionately affects poor countries, say scientists

Wealthy countries should pay for the loss and damage they cause to nature in poorer countries in the same way as for climate impacts, researchers have argued.

At the Cop27 climate talks in November, world leaders agreed to a dedicated “loss and damage” fund providing financial assistance to poor nations stricken by climate disaster. More developed countries, which are largely responsible for driving climate breakdown, are to pay compensation to poorer nations, which are typically more vulnerable to its impacts.

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The Pakistan government has given its approval for a major mangrove project to sell carbon credits to international buyers in the voluntary carbon market over the next two decades, although this approval does not mean corresponding adjustments within accounting frameworks.

Low demand combined with sunny conditions and meltwater lifts hydro and solar production

Over the last week, several European countries had power prices in the wholesale energy market dip into negative values during daylight hours. The decline in prices was mostly driven by the abundance of available energy generated by renewable sources, combined with the relatively low demand for energy for heating or cooling, caused by normal springtime temperatures.

Negative prices often occur when there is an excess supply of electricity in the market. This can happen when renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, or hydro produce a large quantity of electricity which exceeds demand and cannot be stored for later use. In such cases, producers may offer negative prices to incentivise wholesale consumers to take the surplus electricity off the grid and avoid overloading the system. This situation occurred due to an area of high pressure dominating across much of central and north-west Europe, providing lots of solar power generation across the area. Meanwhile, Finland experienced an oversupply of hydroelectric power resulting from excessive springtime meltwater which in turn led to negative prices here as well.

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The Environmental Consultant (Nature-Based Solutions) will support best practice delivery of advisory services including stakeholder engagement, technical design, modelling and reporting to develop the desired environment, social and financial impacts of our diversified portfolio of projects.

The committee’s core responsibilities are to provide advice to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy on making, varying and revoking carbon offset methods, and the outcomes of method reviews.

This is an exciting, important fast-paced work programme, which links with other market mechanisms including the ETS, and the voluntary carbon market.

Reverse engineering: First solar farm to be built next to a pre-existing battery project sends its first output to the grid.

The post First major solar farm to be added to a big battery starts operations in Australia appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Australian carbon offset developer Greening Australia has appointed the former CEO of Bush Heritage Australia for its top job, the company announced on Saturday.

An Australian agri-food tech investor has committed funding to a new accelerator to support to 10 carbon and climate focussed start-up companies, it announced Monday.

Windy conditions in south-eastern Australia last week led to an interesting energy generation mix for Tasmania, including more wind than hydro.

The post Wind out-powers hydro for five hours on Tasmania grid, allowing utility to cash in appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The startup is offering 30 jobs at its new site but will need to compete hard for a limited number of skilled hydrogen employees.

The post Singapore hydrogen tech startup SunGreenH2 eyes Melbourne talent with new hub appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Co-locating plants in sun-rich, iron-rich parts of Australia can help overcome the “first mover problem” for green hydrogen. Here's how it would work.

The post Putting green hydrogen plants next to green steelworks would kickstart both industries appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Andrew Forrest's Squadron Energy says an Environmental Impact Statement is underway for proposed wind farm and battery in Wiradjuri Country.

The post Squadron forges ahead with 400MW wind and big battery project in NSW appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Belgian company Parkwind teams up with Australia oil and gas company Beach in an effort to beat a powerful field of licence applicants.

The post Australian oil and gas company Beach makes move into offshore wind appeared first on RenewEconomy.

A New Zealand exchange-traded fund exposed to the country’s emissions trading scheme has seen its value fall more than 20% due to the tumultuous collapse in the NZU price over the last six months, the fund announced.

Some 60-100% of cats taken in are strays and at least 50% are kittens born in the preceding six months. Community cat programs focused on free desexing in problem areas are badly needed. Jacquie Rand, Emeritus Professor of Companion Animal Health, The University of Queensland John Morton, Industry Fellow, School of Veterinary Science, The University of Queensland Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

AEMO proposes new route for VNI West transmission link to avoid wetlands and irrigated crops, but there is good and bad news for renewables developers.

The post VNI West: AEMO finds new route to allay opposition with good and bad news for renewables appeared first on RenewEconomy.

As a sustainability researcher, I know how quickly we could make big changes to reduce plastic pollution. Here’s what we – both individually and globally – should be doing more of, and what to avoid. Pascal Scherrer, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Business, Law and Art, Southern Cross University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Revelation about war-torn country is ‘terrible indictment’ of UK government, says Ed Miliband

Ukraine has completed more onshore wind turbines than England since it was occupied by Russian soldiers – despite the UK’s government’s promise to relax restrictions on onshore wind farms.

Only two onshore wind turbines have been installed in England since Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year, generating 1 megawatt (MW) of electricity in the Staffordshire village of Keele.

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The birds flew in on cue, but there were so few of them. The reason? The catastrophic decline in our insect populations

On 7 May, I tweeted that swifts had appeared in the skies over the shed where I write on the same day in 2022, and predicted, if they kept to their schedule, they would leave overnight on 7 August. My excitement was short-lived. I’ve seen no more than three or four breeding pairs over the village of Blockley, Gloucestershire, whereas last year I estimated 16 to 20 pairs and an end of season exodus of between 50 and 60 birds.

My figures are hardly scientific, but they suggest a decline of between 75% and 85% on last year, an acceleration in an established trend that shows a loss of 60% of swift numbers since 1995.

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