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Vast Solar lands another $65 million in ARENA funds to have another crack at delivering long promised solar thermal power at commercial scale.

The post Solar thermal technology gets another chance at Port Augusta with big ARENA grant appeared first on RenewEconomy.

If environmental harm wrought by the port cannot be addressed, the project should not be allowed to proceed. Divya Narain, PhD Candidate, The University of Queensland Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

As part of its target to cut emissions, New Zealand aims for a 20% reduction in driving by 2035, mainly through better urban planning and travel options. Why doesn’t the plan mention intercity rail? Robert McLachlan, Professor in Applied Mathematics, Massey University Paul Callister, Senior Associate Institute of Governance and Policy Studies, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

With no clear commitments, the gap between community expectations and actions of state MPs will be a major election flashpoint

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In early January, activist Susie Russell was arrested on a road that runs through the Bulga State Forest on the New South Wales mid-north coast.

She and about 30 protesters – NSW Greens upper house MP Sue Higginson among them – were there to support a young local woman who was sitting atop a tripod used to block trucks and logging crews from entering the forest.

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The elusive giant willow aphid goes into hiding in spring. Now the Royal Horticultural Society wants volunteers to help find out why

Gardeners have been urged by scientists to help find a mysterious bug which disappears in spring and reappears at the end of summer.

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) is asking people to send in sightings of the giant willow aphid (Tuberolachnus salignus) so that they can find out where it goes and how it interacts with garden plants.

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The inside story of what went wrong with the Snowy 2.0 tunnelling, which has ground to a halt having barely moved in more than a year.

The post Disastrous tunnelling delays underline folly of Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro scheme appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Renewables output breaks above 20GW in Australia's main grid for first time, while output of wind and solar jumps 900MW to new record.

The post Wind and solar output set landmark new milestone in Australia’s rapidly changing grid appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Agricultural businesses risk closure as figures show government paid only tiny fraction of slashed EU farming subsidies

Cuts to post-Brexit farming payments mean farms risk “going out of business” as new figures reveal only a tiny fraction of slashed EU subsidies went to agriculture businesses last year.

The government is replacing the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which paid subsidies to farmers to keep them in business, with “payments for public goods”, meaning land managers get paid for improving nature.

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The health benefits of green or blue prescriptions are many and there are calls to integrate them more into routine care

In my mid-20s, I undertook the quintessentially Australian rite of passage of moving to London for a few years. Months into my first English winter, I started having dreams about the Australian wilderness.

The images were so vivid and specific that I jotted them down. I had a recurring dream about looking at the sea from a high vantage point, somewhere along the south-east Queensland coast that I had always taken for granted. There was “all manner of ocean life”, I noted: dolphins jumping in the shallows; two whales, a mother and calf, out in deeper water.

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Black Mountains College in Wales aims to prepare students for life during a planetary emergency

The lecture theatre was once a cowshed, the study centre is an old farmhouse living room and the classrooms are mostly outdoors: welcome to the newest higher educational college in Britain.

The former farm that is Black Mountains College campus is a core part of an insurgent institution that is the first entirely dedicated to adapting to the climate emergency.

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Japan’s Fuji and New Zealand gala could replace pippin and russet as rising temperatures threaten homegrown species

Classic British apples may die out and be swapped for varieties from New Zealand and Japan, as climate breakdown means traditional fruits are no longer viable.

Apples such as pippin or the the ancient nonpareil, grown in Britain since the 1500s, are struggling in the changed climate because there are not enough “chilling hours” for the trees to lie dormant in winter and conserve energy for growing fruit.

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Oxford University-led study detects 26 types of PFAS compounds in ice around Svalbard, threatening downstream ecosystems

Norwegian Arctic ice is contaminated with alarming levels of toxic PFAS, and the chemicals may represent a major environmental stressor to the region’s wildlife, new research finds.

The Oxford University-led study’s measurements of ice around Svalbard, Norway, detected 26 types of PFAS compounds, and found when ice melts, the chemicals can move from glaciers into downstream ecosystems like Arctic fjords and tundra.

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

A summary of legislative, regulatory, and policy action on carbon, clean fuel standard, and clean energy markets at the US federal and subnational levels this week, including a proposal for the Washington state government to sell carbon offsets, and the return of a CO2 tax and dividend bill in Hawaii.

A rating agency has downgraded three Verra-accredited Brazilian REDD+ projects, amid shaken market confidence in the avoided deforestation market following reports of widespread over-crediting. 

The transfer of big-emitting assets from publicly-listed firms into private ownership is on the rise as increased shareholder scrutiny tempts companies to offload facilities to those under no obligation to disclose their carbon footprint, with such carbon arbitrage posing a real threat to climate goals.

An increasing number of investors are looking to integrate biodiversity into their investment frameworks, according to Morgan Stanley, one of the largest global investment management and financial services companies, describing options for portfolio integration.

The EU's Sentinel satellite system traces how the ground ruptured during Monday's big tremors.

Two shipping firms have signed an agreement to launch a joint venture to provide EU ETS compliance services to the sector.

The Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) can have a catalysing effect on the sector to protect and restore nature, providing a framework under which business and finance can begin to redirect capital away from negative activities towards nature-positive investment, experts from financial institutions told a webinar Thursday.