Feed aggregator

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

Country negotiators striving to find consensus on key documents relating to carbon markets under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement are divided by the near-final texts as the end of COP27 approaches, multiple sources said, with moves to postpone work until 2023 looking increasingly likely.

Gasoline sales in California for August rose to the highest levels since May last year, while diesel consumption picked up from last month’s decline, according to state data released Friday.

Compliance entities reversed course from last week, adding to their California Carbon Allowance (CCA) position amid continued spread trading ahead of the WCI Q4 auction, while financials continued to shorten their CCA position and add to their RGGI length, according to US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data published Friday.

Australia’s climate change minister backs proposed loss and damage fund but says 1.5C target is crucial to limiting the bill

• Follow our Australia news live blog for the latest updates
• Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast

As the Cop27 climate summit in Egypt extends into overtime, Chris Bowen has called for the “strongest possible action” to limit global heating to 1.5C and backed the establishment of a fund to help the poor deal with unavoidable damage from worsening extreme weather.

In an interview with the Guardian, the Australian climate change minister said the conference in Sharm el-Sheikh had faced a push from some countries to water down the Glasgow pact last year, and that he had fought alongside others to ensure that deal was “reaffirmed and built on”, not undone.

Continue reading...

The existing VER surplus is likely to continue growing for most of this decade as baseline demand for voluntary carbon offsets remains low and proposed integrity standards do little to realign supply, analysts said Friday.

A forest carbon offset project in northern Brazil is selling 250,000 carbon credits that were registered, issued, and verified through affiliated companies.

Position based in Madrid, Spain. Fluent English. We are hiring a Senior VCM (Voluntary Carbon Market) analyst. You’ll join a highly experienced, motivated, and growing team and help lead them to greater impact.

Lockdowns were their equivalent of me being forced go out every day for months

I appreciate that I am about to hang my dirty – or at least selfish and unreflective – washing out here for all to see but … I’ve only just started to appreciate how terrible the pandemic and lockdowns must have been for extroverts.

Continue reading...

EU agrees to loss and damage fund to help poor countries and activists interrupting proceedings lose their passes

The biggest news of the day broke in the morning, with the announcement that the EU would now agree to a loss and damage fund to help poor countries amid climate disasters.

The climate summit will now run to Saturday, according to AFP. This is not really a surprise to anyone.

Youth activists staged a Friday climate strike to mark the last formal day of negotiations. Meanwhile during the talks, Nakeeyat Dramani, a 10-year-old Ghanaian climate activist. asked delegates to ‘have a heart’.

But elsewhere the activists who interrupted US president Joe Biden lost their summit passes, as did the Ukrainian protester who spoke out at a Russian press conference, it has emerged.

A surprisingly large number of gas deals were struck at the Egyptian summit, it has now emerged, with more than a dozen being set up while talks were ongoing.

And Desmog crunched the numbers and found that representatives from big agriculture have more than doubled at Cop27 this year.

Continue reading...

Media briefings, protests and plenary sessions at the Cop27 UN climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt

Continue reading...

Last-ditch plan for providing cash to countries suffering climate-related disaster brought overtime wrangling

• Cop27 live – latest news updates

Crucial climate talks have dragged on past their deadline with no end in sight, as governments wrangle over how to pay for the rebuilding of poor countries ravaged by climate breakdown.

There was turmoil in the negotiating halls of the Cop27 UN summit in Egypt. Delegates rushed from room to room as countries scrambled to decide their response to a last-ditch proposal from the European Union that would establish a new fund providing cash for countries suffering climate-related disaster, known as loss and damage.

Continue reading...

Climate action group believes US is blocking progress on global heating by rejecting payments to poorer countries

The US has been named the “colossal fossil” of the Cop27 climate talks by campaigners who criticised the country for its intransigence in providing support to developing countries hit hardest by the climate crisis.

The “award”, unveiled at a ceremony featuring a person dressed as a dinosaur, is an annual event staged by Climate Action Network International to shame the countries deemed to be blocking climate progress.

Continue reading...

Urban nature-based solutions (NBS) may fail to spark the passions of saving a rainforest but they still deliver high economic and social benefits, a study of European cities has found.

EU states are meeting late Friday to decide whether to jointly withdraw from the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), a well-placed EU source told Carbon Pulse, with Luxembourg the latest to say it will drop out due to concerns the pact will hinder its climate efforts.

Money has started to flow into nature-based futures during the last week of COP27, often a bullish signal for the market, although prices have continued to edge sideways.

Papua New Guinea’s climate envoy has said the recent announcement by the country’s sports minister entrusting the country’s carbon market regulations to a Dubai-based company is not binding and will likely be quashed by the government, as the nation and its allies lobby for their pre-2021 REDD+ credits to be allowed to count towards Paris goals on the final scheduled day at COP27.

It’s a miracle that any one of us is alive today. Those with the power to grant that miracle to future generations chose not to

The chances of any one person being born were calculated by the life coach Dr Ali Binazir. He multiplied the probability of your parents meeting, mating and conceiving by the chances of a particular sperm and egg fusing; of all your human and hominid ancestors reaching reproductive age; and of all them successfully reproducing. He arrived at a figure of one in 10 to the power of 2,640,000. In other words, a 10 followed by 2.6m zeros. It’s an unimaginable, miraculous number. Yet here we are.

The chances of being alive right now, as a member of one of the first generations to know the path it is on, and one of the last that can change it, must add several more zeros to this crazy number. The chances of being the president or prime minister of your nation at this critical moment … well you get the idea.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

Continue reading...

Nakeeyat Dramani, a 10-year-old Ghanaian climate activist, appealed to delegates during a Cop27 session in Sharm el-Sheikh to 'have a heart'. Nakeeyat spoke 'on behalf of young people' who feared for their future, after seeing the impact of the climate crisis every day, in the form of air pollution, flooding and droughts. 

She joined Ghana's delegation to add her voice to the pressing consequences of the climate emergency in her country. At the end of her speech, Nakeeyat recited a poem, telling leaders to work harder to halt the climate crisis

• Cop27: EU agrees to finance fund for poorer countries – live
  

Continue reading...

Campaigners who interrupted US president’s speech had passes revoked after they put ‘lives in danger’

• Cop27 live – latest news updates

Four US activists who had their Cop27 accreditation revoked after briefly interrupting the US president, Joe Biden, in Sharm el-Sheikh have described the UN as “shameful” and say it has silenced Indigenous voices.

Big Wind, Jacob Johns, Jamie Wefald, and Angela Zhong missed the second week of the climate conference after being suspended for standing up with a “People vs Fossil Fuels” banner during Biden’s speech last Friday. The Indigenous activists, Wind and Johns, gave a war cry to announce themselves and draw attention to the fossil fuels crisis before security officials confiscated the banner. The group then sat down and Biden continued.

Continue reading...