Feed aggregator

Project promises to create jobs and restore biodiversity, but locals say it is taking food-growing land out of production

The rolling fields south of Grantham are scenic, but these huge expanses of wheat and beans are almost bereft of insects in summer. In autumn, a few skylarks sing and the occasional buzzard soars, but there is precious little life in the landscape.

But soon a 1,525-acre swath of this productive Lincolnshire farmland will be brimming with wildlife, according to a new company that aims to restore biodiversity and make money by rewilding farmland.

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The heavy presence of lobbyists from Moscow suggests Russia is using the climate talks to drum up business

• Cop27 live – latest news updates

Russian oligarchs and executives from multiple companies under international sanctions are among the lobbyists currently attending Cop27 in Sharm el-Sheikh.

Among those at the pivotal climate talks are the billionaire and former aluminium magnate Oleg Deripaska, who is under UK sanctions, and the billionaire Andrey Melnichenko, the former head of the Russian fertiliser company the EuroChem group, who has been targeted with individual sanctions by the European Union which he disputed, calling them “absurd and nonsensical”.

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Ghana and Switzerland have authorised the first-ever internationally transferred mitigation outcome (ITMO), a milestone transaction under the Paris Agreement's Article 6.2 provision a year since the two nations struck an overarching bilateral crediting agreement.

A South Korean government agency has unveiled a raft of strategic partnerships struck at the ongoing COP27, as it prepares to ramp up the East Asian nation’s engagement with the voluntary carbon market.

Saudi Arabia on Friday announced it will launch a domestic carbon credit scheme at the start of 2023, with baseline and MRV methodologies designed specifically according to the country's circumstances.

As the UN climate conference reaches the end of its first week, activists around the world are calling for stronger climate action

A report released early this morning by campaigners Reboot Food finds that enough protein to feed the world could be produced in an area smaller than London.

The report suggests that if animal protein was grown through fermentation in tanks, rather than livestock in fields or barns, it would be a 40,900 times more efficient use of land.

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Major producers of soya and beef accused of failing to deliver on pledges to stop deforestation

The world’s largest food companies, whose products have been linked to the widespread destruction of rainforests, have failed to come up with an adequate strategy to align their business practices with the 1.5C climate target, according to campaigners.

The leading producers of soya beans, palm oil, cocoa and cattle published their roadmap to align with 1.5C earlier this week, promising to develop and publish commodity-specific, time-bound targets on stopping deforestation which will be backed by science and checked each year. The companies include the Brazilian beef firm JBS, the American agricultural firm Cargill and the Singaporean food processing firm Wilmar International.

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Acknowledging that climate breakdown is unavoidable is key to making fossil-fuel companies and governments take action

In his Cop27 speech this week, our will-he-go, won’t-he-go prime minister said that stopping the planet dangerously overheating was still within our grasp, leaving many wondering just what planet he was on.

According to Rishi Sunak, last year’s Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow was all about keeping alive the possibility of preventing the global average temperature rise since the Industrial Revolution from climbing above 1.5C. That is “alive”, as in connected to a drip, in a coma and suffering cardiac arrest every few hours.

Bill McGuire is professor emeritus of geophysical and climate hazards at UCL and the author of Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant’s Guide

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Despite ‘loss and damage’ focus there have been more oil and gas lobbyists than delegates from the most vulnerable countries

Humanity is on a highway to hell, with our foot on the accelerator. The message from the UN secretary general to more than 110 world leaders at the Cop27 UN climate summit in Egypt could not have been clearer: change course now, or face “collective suicide”.

Greenhouse gas emissions have continued to rise this year, research published this week has shown, despite stark warnings from climate scientists in the past year. The prospects of sticking to the 1.5C limit above pre-industrial levels that scientists tell us is necessary have receded to a “narrow window”.

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

Advocates of plant-based protein say 75% of world’s farmland should be rewilded to reduce emissions

• Cop27 live – latest news updates

Enough protein to feed the entire world could be produced on an area of land smaller than London if we replace animal farming with factories producing micro-organisms, a campaign has said.

The Reboot Food manifesto argues that three-quarters of the world’s farmland should be rewilded instead.

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A Canadian forestry investment platform has spent nearly C$50 million to acquire a chunk of private land in Northern Ontario to develop it into a carbon offset project.

Changes to our planet's shine is just one of the stranger side effects of rising temperatures.

How the BBC uncovered gas flaring in an Iraqi oil field, where locals are showing a high rate of cancer.

The US will implement stronger methane regulations for the domestic oil and gas sector and bolster international efforts to crack down on the potent GHG and emissions from other sectors, President Joe Biden announced at COP27 on Friday.

The creation of rules on international emissions trade risk being delayed for another year as negotiations stumble in Sharm el-Sheikh over whether host countries to amend or even revoke their authorisation for the transfer of carbon credits.

Ghana plans to agree to a deal with Singapore for the trade of internationally transferred carbon credits, said a senior official from the west African nation during a side event at COP27 on Friday.

Activists call for money to support climate action and Joe Biden meets Egypt’s Abdel Fatah al-Sisi

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The US EPA on Friday presented new analysis to significantly raise the social cost of carbon (SCC) compared to current values, as a working group under President Joe Biden’s administration works to develop a final figure amid ongoing legal challenges.

Three UK countries ‘way above where we should be for this time of year’ says Met Office forecaster

Britain’s armed forces have gone on parade on the warmest Armistice Day on record, according to the Met Office, with the country on track for what could be an unprecedented 11th month of above average temperatures.

Unseasonably high temperatures led to “exceptionally mild” conditions across the UK, the forecaster said, with the record-breaking 19.5C recorded in Myerscough in Lancashire more than a degree warmer than the previous record of 17.8C at Kensington Palace in London.

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