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Long-awaited targets to protect the environment will fail to fix water pollution, say nature groups.

A Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Vandenberg space force base, California, carrying the Swot satellite – short for surface water and ocean topography – into orbit. The international mission, jointly developed and operated by Nasa and the French space agency CNES, in partnership with the British and Canadian space agencies, aims to give scientists an unprecedented view of the bodies of water that cover about 70% of the Earth, and help researchers better understand climate breakdown

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Modelling shows that if we continue on current trajectory, global heating will drive a cascade of extinctions in plants and animals

Earth could lose more than a tenth of its plant and animal species by the end of the century on current trends, according to new research which comes as nearly 3,000 scientists call for action from governments to stop the destruction of nature in the final days of negotiations at Cop15.

The climate crisis will drive an accelerating cascade of extinctions in the coming decades, as predators lose their prey, parasites lose their hosts, and temperature rises fracture Earth’s web of life, according to the researchers, who warn of the risk of co-extinctions in a paper published on Friday in Science Advances.

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A carbon credit rating agency has upgraded the score of one cookstove project in Uganda and slightly downgraded another in Guatemala in it's latest update.

A data aggregator has launched a ratings page that grades buyers in the voluntary carbon market, with each company graded to reflect their commitment to offsetting in regard to emission reduction strategies and remaining residual emissions.

Environment secretary disappoints campaigners by failing to set overall targets for river health and protected habitats

The UK government has undermined talks at the Cop15 biodiversity conference by failing to set targets for water quality or habitat protections in England, campaigners have said.

Environmental experts have been disappointed by the delayed legally binding targets mandated by the 2021 Environment Act, which were released on Friday, six weeks after the deadline.

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Exclusive: government hopes ban in UK waters will protect birds, including puffins, that feed on small fish

Sandeel fishing in UK waters could be banned next year under “gamechanging” government plans to protect puffin and kittiwake numbers, the Guardian can reveal.

The sandeel is a small fish that is critical to marine food webs in the UK, and is an important part of many seabird diets. For example, the number of kittiwakes – which are particularly sandeel-dependent – has fallen by half in the UK since the 1960s, with diminishing availability of prey during the breeding season thought to be mainly responsible.

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In the past 12 months I have learned that the mass extermination of the Amazon is a climate catastrophe – and much more

I thought it was a blood moon at first. The dark orange glow appeared at dusk on the far side of the shimmering silver band that is the Xingu River. It was just before 8pm, after the parrots had squawked back to their nests and the insects and frogs were noisily starting the forest nightshift. A flash of lightning from a cloud appeared above almost the same location but the rest of the sky was clear. How could there be a storm? I peered more intently and took a photograph that I could magnify. And there was the answer – a fire, which grew fiercer as I watched, the flames spreading sideways and upwards, flickering red and yellow, billowing smoke into the sky, sparking flashes of lightning every couple of minutes.

I felt sick to the stomach. The Amazon rainforest was being destroyed in front of my eyes. I have been writing about the climate crisis for 16 years, always with a sense of horror but until now, mostly with a sense of distance. This was the first time I had seen it from my home, and it was stranger than I expected. I had not realised until that moment that fire can create its own lightning storms, by creating pyrocumulonimbus, which scientists describe as “the fire-breathing dragon of clouds”.

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EUAs were headed for their first weekly loss in a month on Friday as traders sold in advance of political negotiations over the ETS reform package and the expiry of the front-December futures contract on Monday, while energy prices were lower.

Norwegian Air Shuttle will have to pay NOK 400 million (€‎38 mln) for failing to surrender 373,000 carbon allowances for 2020 and 2021, in addition to having to procure the quantity of units it failed to turn in for those years.

Australia to fund eight big battery projects with advanced "grid forming" inverters that will help close coal and narrow the gap to 100 pct renewables

The post Australia backs $2.7bn of big batteries to narrow gap to 100 pct renewables appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Carbon allowances in China’s national emissions trading market dropped over the past week despite a rebound in trading volume, with little regulatory progress seen likely to continue weighing down carbon prices next year.

EU Member States are obligated to spend at least 37% of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF, totalling €750 billion in 2018 prices) launched to recover from the Covid pandemic on climate-related issues, but are only devoting a small part of their budgets to nature, a report has found.

South Korea will make a 20% cut in the number of CO2 allowances that will be available at auctions for ETS participants next year compared to 2022, after only being able to sell around half the KAUs it had planned to sell this year.

The best of this week’s wildlife pictures, including hungry puppies, a snow leopard and migratory birds

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The US and Australia have signed an agreement at COP15 in Montreal, agreeing to work together to better measure the economic value of nature.

A selection of the winning and highly commended images in the British Ecological Society’s annual competition Capturing Ecology, taken by international ecologists and students across the globe. From a hungry mother leopard hunting to the calm of a bird floating on water, the images illustrate the intricacies of nature and our relationship with the natural world

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Conservation groups warn not enough is being done to protect ecosystems as state government data shows more than 400,000ha of land was cleared in 2019-20

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Queensland continues to record the highest rate of land clearing in the country, with more than 400,000 hectares destroyed in 2019-20, according to new government data.

The Queensland government’s annual statewide landcover and tree study shows 418,656 hectares was cleared, a 38% decline from 680,688 hectares the previous year but still the equivalent of about 567 Melbourne Cricket Grounds a day.

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A modest increase in coal demand this year will be enough to reach a new global record high, but its use will plateau after that until at least 2025 as Asian demand proves key to the long term trend in the use of the carbon-intensive fuel, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Friday.

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