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While the ACCC, ASIC and a new senate inquiry begin to flush out greenwashing, we take a closer look at dodgy climate claims. Complaints and court cases are stacking up. Here’s what you need to know. Laura Schuijers, Deputy Director, Australian Centre for Climate and Environmental Law and Lecturer in Law, University of Sydney Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

The industry has not delivered what it promised, and critics are right to be sceptical

The emerging carbon offsets market is chaotic and dysfunctional. Problems need to be addressed openly, and resolved as quickly as possible. A joint investigation by the Guardian, the German weekly Die Zeit and SourceMaterial revealed in January that the vast majority of rainforest offset credits from the leading certifier – which are sold to companies that then use them to make claims about their overall emissions – do not offer the environmental benefits that they claim. Since then, scrutiny has only increased, with more questions being asked of the western businesses behind projects such as Kariba, a huge offset-promoted forest in Zimbabwe.

Recognising the urgent need to rebuild flagging confidence, if the carbon-trading system is not to collapse as it did once before, the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market last week announced that new rules for offset issuers will be announced in May. A separate process overseen by a different body is reviewing the claims that businesses make, based on their offset purchases. While all this might sound remote from the concerns of most people, the stakes could hardly be higher. Many environmentalists would prefer governments to oversee a transfer of resources from rich countries to the forested nations that need incentives to conserve precious carbon sinks. The reality is that due to the way our global economic system is organised, we all depend on market mechanisms.

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UK’s 9.4m cattle produce 14% of human-induced emissions, mostly from belching, but green groups remain sceptical

Cows in the UK could be given “methane blockers” to reduce their emissions of the greenhouse gas as part of plans to achieve the country’s climate goals.

Farmers welcomed the proposal, which follows a consultation that began in August on how new types of animal feed products that can reduce digestive emissions from the animals.

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Natalie Rabey, who relies on power-hungry machines to help her breathe, is campaigning for solar power for Victoria’s public housing

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Natalie Rabey doesn’t know how much time she has left. But she knows what she wants to do with it.

“While I’m still breathing I’d like to get some action on solar panels for people in public housing because it’s just terrible at the moment,” she says.

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Sustainability-linked sovereign debt-related (SLSD) bond issuances can grow 100-fold this decade to help address the crises trio of debt, climate, and nature, a report released Friday found, with linkages to nature markets seen as one of several steps that could help scale the instrument.

Being dull but safe won’t help Keir Starmer pull off a big win over the Conservatives. He needs to offer meatier fare than that

How dull can an opposition party be and still command the kinetic energy to win an election that requires a swing of up to 13 percentage points? Especially as the haul of seats it would need for an outright majority – given its dreadful losses in England in 2019, the SNP’s troubled but hardy grip on Scotland and the fact of fewer Welsh MPs being returned to Westminster – approaches the 145 gained by Tony Blair in the 1997 landslide.

Elections do not always vindicate early predictions. Much can happen between now and the election deadline of January 2025 (which effectively means going to the polls in the latter half of next year) that makes yesterday’s “impossible” look like tomorrow’s “told you so”. It would, however, be unwise for Labour to rely, as one of its sharpest advisers on strategy succinctly puts it, on “Tories being crap and Labour being a bit less crap”.

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The UK Infrastructure Bank (UKIB) has announced a first £12-million investment in a major nature restoration project in Scotland amid plans to grow its role in markets that underpin positive climate and biodiversity outcomes.

Campaigners say Rosebank, with a potential yield of 500m barrels, would seriously undermine legal commitment to net zero

A single new oil and gas field in the North Sea would be enough to exceed the UK’s carbon budgets from its operations alone, analysis has shown, as the government considers fossil fuel expansion despite the legally binding commitment to net zero.

Rosebank is the biggest undeveloped oilfield in the North Sea, with the potential to produce 500m barrels of oil, and has already cleared several regulatory hurdles, meaning a decision on its future could come soon.

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Ministers want to "make polluters pay", after more than 300,000 waste spills in England's waterways last year.

Rangers work to avoid repeat of last year’s devastating losses in breeding seabird colonies on the islands off the Northumberland coast

The Farne Islands will not open to visitors this spring in anticipation of bird flu once again ravaging breeding seabird colonies, after an “unprecedented” spate of deaths last year.

The rocky outcrop of islands off the coast of Northumberland has been looked after by the National Trust since 1925 and there are no previous records of so many endangered seabirds dying at once. More than 6,000 carcasses were picked up last year, which is believed to be the tip of the iceberg compared with how many birds would have died in total.

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

As the Natural Environmental Lead, you will play a central role in supporting SSE Enterprise Utilities’  strategic thinking around the transition to net zero, including how this can be achieved in a socially fair and just way. You will lead the development and implementation of natural environment strategies and nature based action plans that will improve biodiversity value. As the technical subject matter expert, you will also be responsible for identifying, analysing and reporting nature based solution data, understanding how biodiversity and climate change are interlink  and impacts the business, and inspiring industry-leading biodiversity action.

Carbon Market Consultant should have a deep understanding of global carbon market and will be working to lead our carbon finance initiatives in AFOLU sector, provide consultation services on carbon pricing, carbon finance market, carbon business models, including the analysis of both compliance and voluntary carbon markets, institutional and legal frameworks as well as main stakeholders in this field.

Nature Based Solution Manager will be working to provide technical expertise and will be involved in developing project registration for different projects across different methodologies (both voluntary and compliance)

An international climate consultancy and developer is seeking a Carbon Project Development Manager to join their experienced team. The ideal candidate will have experience in community-based project development, carbon methodologies, and offsetting.

Financial players this week saw their California Carbon Allowance (CCA) net long position reach the highest since last March, while compliance entities modestly added to their holdings across North American carbon markets, according to US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data published Friday.

The Washington Department of Ecology (ECY) raised the volume of current vintage allowances offered in the jurisdiction’s second cap-and-invest sale, while also tendering future vintage permits for the first time, according to an official notice published Friday.

The European Commission launched a consultation on Friday as part of its preparation for proposing EU 2040 climate goals next year to ensure the bloc hits its binding net zero emissions goal a decade later.

Scientists responsible for monitoring the health of New Zealand's glaciers have revealed a trend of declining snow and ice. The 2023 survey was the 46th undertaken in a collaboration between the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa), Victoria University of Wellington, and the Department of Conservation. The longstanding project captures an aerial portrait of more than 50 Southern Alps glaciers at a similar time each year to track how they change. The team spent nearly eight hours travelling back and forth over the alps, taking thousands of aerial photographs of glaciers of differing sizes and orientations to use in various national and international research projects, including one that builds 3D models used to compare snow and ice year-to-year

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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 North Carolina House budget language to block a RGGI-modelled cap-and-trade regulation and the advancement of a carbon offset bill in Washington state.