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Activists and experts say green light for coal would show UK’s ‘posturing, double standards and broken promises’

For the UK to open a new coalmine would be “hypocritical”, would “send the wrong message”, and makes “a mockery” of climate action, developing country activists and experts involved in global climate negotiations have said.

A decision on whether to go ahead with a new coalmine in Cumbria is expected from the UK government as soon as Wednesday.

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EU co-legislators are meeting late on Tuesday to try to reach agreement on how aviation should be treated in the bloc's carbon market, though one well-placed source expected the talks to need more time.

Just Stop Oil’s Hannah Hunt and Eben Lazarus found guilty after glueing themselves to Constable’s The Hay Wain

Two climate protesters have been ordered to compensate the National Gallery after they were found guilty of causing more than £1,000 of damage to the Hay Wain, probably John Constable’s best-known painting.

In July Just Stop Oil supporters Hannah Hunt, 23, and Eben Lazarus, 22, taped printed posters of a dystopian reimagining of the landscape over its canvas, before glueing their hands to its gilt frame.

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The Argentinian province of Cordoba last week held a blockchain-based pilot voluntary carbon credit auction for GHG mitigation activities not registered with international standards.

The ‘30x30’ proposal is supported by more than 100 countries but Indigenous peoples and human rights campaigners have significant doubts

Conserving 30% of Earth for nature would be equivalent to the 1.5C climate target, Canada’s environment minister has said, as senior UN figures warn action on nature loss at Cop15 this month is key to helping solve the biodiversity and climate crises.

Steven Guilbeault, a former environmental activist who is now Canada’s climate minister, said that agreeing to conserve nearly a third of the planet by the end of the decade is a key aim for his country at the biodiversity summit, which is being held in Montreal over the next two weeks.

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Several companies traded Xpansiv CBL’s new standardised contract for cookstove offsets on its launch day on Monday, with units representing some 210,000 tonnes of CO2e changing hands.

Household goods such as coffee and chocolate will have to pass strict checks before they are sold in the EU.

An Indian developer and consultancy, which has previously seen a large forestry scheme rejected, is behind three huge new REDD projects attempting to bring fresh annual supply of more than 38 million carbon credits into the voluntary carbon market (VCM).

The UN’s biodiversity negotiations opened in Montreal on Tuesday, with high-level statements noting the significant challenges that lie ahead in forging a new global framework to halt and reverse the alarming rate of nature loss, as global negotiators brace for intense negotiations over a currently heavily bracketed text.

Regulator calls spending on network improvements ‘extremely disappointing’ after companies undershot budgets

Ofwat has criticised water companies for failing to invest enough in treatment plants to stop the overuse of raw sewage discharges.

The water regulator for England and Wales said on Tuesday that water and wastewater companies were falling behind on their investment plans, leaving promised service improvements behind schedule or undelivered.

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EUAs rebounded 0.8% on Tuesday morning as speculative positioning kept support for Dec-22s amid the imminent options expiry, as colder weather prospects added strength.

Nature is under threat as never before, but what does that actually mean? We explain what is at stake – and why action at Cop15 is more crucial than ever

Despite humanity’s many technological advances, we can only manage a well-informed guess at the true extent of life on Earth: 8.7 million species, according to the most commonly cited figure, with other estimates ranging between 5.3 million and one trillion.

There is greater certainty about the decline of biodiversity that human behaviour is driving, with species dying off as much as 1,000 times more frequently than before the arrival of humans 60m years ago, as one study suggests.

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Massive 26GW wind and solar project in Pilbara has a new name, a new controlling shareholder and a new focus on domestic markets.

The post Huge 26GW renewable project in Pilbara has new name, new partner and new focus appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Shanghai has announced a work plan for the establishment of its regional carbon offsetting programme, which will be linked to the city's emissions trading scheme by 2025, though questions remain as to what offset types will be allowed to use for compliance under the local ETS.

The NSW state government will allocate A$10 million ($6.7 mln) in the first round of a grants scheme to assist groups in the agricultural and land sectors with carbon abatement projects, it announced on Tuesday.

New analysis has highlighted potential future changes that could be made to Australia’s Safeguard Mechanism after changes in the policy’s framework in the government’s below-baseline crediting legislation.

The EU has reached a provisional political agreement on a bill to prevent the import of goods linked to deforestation, after late-night trilogue talks on Monday between negotiators from the Parliament, Commission, and Council of member states.

Fewer than 5% of global companies have assessed the impact they have on nature and fewer than 1% understand how their businesses depend on natural ecosystem services, according to a survey published this week.

Ministers have shattered the legal system and are failing to tackle the climate crisis. Now they are making protesters their scapegoats

Indigo Rumbelow is an activist with Just Stop Oil

It’s a strange paradox. The tougher that Tory home secretaries talk, the faster law and order seems to break down. Whoever’s in the role – Grant Shapps, Priti Patel, Suella Braverman – the same rhetoric grinds on, day after day: cracking down, clamping down, demanding tougher action. Now the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has joined in, reportedly launching “Operation Get Tough” and demanding the police use all the new powers available to them through the latest sweep of anti-protest laws.

Who’s listening? Certainly not us. Just Stop Oil knows first-hand that the legal system is collapsing. Some of our supporters’ cases can’t even be heard until 2024. Many of my friends will spend this Christmas in prison, most held without a trial, on remand. Jan Goodey, the first person to be convicted under the government’s new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, was sentenced to six months in prison just last week, the first of many protesters who will probably be criminalised for caring. Instead of facing up to the challenge of ending new oil and gas, the government would prefer to silence the alarm bells.

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Inger Andersen spells out the challenges facing the planet as Cop15 delegates gather inMontreal

The UN’s environment chief has warned that “we are at war with nature” and must “make peace”, as countries gather at Cop15 in Montreal to agree a deal to protect the planet’s biodiversity.

“We’ve just welcomed the 8 billionth member of the human race on this planet. That’s a wonderful birth of a baby, of course. But we need to understand that the more people there are, the more we put the Earth under heavy pressure,” said Inger Andersen, the executive director of the UN environment programme.

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