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Controversial technology is at centre of ‘powering up Britain’ strategy, but critics argue it has ‘little merit’ and ‘delays real cuts in emissions’

The UK government will defy scientific doubts to place a massive bet on technology to capture and store carbon dioxide in undersea caverns, to enable an expansion of oil and gas in the North Sea.

Grant Shapps, the energy and net zero secretary, will on Thursday unveil the “powering up Britain” strategy, with carbon capture and storage (CCS) at its heart, during a visit to a nuclear fusion development facility in Oxford.

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Australia's main grid has too much solar and not enough wind. And the reality is that wind plus transmission is cheaper than solar plus storage.

The post Too much solar, not enough wind: Australia’s big renewable dilemma appeared first on RenewEconomy.

New guidelines for $2bn carbon offsetting industry aim to guide buyers towards high-quality credits

New quality standards for the $2bn carbon offsetting industry have been published to help guide buyers to high-quality credits following widespread concern that many are just hot air.

On Thursday, new guidelines for a “good” carbon credit programme were announced by the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM), an initiative that aims to reassure buyers about the quality of offsets they are buying for climate commitments and help them avoid credits that do nothing to mitigate climate change or might be linked to human rights violations.

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Two existing CORSIA programmes have received re-eligibility from the ICAO Council to supply carbon credits under the next phase of the global aviation offset scheme, as the UN body also advanced the vintage range for units during this period, according to a recent decision. 

Home battery installations charted a 55% increase in 2022, a new record and the sign of a turning point for consumer energy independence.

The post Home battery installs jump 55 pct as solar households turn to storage in record numbers appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Finished in 1986, the Bataan plant in the Philippines has never produced a kilowatt of electricity.

New York state is designing their economy wide cap-and-invest programme to enable a future linkage with the RGGI scheme, while fluidity parameters for members entering and exiting the power sector scheme are still under consideration for the final Model Rule update, RGGI states discussed on Wednesday at their third programme review public meeting.

In a plot reminiscent of the 2004 movie The Day After Tomorrow?, Australian scientists are warning that the Southern Ocean’s deep “overturning” circulation is slowing and headed for collapse. Matthew England, Scientia Professor and Deputy Director of the ARC Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science (ACEAS), UNSW Sydney Adele Morrison, Research Fellow, Australian National University Andy Hogg, Professor, Australian National University Qian Li, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Steve Rintoul, CSIRO Fellow, CSIRO Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Fear and Wonder is a new climate podcast, brought to you by The Conversation, and sponsored by the Climate Council. In episode two, we discuss the latest advances for measuring climate change. Joelle Gergis, Senior Lecturer in Climate Science, Australian National University Michael Green, Host + Producer, The Conversation Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

The EU should take immediate action to include engineered carbon removals into its emissions trading system to allow technologies now considered essential for meeting climate targets to scale, though an assortment of major questions surrounding such a move remain unanswered, an event heard Wednesday.

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Incident at Saltburn-by-the-Sea occurs in same area as number of die-offs reported in 2021 and 2022

Thousands more dead or dying shellfish have washed up on a beach on the same stretch of coast that saw a number of crustacean die-offs in autumn 2021 and last year.

Visitors to Saltburn-by-the-Sea, a few miles south-east of the River Tees, were met by the sight of hundreds of thousands of dead mussels on the shoreline, as well as starfish, crabs and razor clams.

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The global response to an escalating water crisis is belated and inadequate. But last week’s UN conference was an important marker

The more than 700 pledges that emerged from the UN water conference, which concluded last weekend, were an insufficient response to the worsening global water crisis. But the scientific panel that the UN has committed to create, along with a new water envoy, should help bring greater clarity and raise awareness of the multiplying risks. These include sea level rises, floods, droughts and other extreme weather caused by global heating, and the lack of access of about 2 billion people to clean drinking water. The trouble is that the commitments made by attenders – who included very few world leaders – are voluntary and unenforceable. Given the broken climate pledges of the past, there is every reason to worry that the promises will not be kept.

Many participants in the three days of talks in New York were angered by the prominent role played by corporations, including manufacturers who are heavy users of water, and the lack of representation of grassroots organisations from the poorer countries that are the worst affected. As with recent reports of the influence of oil companies in US universities, there are growing concerns about the ways in which businesses are seeking to shape environmental legislation, and public understanding of the threats, to promote their own short-term economic interests.

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Shipping is not yet ready for the EU ETS phase-in starting next year and the bloc's FuelEU Maritime law to stimulate sustainable fuels will be more important in setting the pace for decarbonisation, experts told a conference on Wednesday.

The EU co-legislators are ready to start the seventh, possibly last, trilogue negotiation on the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) late into Wednesday night, after an earlier member state representatives meeting lined up a possible conclusion.

Resolution hailed as ‘win for climate justice of epic proportions’ should make it easier to hold countries accountable for failures

A UN resolution was adopted on Wednesday that should make it easier to hold polluting countries legally accountable for failing to tackle the climate emergency, in a vote which was hailed as a historic victory for climate justice.

The UN general assembly adopted by consensus the resolution spearheaded by Vanuatu, a tiny Pacific island nation vulnerable to extreme climate effects, and youth activists to secure a legal opinion from the international court of justice (ICJ) to clarify states’ obligations to tackle the climate crisis – and specify any consequences countries should face for inaction.

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The EU will adopt a single methodology for each type of carbon removal activity, and these could be adapted from the voluntary market, a conference heard Wednesday.

Group of Swiss women and French ex-mayor suing their governments in first such cases heard by rights court

The governments of Switzerland and France have been accused of breaching the human rights of their citizens by not acting decisively enough on climate change, at a landmark legal hearing in Strasbourg.

A panel of judges at the European court of human rights heard petitions from a group of Swiss women and a French former mayor seeking to bolster climate action in their countries. Although climate litigation has spread quickly around the world, these are the first such cases to be heard by the ECHR.

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US steel and aluminium exports should not be exempt from the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) as the nation's climate measures aren't as ambitious and handing out a free pass would dissuade the US and other countries from raising their game, German MEP Peter Liese said Wednesday.

Gas flaring fell to its lowest level for more than a decade, according to a new report from the World Bank published Wednesday, declining more than 3% year-on-year though still emitting over 350 MtCO2e in 2022.