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US President Joe Biden's administration aims to expand its support for carbon removals beyond direct air capture by launching a purchasing programme covering all forms of removals by year-end, a government official told a conference this week, as a bipartisan group of senators on Friday released a bill to support such solutions through a reverse auction. 

A Montreal-based soil science firm this week announced it has netted C$15 mln ($11 mln) from investors to expand its technology that it says will help establish a reliable method to verify nature-based carbon credits.

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 the updated status of several carbon market and climate-related California bills, and the Vermont legislature overriding a veto of a bill to draft clean heat standard regulations.

EU member states made scant progress over the past fortnight in handing this year's free EUA allocation to heavy industry, according to data released late Friday.

Gabon is in talks with the Nature Conservancy (TNC) to facilitate a $500 mln debt swap for a marine conservation project in the country arranged by Bank of America, according to a media report. 

UK-based SSE Renewables has given the green light for a 150MW battery energy storage system (BESS) at the site of a former coal-fired power plant.

Representatives of companies operating in Ukraine's agricultural, energy, steel, cement, chemical, woodworking and processing industries announced on Friday that they have commenced research towards implementing a carbon pricing system in the country once its brutal conflict with Russia ends.

France has announced a new tax credit for green investments and cash incentives for purchasing new electric cars made in Europe, while President Emmanuel Macron called for “a European regulatory pause” late on Thursday during a speech about reindustrialising the economy.

A carbon credit rating agency has upgraded a Verra-accredited afforestation project in Chile following a review, noting a low chance of over-crediting because of the project’s conservative approach to carbon accounting.

Officers arrest 27 people and seize tonnes of baby eels, seen as a delicacy but critically endangered

Police in Spain and France have arrested 27 people and seized 1.5 tonnes of live baby eels, as well as goods worth more than €2m (£1.7m), after breaking up a gang dedicated to breeding the critically endangered fishes and smuggling them to China.

Officers also recovered tonnes of frozen baby eels, called elvers, which are prized as a delicacy in Spain and parts of Asia, that had not been subject to any food safety checks and were not suitable for human consumption.

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European carbon prices on Friday clawed back much of the previous session's losses as strong demand in the final auction of the week before a reduced programme next week triggered more short-covering, sources said, while energy markets continued to weaken.

Land equivalent to an area half the size of Australia has been abandoned over the past five decades, though policymakers and conservationists have spent little time trying to understand how that impacts biodiversity and how such territory can contribute to the world meeting its targets under the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), according to research published this week.

Astronomers have discovered what they believe to be the largest explosion ever detected.

Allowance prices in China’s national emissions market edged up over the past week amid sustained liquidity, though bearish sentiment lingers as participants are still awaiting more guidance from the government.

Chemicals yield profit of about $4bn a year for the world’s biggest PFAS manufacturers, Belgium-based NGO found

The societal cost of using toxic PFAS or “forever chemicals” across the global economy totals about $17.5tn annually, a new analysis of the use of the dangerous compounds has found.

Meanwhile, the chemicals yield comparatively paltry profits for the world’s largest PFAS manufacturers – about $4bn annually.

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A US-headquartered offset developer has teamed up with a Shell subsidiary to finance one of the largest household energy efficiency lighting projects in the world, the company announced on Friday.

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs, including a pollinating bee, injured owls and a pelican hungry for ice-cream

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Until now, a limitation of records of past fires is that these have come from sediments laid down in lakes and bogs. Records for dryland regions have been lacking, but dune deposits can fill the gap. Nicholas R Patton, Postdoctoral Researcher, Integrated Terrain Analysis Program, Desert Research Institute James Shulmeister, Adjunct Professor, University of Queensland, and Professor and Head of School of Earth and Environment, University of Canterbury Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Businesses that put together bids for flood doors, non-return valves and waterproof floors say they have spent tens of thousands

A £50m scheme to protect thousands of homes from flooding by the autumn has been pulled by the Environment Agency.

Businesses that put together bids for the scheme to provide homes in England with flood defences including flood doors, non-return valves and waterproof floors, say they have spent tens of thousands preparing their bids.

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Surely we want to encourage more storage and firming, so we why don’t we have a NEM-wide policy like the LRET?

The post Australia needs a lot more four-hour batteries – but first we need the right policies appeared first on RenewEconomy.