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Prices for avoidance offsets continued to sink over the past week as the spectre of recession distracted corporate attention from voluntary emission mitigation.

Footage released by Catalonia's fire brigade showed firefighters tackling a large wildfire on the French-Spanish border. The blaze spread around the French villages of Cerbère and Banyuls-sur-Mer on the Mediterranean coast before advancing into Spain, fire services said. Hundreds of firefighters were mobilised on both sides of the border to stem the blaze, which destroyed almost 1,000 hectares of land. An unusually dry winter and spring have raised fears of a repeat of last summer's fires and droughts across Europe. One firefighter was being treated with minor injures.

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PM’s spokesperson says people will continue to use national park’s English name despite change to Welsh one, Bannau Brycheiniog

Downing Street has stepped into a growing row over a decision to ditch the English name of the Brecon Beacons in favour of the old Welsh one, Bannau Brycheiniog.

The prime minister’s official spokesperson said he was sure people would continue to use the national park’s English name and questioned the move to drop a symbol of a flaming beacon from the park’s logo.

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Commodity trader ACT has acquired a controlling stake in a US-based software firm, expanding the Amsterdam-headquartered company's offerings in the fast-growing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) space.

The UK government is developing a new digital system for installations covered by the UK ETS to monitor, report and verify their emissions that will replace the existing ETSWAP system starting in the summer.

A Canadian-headquartered firm has attracted a number of potential buyers in a bidding process for carbon credits from one of its African reforestation projects, and is expecting to close its first major transaction by mid-June.

EUAs prices sank on Monday as demand appeared to decline as the end of the compliance season came nearer despite the daily auction clearing at the largest premium for nearly eight months, while energy prices gave back initial gains amid news of plentiful Asian gas supplies.

An industry coalition representing over 90% of UK airlines and industry outlined a roadmap on Monday consisting of technological and efficiency improvements coupled with up to nine million tonnes of carbon removals by mid-century that would see the sector comply with its net zero emissions pathway.

To get earthworms for fishing, people do a thing called ‘worm grunting’

An article on earthworms published in the New York Times in 1881 – “Habits of earth-worms: The curious work which they accomplish” – describes a helminth British empire. “In England they abound in the fields, in the paved courts of houses, though they are rarer in bog fields,” the author writes. “Worm castings have been found as high as 1,500 feet in the Scotch hills and at great altitudes in south India, and on the Himalaya mountains. Both in the extremes of a climate like England and in very hot weather, worms cease their work.”

Earthworms are hermaphrodites, which the journalist, all the way back in 1881, expresses in a glittering sentence: “Two sexes unite in one individual but two individuals pair”.

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European carbon market analysts believe that the impact of the German nuclear phaseout which concluded over the weekend has already been long-priced into the EU ETS, though the extension of plants' lifetimes over the past winter avoided a significant amount of power sector emissions.

One of Australia's biggest coal states is rapidly becoming a leader in big solar – but much more wind power and storage needs to come.

The post Big coal to big solar: NSW leads nation on new large-scale PV capacity appeared first on RenewEconomy.

New report reveals 2022 as highest year for new renewable construction commitments on record. And while there a fewer of them, big batteries are upsizing.

The post Record 5GW of new solar and wind underway – and big batteries are getting bigger appeared first on RenewEconomy.

A Canada-based non-profit has received $60 million from a funding initiative to scale up low-impact and circular clothing, paper, and packaging solutions that will eliminate the use of ancient and endangered forests from the supply chains of those industries, it announced Monday.

China has not yet introduced auctioning in its national carbon market, but regulators could easily formulate rules for paid allowance allocation based on the lessons learned in the pilot markets, researchers from a government-run think-tank have suggested.

UK progress on the rollout of carbon capture usage and storage (CCUS) is too slow despite fresh funding in the government's recent financial statement, according to experts at an event Monday, with overall ambition, regulatory clarity, and supply chain transparency cited as the main challenges ahead.

Conservationists blame changing weather patterns as low numbers of amphibians found across country

Frog and toad populations in England have been devastated by climate breakdown, conservationists fear, after the drought dried up their breeding ponds last year.

Usually at this time of year, ponds are full of jelly-like frog and toadspawn. But conservationists have found the habitats to be bare, with no amphibians or their young to be seen.

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A new report by an energy investment group has laid out what it describes as a credible pathway for Australia to decarbonise its electricity grid, while the Clean Energy Regulator has minted 240,000 new Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs).

Indians warned to stay vigilant during spell of very hot weather. Elsewhere, sandstorms plague China

The heatwave that has been plaguing the states of West Bengal, Bihar, and Andhra Pradesh in north-west India is forecast to continue through the coming week. Daytime temperatures of 40C have been recorded for several consecutive days in these regions, about 5C above the seasonal average.

This excessive heat is linked to a north-westerly flow of air, which is also bringing much drier than usual conditions. The authorities have advised people to be vigilant about their health by staying hydrated, wearing breathable clothing and avoiding street food, which could easily go off in these conditions. They have also closed schools and universities for a week in response to schoolchildren complaining about headaches.

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Marubeni Corp. has signed a deal with one of Japan’s largest producers of rice husk biochar to increase its production capacities and create carbon credits, according to a press release published Monday.

Compostable packaging is popular for environmental reasons, but it can be treated with ‘forever chemicals’ linked to health problems

A group of toxic PFAS chemicals that industry has claimed is safe to use in food packaging are concerning and present a health threat because they can break off and end up in food and drinks, a new peer-reviewed study finds.

The subgroup of PFAS, called “fluorotelomers”, have been billed as a safe replacement for a first generation of PFAS compounds now largely phased out of production in the US, Canada and the EU because of their high toxicity.

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