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Closures, delayed after Russia reduced Europe’s gas supplies, leave conundrum for energy policymakers

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Germany’s three remaining nuclear power stations will shut down on Saturday, 12 years after the Fukushima disaster in Japan accelerated the country’s exit from atomic energy.

The closures mark the conclusion of a stop-start approach to atomic energy and a victory for the country’s vociferous anti-nuclear movement.

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Readers say they are afraid to let children outside after warnings from authorities and neighbours’ threats

Cars, dog poo and delivery drivers: why children don’t play out anymore

Families are facing threats and police warnings for letting their children play in the street, Guardian readers have reported, leaving parents afraid to let their children spend time outside.

Liz Swift thought a basketball hoop on wheels pushed to the corner of her street on sunny afternoons would be a great way to keep her 13-year-old active. But the local authority did not agree. The family received letters from Waltham Forest council warning them that children playing in the street were “causing a nuisance to neighbours”.

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Canada’s GHG output increased in 2021 with the return of activity following COVID-19 shutdowns through the previous year, driving the country further away from 2030 Paris abatement pledges, according to government data published Friday.

Regulated entities trimmed their net length in California Carbon Allowances (CCAs) while building slightly in RGGI, as speculators did not significantly alter their positions across the two North American cap-and-trade systems, according to US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data published Friday.

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 a meeting of the Pennsylvania governor's RGGI working group, a Michigan plan for a low-carbon fuel standard (LCFS) and clean energy standard, an Oregon commission's GHG reduction recommendations and legislative proposal to study a lower diesel carbon intensity benchmark, and the advancement of offset-related legislation in California.

An activist group for Indigenous peoples has lodged a grievance with a jurisdictional REDD+ standards body over claims that the Guyanese government did not receive consent from communities to distribute tens of millions of avoided deforestation carbon offsets.

A UK-based carbon standard is due to launch next week having built up a portfolio of pilot activity in regenerative agriculture, as corporate interest in existing options for British land-based carbon credits is seen waning.

Exchange operator ICE Futures US announced on Friday the delayed launch date for three Washington Carbon Allowance (WCA) futures contracts, four months into commencement of the newest carbon market in North America.

EU member states handed out a total of 75 million more free EUAs to industrial plants over the last four weeks, bringing the total issuance to around 76% of this year's maximum, though five countries are yet to begin issuing permits to installations.

The Scottish government is inviting prospective suppliers to bid on a £66-million peatland restoration contract.

The EU should look closer to home when it comes to diversifying its supply of critical raw materials (CRMs) needed for the energy transition by developing sustainable mining within its borders, according to a leading expert, as rising export restrictions are seen hindering global climate ambition.

Inflation and the climate crisis are hitting developing economies hardest. Trade is the key to helping them

• Mia Mottley is prime minister of Barbados. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is director-general of the World Trade Organization

The Covid-19 pandemic derailed economies everywhere, and in most developing countries incomes remain well below pre-pandemic levels. Inflation, made worse by the war in Ukraine, is particularly painful for low-income and vulnerable countries, where essentials like food and energy dominate household budgets. Higher interest rates are exacerbating debt distress across much of the developing world, squeezing public and private investment and paring back growth. To compound this, the climate crisis is hitting the very countries that contribute least to the problem, and which have the most limited means to cope.

Already, we are seeing the reversal of hard-won development gains. The World Bank estimates that the pandemic and the war in Ukraine have pushed up to 95 million more people into extreme poverty. The World Food Programme projects that almost 350 million people may be food insecure in 2023, more than double the number in 2020. In the wake of the pandemic, unemployment is higher, gender gaps are wider and the share of young people with neither jobs nor sufficient education has risen, according to the International Labour Organization.

Mia Amor Mottley, SC, MP is prime minister of Barbados. Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is director-general of the World Trade Organization

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Dartmoor National Park Authority is preparing to appeal against court decision to overturn right to wild camp

A wealthy landowner has accused Dartmoor National Park Authority (DPNA) officials of “acting like campaigners” as they prepare to appeal against a court decision to overturn the right to wild camp.

Earlier this year, as a result of a court case brought by a local landowner, backpack camping, also known as wild camping, was made illegal on Dartmoor without landowner permission, overturning what campaigners claim was a long-held right to camping on the moor.

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The Greens say a gas tax that “actually works” could raise $94.5 billion in the coming decade, in new push for reform of the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax.

The post Green propose gas tax “with teeth” that could deliver $95bn in revenue appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Nordic tech firms including music streaming service Spotify and e-payment company Klarna are set to contribute a further $5 million in 2023 to a fund set up as an alternative to carbon offsetting.

UCLA's Institute for Carbon Management has developed what it’s called a first-of-its-kind ocean-based carbon capture system that removes CO2 from seawater, a process than can then lead to more of the gas being absorbed from the atmosphere.

European carbon prices snapped their two-day losing streak on Friday morning, posting a modest gain in very light trading, while energy markets were once again weaker as the market absorbed the impact of comfortable gas supplies.

‘Exceptional’ super-colony of endangered barbastelles found in path of proposed road near Norwich

The centre of an “exceptional” super-colony of one of Britain’s most endangered bats has been discovered in the path of a proposed road across a chalk stream.

A planning application for the Western Link dual carriageway near Norwich is expected to be submitted this summer despite researchers identifying the UK’s largest known colony of barbastelle bats in the threatened Wensum valley woodlands.

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