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The Quebec environment ministry on Tuesday said it will consider potential regulatory amendments to its cap-and-trade programme this year that may address its emissions budget stringency and the allowance surplus in the linked market with California.

EU lawmaker scrutiny of the bloc's proposal for a certification scheme for voluntary carbon removals is taking shape, with senior MEPs already wary about leaving key decisions to Brussels officials and considering how removals would be included in the bloc's ETS.

EU legislators have a delicate task crafting law to eliminate F-gases used in fridges and air conditioners, because the potent climate-heating substances are also found in many of the heat pumps expected to play a critical role in the bloc's efforts to reach net zero emissions.

The RGGI states next month will host the first meeting since 2021 of the cap-and-trade market’s third programme review, intending to assess the successes, impacts, and design elements of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic US power sector scheme.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s administration on Tuesday announced that major government suppliers will need to disclose their GHG emissions and implement science-based GHG reduction targets, mimicking a recent proposal south of the border.

An unusual feeding technique only recently observed by scientists was documented nearly 2,000 years ago, a study suggests

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Mysterious whale feeding behaviour only documented by scientists in the 2010s has been described in ancient texts about sea creatures as early as two millennia ago, new research suggests.

In 2011, Bryde’s whales in the Gulf of Thailand were first observed at the surface of the water with their jaws open at right angles, waiting for fish to swim into their mouths. Scientists termed the unusual technique, then unknown to modern science, as “tread-water feeding”. Around the same time, similar behaviour was spotted in humpback whales off Canada’s Vancouver Island, which researchers called “trap-feeding”.

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An unusual whale feeding technique first documented by scientists in the 2010s may have actually been described in ancient texts two millennia ago, researchers say. Researchers from Flinders University identified striking parallels between the behaviour of tread-water feeding and a sea creature named hafgufa from 13th century Old Norse texts. It is thought hafgufa can be traced back to the aspidochelone, a sea monster that first appeared in the ancient Greek text Physiologus. 'Definitive proof for the origins of myths is exceedingly rare and often impossible, but the parallels here are far more striking and persistent than any previous suggestions,' the researchers noted.

• Research reveals climate crisis is driving a rise in human-wildlife conflicts
• Record number of dolphins wash up on France’s Atlantic beaches
• Going to see a man about a dog: canine DNA tests lead to family reunions

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The UK government has issued carbon allowances for 2023 to stationary installations and aviation operators in the British carbon market, the market operator said on Tuesday.

First Nations people should have a real say in decisions affecting them and their Country. Here, we look at how two current policy-making efforts measure up. Rowan Foley, CEO of Aboriginal Carbon Foundation, Indigenous Knowledge Lily O'Neill, Senior Research Fellow, Melbourne Climate Futures, The University of Melbourne Lisa McMurray, Atlantic Fellow, The University of Melbourne Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Two reinsurance companies have agreed to a $125 million of collateralized reinsurance cover deal that includes a first of its kind carbon offset feature for the environmental impact of rebuilding homes after natural disasters, a press release announced Tuesday.

An investment company has raised £242 million ($293.5 mln) from UK local government pension schemes for the initial close of a new global sustainable timberland plantation fund, far short of its $1 bln target.

Wood burning is one of biggest sources of small particle pollution in Britain, having doubled in a decade

An influential parliamentary committee is likely to consider arguments for a ban on domestic wood burning in urban areas this parliament, owing to concerns over its growing impact on air quality.

Philip Dunne, the chair of the environmental audit committee, said: “Air quality is something we are likely to look at before the end of this parliament. It’s a serious issue.”

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Solar Radiation Modification might provide an auxiliary tool to help reduce climate risk, limit suffering, lessen ecosystem degradation and improve the chances of sustainable development, but SRM is far from perfect, write scientists Claudia Wieners, Ben Hofbauer, Iris de Vries, Matthias Honegger, Daniele Visioni, Herman Russchenberg, and Tyler Felgenhauer in an open letter already supported by around 50 global scientists.

Scientists are calling for increased research and governance into solar geoengineering as the controversial practice may be deployed to help curb warming amid accelerating climate change, cautioning against the current free-for-all that has resulted in the first privately-funded "carbon cooling" credits.

Draft plan addresses inflated claims about products’ environmental credentials

Companies will have 10 days to justify green claims about their products or face “effective, proportionate and dissuasive” penalties, under a draft EU crackdown on greenwashing seen by the Guardian.

Inflated claims by firms about their products’ environmental bona fides have grown along with public awareness of global heating in recent years.

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Complaint filed against retail giant after an experiment found that the teabags did not biodegrade after a year buried in soil

A team of researchers has filed a complaint against Tesco, saying its “biodegradable” teabags do not fulfil that claim following an experiment that involved burying them in soil for a year to see what happened.

Dr Alicia Mateos-Cárdenas from University College Cork (UCC) set out to investigate how well teabags advertised as biodegradable broke down. She buried 16 Tesco Finest Green Tea with Jasmine pyramid teabags in garden soil. However, when the teabags were dug up, they remained intact.

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Australian Academy of Science report says country is behind others in carbon dioxide removal and a nationally coordinated approach is urgently needed

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Australia should set targets for the amount of carbon dioxide that could be pulled permanently from the atmosphere using “carbon drawdown” techniques like tree planting and direct air capture, according to a report from the Australian Academy of Science.

A national coordinated approach is urgently needed to promote projects that remove carbon dioxide from the air, the report says, with a lack of policies seeing Australia fall behind other countries.

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Almost one-third of homes have panels, the highest in the world, says SunWiz, and will soon outpace capacity from coal

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Australia’s rooftops now boast 20 gigawatts of solar panels and will soon have the capacity to produce more electricity than the country’s entire coal industry, according to the industry consultancy SunWiz.

Almost one in three Australian households have solar photovoltaics – or solar panels - the highest penetration in the world. Queensland had the highest share of solar panels installed on dwellings deemed suitable for the technology with an 82% penetration, ahead of South Australia’s 78%, New South Wales’ 51% and Victoria’s 43%.

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Were we able to perceive afresh the sheer scale of fossil fuel impact we might be horrified, but because this is an old problem too many don’t see it as a problem

If fossil fuel use and impact had suddenly appeared overnight, their catastrophic poisonousness and destructiveness would be obvious. But they have so incrementally become part of everyday life nearly everywhere on Earth that those impacts are largely accepted or ignored (that they’ve also corroded our politics helps this lack of alarm). This has real consequences for the climate crisis. Were we able to perceive afresh the sheer scale of fossil fuel impact we might be horrified. But because this is an old problem too many don’t see it as a problem.

Human beings are good at regarding new and unfamiliar phenomena as dangerous or unacceptable. But long-term phenomena become acceptable merely because of our capacity to adjust. Violence against women (the leading form of violence worldwide) and slower forms of environmental destruction have been going on so long that they’re easy to overlook and hard to get people to regard as a crisis. We saw this with Covid-19, where in the first months most people were fearful and eager to do what it took to avoid contracting or spreading the disease, and then grew increasingly casual about the risks and apparently oblivious to the impacts (the WHO charts almost 7 million deaths in little over three years).

Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. Her most recent books are Recollections of My Nonexistence and Orwell’s Roses

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Popularity of sport utility vehicles driving higher oil demand and climate crisis, say experts

The continued global rise in sales of SUVs pushed their climate-heating emissions to almost 1bn tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2022, according to the International Energy Agency.

The 330m sport utility vehicles on the roads produced emissions equivalent to the combined national emissions of the UK and Germany last year. If SUVs were a country, they would rank as the sixth most polluting in the world.

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