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UK’s ancient woodlands at risk from investment zones, say charities

The Guardian - Thu, 2022-10-20 01:00

Exclusive: Concern over government plans to relax environmental and planning rules to lure business

The government’s investment zones could put the UK’s ancient woodlands under threat, the head of the Woodland Trust has warned.

An ancient woodland is one that has existed continuously since at least 1600. They are a precious part of the country’s history, store large amounts of carbon and are important habitats for animals.

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A cuckoo: in German, ‘Kuckuck’ is a euphemism for devil | Helen Sullivan

The Guardian - Thu, 2022-10-20 01:00

Its call has freaked people out for centuries

Is there a scene more horrifying than the baby cuckoo alone in a nest: the waxy skin, the eyeballs covered in the skull, the sunken back – evolved to help it scoop the other eggs over the edge and on to the ground. Nobody has taught the baby how to eliminate its adoptive siblings. The cuckoo hatches with this instinct driving it: a natural born “obligate brood parasite”.

When a common European cuckoo has successfully laid her egg in a red warbler’s nest, she “gives a chuckle call, as if in triumph”: the call sounds like a sparrowhawk, a predator, which distracts the host. “The female cuckoo enhances her success by manipulating a fundamental trade-off in host defences between clutch and self-protection,” the authors who discovered this wrote, in a paper titled Female cuckoo calls misdirect host defences towards the wrong enemy. In one summer, a female cuckoo can lay 25 malevolent eggs.

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Global growth in CO2 emissions slows in 2022, IEA says

Carbon Pulse - Thu, 2022-10-20 00:52
Global CO2 emissions from energy production are set to rise by a little less than 1% this year, slowing last year’s jump as more renewables and electric vehicle capacity outweighed a post-pandemic tilt to coal, the IEA said on Wednesday.
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Switzerland tees up first auction of 2022 ETS allowances

Carbon Pulse - Thu, 2022-10-20 00:51
Switzerland has scheduled its first auction for carbon units from compliance year 2022 in its ETS.
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Save energy by not turning clocks back in October, says expert

The Guardian - Thu, 2022-10-20 00:25

Prof Aoife Foley says it would remain light for part of energy peak between 5pm and 7pm, reducing household bills

Households could save more than £400 a year on energy bills if clocks are not put back at the end of October, according to an expert, who said it would help people with the cost of living crisis and reduce pressure on the National Grid this winter.

Evening energy demand peaks between 5pm and 7pm during winter, when the sun has already set after daylight savings time (DST). If clocks didn’t go back, it would remain light for at least part of this time, reducing carbon emissions and energy demand.

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EPA sued over lack of plan to regulate water pollution from factory farms

The Guardian - Wed, 2022-10-19 22:41

Suit claims the agency has yet to respond to legal petition demanding tighter Clean Water Act enforcement for factory farms

Dozens of advocacy groups have filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), claiming the federal department has failed to come up with a plan to regulate water pollution from factory farms.

The suit claims the agency has yet to respond to a 2017 legal petition from more than 30 environmental groups demanding that the EPA tighten its Clean Water Act enforcement for factory farms, also known as concentrated animal feeding operations (Cafos), where thousands of animals are sometimes confined.

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Euro Markets: Midday Update

Carbon Pulse - Wed, 2022-10-19 21:55
European carbon continued to trade in a lacklustre fashion on Wednesday, with prices climbing early on as the market lacked its usual daily EUA auction supply while energy markets halted a five-day losing streak to post modest gains.
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Climate change less important to developing world despite rising threat of ecological catastrophe -study

Carbon Pulse - Wed, 2022-10-19 20:48
Climate change is largely a first world priority, while many poor and less developed countries, some facing the highest level of ecological threat from food insecurity, water shortages and natural disasters, rank many other issues higher, according to a study published on Wednesday.
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New and updated NDCs show only modest increase in climate policy ambition -report

Carbon Pulse - Wed, 2022-10-19 20:15
Countries have submitted 139 new or updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) as of September this year, but global policy commitments still fall well short of getting on the pathway needed to limit global warming to 1.5C, according to research from a non-profit think tank released on Wednesday.
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Govt support could unlock A$4.4 bln in Queensland carbon farming projects, report says

Carbon Pulse - Wed, 2022-10-19 20:09
Government support to help Queensland’s beef industry to retain and regrow trees could generate A$4.4 billion ($2.7 bln) in carbon farming projects, according to a report released Wednesday.
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Ministers may go ahead with nature-friendly scheme, farmers believe

The Guardian - Wed, 2022-10-19 19:00

Speculation had been rife that government would block Elms subsidies for creating wildlife habitats

Farmers in England say they are increasingly optimistic that the government may yet row back on its plans to cut funding for nature-friendly farming initiatives.

The farming minister, Mark Spencer, this week met the RSPB and the chair of the Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN), both organisations that had been critical of plans to remove subsidies for creating wildlife habitats.

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Australian environment groups push to close loophole classifying native forest biomass as renewable

Carbon Pulse - Wed, 2022-10-19 18:29
Australian climate and environmental groups are pushing the government to ban native forest use in biomass power generation from the country’s Renewable Energy Target (RET), arguing the forests would be better used for sequestering carbon.
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NZ submits bill to extend protection provisions for small ETS foresters

Carbon Pulse - Wed, 2022-10-19 18:15
The New Zealand government is seeking feedback on legislation that would extend the transition period given to small-scale foresters in its ETS to protect them from hefty fines.
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Digital travel booking firm partners with platform provider to boost lower carbon footprint trips

Carbon Pulse - Wed, 2022-10-19 18:00
Leading digital travel company Booking.com has formed a partnerhsip with Oslo-based climate tech outfit CHOOOSE with the aim to increase traveller awareness of the carbon footprint of their trips, and to eventually introduce carbon offsetting options for travellers, the companies announced on Wednesday.
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South Pole teams up with agtech firm to offer prepayment for agricultural offsets

Carbon Pulse - Wed, 2022-10-19 16:25
Global offset developer South Pole has teamed up with an agtech company to offer farmers across Europe and Africa prepayment for carbon credits from agricultural projects, with 130 farms signed up from the outset.
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UK government’s approach to waste crime ‘close to decriminalisation’

The Guardian - Wed, 2022-10-19 16:00

Commons report finds organised criminals view illegal dumping fines as business expense and there is no coherent plan

The government’s attitude to waste crime is “close to decriminalisation” as fines are so low, the chair of the Commons public accounts committee (Pac) has said.

Organised criminals view the relatively tiny fines as a business expense, MPs have warned, as illegal waste dumping becomes a lucrative income stream for gangs.

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Only 3% of England under nature protection - report

BBC - Wed, 2022-10-19 15:26
"Little progress" has been made in protecting nature despite a government commitment, concludes a new report
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Do we really care more about Van Gogh’s sunflowers than real ones? | George Monbiot

The Guardian - Wed, 2022-10-19 15:00

The Just Stop Oil activists are accused of using tactics that will backfire. But ‘respectable’ protest is roundly ignored

What does it take? How far must we go to alert other people to the scale of the crisis we face? Only one answer is clear: further than we have yet gone. We are hurtling towards planetary tipping points: the critical thresholds beyond which Earth systems collapse. The consequences are unimaginable. None of the horrors humanity has suffered, great as they are, even hints at the scale of what we now face.

Everywhere I see claims that the “extreme” tactics of environmental campaigners will prompt people to “stop listening”. But how could we listen any less to the warnings of scientists and campaigners and eminent committees? How could we pay any less attention to polite objections by “respectable” protesters to the destruction of the habitable planet? Something must shake us out of our stupor.

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Fracking caused daily earthquakes at UK’s only active site

The Guardian - Wed, 2022-10-19 15:00

Exclusive: Lancashire site responsible for 192 earthquakes over course of 182 days in 2018-19, Lib Dem analysis has found

Fracking caused an earthquake every day at the UK’s only active site at Preston New Road in Lancashire, analysis has found.

Between 2018 and 2019, the site near Blackpool was responsible for 192 earthquakes over the course of 182 days , according to analysis of House of Commons Library data by the Liberal Democrats.

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'Great Wall of Echuca': army of locals form sandbagging 'conga line' – video

The Guardian - Wed, 2022-10-19 14:53

Residents of the northern Victorian town spent hours constructing a wall of sandbags to fortify against incoming flood waters from the Murray River. The wall stretched the length of the town's NRMA Holiday Park. Echuca remains under an evacuation warning as the river peaks, and two rain fronts are forecast to hit the region over the next seven days

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