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Boris Johnson was far more eco-conscious than recent Conservative predecessors. But this mini-budget is a reversion to type

The dash for growth by Kwasi Kwarteng means unshackling City bankers and property developers from the taxes and regulations that prevent them from paving over what’s left of Britain’s green and pleasant land.

The humble concrete mixer will be elevated to exalted status. There will be more executive homes built on greenfield sites. More distribution sheds dotted along busy A-roads. And more urban renewal of the kind that involves tearing down buildings in a plume of dust and carbon emissions to replace them with something not much better, at least not in environmental terms.

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Huge $1.7 billion copper and nickel mine in remote part of Australia will feature world's biggest off-grid renewables plant, delivering low cost and low emissions minerals.

The post Huge new nickel mine aims for 100 pct renewables, with world’s biggest renewable micro-grid appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Bee bus stops first appeared in the Dutch city of Utrecht. Now the UK is planning for more than 1,000 and there is growing interest across Europe and in Canada and Australia

Butterflies and bees are getting their own transport network as “bee bus stops” start to pop up around UK cities and across Europe. Humble bus shelter roofs are being turned into riots of colour, with the number of miniature gardens – full of pollinator-friendly flora such as wild strawberries, poppies and pansies – set to increase by 50% in the UK by the end of this year.

Leicester is leading the charge with 30 bee bus stops installed since 2021. Derby has 18, and there are others in Southhampton, Newcastle, Sunderland, Derby, Oxford, Cardiff and Glasgow. Brighton council installed one last year after a petition was signed by almost 50,000 people.

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A daily summary of our news plus bite-sized updates from around the world.

The government is committed to extracting more oil and gas in the North Sea.

Emitters padded their California Carbon Allowance (CCA) net length for the fifth week in a row, while financial players kept their positions mostly steady, according to US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data published Friday. 

The South African Treasury has rejected a plea from business groups to decelerate the government’s proposed trajectory of national carbon tax increases.

The Oregon Environmental Quality Commission (EQC) on Friday voted to increase the stringency of the GHG targets under the province’s low-carbon fuel standard, giving the state the deepest carbon intensity (CI) reduction goals in any North American programme.

A senior European energy and carbon analyst from a French bank has joined a London-based clean energy fund management company, Carbon Pulse has learned.

Countries from the Global North and South are diverging on the stringency of the post-2023 emissions baseline for the CORSIA global aviation offset mechanism, as UN body ICAO’s Council puts forth a compromise ahead of a decision next month.

Fridays for Future ‘strikes’ in about 450 places demanded rich countries pay for damage from global warming

Thousands of young people have staged a coordinated “global climate strike” across Asia, Africa and Europe in a call for reparations for those worst affected by climate breakdown.

From New Zealand and Japan to Germany and the Democratic Republic of Congo, activists walked out of schools, universities and jobs to demand rich countries pay for the damage global warming is inflicting on the poor.

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A ratings agency has placed three Uruguayan forestry projects “on watch” for a potential ratings change, alongside a methane recovery project in the Netherlands.

Pacific Island nation makes world-first call to halt the expansion of new fossil fuel projects through the establishment of an international treaty.

The post Vanuatu makes historic call for global treaty end fossil fuel era appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Czechia is proposing the EU raise most of a €20 billion RePowerEU revenue target from selling carbon allowances earmarked for the bloc’s Innovation Fund amid member state objections to solely exploiting units held in the MSR, an official told Carbon Pulse on Friday.

The Swiss executive governing body has approved three bilateral agreements with Morocco, Malawi, and Uruguay, creating the framework conditions for the country to trade international carbon emissions reductions units to count towards Paris Agreement climate goals.

The tiny South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu has been making waves at the UN this week, calling for an international mechanism to stop the expansion of all new fossil fuel projects.

The newly-installed UK government made a major energy security push on Friday, announcing plans to fast-track both low-carbon and fossil fuel projects even as it submitted a revised climate pledge to the UN detailing a pathway towards its binding 2050 net zero emissions target.

In my group, Nanas Against Fracking, we know community organising is not easy. But we are a force to be reckoned with

Hysterical “luddites” funded by Russia was how Jacob Rees-Mogg, in parliament yesterday, described concerned residents opposed to fracking in England. What a slap in the face for those of us who have spent more than a decade trying to protect our communities from the dangerous, polluting shale gas industry. We have never received so much as a rouble or a vodka shot for our efforts.

Here in Lancashire, we actually believed we had won this fight – twice. Our first victory was in 2015, when Lancashire county council rejected planning applications from the fracking firm Cuadrilla for two large sites between Preston and Blackpool. This decision was overruled by Westminster in 2016, and work began in 2017 to transform the Preston New Road site from a field where cows graze into a shale gas site. Nanas Against Fracking, a group I co-founded, started protesting at the site that day too, and continued for more than 1,000 days.

Tina Rothery is a Blackpool resident, campaigner and co-founder of Nanas Against Fracking

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UK allowances will maintain their premium to EUAs in the coming years as the British market remains structurally tighter than its European counterpart, even as forward hedging demand for UKAs declines over the rest of the decade, according to an analyst.

Participants view Milky Way and Andromeda galaxy as campaigners bemoan restrictions on right to roam

“Welcome to the night,” beamed a right to roam campaigner welcoming a coach load of city dwellers to the pitch dark stillness of remote Northumberland countryside on a chilly September evening.

The passengers had been attracted by a secretive offer spread on Instagram and by old-school posters pinned up in Newcastle.

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