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China is open to using international carbon credits generated under the Paris Agreement’s Article 6, predominantly from Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries, to boost the supply of offsets in its national emissions trading scheme, a key carbon market advisor to the Chinese government told a side event at COP27 Tuesday.

Coral cuttings were grown on underwater frames and then planted in patches of bare reef at Fitzroy Island near Cairns. Four years later the corals have spawned for the first time and scientists hope to use the same technique to boost coral cover in other locations on the reef

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Whether or not you agree with their tactics, activists blocking roads and stopping traffic are on the right side of history

“When the anti-suffrage members of the government criticise militancy in women, it is very like beasts of prey reproaching the gentler animals who turn in desperate resistance at the point of death.” These words were spoken by Emmeline Pankhurst some 110 years ago. As the great-granddaughter of Emmeline, and the granddaughter of Sylvia Pankhurst, I’m often asked to make comparisons between the suffragette movement and the environmental movements of today. People regularly ask me whether I endorse the tactics of climate activists such as Just Stop Oil.

The climate activists who recently threw tomato soup on a Vincent van Gogh painting might easily be regarded as gentle beasts turning to desperate resistance. The climate crisis is already deadly for many around the world: in east Africa, one person dies of climate-induced hunger every 36 seconds. My great-grandmother advised suffragettes to go to the House of Commons and refuse to leave; to break windows; to “attack the secret idol of property”. The point she was making was that within every cause there is room for people to find their own versions of activism and militancy. The choice of tactics must not divide the movement.

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Dutch heavy industry’s carbon intensity is “hardly” improving compared to European benchmarks, the country’s emissions authority said Tuesday.

European carbon prices dropped for a second day in thin trading as the market eyed Wednesday's scheduled trilogue session on the REPowerEU initiative, while energy markets gained for a second day as speculative traders covered short positions after a North Sea gas field outage.

Cambodia’s ministry of environment has signed contracts with a group of international corporate buyers for over 10 million tonnes of verified emission reductions from three REDD+ projects.

Conference in Sharm el-Sheikh follows decade-long crackdown on civil society in Egypt

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“Honestly, what I want is to be in Sharm el-Sheikh and just scream,” said Amr Magdi of Human Rights Watch. Like dozens of other prominent human rights defenders, researchers and environmentalists, Magdi has been unable to attend Cop27 as he is exiled from Egypt because of his work.

“I just want to tell everyone about the injustice happening in Egypt. I can’t do it personally and I’m trying to do it with my work. I’m even helping others who are able to travel there to do this,” he said.

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A group of rich countries led by the US and Japan has launched a Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) agreement with Indonesia, whereby the Southeast Asian nation will receive $20 billion to shift away from coal generation and target an earlier and lower peak in its power generation emissions, they announced at the G20 summit in Bali on Tuesday.

Turkey has emerged as a bidder for to host the COP31 global climate summit, putting up a challenge to Australia and the Pacific Islands, which were thought to have been the sole contender to hold the talks in 2026 up until now, while Czechia and Brazil are reported to be respective candidates for COP29 and 30.

China has published a roadmap for its non-ferrous metals sector to top out carbon emissions by 2030, making the ETS-destined industry the latest in a growing line of similar sectoral guidelines.

Australia’s Clean Energy Regulator has approved 13 new offset projects, most of them soil carbon schemes, as Australian Carbon Credits Unit (ACCU) prices gather momentum amid an uptick in buying interest and record volume.

It’s time to ditch the generations-long argument between those who blame overpopulation and those who worry about consumption

• John Vidal is a former Guardian environment editor

By a remarkable coincidence, just as governments, campaigners and business owners are meeting in Egypt to address climate breakdown today, the world is officially crashing past the symbolic 8 billion population milestone . This means global population is on its way to 10 billion or more by the turn of the century.

But there will be no attempt by countries at Cop27 to connect the inexorable growth of human numbers with the seemingly unstoppable rise in temperatures. Despite the fact that the several billion more people expected to be alive in 70 years’ time will put more pressure on resources and will produce far more emissions, the population explosion is yet again being ignored, sidestepped or denied by world leaders.

John Vidal was the Guardian’s environment editor. He is the author of McLibel: Burger Culture on Trial

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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A joint editorial published by the Guardian and more than 30 partners calls for rich countries to pay their fair share towards solving the climate crisis

It’s only Tuesday but the end of the climate summit is rapidly approaching. Governments are focused on the final political agreement that will come out of Egypt. Every word matters and as we saw at the end of Cop26 last year, arguments in the final few hours can come down to whether the text includes “phase out” or “phase down” in a particular clause. Ministers arrived over the weekend in anticipation of the final tussle over wording. The role of 1.5C, finance, and loss and damage are understood to be the key dividing points.

Carbon Brief’s senior policy editor Simon Evans has a useful thread on what we might expect from the first draft of the cover decision.

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China’s thermal power generation in October was up by 3.2% from a year ago, outpacing a 1.3% gain in overall power output, government data showed Tuesday, though the country's power demand grew at a slower pace amid gradual economic recovery.

New Zealand carbon allowances have traded at an all-time high over the past two days amid persisting expectations that the government will agree to ETS recommendations made by the independent Climate Change Commission (CCC).

Data shows E coli and intestinal enterococci at levels unsafe for swimming at Wolvercote Mill Stream, near Oxford

The only official bathing water area on the River Thames has failed tests for bacteria associated with sewage pollution, data shows.

A section of Wolvercote Mill Stream, at Port Meadow, two miles outside Oxford, was designated as an official bathing area in April after a campaign by local people.

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Exclusive: Raw sewage releases exploit ‘monopoly’ of suppliers, argue corporate wrongdoing specialists

Water companies could be forced to pay their customers hundreds of millions in fines due to sewage pollution, a leading firm specialising in corporate wrongdoing has said.

Fideres LLP, which has conducted investigations into issues ranging from Covid test prices to cryptocurrency scams, is now setting its sights on England’s water companies.

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Almost all global coal consumption is now in countries that have committed to a net zero target, but use of the fuel has been stable at near record highs for a decade and immediate policy action is required to mobilise the financing necessary to kickstart a transition to clean energy alternatives worldwide, the International Energy Agency (IEA) urged on Tuesday.

Victoria Coalition leader Matthew Guy's campaign promise to "turbocharge" gas production can only be described as a hoax.

The post Victoria needs a plan to get off gas, not an impossible promise to burn more appeared first on RenewEconomy.

England’s tally of 80 confirmed incidents is second-highest figure since records began

There were 108 confirmed incidents of illegal persecution of birds of prey across Britain in 2021, according to the RSPB’s annual bird crime report.

England’s tally of 80 confirmed persecution incidents was the second-highest figure since records began in 1990, after an unprecedented surge in wildlife crime during the pandemic year of 2020. That year, a record 137 known incidents of bird of prey persecution were logged by the RSPB, with lockdowns seemingly creating an increased opportunity to kill raptors without detection.

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