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This event was the world’s worst incidence of mangrove tree deaths in recorded history. These photos show the devastating scale of this disaster. Norman Duke, Professor of Mangrove Ecology, James Cook University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

The new State of the Environment report shows Australia’s soil and the life it holds is in poor condition. We need to protect our underground biodiversity. Adam Frew, Lecturer and ARC DECRA Fellow, University of Southern Queensland Christina Birnbaum, Lecturer, University of Southern Queensland Eleonora Egidi, Researcher, Western Sydney University Meike Katharina Heuck, PhD Candidate, University of Southern Queensland Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

The grade of a high-yielding VCS-accredited pipeline gas leak offset project was downgraded by a ratings agency this week.

Vladimir Putin’s cynical extortion makes as eloquent a case for the clean energy transition as any environmental idealist

When Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine, he gambled that it would be won quickly and that the west would acquiesce in a fait accompli. He underestimated Ukrainian resilience and European readiness to punish Kremlin aggression with sanctions. That forced Mr Putin into a longer game. Now he is betting that European reliance on Russian gas exports will corrode western solidarity, leading to a degrading of sanctions and restored tolerance of Moscow’s territorial aggressions.

To hasten that scenario, Russia has cut the flow of gas through the main east-west pipeline. The Kremlin’s message of strategic extortion is not subtle: go softer on the war and have a cosier winter; stay tough and freeze. European solidarity is just about holding. Earlier this week EU members agreed a deal to cut gas usage by 15% as part of a phased move away from reliance on Russian supplies. But the deal is diluted by opt-outs and exceptions for various countries. Hungary, the EU state that is cosiest with the Kremlin, has not signed up at all.

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The deteriorating global economic outlook has split the voluntary carbon market (VCM), with a top half seeking to trade and retire more expensive nature-based solutions and a bottom half seeking out cheaper and older vintages, according to analysts.

The scientist had a Eureka moment sparking his idea everything on Earth was interconnected.

From Spain to Hungary, output of staples such as corn forecast to fall by up to 9%, adding to impact of Ukraine war on food security

Yields of key crops in Europe will be sharply down this year owing to heatwaves and droughts, exacerbating the impacts of the Ukraine war on food prices.

Maize, sunflower and soya bean yields are forecast by the EU to drop by about 8% to 9% due to hot weather across the continent. Supplies of cooking oil and maize were already under pressure, as Ukraine is a major producer and its exports have been blocked by Russia.

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James Lovelock, the creator of the Gaia hypothesis, has died on his 103rd birthday. The climate scientist originated the theory that life on Earth is self-regulating. Lovelock often warned the global population of the stark reality of climate change and was committed to his work in his one-man laboratory in an old mill in Cornwall since the mid-1960s

• James Lovelock, creator of Gaia hypothesis, dies on 103rd birthday 

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The Canadian federal government's two proposed options to assign a carbon pricing mechanism to its oil and gas sector are dividing opinion among experts on the likelihood of the outcome and which option is the easiest to implement.

Greece's prime minister has sent a letter to the European Commission proposing an EU-wide mechanism to compensate industry for reducing their gas and electricity use for the coming winter.

As our brains return, briefly, to room temperature, it’s time to think about what we do next

A week after The Great British Bake In, it’s 13C and drizzling here: North Yorkshire is (temporarily) healing. I have been giddily sending pictures of pewter skies and cagoule sightings to my sister who, unwisely for a red-headed northerner, lives in steamy Paris. The whole business feels like a collective fever dream, but, of course, it wasn’t: as melted roads and scorched verges, drifts of autumnal leaves and warnings of an imminent drought declaration demonstrate, and as thousands of climate scientists testify hourly with weary urgency.

So, as our brains return to room temperature, it’s time to work out how to respond next time. Nationally, structurally, our lack of preparedness for extreme heat is a disaster in waiting, as more wearily urgent experts keep telling us. But, given the far more pressing business of choosing the ugliest possible font for leadership contest materials, and Dominic Raab explaining we should “enjoy the sunshine” shortly before much of the A2 caught fire, it looks like we’ll be thrown back on our own resources.

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Plans for the site have got the go-ahead. The knock-on effect for Suffolk’s rivers and seawater will soon be clear

Last week, the government gave the go-ahead for a new nuclear power station to be developed on the Suffolk coast. Providing low-carbon electricity for about 6m homes, Sizewell C will stand alongside two existing stations, Sizewell B and the decommissioned Sizewell A. I live close enough to see the 60-metre tall, white dome of Sizewell B almost every day. When I want to torture myself, I look at developer EDF’s “construction phase visualisations” of the 1,380-acre building site, with its towering spoil heaps and forest of cranes, and wonder if this is what it will take to save the planet.

What might not have been immediately obvious in the coverage of the government’s decision was that the Planning Inspectorate, tasked with assessing such projects, had recommended that permission be refused. The problem, the examiners explained, was fairly simple: EDF couldn’t say exactly where it would obtain one of the main substances needed to make a nuclear power station work, that substance being water.

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Utility Iberdrola posted on Wednesday a strong rise in gas-fired generation to send its ETS-covered output rising by more than one fifth year-on-year in H1, while hydro generation in Spain slumped some 52% due to drought across the country.

The scientist was best known for his theory that the Earth is a self-regulating community of organisms

James Lovelock, the creator of the Gaia hypothesis, has died on his 103rd birthday.

The climate scientist died at home surrounded by loved ones, his family said in a statement.

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EUAs opened with relative calm on Wednesday following multiple volatile sessions over the past week, trading flat across the first hours before finding strength as the Dec-22 moved to a 1.4% gain at midday.

Garnaut's Zen Energy secures long term off take with newest solar farm in South Australia on behalf of a local business buyers group.

The post South Australia’s newest solar farm secures off take with local business group appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The use of direct air capture with CCS, or DACCS, would reduce the total cost of decarbonisation in meeting global climate goals in a long term scenario where deploying the technology at scale is low cost, while also making it more likely that net zero emissions can be reached, according to a report released this week.

Banks’ financing of coal, oil, and gas was higher in 2021 than it was in 2016, the year after the Paris agreement was adopted

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China’s highest court has recommended complementing current regulations concerning the activities in carbon markets, in a move backing long-awaited legislation for the country's national emissions trading scheme (ETS).

Campaigners say question about individual action was irresponsible and too little time spent on subject

A group of environmental organisations and campaigners have written to the BBC to rebuke it for inadequate questioning about the climate crisis during Monday’s Tory leadership debate.

Just one question on the environment was asked in the debate, and it put the onus on individuals rather than leaders to act on the climate.

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