Feed aggregator

Australia’s independent Climate Change Authority (CCA) on Thursday recommended ruling out consumption of offsets older than five years and phasing out the use of UN-issued carbon credits for voluntary purposes by 2025.

Time to fix Britain’s broken private utility model, whereby natural monopolies are able to dupe weak regulators

When the water industry was in public hands, it was claimed to work neither for its owner – the state – nor the public. Since being privatised in 1989, water companies have enriched investors and senior executives but failed to adequately invest in infrastructure. Shareholders have been paid £72bn in dividends. The cash came from big debts, with companies borrowing £56bn, and big bills, with prices rising 40%. Private-sector efficiency did not provide better service, but it did allow companies to be milked for cash.

Companies’ pressing concern was to make money rather than think hard about the challenge of the climate emergency. Hence water companies will impose hosepipe bans in record-breaking summer heat despite up to a fifth of water being lost to leaks. Two companies restricting water use – South East Water and Southern Water – have some of the worst environmental records. Thames Water, which will ban lawn watering for its 15 million customers, was fined £20m in 2017 for tipping 1.4bn litres of raw sewage into rivers. Last year the firm was found to have illegally discharged untreated sewage for 735 days.

Continue reading...

AGL, EnergyAustralia and Origin among businesses study says not on track to meet global climate goals to limit heating to well below 2C

• Australia should abandon goal to limit global heating to 1.5C, says gas company eyeing Beetaloo Basin
• Follow our Australia news live blog for the latest updates
• Get our free news app, morning email briefing or daily news podcast

Nine out of 10 major Australian electricity companies are failing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions fast enough to meet the goals of the landmark Paris climate agreement, a study has found.

Businesses not acting in accordance with the 2015 Paris agreement goal of limiting global heating to well below 2C since pre-industrial times included the generators and retailers AGL, EnergyAustralia and Origin, according to the study led by University of Queensland researchers.

Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning

Continue reading...

It is possible to scale the carbon markets fast and well, argues Carbon Growth Partners’ Charles Bedford. To do so, companies must stay focused on project quality, and countries must collaborate better.  

Mining could begin in less than a year after talks fail to produce regulatory framework despite growing calls to halt harm to oceans

The negotiations on opening the world’s first deep-sea mines ended in Kingston, Jamaica, last week with no agreement, meaning that less than a year remains before a legal clause kicks in that could see seabed mining commence without any environmental or economic regulations in place.

Three weeks of discussions on the “two-year rule” at the council headquarters of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) – the UN body that oversees mining in international waters – ended in stalemate on 4 August. The two-year rule was triggered in July 2021 when the Pacific nation of Nauru declared its plan to start seabed mining.

Continue reading...

A Canadian startup crypto company is launching its carbon platform for voluntary carbon market (VCM) projects that will mint non-fungible tokens (NFT) and reward project owners and carbon offset holders with a recurring revenue model. 

Trees are advancing into the Arctic tundra and retreating from boreal forests further south, where stunting and die-offs are expected

Forests from the Arctic to the Amazon are transforming at a “shocking” rate due to the climate crisis, with trees advancing into previously barren tundra in the north while dying off from escalating heat farther south, scientists have found.

Global heating, along with changes in soils, wind and available nutrients, is rapidly changing the composition of forests, making them far less resilient and prone to diseases, according to a series of studies that have analyzed the health of trees in north and South America.

Continue reading...

Melting of the world’s biggest ice sheet would cause catastrophic sea level rise, but can be avoided with fast climate action

The fate of the world’s biggest ice sheet rests in the hands of humanity, a new analysis has shown. If global heating is limited to 2C, the vast East Antarctic ice sheet should remain stable, but if the climate crisis drives temperatures higher, melting could drive up sea level by many metres.

The East Antarctic ice sheet (EAIS) holds the vast majority of Earth’s glacier ice. Sea levels would rise by 52 metres if it all melted. It was thought to be stable, but is now showing signs of vulnerability, the scientists said.

Continue reading...

Study suggests waste disposal system of the creatures, which look like little chimneys, is more complex than thought

Birds do it, reptiles do it, and humans do it with an almighty “achoo!” – now it has emerged that sponges can also sneeze, casting off accumulations of particles trapped in mucus on their surface in the process.

The team behind the research said that while the aquatic organisms had previously been observed making contractions, which they had dubbed “sneezes”, the details of the process remained unclear.

Continue reading...

Public urged to be take precautions after second large landslide along Jurassic region in two weeks

Experts are urging the public to be hypervigilant on south coast beaches as this week’s heatwave could trigger cliff collapses.

One geologist said the area seemed the most vulnerable and beachgoers should take heed of official guidance.

Continue reading...

Antony Blinken announces formal working group during Kinshasa visit, while voicing concerns over auction of oil and gas permits

The US and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have agreed to form a working group to protect the enormous Congo basin rainforest and peatlands, which are threatened by oil and gas exploration.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, made the announcement in Kinshasa on Tuesday while expressing his concern over the sale of dozens of oil and gas permits in the DRC that included blocks in Virunga national park and the Cuvette Centrale tropical peatlands, part of an area described as “the worst place on the planet” to drill for oil and gas.

Continue reading...

Obsession with efficiency means infrastructure has been run into the ground rather than upgraded

The government is drawing up contingency plans for power cuts this winter as it finally wakes up to the reality of what the next few months will bring.

Britain has a cost of living crisis. It also has a housing crisis and an energy crisis. Weeks without rain in southern England mean there is a looming drought crisis. The NHS is only one serious Covid-19 outbreak away from crunch point.

Continue reading...

Invasive species on islands: Macquarie Island, a Unesco world heritage site, was being eaten alive until an ambitious eradication programme restored it

• Driving out invasive species on islands has high success rate and big benefits – study

On a world map, Macquarie Island is a speck in the Southern Ocean, but for ecologists it is a beacon, illuminating a future for grand-scale environmental recovery projects.

Melissa Houghton first set foot on the 34km-long green streak as a dog handler in late 2011. Rabbits, cats, rats and mice had been introduced by sealers in the 1800s and were wreaking havoc on the world heritage site. At their peak, there were approximately 300,000 European rabbits and an untold number of black rats and house mice.

Continue reading...

New research finds that eradicating non-native rats, cats, rabbits and goats is 88% effective in restoring biodiversity

Eradicating rats, goats and other invasive animals from islands is one of the most effective tools for protecting wildlife, resulting in dramatic transformations to degraded archipelagos and atolls, according to a new study.

From the dodo to Daudin’s giant tortoise, island species have been disproportionately affected by extinctions, often caused by the arrival of alien species brought by colonisers that killed wildlife found nowhere else on Earth.

Continue reading...

Only one out of 20 industrial companies assessed in Australia passed a new test on their ability to meet their declared Paris Agreement goals, according to a study from three major universities published on Wednesday.

CEFC allocates $160 million to allow Powerlink to supersize connection to Australia's biggest wind project and create a new renewable zone in the area.

The post CEFC money to supersize link to Australia’s biggest wind project, creating new REZ appeared first on RenewEconomy.

EUA prices dropped sharply in late morning trading on Wednesday as traders anticipated the UK allowance auction in the afternoon that was expected to lead to some selling of EUAs, while energy prices rose as tensions in Ukraine mounted after attacks on Russian forces in Crimea.

Australia’s Commonwealth Bank on Wednesday set targets for reducing its financed emissions in some carbon intensive sectors, while the weekly number of newly minted Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) fell to around 300,000.

The share price of Indian carbon offset developer EKI Energy Services slumped by nearly 20% on Wednesday in the fallout from India’s energy minister stating that the country would not export any carbon credits until it has met its international climate commitments.

Chinese observers are awaiting more policy clarity on the methodologies used for nature-based solutions, despite new development projects springing up across the country.