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Campaigners fear growth duty will hamper water regulator’s ability to crack down on companies in poor financial state

The Conservatives have pushed through a duty on the water regulator to prioritise growth, which experts have said will incentivise water companies to value their bottom lines over reducing sewage pollution.

Campaigners fear this will weaken Ofwat’s ability to crack down on water companies as it may force the regulator to consider the company’s financial situation and the impact on growth if it is heavily fined for polluting.

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Members of the European Parliament made one last rallying cry to salvage the Green Deal this week, as the bloc’s flagship climate neutrality programme faces an uncertain future with the prospect of a larger far-right presence following upcoming EU elections.

A carbon offset buyer platform will offer a portfolio of credits vetted by a ratings agency to be “highly-rated” as part of a newly formed partnership announced Wednesday.

The European Parliament gave its final green light on Tuesday to new ecodesign rules that will make it mandatory for companies to track and report about the carbon content of products placed on the EU market, alongside a range of other environmental footprint indicators.

The European Parliament approved sweeping new rules on Wednesday that will oblige companies to mitigate their negative impacts on human rights and the environment and adopt energy transition plans.

Soil carbon prices in India will need to increase by 60% to encourage wider adoption of conservation agriculture for carbon credit generation in India under Verra's VM0042 methodology, a study published this week in the journal Nature suggests.

The EU Parliament has voted in favour of the EU ratification of the UN’s Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdictions (BBNJ) treaty during a plenary on Wednesday, paving the way for member states to move their national processes along swiftly.

Bhutan's government and a group of conservation NGOs have committed to catalyse $1 billion to protect tigers and their habitats over the next decade.

Carbon insurers, previously focused on nature-based solutions (NBS) credits, are entering the arena of durable CO2 removals (CDR) and adapting existing insurance strategies to suit a new risk profile, according to a specialist speaking to Carbon Pulse.

CreditNature has achieved a “world first” by receiving accreditation from an independent accounting framework for its ecosystem restoration methodology, in a move that could help scale nature markets, it said Wednesday.

European carbon allowance prices are expected to embark on a sustained rally in the near future as the current 100 million-tonne annual surplus in supply dwindles to become an annual deficit of as much as 300 Mt after the end of the REPowerEU programme, according to a veteran analyst.

British Medical Association says decision to take Dr Sarah Benn off medical register for five months ‘sends worrying message’

Doctors groups are calling for urgent consideration of the rules for medical professionals who take peaceful direct action on the climate crisis, which they say is the “greatest threat to global health”, after a GP was suspended from the register for non-violent protest.

Dr Sarah Benn, a GP from Birmingham, was taken off the medical register for five months on Tuesday by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS), the disciplinary arm of the General Medical Council (GMC), over her climate protests.

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A direct air capture developer is teaming up with a carbon storage technology company to create a value chain for extracting CO2 from the atmosphere and permanently storing it underground, helping to streamline the sale of carbon credits, it announced on Wednesday.

President Joe Biden's administration has launched a programme to restore and protect 3 million hectares of wetlands and 160,000 kilometres of rivers in the US by 2030, with over 100 NGOs, Tribes, and local governments joining the initiative as early members.

European carbon prices gave up gains of as much as 2.7% on Wednesday morning in sync with a reversal in energy markets and the publication of weekly Commitment of Traders data that showed the biggest reduction in investment funds' bearish bets in a month.

Countries in the Asia Pacific region are highly vulnerable to nature-related risks, including loss of biodiversity, an increase in pollution, and the non-availability of freshwater, and the failure to address these losses could lead material financial risk for companies and institutional investors, panellists told a webinar Wednesday.

Plastic credits should be used wherever there’s a financing gap to make plastic collection happen and as a bridge to extended producer responsibility regulation, while they should be sufficiently expensive to dissuade plastic makers from producing the waste in the first place, according to a developer of track and trace software for waste recovery.

Small industrial emitters falling under the “other” sectors covered by the EU’s Emissions Trading System for road transport and heating fuels, ETS2, are typically German installations burning fossil gas in plants of less than 20 megawatts, analysts say.

New emissions data from Australia’s climate change department shows emissions in its largest resources export state rose over the previous year by 9 million tonnes of CO2-e but those in its largest coal mining state have dropped significantly every year for five consecutive years.

One of the world's largest steelmakers has teamed up with government agencies to increase carbon sequestration and protect marine ecosystems in South Korea, using steel by-products to help cultivate seaweeds.