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Officials raised concerns water level targets would not ensure river health or meet needs of downstream communities, documents show

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The Perrottet government has been warned by its own advisers that proposed flood plain harvesting rules will not adequately protect the environment or the needs of downstream communities in the Murray Darling Basin.

Documents obtained through parliament by independent MLC Justin Field show the government received advice that proposed targets meant to ensure river health were too low.

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As a NBS Technical Adviser Carbon Accounting, you will lead the quantification of carbon benefits from our carbon project portfolio (focusing on agriculture but also across other pathways), together with the associated measurement, reporting and verification.

You will identify and secure new opportunities for GAIT at a project and portfolio level and work at the cutting-edge of carbon markets, supporting a global ecosystem to navigate these markets, and to design and implement climate policies.

The idea of climate change as a distant problem won’t survive the next stifling week

Tomorrow, as we seek shelter from a burning sun, climate change will feel all too real. Britain has suffered ever more vicious storms and floods over the past few years but the next couple of days will drive home the menacing discontinuity with our idea of normal, a step change in our collective awareness. The expected heat – temperatures that may exceed 40C warns the Met Office – are not only a record, but life-threatening.

It will start to change the politics of climate change. Until now, the green case has been propelled by the young, the progressive and the environmentally passionate, with the majority accepting the argument but without great heart. It’s OK to be green as long as the costs and changes in our lifestyles are far in the future, and any wind farms aren’t built near us – an opening the climate-sceptic right is exploiting to try to put a halt to what it considers backdoor socialism.

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Sarah Suplina has long been fascinated with the birds flitting around in her back yard in Connecticut. The artist decided to capture them in collage form: painting thick watercolour paper, cutting it with scissors and knives and layering everything together using extra-strong glue. “I want my work to capture the beauty of each bird, along with some of his or her natural surroundings,” she says. As the series evolved, Suplina started looking further afield to create hens and sparrow, parrots and kingfishers. “I have discovered so many different, wonderful birds to create and share. I have just scratched the surface... the sky’s the limit!”

instagram.com/sarahsnippets

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

Qualifications An advanced degree, preferably an MBA or Master’s or PhD degree is preferred Strong understanding of economic concepts and themes particularly related to carbon pricing systems and climate and energy policies Experience spanning both compliance carbon pricing systems and voluntary carbon markets preferred 12+ years of work experience after graduate school, with a distinctive […]

The Bahamas has appointed a company to manage the country’s carbon credit sales, with the government taking a 49% ownership share in the firm and up to 85% of the initial revenues.

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper’s (D) administration is aiming to have its proposed power sector cap-and-trade rulemaking take effect next year and join the US Northeast and Mid-Atlantic RGGI programme in 2024, according to a government presentation on Thursday.

Speculators saw their California Carbon Allowance (CCA) fall again this week following a short-lived rebound, while compliance entities’ positions roared back after an increasingly rare contraction last week, according to US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data published Friday.

Slovakia’s only aluminium plant is at risk of closure after this week announcing lay-offs and a halt to production, with company placing some blame on high carbon costs.

*PREMIUM LISTING - The goal of the Specialist is to ensure the timely delivery of high-quality project management, stakeholder engagement, and analytical tasks as part of action platform mandates. The thematic focus is on multi-stakeholder action platforms focused on engineered carbon removal solutions and systems, as well as connecting technologies such as carbon capture storage or utilization. 

As the climate crisis threatens their existence, an assertive new collective are using their leverage as a flashpoint in geopolitical tensions

Let’s face it, Australia has been an awfully bad neighbour in the Pacific for some while now.

Not a shouting-at-the-people-next-door, finger-pointing, vengeful kind of neighbour. Rather the sort that blithely parties all night, heedless of the family next door knocking insistently on the door at all hours, trying to make themselves heard over the loud music and laughter inside.

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While scale of shortfall is uncertain, conservationists claim admission is proof the project isn’t working

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Gas giant Chevron has fallen even further behind on targets to capture and store CO2 at its mega gas project in Western Australian, but has refused to say by how much.

The company also confirmed on Friday it had bought and surrendered 5.23m tonnes of CO2 offsets to make up for the failure to meet its 2021 target at its CCS project at the offshore Gorgon gasfield in Western Australia.

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Reports of record-breaking heat are made more alarming by the possibility of a prime minister who wants to weaken climate goals

There is no point denying that in the UK many people enjoy themselves when the weather is unusually warm, even as many others feel uncomfortable and in some cases unsafe, due both to the heat itself and what it signals about global heating. Spells of hot weather make sun-lovers feel they have been transplanted to the Mediterranean – where many of us take our holidays. Even now, record-breaking temperatures are still sometimes welcomed, rather than feared as a harbinger of more extreme dangers ahead.

That said, few will welcome the Met Office issuing its first ever “red warning” for exceptional heat on Monday and Tuesday – with unprecedented temperatures of 40C forecast in London and the Midlands, and as far north as Manchester and York. This represents a danger to life, with the risk of illness not limited to vulnerable people. The message is to keep hydrated and to find shade where possible. There are warnings of travel chaos and mobile phone blackouts. Not all parts of the UK are similarly affected; the top temperature in Aberdeen is forecast to be 21C. But there is a real prospect that the all-time high of 38.7C, set in Cambridge in 2019, could be broken.

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Pennsylvania Republican legislators requested that a judge restore the preliminary injunction granted last week against the state’s RGGI-linked cap-and-trade regulation on Thursday, after an appeal of that ruling by Governor Tom Wolf’s (D) administration automatically lifted the ban.

Author recognised for his decades-long commitment to neglected environmental issues

The “elegant, urgent writing” of George Monbiot has seen the author, environmentalist and Guardian columnist win the prestigious Orwell prize for journalism.

The prize is awarded for commentary or reporting that comes closest to meeting the ambition of George Orwell, the novelist, essayist, journalist and critic, to “make political writing into an art”.

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Officials meet later this month to craft a new UN carbon crediting mechanism, facing a race against time to attract capital and attention amid a fast-growing voluntary market while not repeating past mistakes.

Band of volunteers now assist surveying homes so that re-roofing and scaffolding does not disrupt beloved birds’ nesting

When Chet Cunago heard that scaffolding was blocking swifts from entering their ancestral nests in the eaves of homes in Sheffield, she raced into action.

After frantic calls to the council, charities and fellow nature lovers, she got the scaffold boards removed and assembled a volunteer group to search for overlooked swift nests in all the council houses scheduled for renovation in Handsworth.

Erect a swift box, which costs £30–£100 depending on size. Local swift groups can help advise on installation or roofers and aerial installers can help. South-facing eaves are often too hot for the nests.

Site-faithful swifts are notoriously difficult to attract to new nest boxes but playing swift calls from an adjacent window can work. Swift Conservation sells automatic MP3 players with swift calls for £22. And even if the box isn’t adopted by swifts, it will certainly be used by other birds.

Drilling holes into plastic soffits and adding dividers inside is a cheap and unobtrusive way to make a modern house swift-friendly. Add swift bricks (£25) to any new extensions.

Join a local swift group and help survey nest sites – there will almost certainly be a swift group in your nearest city or town. When more swift nest sites are known about, they can be protected.

Join campaigns for swift bricks to be fitted in every new home. Alert developers, councils, housing associations and architects to the issue.

Grounded swifts can usually get airborne again, so if you find a grounded swift it may be immature (it can only fly if its wings are at least 16cm long) or ill. Put it in a warm box, give it water by running a wetted cotton bud around the edge of its beak, avoiding the nostrils, and call a local swift rescuer. A full list of swift rescuers can be found here.

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The best of this week’s wildlife pictures, including killer whales hunting a seal off Shetland and endangered mountain bongos in Kenya

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