Feed aggregator

The sea level around Vanuatu is rising at a rate nearly twice the global average. New research tells a story of both loss and resilience. Karen E McNamara, Associate Professor, The University of Queensland Rachel Clissold, Researcher, The University of Queensland Ross Westoby, Research Fellow, Griffith University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Senate Estimates hears "hydrogen ready" gas plant will start out using fossil gas only, and to get to 30% green hydrogen will require a retrofit of new equipment.

The post “Unknown, uncertain, uncosted:” Snowy gets grilling on Kurri Kurri green hydrogen appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Report finds Australia has fallen well short of its climate finance commitments, joining other major western economies to fall tens of billions short.

The post Australia named among major economies not paying “fair share” of climate finance goal appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Pakistan is calling on Western nations to help after floods linked to climate change left millions homeless.

We are on the path to expanding our Carbon Technical Team and are looking for a highly experienced, Senior Carbon Technical Expert who could build and lead an inhouse technical team and who will report directly to our CEO.

EU legislators must consider making more radical changes to EU ETS reform and CBAM legislation than are currently on the table, climate NGOs and industry representatives said in a joint letter on Monday ahead of negotiations on the bills due this week. 

The EU must adopt a more stringent way of reporting its climate spending to ensure funding is targeting emissions cuts and to avoid ‘greenwashing’, several cross-party committees of the European Parliament said on Monday. 

The outcome of the US midterm elections on Tuesday is likely to have few immediate impacts on prices for California Carbon Allowances (CCAs) and RGGI Allowances (RGAs), though the results could have a more profound influence in the longer term.

Prime minister tells summit Britain will honour commitments but makes no mention of reparations

Rishi Sunak has said it is “morally right” that Britain honours its climate change commitments in his speech at Cop27, but he made no mention of paying reparations after Boris Johnson said the country cannot afford to do so.

The prime minister made a very short appearance on the world stage on Monday, after making a very public U-turn on his attendance in Egypt – the same reversal that may have left him living in Johnson’s shadow, as he was forced to speak hours after his rival.

Continue reading...

Britain had said its aim was to ‘keep 1.5C alive’. The prime minister seems to want it dead

Rishi Sunak is not interested in the climate emergency – and everyone knows it. Forced to make a flying visit to Cop27, Mr Sunak’s intransigence made him an outcast at the UN summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. He did sit down with France’s Emmanuel Macron, and the Italian far-right prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, to discuss a subject – “illegal migration” – that Mr Sunak obviously cares about. But most world leaders were not going to make time for a prime minister who had blocked Britain’s new monarch from attending the summit and only came because he feared being upstaged by Boris Johnson. When Mr Sunak did turn up, it was with his predecessor’s plan and slogans. Embarrassingly, Mr Johnson did take centre stage at Cop27 – from the sidelines.

The prime minister’s track record reveals a politician who governs in the Tories’ narrow political interest rather than the national one. Slashing fuel and air duties as chancellor just days before the last Cop summit – hosted by the UK – showed his true colours. Pledges to curtail onshore wind and solar development during the Conservative leadership campaign signalled that personal ambition was more important than climate goals. In Cop26, countries signed up to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to limit global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures. Britain had wanted to “keep 1.5C alive”. Mr Sunak seems to want it dead.

Continue reading...

The layouts of our cities and their transport systems were not planned with women in mind. Inflexible services and inconveniently located schools, childcare and workplaces pose daily challenges. Dorina Pojani, Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning, The University of Queensland Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Rishi Sunak told the UN climate summit COP27 that there is room for hope.

A US-headquartered environmental campaign organisation has added another veteran UN climate negotiator to its roster of carbon market experts.

Standardised offset prices slipped sharply at the end of the week, particularly for nature-based offsets, as the expected feelgood factor from COP27 summit in Egypt failed to materialise, although sources noted some over-the-counter sellers were turning bullish.

Images from Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt where world leaders are gathering to discuss the climate crisis

• Cop27 live coverage: latest updates

Continue reading...

The UK will launch a new disclosure framework on Tuesday for corporate climate plans that it says will outline a "gold standard" for transition strategies, largely based on existing disclosure rules in force in the country that cover all three scopes of value chain emissions, officials told a briefing at COP27.

Several public and private commitments were made to ramp up the financing available to protect the world’s forests at the COP27 UN climate talks on Monday, alongside efforts to better track progress on conserving and enhancing forest carbon stocks that included new demand pledges towards forest carbon credits.

An investment fund for oil exporting Arabic countries has struck a major Islamic financing carbon offsetting deal at the start of COP27 in Egypt, billed as the first-of-its kind in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

The dramatic vanishing of polar ice sheets will cause catastrophic sea level rise that will threaten cities, according to a major new study

The climate crisis has pushed the planet’s stores of ice to a widespread collapse that was “unthinkable just a decade ago”, with Arctic sea ice certain to vanish in summers and ruinous sea level rise from melting glaciers now already in motion, a major new report has warned.

Even if planet-heating emissions are radically cut, the world’s vast ice sheets at the poles will continue to melt away for hundreds of years, causing up to three metres of sea level rise that will imperil coastal cities, the report states. The “terminal” loss of sea ice from the Arctic during summers could arrive within a decade and now cannot be avoided, it adds.

Continue reading...

Secretions of Sonoran desert toad have long had hallucinogenic reputation but authorities want you to keep your tongue away

The US National Park Service is warning people to stop licking one of the largest toads in America, due to a toxin it secretes from its glands that can create a hallucinogenic experience.

The Sonoran desert toad, which emits a quick, “weak low-pitched toot”, can make someone sick if they touch it or lick it, NPS said in a Facebook post on Tuesday.

Continue reading...