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The New Zealand government's quarterly carbon allowance auction is set for this Wednesday, putting 4.825 million units out for sale on the NZX-EEX platform, with analysts expecting the cost containment reserve (CCR) to be completely exhausted leading to an upshoot in prices.

Clean energy is indeed essential to mitigating the risks posed by climate change and volatile markets. But generating demand for it will be essential.

The post Why Biden declared heat pumps and solar panels essential to national defense appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Market operator warns of load shedding - or power outages - in Queensland in new supply crunch in Australia's most coal dependent state.

The post AEMO warns of load shedding in Queensland supply crunch, as prices capped appeared first on RenewEconomy.

England's future food strategy is being released amid criticism from campaigners it lacks ambition.

Thousands of sick and dead frogs are turning up around Australia, bizarrely lying out in the open. If you see one, let these scientists know. Jodi Rowley, Curator, Amphibian & Reptile Conservation Biology, Australian Museum, UNSW Sydney Karrie Rose, Australian Registry of Wildlife Health - Taronga Conservation Society Australia, University of Sydney Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

In the study at a zoo in Helsinki, white-faced sakis could trigger audio or visual stimuli on demand

Monkeys given their own “primate-focused” versions of Spotify and Netflix were more likely to choose audio stimuli over screen time, a study has found.

Researchers at the University of Glasgow and Aalto University in Finland set out to explore how a group of three white-faced saki monkeys at Korkeasaari zoo in Helsinki would respond to being able to trigger audio or visual stimuli on demand.

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The world’s poorest people ought to be helped to cope with a climate emergency they did little to cause

What is troubling about the heatwave affecting the 1.8 billion people on the Indian subcontinent is not just that it is so hot, but that the record-breaking temperatures arrived so early. Scorching heat is usual for the months of April to July, but a heatwave in March is not normal. March was the hottest in India and Pakistan since records began 122 years ago. Records are being broken by large margins. In India’s capital, Delhi, thermometers reached an unprecedented 49C in May, far exceeding the previous highest-ever temperature of 45.6C in 1941. Meanwhile, heatwaves raged at both of Earth’s poles. This weekend, deadly heat hit Spain and the south-western US.

Heatwaves around the world – including this year in south Asia – have been made more frequent and hotter because of the human-made climate emergency. The world’s poorest people, who have contributed very little to global heating, will bear the brunt of it. There will be a loss of life and livelihoods, especially for those forced to work outside in skin-splitting heat. A study in the Lancet last year suggested that 740,000 deaths in India a year could already be attributed to global heating.

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Phoenix reported 114F, Las Vegas soared to 109F and Denver hit 100F, while inland areas of California reached triple digits

A dangerous heat swept across the American south-west over the weekend as potentially deadly heat set temperatures soaring to record levels in numerous major US cities in the region.

Phoenix, Las Vegas, Denver and California’s Death Valley all posted record temperatures on Saturday.

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An avid diver saw how lionfish have devastated populations of Florida’s native tropical fish and resolved to help solve the problem

Aarav Chavda has been diving off the coast of Florida for years. Each time he became increasingly depressed by the ever-growing void, as colourful species of fish and coral reefs continued to disappear.

A significant reason for that disappearance is the lionfish, an invasive species that has boomed in Atlantic waters from Florida to the Caribbean in recent decades, and in numerous other places from Brazil and Mexico to the Mediterranean.

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AEMO intervenes to impose price cap on Queensland, which has been suffering the country's highest prices for nearly a year, and warns of supply crunch.

The post AEMO imposes price cap on electricity market for first time since 2009 appeared first on RenewEconomy.

If you had told me I would be doing this three years ago I would have said you’re mad

Wading in to the ocean the cold takes my breath away. Less than an hour ago I was beneath my warm doona in bed, and now the sun is spreading across the winter horizon and I’m wearing two millimeters of neoprene on most surfaces of my body. It’s Sunday, 7am, and I am about to swim out from Coogee beach to Wylie’s Baths and then across the length of the bay and back again with a group of others, some in just their swimsuits, some in full wetsuits, and some (OK – just me) in a full wetsuit with neoprene booties and fins.

If you had told me I would be doing this three years ago I would have said you’re mad; I hate the cold, I’m scared of deep water. But Covid lockdowns brought strange new hobbies to many. And mine – bracingly – is ocean swimming.

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Ecologists say discovery of scaly-tailed possum at Bullo River Station is a sign of positive benefit of private land conservation

A rare scaly-tailed possum has been caught in the Northern Territory for the first time in what scientists say is a sign that private land conservation is having a positive effect.

The scaly-tailed possum, also known as the Wyulda, is a rock-dwelling marsupial with stout limbs and a “grippy” tail it uses to hang from branches and rock ledges to reach for seeds, fruits and flowers.

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The food should not be "forced" on Scottish markets by a new UK bill, a government minister says.

An investor’s rant gives an insight into the City’s short-termist view of the environment crisis

If the future remembers any corporate villain from 2022, it will be Stuart Kirk. The satirically titled head of “responsible investment” at HSBC looks the part: shaven headed, tightly trimmed beard, hard, sharp eyes. Like all the best villains, the banker’s arguments are insidiously appealing. He says out loud what his audience thinks, cutting through polite society’s pious crap to reveal its selfish desires.

“There’s always some nut job telling me about the end of the world,” he told the Financial Times’s Moral Money conference – and I haven’t made that title up either. “Who cares if Miami is six metres underwater in 100 years? Amsterdam has been six metres underwater for ages and that’s a really nice place.”

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The then 12-year-old had diplomats squirming in their seats when she berated them at the 1992 gathering

• Thirty years of climate summits: where have they got us?

Fidel Castro was there, along with George Bush, John Major and 100 other heads of state, billionaires and rock stars. But the biggest star of the 1992 Earth Summit was a young girl who delivered what would be known as the speech that “silenced the world”.

Severn Cullis-Suzuki was just 12 years old, and had set up a children’s environment group in Vancouver with her nine-year-old sister Sarika and friends Vanessa Suttie, Morgan Geisler and Michelle Quigg. When they heard about the Rio meeting they pestered family and friends to raise the money to fly south, accompanied by her father, David Suzuki, one of Canada’s leading geneticists. The group hired a small booth at a side event and set about ambushing anyone and everyone (I met them and was knocked out by their enthusiasm and intensity).

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If Democrats act, New Yorkers will begin to get the government they deserve. With climate cataclysms here, the political system can’t afford more delays

It has been, for progressives in New York, a trying year.

Major pieces of legislation that were supposed to reshape the state to safeguard the working class have stalled out. A bill to create a statewide single-payer healthcare system is no closer to passage than it was several years ago. A push to guarantee new protections for tenants as rents soar in New York City could not find the votes. And ambitious legislation to combat climate that did have the votes to go through the state legislature was halted by the speaker of the state assembly.

Ross Barkan is a journalist based in New York City. He is the author of Demolition Night, a novel, and The Prince: Andrew Cuomo, Coronavirus, and the Fall of New York

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Their use is linked to the rise in whale strandings on British beaches, but partial bans keeps letting industry off the hook

In the aftermath of 9/11, scientists noticed a curious impact on the stress hormones of North Atlantic right whales. Ships are ubiquitous in our oceans but, for a brief window, immediately after the planes flew into the twin towers, there was a dramatic drop in traffic along the North Atlantic eastern seaboard, reducing underwater noise. While the world above ground was reeling, our underwater neighbours were thriving.

So often we think of the golden age of whaling as being over. Japanese and Icelandic whaling ships are now pariahs in the international community. But too often, out of sight is out of mind, and it remains easy to ignore the impact of our actions above ground on marine life. However, whales are increasingly forcing us to take note, as more of them than ever are beaching on our shores.

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Institute of Chartered Foresters says 70% more staff must be recruited to meet current tree planting targets

When Kevin Martin was a child he spent days beneath the canopy of Hampshire woodlands while his father, a tree surgeon, scaled the heights of oak and ash above him.

Twenty years later, with a degree and with research for a master’s under way, Martin is in charge of tending to the 14,000 trees at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew. With trees at the forefront of UK strategies to reach net zero by 2050, Martin and others like him are key professionals on the frontline of the fight to mitigate the impact of climate change and adapt to the changing conditions.

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In supporting the unit’s work on allowance trading and entity education, you will help ensure firms can effectively participate in the cap-and-invest marketplace. By helping firms get comfortable with this new market and how it works, you’ll enable them to devote their time and resources to decarbonization - helping Washington achieve its goal of total carbon neutrality by 2050.