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Like Australia, Chile is facing mounting environmental pressures, such as an escalating water crisis. If the constitution is approved in September it’ll deliver profound changes to the country. Ana Estefanía Carballo, Honorary Research Fellow in Mining and Society, School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, The University of Melbourne Erin Fitz-Henry, Deputy Coordinator - Anthropology, Development Studies & Social Theory, The University of Melbourne Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

He wanted me to stay when the drains backed up and left the garden submerged in a foul pond. Obviously I still went

I had four teenagers all packed and ready to go to Ramsgate, and I was doing a quick final scout around the house for where the terrible smell was coming from. I love seeing a teenager with an overnight bag. You just know they’ve forgotten the real stuff (toothbrush, pants) and remembered the dumb stuff (crochet hooks, spare headphone case). And they look so proud and independent.

In fact, the smell was outside the house, a backed-up drain that had made a zen-looking but appallingly foul pond of the garden. Mr Z came back from work and identified this, just as we were all leaving. “Do you want me to stay?” I said, with a lot of heavy upwards inflection to indicate that no way on earth was I going to. “Well, yes,” he replied.

Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist

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Namibia will establish an enabling framework to develop carbon market-based options, such as an emissions trading scheme, to help the country implement its NDC targets, it was announced on Monday.

A theme emerges as NSW auditor-general raises serious concerns about the effectiveness and integrity of the state's Biodiversity Offset Scheme.

The post “Failure by almost every measure:” Offsets under fire again after “damning” audit appeared first on RenewEconomy.

A custom tube trailer will transport the first shipment of renewable hydrogen from Hydrogen Park SA, for use in production of high-purity argon.

The post First batch of SA-made renewable hydrogen heads to Whyalla by tube trailer appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Coca Cola steps closer to 100 per cent renewables in 8-year deal with biggest wind farm in Western Australia.

The post Coca-Cola steps closer to 100 pct renewables in deal with state’s biggest wind farm appeared first on RenewEconomy.

This long-overdue change is good news for households and the planet but much more must be done to future-proof housing

Energy-efficiency standards for new homes in Australia are being upgraded for the first time in a decade. New homes will be required to improve minimum performance from six stars to seven stars under the nationwide house energy rating scheme. Federal, state and territory building ministers agreed on the change last Friday.

The rating will also use a whole-of-home energy “budget”. This will allow homes to meet the new standard in different ways. The standard will come into force in May 2023 and all new homes will have to comply by October 2023.

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

California legislators on Sunday published a raft of climate- and energy-related bills just days ahead of the end of session, with the proposals including a direct emissions reduction goal for 2045 and an extension for the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant.

The Ontario Ministry of Environment, Conservation, and Parks (MECP) on Friday published draft regulatory amendments to the province’s Emissions Performance Standard (EPS) in order to align with the updated federal carbon pricing benchmark and output-based pricing system, without any mention of incorporating carbon offsets into the programme for large stationary facilities.

RGGI compliance entities significantly increased their long positions during the second quarter of the year, according to a watchdog report published Monday, though emissions output in the US Northeast and Mid-Atlantic carbon  market appears to be outpacing their allowance holdings.

Norway oil giant Equinor buys into three offshore wind projects in NSW with a potential combined capacity of 6GW.

The post Norway oil giant buys into 6GW of Australian floating offshore wind projects appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Listed contractor says it may suffer "significant losses" over three-way dispute over who should bear cost for delays in $277 million solar project.

The post Contractor may face “substantial” losses in dispute with solar farm and inverter supplier appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The first upgrade to minimum energy-efficiency standards in a decade will cut emissions and energy costs for the 5.5 million houses to be built by 2050. Retrofitting homes is an equally urgent task. Gill Armstrong, Senior Project Manager – Buildings, Climateworks Centre Alan Pears, Senior Industry Fellow, RMIT University Margot Delafoulhouze, Cities System Lead, Climateworks Centre Trivess Moore, Senior Lecturer, School of Property, Construction and Project Management, RMIT University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Survey finds consumer confidence at new lows, as bill shock cements perception that Australia's energy market is broken.

The post Consumers lose faith in utilities as fossil fuelled energy crisis hits hip pockets appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Calls for a freeze of the EU ETS have grown louder as European leaders scramble to tackle soaring gas and power prices while climate policies take a temporary backseat, with Poland blaming the bloc's carbon market for worsening inflation and exacerbating energy poverty.

In behaviour only previously seen in humans, ‘social brain’ helps dolphins form complex alliances to see off their rivals for females

Dolphins form decade-long social bonds, and cooperate among and between cliques, to help one another find mates and fight off competitors, new research has found – behaviour not previously confirmed among animals.

“These dolphins have long-term stable alliances, and they have intergroup alliances. Alliances of alliances of alliances, really,” said Dr Richard Connor, a behavioural ecologist at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and one of the lead authors of the paper. “But before our study, it had been thought that cooperative alliances between groups were unique to humans.”

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Melting glaciers and torrential rains are wrecking lives. Western governments must step up their response

The harm and distress caused by floods in Pakistan are difficult – if not impossible – to quantify, as a crisis of vast proportions keeps unfolding. They have killed around 1,000 people so far this summer, with at least 119 losing their lives in one 24-hour period last week. The number of those who have lost their homes, or been evacuated, is in the millions, with 300,000 dwellings destroyed. More than 33 million people are affected – around one in seven of the population. The country’s climate change minister, Sherry Rehman, says the floods – caused by torrential monsoon rains and melting glaciers – are the worst in living memory. Around a third of Pakistan is under water. Vitally important agricultural land will take months to drain.

Hunger, homelessness and the spread of water-borne diseases are among the most immediate problems, and humanitarian aid must be urgently ramped up if further suffering is to be prevented. Supplies have begun to arrive from Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, but Pakistan’s government is right to expect more – especially from the rich western nations that bear the greatest responsibility for global heating. Pakistan has more glaciers – 7,532 – than anywhere on Earth outside the polar regions, and is thus one of the countries most endangered by fossil fuel use and the temperature rises and other extreme weather that it causes.

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Outgoing PM to warn against focusing on short-term energy solutions in one of his final speeches

Leading green Conservatives have backed Boris Johnson’s call for his successor to invest in renewable energy, amid concern that the Tory leadership frontrunner Liz Truss could rely more on fossil fuels to combat soaring prices.

In one of his final speeches as prime minister, Johnson is set to warn against focusing on short-term solutions and neglecting both renewables and a wider shift towards net zero.

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An article in the Nature Climate Change journal argues that non-violent direct action taken by experts is effective

Scientists should commit acts of civil disobedience to show the public how seriously they regard the threat posed by the climate crisis, a group of leading scientists has argued.

“Civil disobedience by scientists has the potential to cut through the myriad complexities and confusion surrounding the climate crisis,” the researchers wrote in an article, published in the scientific journal Nature Climate Change on Monday.

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