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California Carbon Allowance (CCA) prices increased ahead of next week’s quarterly auction with speculative demand fuelling those gains, while RGGI Allowances (RGA) hit fresh all-time highs this week on elevated buying interest.

Scientists analyse the chemistry in a woolly mammoth tusk to work out how far it travelled.

IPCC reports are often used as legal tool for bringing the powerful to account. And the more Australia’s governments and businesses lag on climate change, the more litigation we’re likely to see. Laura Schuijers, Research Fellow in Environmental Law, The University of Melbourne Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

The Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART) programme announced the approval on Wednesday of two new concepts for subnational deforestation reduction plans in Ghana and Vietnam, with the African country proposing to run its initiative alongside another jurisdictional-scale carbon credit endeavour.

Verra is looking for Program Officer to help manage Verra’s programs including especially the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Program, though also including the Jurisdictional and Nested REDD+ framework (JNR), the Climate, Community & Biodiversity (CCB) Standards and the Sustainable Development Verified Impact Standard (SD VISta).

If Joe Biden is serious about tackling the climate crisis he must use his country’s leverage to curb fossil fuels, not boost them

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report has driven home just how dangerous the climate crisis is. Faced with this unprecedented and unique challenge, the central question is: can we change course rapidly enough to contain the damage and preserve a halfway liveable planet? If the stark findings of the IPCC were not alarming enough, they are all the more so given the mounting evidence that the impetus for large-scale climate action may be ebbing.

Given the onrushing disaster, we may be forgiven mood swings. Earlier this year, it seemed that the balance of political and economic forces might be swinging in favour of rapid decarbonisation. China, Japan and South Korea had all made net-zero pledges. Trump, the climate-denier-in-chief, had lost the White House. The new Biden administration was pushing what was billed as a major green infrastructure programme. The NextGenerationEU stimulus package was raising ambition. First the Bank of England and then the European Central Bank (ECB) took on the climate issue. The German Green party was riding high in the polls. Investors and financial markets were dumping dirty assets. Even a lobby like the International Energy Agency, once created to represent the interests of oil consumers, was charting a course to net zero. On 14 July, the EU announced its Fit for 55 plan, which implied, among other things, an end to the sale of new internal combustion engine cars by the early 2030s.

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German utility RWE may be forced to close its remaining lignite-burning power plants earlier than planned, saying on Thursday it is “conceivable” that the next German government will ratchet up its coal phaseout to meet tougher EU emissions goals.

EUAs were slightly weaker in Thursday morning trading as the daily auction cleared at the largest discount to spot prices for more than three weeks, while energy prices were largely stronger

Heavy rains have triggered severe floods and mudslides in northern Turkey, killing at least one person and leaving others missing or injured. Turkey has been grappling with drought and a rapid succession of natural disasters that scientists believe are becoming more frequent and violent because of the climate crisis. The floods hit the Black Sea coastal provinces of Bartin, Kastamonu, Sinop and Samsun

• Turkey battles fresh disaster as floods hit country’s north

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Infrastructure bill includes $8bn to develop ‘clean hydrogen’ but study finds large emissions from production of ‘blue’ hydrogen

The large infrastructure bill passed by the US Senate and hailed by Joe Biden as a key tool to tackle the climate crisis includes billions of dollars to support a supposedly clean fuel that is potentially even more polluting than coal, new research has found.

The $1tn infrastructure package, which passed with bipartisan support on Tuesday, includes $8bn to develop “clean hydrogen” via the creation of four new regional hubs. The White House has said the bill advances Biden’s climate agenda and proponents of hydrogen have touted it as a low-emissions alternative to fuel shipping, trucking, aviation and even home heating.

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Just when we must be rejecting new drilling, fracking and pipeline infrastructure, Biden isn’t just tolerating fossil fuels - he’s uplifting them

The latest report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change paints a stark and sobering picture: a global future of extreme weather events that are guaranteed to become more frequent and more intense over coming decades. The horrific flooding that has recently shocked Europe will become more common. The unrelenting fires that have engulfed the western United States and Canada will intensify and widen. And some island nations, it seems, may already be doomed to eradication by inevitable sea level rise.

The only glimmer of hope offered in the IPCC report is that immediate, aggressive action by world leaders could still prevent a future of assured climate chaos from being even worse. As devastating as a 1.5C global temperature increase will be, a 2.5C increase would be unfathomable.

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Chinese investments in green bonds more than doubled in the first half of 2021 compared to the same period last year, a report said this week, with clean energy and transport the main beneficiaries.

Genesis, one of the biggest emitters covered by the New Zealand ETS, has signed a long-term agreement with Contact Energy on geothermal electricity delivery that will see its NZU demand drop.

Academics warn ‘fugitive’ emissions from producing hydrogen could be 20% worse for climate than using gas

The government’s plan to replace fossil gas with “blue” hydrogen to help meet its climate targets could backfire after US academics found that it may lead to more emissions than using gas.

In some cases blue hydrogen, which is made from fossil gas, could be up to 20% worse for the climate than using gas in homes and heavy industry, owing to the emissions that escape when gas is extracted from the ground and split to produce hydrogen.

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Just as inequality fuelled the pandemic, it could wreck plans to cut emissions

The message from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change could hardly be clearer. Business as usual means global temperatures will rise by more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels within two decades. Preventing that happening will require a massive and rapid drop in the amount of greenhouse gases being emitted.

Diagnosis is the easy bit. The question is not whether human beings are on a collision course with nature but how to use the time left to bring about the far-reaching economic changes required to avoid catastrophe.

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Rewilding on marginal land could bolster employment without halting traditional agricultural activities, data shows

• Cairngorms crofters: ‘We don’t follow a capitalist grow-grow-grow model’

Rewilding 5% of England could create nearly 20,000 jobs in rural communities and increase employment by 50% compared with intensive farming, figures show.

Related: Cairngorms crofters: ‘We don’t follow a capitalist grow-grow-grow model’

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Australia's biggest solar farm signs deal with Fluence to use its trading platform and help it maximise revenue and dodge negative prices.

The post Fluence lands automated trading deal with Australia’s biggest solar farm appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Just £145m of budget went on environment with £40bn spent on emissions-increasing measures, says charity

The UK government is spending many times more on measures that will increase greenhouse gas emissions than on policies to tackle the climate crisis, according to an analysis of the spring budget.

Only £145m in the March 2021 budget was devoted to environmental spending, most of it on the post-Brexit emissions trading scheme for industry, according to an analysis by the conservation charity WWF. But the cost of tax breaks to companies to encourage investment came to more than £34bn, while maintaining the fuel duty freeze – for an 11th consecutive year – is costing about £4.5bn in lost revenues.

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The only hope for improved profits for Australian coal generators are a series of catastrophes: Natural ones, mishaps, and Angus Taylor's policies.

The post Floods, fires and Angus Taylor: Coal plants don’t have much else going for them appeared first on RenewEconomy.

AGL hit by muitli-billion dollar write downs, as Australia's largest emitter tries to catch up with accelerating energy market transition.

The post AGL hit by huge losses as it scrambles to catch up with switch from baseload appeared first on RenewEconomy.