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CP Daily: Monday June 14, 2021
Secrets of tiny diving mammals revealed
Gigafactories: Europe tools up against US and Asia as a car battery force
Nato and climate change: How big is the problem?
Too wet for coal power: Yallourn units shut down due to flooded mines
Yallourn coal generator forced to close three out of its four units over the weekend due to flooding at its brown coal mines in Victoria.
The post Too wet for coal power: Yallourn units shut down due to flooded mines appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Common CO2 pricing standard, large emitter alignment necessary across Canada –report
Idaho CCO project latest to apply for LCFS transition
Faking climate action will be the main game at major gas conference
A massive gas industry conference marks an acceleration in efforts to create weak, ineffective climate 'targets' to mask huge fossil expansion.
The post Faking climate action will be the main game at major gas conference appeared first on RenewEconomy.
DIY habitat: my photos show chainsaw-carved tree hollows make perfect new homes for this mysterious marsupial
VCM Report: VER prices nudge higher as traders see growing upside potential
Low Carbon Trader, BP – Chicago
Euro Markets: EUAs give back gains after Germany releases allocation details
NA Markets: Hot weather pushes electricity generators to hedge California cap-and-trade exposure
How are our cities going to look in a rapidly heating world? It won’t be long and 50C will be normal | James Bradley
Hot weather bakes in disadvantage. Regenerating natural and living ecosystems will help us all
A century ago the British critic and crime writer GK Chesterton declared that crime fiction is the poetry of the city. Chesterton’s point was that the city is more attuned to the poetry of contemporary life than the country, but his observation also hit upon something no less important, which is that the structures that shape social and economic life are visible in their concentrated forms in the urban environment.
This is especially true when it comes to the impacts of global heating. As our cities get hotter the inequities embedded in them are intensifying rapidly. A 45C day in Sydney’s inner city isn’t fun, but residents of the affluent suburbs close to the centre tend to live in well-appointed, air-conditioned houses and apartments, as well as enjoying easy access to beaches, parks, pools and libraries where they can find refuge from the heat.
Continue reading...Rich countries urged to come up with detailed plans to cut emissions
Laurence Tubiana, a key player in 2015 Paris summit, says UK and others must explain how they will achieve climate goals
Rich countries must come forward with detailed plans on how they hope to meet their climate targets, and Boris Johnson must forge much closer relationships with developing countries to bring about the breakthrough needed on the climate crisis this year, one of the architects of the Paris agreement has said.
The G7 summit, which ended on Sunday in Cornwall, achieved much less than campaigners had hoped, with no significant new cash forthcoming for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable, on the frontlines of climate breakdown.
Continue reading...UK government pledges a 'nature-positive future'
England’s infrastructure projects will be ‘nature positive’, ministers vow
Biodiversity pledge is part of formal response to landmark review of economic importance of nature
The UK government has committed to leaving the environment in “a better state than we found it” in response to a landmark review of the economic importance of nature.
Major transport and energy infrastructure projects in England will need to provide a net-gain for biodiversity, and the government said it would ensure all new bilateral aid spending did not harm the natural world as part of an effort to ensure a “nature-positive” future.
Continue reading...London-based carbon fund dips toe in UK ETS as new market attracts more interest
Germany publishes free EU carbon allocation list for 2021-25, estimates start for this year’s delayed handouts
The rush to ‘go electric’ comes with a hidden cost: destructive lithium mining | Thea Riofrancos
As the world moves towards electric cars and renewable grids, demand for lithium is wreaking havoc in northern Chile
The Atacama salt flat is a majestic, high-altitude expanse of gradations of white and grey, peppered with red lagoons and ringed by towering volcanoes. It took me a moment to get my bearings on my first visit, standing on this windswept plateau of 3,000 sq km (1,200 sq miles). A vertiginous drive had taken me and two other researchers through a sandstorm, a rainstorm, and the peaks and valleys of this mountainous region of northern Chile. The sun bore down on us intensely – the Atacama desert boasts the Earth’s highest levels of solar radiation, and only parts of Antarctica are drier.
I had come to the salt flat to research an emerging environmental dilemma. In order to stave off the worst of the accelerating climate crisis, we need to rapidly reduce carbon emissions. To do so, energy systems around the world must transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Lithium batteries play a key role in this transition: they power electric vehicles and store energy on renewable grids, helping to cut emissions from transportation and energy sectors. Underneath the Atacama salt flat lies most of the world’s lithium reserves; Chile currently supplies almost a quarter of the global market. But extracting lithium from this unique landscape comes at a grave environmental and social cost.
Continue reading...