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Even if president-elect rolls back climate progress, John Podesta reaffirms commitment to a clean planet at Cop29

The US climate envoy John Podesta said the fight “for a cleaner, safer” planet will not stop under a re-elected Donald Trump even if some progress is reversed, speaking at the Cop29 UN climate talks on Monday as they opened in Baku, Azerbaijan.

“Although under Donald Trump’s leadership the US federal government placed climate-related actions on the back burner, efforts to prevent climate change remain a commitment in the US and will confidently continue,” said Podesta, who is leading the Biden administration’s delegation at the annual talks.

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Azerbaijan's COP29 presidency secured an early endorsement of key methodological standards under Article 6 during Monday's opening plenary, driven to action by two years of failure at the annual UN climate summit to move forward on the Paris Agreement's carbon crediting mechanism.

US climate envoy John Podesta acknowledged the election of Donald Trump as “disappointing” for climate action, but remained steadfast in continued private sector and subnational-led efforts to reduce emissions at COP29 on Monday.

Further details from the UN aviation body ICAO on its voluntary credit approvals is unlikely to be published until the end of the month at the earliest, according to Verra’s CEO, making it hard to say when eligible credits are likely to appear and from what countries.

Initial recommendations for a joint Article 6.2 Crediting Protocol between Singapore, Verra, and Gold Standard advise synchronised, detailed reporting and credit traceability between UN, national, and private carbon registries – but avoid consolidation, giving each a distinct role.

An Australian-led study using seal-shaped decoys found underside lighting disrupted ability of great whites to see silhouettes against sunlight above

Using LED lighting on the underside of surfboards or kayaks could deter great white shark attacks, new research suggests.

In an Australian-led study using seal-shaped decoys, underside lighting disrupted the ability of great whites to see silhouettes against the sunlight above, reducing the rates at which the sharks followed and attacked the artificial prey. The brighter the lights, the more effective the deterrent was.

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The planet Uranus and its five biggest moons may not be the sterile worlds scientists have long thought.

The planet Uranus and its five biggest moons may not be the sterile worlds scientists have long thought.

Authorities have been racing to evacuate people reluctant to leave villages affected by the erupting Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki volcano on the Indonesian island of Flores. Volcanic material has continued to spew from its crater since 3 November, prompting authorities to extend the danger area and increase the number of evacuees. Lewotobi Laki-Laki is one of 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia

• At least 10 dead as volcanic eruptions destroy houses in Indonesia

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A veteran carbon trader has joined a London-based energy transition investment firm as partner, Carbon Pulse has learned.

Warmer weather brings multitudes of largest and noisiest varieties to east coast, with some as loud as 120 decibels

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The east coast of Australia is heading into a big, loud cicada summer.

Prof David Emery, veterinary immunologist and cicada expert, called it a “phenomenal season so far” for green grocer cicadas, which emerged in huge numbers in the Blue Mountains in September and were now making their appearance in Sydney and parts of Victoria.

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Much is unclear about how Donald Trump’s return to power will affect efforts to tackle global heating, but there are a few things we can say

You’ve likely already heard the worst-case takes: that a second Trump presidency is a disaster for the climate, and will almost certainly lead to emissions being higher than they otherwise would have been. There’s obvious truth in that. But it’s also true that Trump 2.0 will almost certainly not play out in line with immediate post-election predictions.

We have been here before. As the writer and analyst Ketan Joshi points out, in 2016 it was projected that Trump’s policies would lead to a steep rise in US emissions – a fork in the road at odds with the decline forecast if Hillary Clinton had won.

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Exclusive: Environmental group says it is ‘concerned’ to hear progress on cleaning up air pollution from diesel-burning may have hit a wall

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Work to regulate one of Australia’s biggest sources of carbon dioxide and other pollutants “has stalled”, despite the project beginning six years ago and comparable nations limiting emissions years earlier, New South Wales government documents have revealed.

State and federal environment ministers agreed in 2018 to examine pollution from non-road diesel engines as part of the national clean air agreement. These machines totalled more than 640,000 – ranging from mining trucks, outboard motors and forklifts to electricity generators – and were forecast to reach 945,000 by 2043.

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Standards body Cercarbono is working hard to be approved for Phase 1 of aviation offsetting scheme CORSIA and expects to receive first assessment by ICVCM for its Core Carbon Principles (CCPs) by year end, while it has also launched a circular economy programme with a first project in Bangladesh.

UN Regional Collaboration Centres (RCCs) channelling funds from the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) have played a key role in developing notable Article 6 and carbon pricing initiatives in the Global South, with ongoing projects expected to yield further concrete outcomes in the near and medium term.

Approximately half of China's protected areas (PAs) overlap with priority sites for species preservation, indicating high potential for enhancing conservation efforts across the country, according to a new paper.

New and broader compliance nature markets are needed in the UK to meet the 2030 biodiversity target, as voluntary schemes and existing regulations are not sufficient to drive business investment, a London-based think tank has said.

European carbon prices started the week brightly, catching a boost from rising gas and power but failing to hold on the full extent of the increase even as the energy markets consolidated their gains.

How do you capture the effects of the climate crisis on people right now? We have collected testimonies from around the world

• This is climate breakdown: ‘I heard on the scanner there’s a child in the water’

In March 2024, the Guardian’s environment desk began collaborating on a project that we hope will give voice to the growing number of people around the world living through the daily impact of climate breakdown. Our journalists have worked alongside researchers and humanitarian workers at the Climate Disaster Project (CDP) in Canada and the International Red Cross to compile a series of testimonies from survivors of recent extreme weather events.

CDP is an international teaching newsroom coordinated out of the University of Victoria in Canada that collaborates with disaster survivors. The teams are trained in trauma-informed interview skills, and spent hours speaking with people, listening to their stories and then relaying them in a way that takes us all through the experience. In publishing these testimonies and sharing them with you, we were able to help fulfil the project’s aim of creating “a people’s history of climate change” that would honour the dignity of the survivors.

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Workers face being targets in what could be Environmental Protection Agency’s biggest upheaval since its founding

After several years of recovery after the tumult of Donald Trump’s last administration, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is now bracing itself for even deeper cuts to staff numbers and to work protecting Americans from pollution and the climate crisis as Trump prepares to return to the White House.

When he was last president, Trump gutted more than 100 environmental rules and vowed to only leave a “little bit of the EPA” left “because you can’t destroy business”, prompting hundreds of agency staff to leave amid a firestorm of political interference and retaliation against civil servants. An even greater exodus is expected this time, with staff fearing they are frontline targets in what could be the biggest upheaval in the agency’s 50-year history.

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