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Kew Gardens will reopen the world's largest Victorian glasshouse

BBC - Thu, 2018-05-03 09:04
The Temperate House at Kew Gardens, which was built in 1863, is home to some of the world's rarest plants.
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Climate change aid to poor nations lags behind Paris pledges

The Guardian - Thu, 2018-05-03 09:01

Donor nations’ 2020 target of $100bn annual fund for adapting economies falls short by near 50% says Oxfam

Finance for poor countries to help them reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and deal with climate change is lagging behind the promises of rich countries, an Oxfam report finds.

While taxpayer-funded finance has increased, and the private sector has stepped up with some initiatives, the amount raised could still fall short of the goal of providing $100bn a year to the developing world by 2020.

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Hawaii legislature passes amended offset and sequestration bills

Carbon Pulse - Thu, 2018-05-03 07:29
The Hawaii House and Senate have again passed two carbon offset and sequestration-related bills after a bicameral committee made minor changes to both pieces of legislation in April.
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Weatherwatch: May 1935 saw unusually wintry conditions

The Guardian - Thu, 2018-05-03 06:30

Widespread frost caused damage to fruit and vegetables as temperatures plunged

It has not been a great spring – so far, at least – but temperatures have been more or less normal: unlike those of May 1935. The month in which King George V celebrated his silver jubilee started well, with fine, sunny weather, and highs of 23C.

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Rio Tinto's climate change resolution marks a significant shift in investor culture

The Conversation - Thu, 2018-05-03 06:22
The shareholder resolution on climate change at Rio Tinto's AGM is another indication of how much investor culture is tilting towards demanding that companies take a responsible climate stance. Anita Foerster, Senior Research Fellow, University of Melbourne Jacqueline Peel, Professor of Environmental and Climate Law, University of Melbourne Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
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$500 million for the Great Barrier Reef is welcome, but we need a sea change in tactics too

The Conversation - Thu, 2018-05-03 06:22
The federal government's new $500 million funding package for the Great Barrier Reef seems predominantly focused on the tactics that are already being tried, without much success. Jon Brodie, Professorial Fellow, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
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EU Market: EUAs dip to 1-wk low below €13 as power prices sink

Carbon Pulse - Thu, 2018-05-03 05:58
EU carbon prices continued to slide on Wednesday, dropping below €13 for the first time in a week as weaker power prices weighed despite some improved signs of auction demand.
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Canadian firm foresees international expansion for Alberta’s land-based offset protocols

Carbon Pulse - Thu, 2018-05-03 05:27
New global carbon markets and heightened consumer and corporate interest will bolster international demand for land-based offset projects developed in Alberta despite concerns about environmental integrity, Canadian environmental consultants said on Wednesday.
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How birds got their beaks - new fossil evidence

BBC - Thu, 2018-05-03 03:11
Scientists piece together the skull of an ancient bird, which had a primitive beak lined with teeth.
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Everglades under threat as Florida's mangroves face death by rising sea level

The Guardian - Thu, 2018-05-03 00:52

The ‘river of grass’ wilderness and coastal communities are in peril, with the buffer coastal ecosystems on a ‘death march’ inland

Florida’s mangroves have been forced into a hasty retreat by sea level rise and now face being drowned, imperiling coastal communities and the prized Everglades wetlands, researchers have found.

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More than 260 installations, airlines in non-compliance with EU ETS for 2017, data shows

Carbon Pulse - Wed, 2018-05-02 22:57
More than 260 installations and airlines operating under the EU ETS, or just over 2% of the total covered, were listed as being in non-compliance with the scheme for 2017, data published by the European Commission on Wednesday showed.
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Recycle the Weetabix! What I learned from a month on the app that tackles food waste

The Guardian - Wed, 2018-05-02 22:47
We waste £13bn worth of food each year in the UK, with 71% of that being wasted at home. At the same time, use of food banks has boomed. Is Olio the answer?

I am walking with a woman named Kerry, whom I have just met, to her car. She is in her mid-30s and has a tinge of attitude, as if she came to London to fix it. When we reach her car, she opens the boot. Inside are hundreds of industrial-sized tubs of hummus, enough to power Brighton for a week.

I met Kerry online, not via some kind of hummus-appreciation society messageboard, but on Olio, an app that is attempting to end food waste at home by letting people upload details of the food they would otherwise chuck out, so that others living nearby can take it off their hands. I am trying out the app for a couple of weeks to see if it can reduce my own waste to zero (and to see if I can get some freebies).

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Brussels seeks share ETS revenues, wants to up climate spend

Carbon Pulse - Wed, 2018-05-02 22:19
The European Commission has proposed to earmark a fifth of EU ETS auction revenue for the post-Brexit 2021-2027 central EU budget, for which it wants to raise climate-related spending by 5%.
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Prof Stephen Hawking's multiverse finale

BBC - Wed, 2018-05-02 21:15
In his last paper, the Cambridge physicist tackles multiple universes and a cosmic paradox.
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Women fighting forest fires say abuse is rife – but men often go unpunished

The Guardian - Wed, 2018-05-02 20:00

Women in the US Forest Service love what they do. But they also describe a toxic male environment that tolerates, and even promotes, their harassers

Denice Rice handles things for herself. A more than 20-year veteran of the US Forest Service’s wildfire operations, she’s spent weeks at a time working blazes deep in the wilderness. So she thought she could manage when, in 2009, her new second-in-line supervisor started giving her unwanted attention. “He immediately befriended me and started mentoring me, and from there it just got weird,” she remembers.

For two years she said nothing. “He’d get handsy and then I’d snap and make him back off and it would stop for a while, and then it would start up again.” But in 2011, the two got into an argument and he assaulted her, poking her breasts with a letter opener, as she related in 2016 testimony before a congressional committee examining sexual harassment and gender discrimination in the US Department of Agriculture, which oversees the forest service. The man did it “with a smile on his face in an arrogant way like he could get away with it. And I stood there in shock.”

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Climate veteran joins Victoria govt as senior advisor

Carbon Pulse - Wed, 2018-05-02 18:27
One of Australia’s leading climate and energy policy experts has taken up a new role as senior climate and energy advisor to the Victorian state government.
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Australian group launches fund to trade premium-priced co-benefit offsets

Carbon Pulse - Wed, 2018-05-02 18:26
The Aboriginal Carbon Fund has launched a new fund seeking to trade carbon credits that provide additional environmental, social and cultural benefits for indigenous communities in Australia.
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Australia should move on international offsets but might meet closed doors, observers warn

Carbon Pulse - Wed, 2018-05-02 18:22
If Australia wants to use international carbon credits to meet its Paris target it should start seeking out potential bilateral partnerships now, but may find many governments reluctant to export them, according to observers.
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“No way” anyone will fund new coal plants under NEG, says Schott

RenewEconomy - Wed, 2018-05-02 15:13
"I can assure you that, unless there's a change of technology, there would be absolutely no way that anybody would be financing a new coal-fired generation plant."
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Wet wipe pollution 'changing the shape of British riverbeds'

The Guardian - Wed, 2018-05-02 15:00

More than 5,000 wet wipes found in an area next to the Thames the size of two football pitches

Wet wipes are changing the shape of British riverbeds, campaigners said after finding more than 5,000 of them alongside the Thames in an area the size of two football pitches.

Thames 21, a London environmental organisation that cleans up rivers and canals, retrieved 5,453 wet wipes during an operation last month in 116 sq m of the Thames embankment near Hammersmith. The haul was an increase of nearly a thousand over last year’s total (which took place on a larger riverbank area).

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