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Exclusive: PM risked embarrassment of downgraded status if UN deemed UK’s climate policies lacking ambition

Rishi Sunak was warned that he faced exclusion from key discussions on the climate among world leaders at the UN before he decided to snub a global summit later this month.

It was announced last month that Sunak would be the first prime minister in a decade to avoid attending the annual UN general assembly gathering of world leaders. The reason given was his busy schedule, but the Guardian has learned that turning up risked severe embarrassment for the prime minister.

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A summer of blue-green algae caused havoc, with bathing bans and pondweed complicating matters.

London Wildlife Trust asks volunteers to seek out endangered beetles’ strongholds

They were celebrated as “ye country comets” by the poet Andrew Marvell but glowworms are defying light pollution to still shine their lights in the city of London.

Now volunteers and enthusiasts are being sought to count and save the much-celebrated but declining beetles, whose females emit a remarkable bright green bioluminescent beam to attract males.

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

Compliance entities boosted their net length in the California Carbon Allowance (CCA) and RGGI Allowance (RGA) markets over the past week, while speculators pared back their holdings in both North American programmes, according to US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data published Friday.

An OECD committee assembled to help improve the impact of emissions reduction efforts around the world through enhanced multilateralism will meet this autumn to discuss countries' various carbon pricing approaches, as part of an initiative to take stock of global efforts, examine their effectiveness, and prevent carbon leakage.

California regulator ARB’s forthcoming Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) rulemaking package will include a strengthening in the scheme’s carbon intensity (CI) targets alongside other measures to tighten the programme and phase out avoided methane crediting pathways, the agency revealed Friday.

The Washington Department of Ecology (ECY) will offer allowances from its Allowance Price Containment Reserve (APCR) for sale at one fixed-price tier this fall, following a Q3 settlement price which triggered the second-ever reserve auction, according to a government notice published Friday. 

California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) values slid on Friday to levels not seen since late July as market participants reported compliance entities were keen to sit back, though they spiked late in the day after the state published a document detailing its forthcoming rulemaking to strengthen the programme's carbon intensity (CI) benchmarks.

A major Brazilian financial services company announced on Thursday it expects its current suite of carbon projects to produce 60 million credits over the next three decades, not counting future investments in the sector.

Small rise in global temperatures would affect hundreds of millions of people and could cause a sharp rise in deaths

Life-threatening periods of high heat and humidity will spread rapidly across the world with only a small increase in global temperatures, a study has found, which could cause a sharp acceleration in the number of deaths resulting from the climate crisis.

The extremes, which can be fatal to healthy people within six hours, could affect hundreds of millions of people unused to such conditions. As a result, heat deaths could rise quickly unless serious efforts to prepare populations were undertaken urgently, the researcher said.

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Indonesia is leading a group of 17 commodity-producing countries that are demanding to have a say in the EU's anti-deforestation law that addresses imported products.

Fish farming will not enter the EU’s list of sustainable investment activities for at least two to three years, an executive at non-profit think-tank Planet Tracker has predicted.

Electric cookstoves will need a carbon credit price of $30-50 to enable the fledgling market to thrive, according to one of the leading manufacturers and project developers in the market that is set to open a new factory in Nigeria next month and is planning to sell commercially in the future.

Governments failing to cut emissions fast enough to meet Paris agreement goals and avoid disaster, major report says

• Analysis: A chasm laid bare

Governments are failing to cut greenhouse gas emissions fast enough to meet the goals of the Paris agreement and to stave off climate disaster, a major report by the UN has found.

Meeting the goals will require “phasing out all unabated fossil fuels”, the report says, in an acknowledgment that some oil-producing countries may find hard to take.

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The Q3 RGGI cap-and-trade auction cleared just shy of its all-time record settlement and in-line with broad market expectations near the secondary market values, although compliance participation remained subdued, according to results published Friday.

Stakeholders have welcomed the significant progress, notably on draft recommendations for removals, made by the UN body responsible for shaping the carbon crediting mechanism under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement ahead of a crunch meeting next week, while also highlighting the pressure of using the limited remaining time to finalise key aspects of the guidance, ahead of year-end negotiations at COP28.

A Biodiversity Risk Assessment (BioRA) tool has been launched by technology company Ceven that is free to use at its basic level.

Green development and climate finance will be one of the priorities of this weekend's G20 leaders' summit, according to G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant ahead of the two-day meeting in New Delhi this weekend despite climate change goals emerging as one of the major stumbling blocks. 

We are burning a lot more than just effigies

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