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AEMO says planned big battery projects should fill the gap created by the scheduled 2025 closure of Eraring. But if the sky does fall in, the lights might go out.

The post AEMO hedges bets, but says coal exits won’t trigger shortfalls if big batteries built on time appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Secretariat on biodiversity says fungi should be recognised and protected on equal footing with plants and animals

The word “funga” should be used alongside flora and fauna when discussing conservation issues to reflect the importance of fungi to ecosystem health, a UN body has said.

The secretariat of the UN convention on biological diversity (UNCBD) said it was time that fungi were “recognised and protected on an equal footing with animals and plants in legal conservation frameworks”.

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Rule requires wetlands to be more clearly connected to other waters, overturning half-century of federal regulation

The Biden administration weakened regulations protecting millions of acres of wetlands on Tuesday, saying it had no choice after the supreme court sharply limited the federal government’s jurisdiction over them.

The rule would require that wetlands be more clearly connected to other waters like oceans and rivers, a policy shift that departs from a half-century of federal rules governing the nation’s waterways.

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Britons consume among the most water in Europe and drought planners want efficiency data on show

Australian-style water labelling must be introduced at pace to reduce the UK’s daily consumption of water, which is among the highest in Europe, according to experts drawing up plans to tackle drought.

Billions of pounds more are likely to be added to customer water bills to pay for investment in new infrastructure if ministers do not act soon, according to specialists drawing up plans to tackle acute water shortages in south-east England.

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A California-based developer that uses manmade structures on the seabed to harvest carbon-sequestering kelp has signed its first offtake agreement for the resultant blue carbon credits and says that investor interest is strong in the projects thanks to the multiple benefits they deliver for marine life, climate change, and coastal communities.

The full Moon will be the largest and brightest of the year.

European carbon prices legged higher on Wednesday morning, following a recent trend of early-session strength, amid a strong auction and after weekly Commitment of Traders data from the two main exchanges showed a slight build in investment funds' short positioning.

A paper currently undergoing peer review aims to cut through current debates on how best to do area-based biodiversity conservation in light of the increased global attention on national biodiversity targets and investments and the emergence of nature-based credit markets.

A consortium has come together in a first of its kind project to enable households in Bangladesh and Cambodia access to clean cooking solutions while generating income through their cooking practices through a carbon credit revenue share system.

Power generation across EU countries fell to its lowest level in the first six months of 2023, as a 5% drop in overall consumption year-on-year and strong renewable output led to a 23% collapse in coal and 13% fall in gas burn.

South Korea is planning to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Laos by the end of this year to deepen their cooperation on REDD+ projects, as Seoul has committed to securing more international credits for its climate goals.

A new alliance formed this week has become the latest to target sustainable agriculture in an effort to save water and reduce methane emissions from rice cultivation in India.

As the world heats up, we need to confront what our urge to travel is really rooted in – and rethink it

While Rhodes burned, tourists kept flocking in. Homes were being turned to ash, thousands of holidaymakers were being evacuated, and still the visitors came. In the wake of the Hawaii wildfires, which have killed hundreds and counting, the island of Maui experienced the same phenomenon.

These images played on my mind as I set off on my own holiday abroad a week later. They niggled at me as I fumbled my way through Turkish thank-yous and waited dutifully in line to see Istanbul’s Blue Mosque. Why did they do it? There were partial explanations available: a lack of funds to book alternate trips, the lingering question of whether refunds would be issued, the quest to escape the grim British summer. But none of these felt enough to explain why people would walk towards the flames – why they’d put their lives and welfare at risk for a holiday.

Moya Lothian-McLean is a contributing editor at Novara Media

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The world is far from meeting an International Panel on Climate Change target to limit global warming to 2C above pre-industrial times and will continue to use fossil fuels at a much higher rate without more investment, new technologies, and better policy settings, according to oil major ExxonMobil.

Pragyaan has had an eventful week - dodging craters, taking the Moon's temperature and checking for sulphur.

Forestry wives, farmers’ wives, coalminers’ wives: they were the backbone of communities. But men always write the narratives

My mum is a forester’s wife. Growing up, I remember her collecting logs every autumn and stacking them in the log shed, picking out the Sitka spruce needles from inside the drum of the washing machine.

When my brother and I were born in the 80s, prospects for working-class women in rural areas were few and far between. Especially for mothers. We grew up on a country estate in Yorkshire in a tied house, which meant it came with my dad’s job. Each morning Dad set off for the woods with his lunchbox and Mum stayed at home to look after us.

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New Zealand’s forestry regulations needs to be balanced to gain rural community support while at the same time allowing the sector to expand to the scale required to meet the country’s climate goals, an expert told a conference Wednesday.

State-owned Stanwell Corp signs MoU with RWE in a deal to support the roll-out of up to 10GW of projects, starting with two huge wind farms.

The post Queensland partners with global energy giant to develop two new huge wind projects appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Drop in first half of year driven by fall in demand and some growth in clean power, study says

The European Union is stoking its power plants with fewer lumps of coal and barrels of oil and gas than it has ever recorded, data shows.

The 27 member states burned 17% less fossil fuel to make electricity between January and June 2023 than over the same period the year before, a study from the clean energy thinktank Ember found. The EU made 410TWh of electricity from sources that release planet-heating gases, which analysts say is the lowest level since 2015 – the first year for which they have monthly data – and “very likely” since 2000.

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Experts call for an independent review of Snowy 2.0 as costs of the controversial project are reported to have doubled again to $12 billion, not including transmission.

The post “Australia’s biggest engineering debacle:” Snowy 2.0 costs double again to reported $12bn appeared first on RenewEconomy.