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Voluntary emissions reduction (VER) prices largely stagnated this week with the exception of nature-based units, as voluntary carbon market participants reported a continued shift away from lower-cost offsets from China and India.

Notwithstanding COVID, this political term has been framed by extreme events such as the Black Summer bushfires and floods – and it will show at the ballot box. Peter Christoff, Senior Research Fellow and Associate Professor, Melbourne Climate Futures initiative, The University of Melbourne Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Until now, export credit agencies - publicly-owned banks - have gone under the radar on fossil fuel financing. That’s about to change. Christian Downie, Associate Professor, Australian National University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Carbon offset standard American Carbon Registry (ACR) on Monday announced it will begin labelling credits as CO2 “removals” though a new registry functionality, as well as allowing improved forest management (IFM) projects to generate units clearly tagged as removals or emissions reductions.

Senior official says US ‘determined that everyone raise ambition’ in tackling climate crisis and stresses need to keep heating below 1.5C

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The US will urge Australia to increase its 2030 emission reduction pledge this year, with a senior official declaring it was “a long time ago” when the Abbott government set the target the Morrison government says is “fixed”.

The assistant US secretary of state for environmental affairs, Monica Medina, said the US was “determined that everyone raise ambition” in tackling the climate crisis in a bid to avoid “greater destruction”.

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Spike in prices in part caused by coal-fired power plants cutting output, says analyst

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Australia’s wholesale power costs are soaring, with prices for most of the national electricity market running at double the rate promoted by the Morrison government in last month’s budget.

April prices are forecast at $175 per megawatt-hour in Queensland, the most among the major east coast states, ASX futures data shows. New South Wales isn’t far behind at $173/MWh, while South Australia at $150 and Victoria just above $100.

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A Pennsylvania court on Monday rescinded its order that held up the publication of the state’s RGGI-modelled cap-and-trade regulation, though Republican legislators next month will still receive a hearing to consider their request to block the programme from taking effect.

Fashion retail sites such as Shein constantly add new styles at incredibly cheap prices, normalising overconsumption

High street brands such as H&M and Zara have been accelerating the pace of fast fashion for years, but the 4,414 new styles H&M added to its US website this year isn’t even the worst of it – enter ultra-fast fashion.

The Chinese fashion retail website Shein was recently valued at $100bn and has added almost 315,000 styles to its website this year alone. At the time of writing, Shein UK has 4,029 items in the under £5 section, with several crop tops and miniskirts priced at an alarming £1.99.

Zainab Mahmood is a journalist and social media content creator

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South Australia sets a new benchmark of 136.6 per cent renewables - as a share of local demand - early on Easter Sunday.

The post South Australia grid reaches record high of 136.6 pct renewables appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Critics say cash from UK, Norway, France and Germany could be wasted as damning report reveals illegalities, corruption and environmental crimes

Environmental groups have raised concerns about a $500m (£380m) forest protection deal signed by Boris Johnson at Cop26, after a damning report into the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s “lawless” logging sector.

Johnson signed the letter of intent on behalf of the Central African Forest Initiative (Cafi) for a 10-year agreement which includes objectives to protect high-value forests and peatlands. Of the £200m committed to protecting the Congo basin by the UK at Cop26, £32m was given to Cafi from the aid budget.

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Victoria sets new benchmark of 83.8 per cent instantaneous wind and solar share on Easter Sunday.

The post Victoria reaches record wind and solar share of 83.8 per cent appeared first on RenewEconomy.

China’s thermal power generation declined last month for the first time since last December, while total generation growth dropped to near zero, official data showed Monday.

None of our rivers meet the legal standard for health, and communities are starting to take matters into their own hands

I wouldn’t go swimming in England’s rivers in the same way that I wouldn’t flush my head down a public toilet. It’s not just me who feels this way. Even Sir James Bevan, the chief executive of the Environment Agency – the regulator responsible for protecting and improving water in England – has said he would be “cautious” about it, first seeking out assurances by checking the websites of the EA and the campaign group Surfers Against Sewage before going for a paddle.

Bevan’s agency does provided some assurances – as long as you only wish to swim in one of the country’s 417 or so designated bathing water sites, most of which are at the coast. In fact, there are only around a dozen inland bathing lakes in the whole country; and, for now, just one river – in Ilkley, West Yorkshire – which was rated “poor” in the agency’s last assessment of bathing water, so you might want to swerve it anyway. Better to hop across the Channel instead, where France can offer around 1,300 glorious lakes and rivers designated for safe swimming among its 3,300 bathing sites.

Rachel Salvidge is an environmental journalist and deputy editor of the Ends Report

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Whether we’re eating them or decorating them, there is no doubt that eggs play a prominent role in Easter activities. The environmental organisation WWF has carried out its own Easter egg hunt in its photo library and created a gallery of weird and wonderful eggs found in the natural world, from tiny anemonefish eggs to the largest of them all, those of the ostrich, weighing as much as a dozen chicken eggs.

See more magnificent nature photography and find out how you can help to protect wildlife at wwf.org.uk

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These twelve technologies could help accelerate the shift to green energy and a zero emissions world.

The post Twelve climate innovators that could accelerate shift to clean energy appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Successful breeding program brings optimism for a native species nearly eradicated by disease and bushfires

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Two years after the 2019-20 summer bushfires nearly wiped out the species, 80 critically endangered spotted tree frogs are jumping back into the wild in NSW.

“Releasing these 80 spotted tree frogs back into the wild, despite all the setbacks this species has faced, is a reminder to have optimism about the conservation work we’re doing,” the NSW environment minister, James Griffin, said in a statement on Monday.

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Wind reaches new milestone in US, beating out both coal and nuclear power for a single day.

The post Graph of the Day: Wind beats both nuclear and coal for first time in US appeared first on RenewEconomy.

How it feels to treat your depression with a hallucinogenic drug.

Demolition and construction are hugely carbon-intensive. Developers must change their ways

A controversial decision by London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, to allow the demolition of a flagship Marks & Spencer store on London’s Oxford Street is one of the highest-profile instances so far of what is certain to become a wider debate about embodied carbon. This crucial term, which refers to the carbon emissions of a building over its lifetime, urgently needs to be brought into wider circulation. In the UK, buildings are estimated to be responsible for 23% of all emissions.

With its millions of Victorian and Edwardian terraces, the UK has some of the oldest housing stock in the world. So the idea of a “throwaway building culture”, as Will Hurst of the Architects’ Journal describes our contemporary attitude to construction, takes some getting used to. But developers, particularly of large-scale projects, routinely look for a blank slate on which to place a new edifice. Demolition is part of what the construction industry does.

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Police issue warning after first conviction since targeting of fuel terminal began on 1 April

A 64-year-old woman has been convicted of aggravated trespass after taking part in a Just Stop Oil protest at a fuel site in Essex last week.

Catherine Maclean, of Hurstpierpoint in West Sussex, became the first person to be convicted over involvement in the recent wave of fuel site blockades after admitting the offence at Chelmsford magistrates court on Saturday, Essex police said.

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