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The EU could slash gas demand in five years by massively scaling up renewables and energy efficiency supported by a new €100 billion fund, a think-tank said on Thursday as Germany considers suspending its coal phaseout and EU leaders meet for talks on how to ramp up pressure on Moscow.

Environmental campaigners make joint call as young people prepare for latest wave of global climate crisis school strikes

Russian and Ukrainian environmental activists have made a joint call for a European embargo on Russian oil, gas and coal, as children and young people prepare to take part in the latest wave of climate crisis school strikes and protests around the world.

Arina Bilai, 16, of Fridays for Future Ukraine, and Arshak Makichyan, 27, of Fridays for Future Russia, said a ban on trade in fossil fuels from Russia would starve its invasion of Ukraine of crucial funds, while accelerating Europe’s transition to clean energy.

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EUAs rose slightly in light trading on Thursday, while energy markets also rose as participants expressed concern that soaring prices have reduced traders' ability to take on new positions amid high exchange margins.

Evolution Markets has appointed a new CEO, it said Thursday, as the environmental and energy brokers announced a series of changes to its executive team.

Ørsted is exploring the use of Jet Suit paramedics to support staff working on the world’s largest offshore wind farms.

The post Jet suits are being trialled for paramedics in offshore wind farm teams appeared first on RenewEconomy.

China has vowed to put an end to fake and misleading data in its domestic carbon market, but market participants say officials face a difficult task as bad actors simply have no incentive to stop.

The worst drought in 40 years has devastated crops and killed livestock across southern Angola, sending food prices soaring. The threat of famine is forcing people to migrate south to seek help across the border

• Photographs by Peter Caton for the Red Cross

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Report from Shoal on 2021’s newly described species shows ‘there are still hundreds and hundreds more freshwater fish scientists don’t know about yet’

Scientists are celebrating 212 “new” freshwater fish species, including a blind eel found in the grounds of a school for blind children and a fish named Wolverine that is armed with a hidden weapons system.

The New Species 2021 report, released by the conservation organisation Shoal, shows just how diverse and remarkable the world’s often undervalued freshwater species are, and suggests there is plenty more life still to be discovered in the world’s lakes, rivers and wetlands.

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Almost 90% of people in the UK recycle. But more than a tenth of everything we put out for recycling in this country is being burned. Why is this happening? Josh Toussaint-Strauss explores how local authorities have ended up incinerating so much of our recycling and what impact this is having on the environment

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Nasdaq has launched three commodity price reference indexes in the world’s first move to track the price of removing CO2 from the atmosphere, the US-headquartered exchange operator announced on Thursday.

Traditional orchards, havens for wildlife, have been lost to housing and farmland, National Trust reports

A century ago, small orchards were the glory not only of the countryside but of towns and cities across the UK, buzzing with life during the summer and, at this time of year, rich with the sight and scent of blossom.

But research released as this spring’s blossom sweeps across the UK has found there are 80% fewer small “traditional” orchards, which are regarded as particularly important for flora and fauna, in England and Wales compared with in 1900.

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New data suggests forests help keep the Earth at least half of a degree cooler, protecting us from the effects of climate crisis

The world’s forests play a far greater and more complex role in tackling climate crisis than previously thought, due to their physical effects on global and local temperatures, according to new research.

The role of forests as carbon sponges is well established. But comprehensive new data suggests that forests deliver climate benefits well beyond just storing carbon, helping to keep air near and far cool and moist due to the way they physically transform energy and water.

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Australia already has energy independence and extracts more gas than it needs to meet domestic demand. Indeed three-quarters is exported as LNG

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The Morrison government has been promising a “gas-fired recovery” from the pandemic since not long after lockdowns began in early 2020. Over the past 18 months it has announced nearly $1bn in funding for gas projects.

But this has done almost nothing to aid the country’s recovery from the Covid recession for an obvious reason – gas power plants, pipelines and basins take years to develop and build. Further, as Greg Jericho has pointed out, the gas industry employs very few people.

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One of the biggest industrial facilities in New Zealand’s emissions trading scheme will have most of its free NZUs cut, starting from 2021, the government announced Thursday.

The Morrison government faces a multi-level crisis impacting Australia's carbon markets. Will it take responsibility for the mess?

The post Australia’s carbon market is in crisis appeared first on RenewEconomy.

New SunWiz data reveals that a total of 756MWh of large-scale battery systems were installed in 2021, driven by the Victorian Big Battery and Wandoan BESS.

The post Big batteries notch up “mammoth” 2021, head for more than 1GWh in 2022 appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The conflict highlights the folly of nations exiting nuclear power while continuing to use coal, gas and oil. John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

The number of carbon credits surrendered under Australia’s Safeguard Mechanism rose moderately in FY2020-21, regulator data showed Thursday, though the vast majority of the nation’s biggest emitters remain untroubled by the programme.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has opened the door for renewable electricity to make hydrogen and hydrogen-derived products more cheaply than gas.

The post How Putin’s war has “turbocharged” green hydrogen, and long term shift from fossils appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Report finds intervention by energy minister Angus Taylor led to ‘mountain of oversupply’ and many projects will now be paused

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As a whistleblower alleges major failures in Australia’s carbon credit scheme, analysts say a plunge in the price of credits, triggered by a contentious change by the emissions reduction minister Angus Taylor, could last for years.

Earlier this month, Taylor announced landholders and other businesses with contracts to sell carbon credits to the government would be permitted to break those deals and instead sell them at a higher price on the private market.

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