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The sixth instalment of Carbon Forward - the premier annual environmental markets conference - is back, and it's stacked with a first-class line-up of speakers to discuss the global boom in carbon credit prices, as well as government- and corporate-led efforts to scale up these markets.

Global GHG emissions will be 16% higher in 2030 than they were in 2010 - levels aligned to 2.7C of warming - even if all nationally-determined contributions (NDCs) submitted under the Paris Agreement are fully achieved, according to a UN updated NDC synthesis report released Friday.

Though the days turn cold and the night draws in, we should not mourn; this time of year is full of richnesses and new beginnings too

So, after a late short blaze of summer, autumn is here. The leaves are turning, the blackberries are mostly eaten. So much of our approach to the season in literature and music has a dying fall: “Nothing gold can stay”, as Robert Frost put it. Not that summer was especially golden in the UK this year. Many, deprived of the long warm days of beach-going and picnics they had hoped for, feel it never happened at all. And now there is a rising drumroll of warning about winter infection rates, NHS overwhelm and rocketing heating costs.

True, the swifts are leaving, and geese honk across the sky. The mornings are darker and evenings shorter – one definition of autumn is that it begins on the equinox, 21 September, when dark and light are equal; another is based on average temperature, and kicks the season off on 1 September – but a flock of swallows waiting for the signal to go is a wonderful thing. And other birds, including knots, waxwings, fieldfares, light-bellied brent geese and redwings are just arriving.

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The president asks leaders to commit to cutting emissions by at least 30% below 2020 levels by 2030.

Major commitment with deadline of 2030 is big advance towards reaching 1.5C goal set out in Paris agreement

The US and the EU made a joint pledge on Friday to cut global methane emissions by almost a third in the next decade, in what climate experts hailed as one of the most significant steps yet towards fulfilling the Paris climate agreement.

The pledge came as the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, warned of a “high risk of failure” at vital UN climate talks, called Cop26, set for Glasgow this November.

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People living amid toxic fumes hope ruling will force Walleys Quarry to make urgent changes

When she returned to her home in the village of Knutton, outside Newcastle-under-Lyme, after a trip to London on Thursday, the landfill fumes hit Helen Vincent like a brick wall. “We were saying to each other: ‘Oh how nice was the fresh air in London?’ You won’t hear many people say that,” she laughed.

Vincent had been in London for a landmark high court ruling which ordered the Environment Agency to do more to protect five-year-old Mathew Richards from the landfill’s hydrogen sulphide fumes, which doctors said were shortening his life expectancy.

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Climate plans of more than 100 countries show we're heading in the wrong direction, the UN says.

It's 100 years since the great Antarctic explorer set out on his last voyage to the White Continent.

Overfishing, a heating planet, pollution and habitat destruction have devastated reefs, scientists warn

The world’s coral reef cover has halved since the 1950s, ravaged by global heating, overfishing, pollution and habitat destruction, according to an analysis of thousands of reef surveys.

From the 1,430-mile (2,300km) Great Barrier Reef in Australia to the Saya de Malha Bank in the Indian Ocean, coral reefs and the diversity of fish species they support are in steep decline, a trend that is projected to continue as the planet continues to heat in the 21st century.

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A summary of legislative and regulatory action on carbon pricing, clean fuel standards, and clean energy at the US subnational and federal level this week, including developments in Illinois and Pennsylvania.

With the UN’s Cop26 climate talks on the horizon, activists are finding new ways to make politicians pay attention

A new wave of climate activism, which has seen motorways blocked and politicians confronted by young people, is attempting to put pressure on the UK government before the UN Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow later this year.

Insulate Britain staged its first protest on Monday and has since brought large sections of the UK’s busiest motorway to a standstill to demand action to tackle the escalating climate emergency.

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Eggs laid on a sandy beach in northern Italy by a loggerhead sea turtle, or Caretta caretta, have hatched in what scientists described as an 'exceptional' event possibly caused by global heating. It was the first hatching of Caretta caretta sea turtle eggs ever recorded on the north Adriatic coast

• ‘Truly peculiar’: loggerhead turtles born in most northern spot ever recorded

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A new US-based digital currency protocol is closing its 'fair launch' auction on Friday, raising funds it intends to use to buy voluntary carbon offsets in a bid to drive up market prices and force big companies to reduce their emissions.

Nine sea turtles hatch on beach in Jesolo, Veneto, in what scientists describe as ‘exceptional’ event

Eggs that were laid on a sandy beach in northern Italy by a loggerhead sea turtle, or Caretta Caretta, have hatched in what scientists describe as an “exceptional” event possibly brought on by global heating. It was the first time that the hatching of Caretta Caretta sea turtle eggs had been recorded along the northern Adriatic coast.

Nine sea turtles were born on Wednesday night on the beach in Jesolo, a popular seaside resort close to Venice where their mother had deposited 82 eggs, about 25 metres from the sea, overnight on 9 July.

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The 15 finalists of Prince William's inaugural Earthshot Prize are tackling the planet's problems.

EUAs were little changed after a busy but low-key morning session on Friday, as gas and power markets also calmed following several days of high volatility.

Fifteen finalists chosen for providing innovative solutions to environmental challenges facing the planet

The first finalists in the Duke of Cambridge’s ambitious £50m global Earthshot prize to help repair the planet over the next 10 years have been announced and include a schoolgirl, a city and a country.

The prestigious global environment prize is designed to encourage solutions on climate change. The 15 inaugural finalists – three in each of the prize’s five categories – were chosen by experts and the prize council members.

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The best of this week’s wildlife pictures, including an ambush bug, friendly frogs and a rescued orca

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Members of Oil and Gas Authority hold shares in fossil fuel firms, raising conflict of interest concerns

Campaigners have warned that close links uncovered between the oil and gas industry and the UK’s North Sea regulator, which is responsible for licensing new fields, risk overly “cosy” relationships that might affect the decision making process.

Three of the 13 members of the board of directors and senior management team of the Oil and Gas Authority hold sizeable shareholdings in oil companies, amounting to about £225,000, and eight of the 13 previously worked in the oil and gas industry, the news site the Ferret has found, in an investigation funded by the Uplift campaign against fossil fuels.

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Japanese oil and gas company Inpex signed a carbon neutral propane gas deal with major LPG player Astomos Energy this week, broadening the list of fossil fuel product trades that are controversially claiming carbon neutrality.