Around The Web

Australia's refusal to update its 2030 climate targets and to bring belligerence to Biden's climate summit put it in the global bad books.

The post Australia joins Brazil, Mexico and Russia as global climate laggard appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest (LEAF) finance coalition will impose high ambition requirements on public and private sector buyers and sellers of offsets, its founding nations the US, the UK, and Norway said on a webinar on Friday.

The US will need to leverage existing programmes and regulatory authority to drive near-term emissions reductions, but federal legislation is likely required to hit its enhanced Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to the Paris Agreement, panelists told a conference on Friday.

Speculators brought their California Carbon Allowance (CCA) holdings closer to pre-pandemic levels this week, as WCI emitters once again reduced their net length, according to US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data published Friday.

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 Washington, Pennsylvania, and New York.

US owners of lands smaller than 2,000 hectares are struggling both to maintain forests and generate credits under existing voluntary carbon offset (VCM) standards, but experts are divided on whether lower monitoring obligations can help alleviate the situation, panelists at the North American Carbon World (NACW) conference said Thursday.

EUAs ended their run of five consecutive record-breaking sessions on Friday, but the futures only slipped slightly as traders expected a few more days of tightness up to the annual compliance deadline.

Six activists cleared of causing criminal damage to Shell’s London headquarters in 2019

Six Extinction Rebellion protesters have been cleared of causing criminal damage to Shell’s London headquarters despite the judge directing jurors that they had no defence in law.

Two of the group’s co-founders, Simon Bramwell, 49, and Ian Bray, 53, were acquitted on Friday alongside Jane Augsburger, 55, Senan Clifford, 60, David Lambert, 62, and James “Sid” Saunders, 41, after a trial at Southwark crown court.

Continue reading...

World leaders will be unable to halt climate breakdown without strong action from biggest emitter

The US, the world’s second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, is now committed to halving emissions this decade.

Joe Biden’s announcement, at a White House virtual climate summit, has thrown the spotlight clearly on the world’s biggest emitter: China.

Continue reading...

The UK has fined seven companies a total of more than £600,000 for not complying with their obligations under the EU carbon market.

From flooding the streets with thousands of activists to mass Zoom calls, Twitter storms and isolation, young protesters have had to adapt to a global pandemic and find new ways to push forward their calls for action on the climate crisis.

We spoke to six ‘school strikers’, all members of Fridays for Future, about the impact the pandemic and social distancing have had on their movement, and what the future could hold for their protests after more than a year of Covid-19

• Climate protesters gather in person and online for Fridays for Future
  

Continue reading...

Government officials on Friday pushed for the public and private sectors to increase climate ambition ahead of the UN COP26 summit this fall, as the US and other countries announced a pair of initiatives to drive future reductions.

Offset standard manager and developer Verra on Thursday said it will not require corresponding adjustments for Paris Agreement-era voluntary carbon market (VCM) transactions, arguing such a move could hinder climate finance to developing countries and create needlessly complex accounting systems.

The best of this week’s wildlife pictures, including preening rabbits and fighting egrets

Continue reading...

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s pledge at the Leaders’ Climate Summit to strictly control coal projects in the current five-year period and phase them down from 2026 will likely benefit the national emissions trading scheme, prompting a cut in excess allowances earlier than presumed, according to experts.

Climate activist updates her social media biography following Boris Johnson comments at climate summit.

New Zealand carbon allowances have ticked up to their highest level since last month’s inaugural NZU auction, though the market remains thin ahead of next month’s 2020 compliance deadline which still has the NZ$35 fixed price option.

Four astronauts leave Florida in a Dragon capsule bound for the International Space Station.

Fighting climate change may be the most important task we face today – and the US’s renewed commitment to it is welcome

Nearly three decades ago, during the Earth Summit held in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, the international community acknowledged the need to address the growing challenges posed by the state of the environment. Several resolutions and agreements emerged from that historic conference, among them the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The ultimate goal of this multilateral initiative has been to prevent unchecked, runaway climate change from harming natural ecosystems, threatening food production or hindering sustainable development. In short, to preserve the world as we know it.

For three decades, countries – or parties, as they are known under the convention – have debated and deliberated on the mounting threat posed by human activities to the stability of the climate system and, consequently, to the future of our planet. Progress has been slow, often disappointingly so. But there have been major achievements, such as the Kyoto protocol in 1992 and, most significantly, the 2016 Paris agreement, which constitute landmarks in the development of an international regime that protects the climate.

Continue reading...

Australia will develop a carbon offset programme across parts of the Indo-Pacific region that can generate “high-integrity” units eligible under the Paris Agreement, Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor announced Friday.