Around The Web

A daily summary of our news plus bite-sized updates from around the world.

California Carbon Allowance (CCA) prices dipped on the secondary market after Christmas on thin volume, with RGGI Allowances (RGAs) remaining unchanged week-on-week ahead of New Jersey’s entrance into the scheme.

Europe's leading clean transport think tank and campaign group, Transport & Environment (T&E), is looking to strengthen its leadership team with a director to lead Europe’s most important clean freight programme.

A long-term resolution to leave the car at home could help waistlines as well as the environment

Since 2011 Beijing has controlled traffic growth by allocating new licence plates in a bimonthly lottery. There is less than a one in 500 chance of getting a plate in each draw but winning might not be as wonderful as it first seems.

The impact of increased motorised travel extend beyond air pollution. In the UK the total distance walked each year dropped by 30% between 1995 and 2013, and the distance cycled in England and Wales in 2012 was just 20% of that in 1952 – but these changes have been slow and are difficult to study.

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US Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) biofuel credit prices retreated into the single digits over the past week, driven by several factors coalescing over the year end holiday period.

Research from a now defunded Australian adaptation centre has found social barriers are the biggest obstacle to effective action

Talking to a fourth-generation grazier west of Townsville a few years ago, Prof Stephen Williams says he “made the mistake” of mentioning climate change.

“He said it was bullshit, but we kept talking,” the James Cook University ecologist says.

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EUAs slipped on Thursday, the first trading day of 2020, to continue their post-Christmas slump as the return of auctions looms and the wider energy complex turned even more bearish.

Austria’s new coalition government on Thursday unveiled a wide-ranging policy package that includes a domestic carbon price for non-EU ETS sectors and a higher climate levy for aviation, as the country strives for net zero emissions by 2040.

Fourteen entities opened Compliance Instrument Tracking System Service (CITSS) accounts in the California cap-and-trade programme during the fourth quarter as the total number climbed to 717, according to data released this week by state regulator ARB.

Main purpose of job: To support the work of the UK Mission to the United Nations to combat climate change, including diplomatic action to support delivery of the UK hosted 26th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26) in December 2020.

Further steps have been taken to clean up beaches and seas in 2019 – but much more needs to be done

The beach at Muncar on the island of Java was revolting. The 400-yard wide, mile-long stretch of sand was feet deep in foul-smelling sauce sachets, shopping bags, nappies, bottles and bags, plastic clothes and detergent bottles. Bulldozers had cleared away and buried some of the huge mat of plastic and sand two years ago, but every tide since then had washed up more rubbish from the ocean, and every day tonnes more plastic was washed down the rivers from upstream towns and villages. Now it was fouling the fishing boats’ propellers.

“We fear for the future,” one elderly woman said. She remembered Muncar only a decade ago as one of the most picturesque towns in Indonesia and a tourist hotspot. “If it carries on like this we will be buried in plastic. We have no choice but to throw plastic into the rivers. Now we are angry. Something must be done,” she said.

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More people make ‘free returns’ each year, contributing to greenhouse-gas emissions – and many items end up in landfills

Millions of Americans will head post office this month, unwanted holiday gifts in hand. But while it may be convenient to return that ugly sweater from your mom, that ease comes at a huge cost to the environment.

The United Parcel Service (UPS) predicts that it will process a record 1.9 million returns on 2 January, which it has dubbed National Returns Day. More than half (55%) of Americans said they planned on returning unwanted holiday gifts within a month of receiving them, according to a survey published by the National Retail Federation.

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My brother-in-law Alan Christie, who has died aged 68 after suffering from a heart condition, was a proponent of corporate social responsibility and for many years the director of community affairs at Levi’s. He helped to pioneer work that set the tone for the way in which multinational businesses funded efforts to combat Aids.

At Levi’s from 1988 to 2004, he expanded the company’s grant funding programme to support early projects to beat Aids and to promote education about Aids/HIV, particularly in southern Africa.

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Scott Morrison acknowledged the link between reducing emissions and protecting environments against worsening bushfire seasons, but despite mounting criticism maintained his government's current policies struck the right balance. Speaking at his first press conference since 29 December, the Australian prime minister said he understood people's frustrations but urged them to remain calm

• PM Scott Morrison defends climate policies and asks Australians to be 'patient' over fires
  
• NSW state of emergency declared as 17 missing in Victoria bushfires – as it happened
  

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Britain’s milder weather is attracting exotic guests. While we may celebrate their arrival now it should also alert us to what’s ahead

Mediterranean egrets balancing on the backs of cows, multicoloured moths the size of a human hand, and impossibly exotic bee-eaters hawking for insects under English skies. All are here as a direct consequence of the climate crisis, which has allowed continental European species to extend their ranges northwards, and then make the leap across the Channel to gain a foothold in southern Britain.

Whenever I take a walk along the disused railway line across the Avalon marshes, near my Somerset home, I can’t help noticing these new arrivals. Tall and elegant, great white egrets first arrived here from France just a few years ago; now I encounter them every time I visit. Down the road, at the Somerset Wildlife Trust’s reserve at Catcott Lows, flocks of cattle egrets – the same species we see in wildlife films from Africa – gather to feed, perched appropriately on the backs of cattle. Elsewhere on the marshes, secretive night herons and little bitterns have also bred in recent years.

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An Australian magpie  has been caught on camera mimicking the sound of emergency vehicle sirens during the bushfire crisis affecting large parts of the country. Almost 400 homes have been confirmed as destroyed in New South Wales alone in the past week, with thousands of people told to evacuate coastal communities. The Australian magpie, voted bird of the year by Guardian Australia readers in 2019, is well known for mimicking the sounds it hears most frequently, such as dogs and car alarms.  

Australian bushfires: nine dead and hundreds of properties destroyed

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The town of Conjola Park on the south coast of New South Wales is in ruins after a blaze ripped through on 31 December. On Thursday, a major operation to reach thousands of people stranded in fire-ravaged south coast seaside towns was under way after deadly bushfires ripped through popular tourist spots and rural areas

• Latest updates: RFS warns south coast tourists to leave as Victoria bushfires continue

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A trial where hydrogen is added to natural gas raises hopes of a low-carbon heating revolution.

A former software analyst and rising opera star has penned a song for the Red Planet.

Exclusive: Concerns about groundwater security at Cherrabah overridden by Campbell Newman’s government

Queensland government experts raised repeated warnings about the long-term sustainability of groundwater extraction at a southern Queensland property which has since been approved to operate as a commercial water mine.

The approval for the 96m litre a year bottled water extraction operation at Cherrabah – in a severely drought-hit area where locals are on water rations and communities at imminent risk of running dry – has raised significant questions about the oversight and regulation of critical water resources in Queensland.

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