Around The Web

Israel-based inverter maker SolarEdge has launched its own PV panel offering on the Australian residential market.

The post SolarEdge adds “smart panels” to rooftop offering appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Animals have long been used for military purposes, but could marine creatures also act as sensors?

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

The Morrison Government maintains Australia is still on track to meet its emission reduction targets under the Paris climate change agreement, despite new figures showing emissions have risen for a fourth consecutive year.

California Carbon Allowance (CCA) prices rose slightly on the secondary market this week as traders continued to process the recent auction result, while RGGI allowance (RGA) prices saw minimal gains in front of the programme’s own quarterly sale.

EUAs dipped below €24 on Thursday, slipping for a second straight session as bulls remained on the sidelines following the previous day's slide in the energy complex.

At least two Eastern European nations are planning to give up their right to offer utilities free carbon allowances next decade, likely increasing sales of EUAs by hundreds of millions of tonnes as the supply is diverted to auctions.

It is not fair to ask people to adapt their lives to dirty air. We need to solve the problem at source

Can telling people about air pollution lessen the impact? A new air quality index was launched in Hong Kong at the end of 2013. This included forecasts and information for vulnerable people; doctors were enlisted to advise their patients too. A new analysis of seven years of data showed that the start of the index was followed by a 16% reduction in the number of children treated in hospital with respiratory infections and pneumonia. This was attributed to parents following official advice to keep their children indoors during smogs. However, the benefit was short-lived and lasted for only about a year. Other studies have also found that people are willing to adapt their lives for short periods to protect themselves but not in the longer term. No effect was seen in elderly people. This was thought to be due to low literacy rates and difficulties in reaching them with information.

Others have criticised indices for focusing on smogs rather than the more harmful exposure to low levels of air pollution every day. Asking people to adapt to poor air pollution may help but we need to solve the problem at source. Our lives should not be further compromised by adapting what we do because of the quality of our air.

Continue reading...

Product and business development firm IncubEx has hired a senior vice president from an international biofuels brokerage firm to help expand the company’s offering into renewable fuel-based environmental products.

New 60MW solar farm in small regional grid in Pilbara will slash costs for big iron ore mines in the region, and will get funding from NAIF and ARENA.

The post Alinta plans 60MW solar farm to slash energy costs for Pilbara mining giants appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are at 414 parts per million. But thanks to a recalculation of methane's warming power, the total amount of greenhouse gases is now equivalent to more than 500. Zoe Loh, Research Scientist, CSIRO Blagoj Mitrevski, Research scientist, CSIRO David Etheridge, Principal Research Scientist, CSIRO Nada Derek, Research Projects Officer, Oceans and Atmosphere, Climate Science Centre, CSIRO Paul Fraser, Honorary Fellow, CSIRO Paul Krummel, Research Group Leader, CSIRO Paul Steele, Honorary Fellow, CSIRO Ray Langenfelds, Scientist at CSIRO Atmospheric Research, CSIRO Sam Cleland, Officer in Charge, Cape Grim Baseline Air Pollution Station, Australian Bureau of Meteorology Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Criticism of California’s compliance offset forestry protocol misinterpreted an academic report on emissions leakage, according to the author of that research, who suggested state regulator ARB should fund further studies to gain a more accurate picture.

The chancellor has warned against cutting UK emissions to net zero. But failing to act will have dire consequences

The chancellor, Philip Hammond, has written to the prime minister to warn against adopting the strict targets on greenhouse gas emissions recommended by the government’s advisers.

His intervention, first reported by the Financial Times (£), raises the important question of whether or not it makes economic sense to save the planet.

Continue reading...

US attraction Fair Oaks Farms Dairy Adventure accused of animal rights violations

Undercover footage showing young dairy calves being kicked, violently thrown, having their heads stamped into the ground and suffering from heat exposure at a US farm known as the “Disneyland of agricultural tourism” was published this week.

“Calves can be seen struggling to breathe and are observed suffering by themselves within their hutches,” according to a report by Animal Recovery Mission (ARM), the campaigners behind the footage. “With temperatures reaching to as high as 110F [43C] in summer, dehydration and malnutrition are also possible factors leading to calves suffering and slowly dying at Fair Oaks Farms.”

Continue reading...

The Northwest Territories (NWT) government will delay the implementation of its C$20 carbon levy from next month until September as it requires more time to review the policy’s underlying legislation, but it added the Canadian federal government would not fill in the two-month gap with Ottawa’s ‘backstop’ CO2 tax.

Just 63% of Britain’s beaches meet most stringent water quality standard

The UK has one of the lowest proportions of top quality bathing waters in Europe, according to research by the European Environment Agency.

Just 63.2% of Britain’s beaches met the most stringent water quality standards needed to be ranked as excellent.

Continue reading...

‘Brood management’ trial criticised for failing to tackle persecution of bird of prey

Hen harrier chicks will be removed from their parents and reared in captivity this summer in a controversial “brood management” scheme to placate grouse moor owners.

Removing young hen harriers is designed to prevent concentrations of the bird of prey on grouse moors, where hen harriers feed on young grouse, and reduce the illegal killing of species, which is on the brink of extinction as a breeding bird in England.

Continue reading...

The chancellor warns the PM that reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 could lower public spending.

Quantity of particles hundreds of meters underwater off California is on par with Great Pacific Garbage Patch, study finds

Anela Choy, a biological oceanographer, had been noticing something odd while studying the diets of tuna and other deep-diving fish. Though they lived at average depths of 1,000ft, their stomachs routinely contained bottle caps, trash bags, and light sticks. “It was so strange,” says Choy, who works at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. “We were seeing recognizable pieces of human society.”

Her concerns about plastic pollution inspired a study of waters off the coast of northern California, conducted by Choy and a team of other scientists. The findings, released today in Nature Scientific Reports, reveal a proliferation of microplastic particles, the tiny fragments left over when larger plastics break down. Most remarkably, the highest concentrations of microplastics were found about 200-300 meters (650-1,000ft) down – four times more plastic than was found in samples at the surface. That’s on par, or higher, with quantities found at the surface of the Great Pacific Garbage patch.

Continue reading...

A carving believed to be about 12,000 years old has been discovered in south-western France.