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Exclusive: Lawyers for Australian Conservation Foundation warned department issuing grant money before due process could be ‘improper’

The federal government quietly finalised an agreement to pay $3.6m to a company proposing a coal-fired power station at Collinsville in north Queensland this month, despite prior warnings the grant could be disallowed by the parliament and that making any payment beforehand could be “improper”.

Last week, ahead of the return of federal parliament – where the grant to Shine Energy will be subject to a disallowance motion, backed by Labor and the Greens – the federal government’s grants register was updated to include the final details of the controversial handout.

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Rising consumption by the affluent has a far greater environmental impact than the birth rate in poorer nations

When a major study was published last month, showing that the global population is likely to peak then crash much sooner than most scientists had assumed, I naively imagined that people in rich nations would at last stop blaming all the world’s environmental problems on population growth. I was wrong. If anything, it appears to have got worse.

Next week the BirthStrike movement – founded by women who, by announcing their decision not to have children, seek to focus our minds on the horror of environmental collapse – will dissolve itself, because its cause has been hijacked so virulently and persistently by population obsessives. The founders explain that they had “underestimated the power of ‘overpopulation’ as a growing form of climate breakdown denial”.

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The ACT parliament legislates to force major developments to account for their greenhouse gas emissions during planning process.

The post ACT bucks trend, to include emissions in new planning decisions appeared first on RenewEconomy.

APA group confident it can ride through Covid-19 disruptions, but the gas infrastructure giant faces an even greater challenge: decarbonisation.

The post Australian gas giant says it can ride through Covid-19, but can it survive decarbonisation? appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Coalition announces review of solar industry, as fears grow of “chaos” from new rules in South Australia. And we hear from the CEO of fire retardant company PVStop.

The post Solar Insiders Podcast: Solar industry review, chaos fears in S.A. appeared first on RenewEconomy.

CWP says 30MW big battery to test the merchant opportunities for battery storage in Australia's energy market, and may be expanded.

The post CWP to test “merchant” big battery as part of Sapphire wind and solar hub appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Two years after his appointment, energy minister Angus Taylor is holding up the clean energy transition by keeping everyone in the dark.

The post Taylor puts brakes on clean energy transition by keeping everyone in the dark appeared first on RenewEconomy.

AGL Energy to become first Australian company to sign up to EV100 initiative, committing to transition 400-strong vehicle fleet to electric vehicles.

The post AGL to shift entire 400 corporate car fleet to electric vehicles appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Analysis shows the government, which has committed to a ‘gas-led recovery’, has failed to properly account for methane’s effect on global heating

Australia’s greenhouse gas accounting underestimates national emissions by about 10%, largely due to a failure to properly recognise the impact of methane released during gas production, an analysis has found.

In late June, the energy and emissions reduction minister, Angus Taylor, amended laws to reflect a scientific consensus that methane – a highly potent but short-lived greenhouse gas that leaks during gas processing – plays a greater role in heating the planet than previously thought.

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Some marginal friendships will by lost, says psychologist, while other deeper ones may need work.

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

Kaluza goes live with new UK-first grid flexibility service which combines smart home devices including vehicle-to-grid (V2G), EV charging, and household batteries.

The post New UK grid flexibility service combines vehicle charging, V2G and home batteries appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Portugal's second solar PV tender for 700MW lands “another world record for the lowest price for solar PV equivalent to $18/MWh.

The post Portugal’s second solar PV tender sets new world record low price appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Aldi pledges to source 100% renewable electricity for its Australian operations by as early as 2021, after rolling out almost 32MW of solar and signing two wind offtake deals.

The post Aldi Australia says it will be 100 per cent renewable by end of 2021 appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The Canadian government on Tuesday recognised Alberta and British Columbia’s offset programmes to source carbon credits under the federal ‘backstop’ output-based pricing system (OPBS), though not all protocols from the provincial systems were immediately approved.

Offset credits from an emissions reduction project at a Middle East oil production facility have been valued near $400/tonne, the first awards in an under-the-radar EU market where strict limits have resulted in some of the world’s highest carbon prices.

Offset project developer Finite Carbon will this year launch the first online platform for small forest owners to access carbon markets, adding to a growing trend of nature-based undertakings.

The second consecutive WCI current vintage auction failed to sell out to align with traders' expectations prior to the sale, while the future vintage allowances at the Q3 sale cleared at a 5-cent premium to the joint programme's floor price, according to results released Tuesday afternoon.

This southern European native, first spotted breeding in 2007, is still rare due to a lack of suitable sites

If you see a violet carpenter bee, xylocopa violacea, in Britain, it seems too exotic for our shores, and too big. It is up to 3cm long, the size of our largest bumble bee, and it looks even larger when flying with an impressive buzz.

In late August, the adults emerge from a dead tree trunk or other old wood where they have spent the larval stage. After mating in late April or May, female bees bore holes in rotten wood and lay eggs in separate chambers, each one sealed in with a store of pollen so the emerging larvae can have a good start in life.

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The Trump presidency has been a godsend for an Australian government apparently uninterested in significant climate action. But with Trump well behind in the polls, that's set to change. Matt McDonald, Associate Professor of International Relations, The University of Queensland Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.