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China continues to increase its coal power, but in India construction has ground to a near halt

The size of the global coal power fleet fell for the first time on record over the first six months of the year, with more generation capacity shutting than starting operation.

Global Energy Monitor, a US research and advocacy group that tracks fossil fuel development, found the closure of coal generators closing, mostly across Europe and in the US, outstripped stations being commissioned, largely in Asia.

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August marks the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

CEO wants limit on 2021 auction scrapped to help power green economic recovery

One of Britain’s biggest wind power developers has called on the government to scrap the limit on its next offshore wind subsidy auction to help to power a green economic recovery, claiming it will not lead to a rise in energy bills.

Scottish Power has urged government officials to open up next year’s offshore wind subsidy auction to as many new projects as possible in order to deliver a “huge wave” of investment and jobs ifollowing the pandemic.

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The last of the 51 turbines at the Warradarge wind farm north of Perth in Western Australia has been installed, in what will be the second-biggest wind facility in the state.

The post Final turbine erected at second biggest wind farm in WA grid appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Chevron becomes latest oil major to sign up for large scale wind and solar operations to help power some of its facilities, including in Australia.

The post Chevron to build 500MW wind and solar to power facilities in Australia, elsewhere appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Images from space show there were nearly 7,000 in July - a rise of 28% on the same period last year.

In Bradford, community schemes offer a novel approach to promoting healthy lifestyles.

Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken's SpaceX capsule will make the first crewed US water landing in 45 years.

An underwater webcam in the port of Miami has become a lockdown sensation thanks to its tailless star 'Oval'.

Super-rich join naturalists in fight to halt building of luxury resort on biodiverse headland

Usually, at this time of year, Corfu would have submitted to the soporific rhythms of the relentless summer heat. Instead, anger is in the air and battle lines have been drawn, none more so than in the minds of those determined to protect the island’s last piece of virgin territory – a place of unique biodiversity – from being developed into an “ultra luxury” resort.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. On the one side are campaigners, most visibly Lee Durrell, widow of the late naturalist, Gerald, whose portrayal of Corfu in My Family and Other Animals played no small part in evoking the Ionian isle’s charms and beauty – and ultimately bringing tourism to its shores.

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Plight of Chideock village in Dorset puts problem of toxic traffic fumes under spotlight

With the title of England’s worst road pollution hotspot this week being placed on a small village on the Jurassic Coast, the problem of toxic NO2 fumes is in the spotlight – not just as a public hazard for big cities but for countryside residents too.

And it’s expected to get worse. While Friends of the Earth this week revealed the latest figures showing 1,360 sites across England were breaching the air quality objective levels for NO2, road traffic forecasts from the Department of Transport show traffic volumes are expected to increase in England and Wales each year until 2050, potentially by up to 51% in total.

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Packages marked as ‘earrings’ spark biosecurity concerns and global investigations into origins

There is not much that Jan Goward does not grow in her small Eastbourne garden. “I grow everything,” she says. “I’ve got the exotics: the aubergines, the chillies …”

But some mystery seeds she received in the post this week – ostensibly from Singapore, and marked as stud earrings – will not be joining them.

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Killings fell by 53% in the first six months of 2020 as restrictions and disruption to international flights hinder poachers

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The number of South African rhinos killed by poachers fell by half in the first six months of the year, partly helped by the nationwide coronavirus lockdown and disruption to international smuggling rings.

During the first six months of the year, 166 rhino were pochaed in South Africa, compared with 316 in the first half of 2019, Barbara Creecy, the minister of environment, forestry and fisheries, said on Friday, a drop of 53%.

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Kenyan activist Phyllis Omido has been ignored, harassed and arrested, but she never gave up.

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

The British Columbia government and Coastal First Nations (CFN) signed a new memorandum of understanding on Friday that includes a five-year offset purchase agreement, with the document noting the struggles the Indigenous communities have faced in trying to sell their forest carbon credits to private buyers.

California transportation sector entities posted a Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) credit deficit of nearly 459,000 tonnes during the first quarter of 2020, with a more stringent GHG reduction target and lower biofuel credit generation unable to overcome a drop in gasoline and diesel usage during the COVID-19 pandemic, state data showed Friday.

Compliance entities and speculators kept their California Carbon Allowance (CCA) positions largely unchanged on the secondary market as prices began to retrace ahead of the August WCI auction, according to US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data published Friday.

EU carbon prices rose on Friday ahead of a month-long reduction in auction supply and as a heatwave started to grip much of Western Europe.

The Northeast US RGGI ETS saw minimal emission changes in the second quarter of 2020 compared to last year, despite much of the region issuing statewide ‘shelter-in-place’ orders that shuttered industrial sites, schools, and office buildings, according to data published Friday.