Around The Web

US astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken are closing in for a Sunday rendezvous with the ISS.

China has given provincial and regional authorities an additional two months to submit lists of companies in their jurisdictions that will be included in the national emissions trading scheme and their 2019 CO2 emissions data, extending the deadline to July 31 as the COVID-19 outbreak has made it difficult to stick to the original timetable.

Photon Energy notches up financial close on two NSW solar farms, the Leeton and Fivebough projects, that will install a combined 14MW in the state’s Riverina region.

The post Photon secures finance for two “merchant” solar farms in NSW appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The Irish chieftain was buried in the same Spanish chapel as Christopher Columbus.

Animal rights groups have been pushing a synthetic alternative to horseshoe crab blood in drug safety testing

Horseshoe crabs’ icy-blue blood will remain the drug industry’s standard for safety tests after a powerful US group ditched a plan to give equal status to a synthetic substitute pushed by Swiss biotech Lonza and animal welfare groups.

The crabs’ copper-rich blood clots in the presence of bacterial endotoxins and has long been used in tests to detect contamination in shots and infusions.

Continue reading...

Chief Environment correspondent Justin Rowlatt considers the prospects for a big economic makeover.

Scientists have discovered more evidence about a strange and worrying feature of the coronavirus

Carnaby’s black-cockatoo, the grey range thick-billed grasswren and the swift parrot just three species in deep trouble after laws fail them

Scientists and conservationists are calling for changes to Australia’s national environment law to urgently address failures in how it is protecting native wildlife, including bird species that have declined significantly over the past decade.

Samantha Vine, the head of conservation at BirdLife Australia, says: “Our laws are actually allowing extinction to happen.” 

Continue reading...

Two astronauts launched into orbit for historic mission to the International Space Station.

The Rutland Osprey Project has seen a higher level of engagement with its work following lockdown.

Scientists and artists take advantage of low noise levels to record birdsong around world

• Coronavirus – latest updates
• See all our coronavirus coverage

Scientists and artists have used the drop in noise pollution during the coronavirus lockdown to create the first global public sound map of the spring dawn chorus.

Throughout May, people around the world have uploaded about 3,000 early morning bird recordings made on their phones to the Dawn Chorus website, where they are being shared to help conservation and to create public art. 

Continue reading...

After two months without visitors, Pairi Daiza is welcoming the public back, but in smaller numbers.

SpaceX will need to beat the weather to get Nasa astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken into orbit.

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

WCI compliance entities built their California Carbon Allowance (CCA) holdings on the secondary market as they awaited Q2 auction results, while speculators’ net long position remained roughly unchanged, according to US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data.

It will not do to wait until the next power plant announces its closure. Building alternative infrastructure should start now

The Covid-19 recession will bring fiscal stimulus on a massive scale. There are high hopes that the recovery will be green but it could be an uphill struggle. A big opportunity for Australia’s governments is to keep the renewable energy revolution going.

There will be pressure to invest in anything that quickly brings back jobs and prosperity, never mind long term, social or environmental goals. A return to the world as it was in 2019 will seem a marvellous goal for the many people whose jobs have gone or whose businesses have faltered. In order to improve the economy relative to pre-Covid, to build back better, will need governments to lead.

Continue reading...

Eastern European nation Moldova has this week been handed a plan to establish carbon market regulations within two years as part of efforts to ramp up climate action among the EU’s southeastern neighbours.

EUAs inched higher on Friday to end the week flat as bullish technicals continued to overshadow dips in the energy complex and wider fundamental weakness.

California lawmakers will advance language to a joint legislative discussion that would require regulator ARB to conduct an ETS rulemaking, though the provision's ultimate inclusion in the state budget is not a foregone conclusion, a senator's aide told Carbon Pulse on Friday.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) urged a federal judge on Friday to reject a request that would push back a hearing for the government’s constitutional challenge over the California-Quebec carbon market linkage, saying the state had created the time conflict it is now seeking to remedy.