Around The Web

EU Parliament wants bloc’s budget to reflect higher climate ambition

Carbon Pulse - Fri, 2019-10-11 04:19
The EU Parliament on Thursday confirmed its position on the 2021-2027 centralised EU budget, seeking a higher amount of climate-related spending to reflect the bloc’s net zero emissions ambitions.
Categories: Around The Web

Smells like clean spirit: Washington’s Puget Sound releases draft LCFS rule

Carbon Pulse - Fri, 2019-10-11 03:21
Washington state’s Puget Sound Clean Air Agency (PSCAA) published a draft low-carbon fuel standard (LCFS) regulation on Wednesday, with the four-county region proposing the most ambitious carbon intensity (CI) reductions of any North American clean fuels programme.
Categories: Around The Web

Where the blame lies for the climate crisis | Letters

The Guardian - Fri, 2019-10-11 03:02
Readers respond to the report revealing the 20 biggest polluters responsible for a third of all global carbon emissions

Your article (Revealed: the 20 firms behind a third of all global carbon emissions, 10 October) highlights the biggest polluters and contributors to the climate crisis over the last half-century – the “uncooperative crusties” of capitalism. It is these companies that are standing in the way of progress. But we shouldn’t just look at the carbon they have pumped into the atmosphere, but also the money – our money, in banks and pension funds – that they have invested and the power that huge amount of capital gives them. They can choose to either transform their businesses into something positive for the planet or to extend the shelf life of a carbon-based business model well past its best-before date.

This week, the Treasury select committee asked me, ShareAction and the UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association what investors can do about the oil and gas industry. My answer was that we need to use more than just persuasion. Our money can shape the strategies of these companies directly. Savvy investors should back those that respond to change, not the ones who deny the urgency.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Activist climbs plane as Extinction Rebellion takes protest to London airport – video

The Guardian - Fri, 2019-10-11 02:50

Several arrested as Extinction Rebellion demonstrators stage sit-in at entrance to London City airport on third day of protests in capital. Flights appeared to be operating as normal, but the group said James Brown, a Paralympian, had climbed on to a British Airways plane and was seen lying on top of it

The protest is against the climate impact of flying and the government’s support for airport expansion

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Europe eyes improved 'space weather' resilience

BBC - Fri, 2019-10-11 02:48
The Sun's outbursts can disrupt technology on Earth, and Europe needs better protection.
Categories: Around The Web

Prosaic but practical: unsexy ways cities can fight the climate crisis – in pictures

The Guardian - Fri, 2019-10-11 02:30

Meaningful change doesn’t have to mean groundbreaking innovation, as the seven latest city winners of C40 and Bloomberg Philanthropies Award demonstrate with their solidly pragmatic interventions

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Extinction Rebellion protester, 83, arrested at London City airport – video

The Guardian - Fri, 2019-10-11 01:48

Phil Kingston, an 83-year-old climate activist associated with Extinction Rebellion, was arrested during a protest at London City airport on Thursday 8 October.

KIngston, who said he was protesting for his grandchildren and their generation, was one of several people arrested during the demonstration, which organisers say is against the climate impact of flying and the government’s support for airport expansion

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Natural 'bumblebee medicine' found in heather

BBC - Fri, 2019-10-11 01:01
Preserving heather in the natural landscape could have benefits for wild bees, say scientists.
Categories: Around The Web

Revealed: top UK thinktank spent decades undermining climate science

The Guardian - Fri, 2019-10-11 01:00

Institute of Economic Affairs has links to 14 members of Boris Johnson’s cabinet

The UK’s most influential conservative thinktank has published at least four books, as well as multiple articles and papers, over two decades suggesting manmade climate change may be uncertain or exaggerated.

The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) has issued publications arguing climate change is either not significantly driven by human activity or will be positive. The group is one of the most politically influential thinktanks in the UK, and boasts that 14 members of Boris Johnson’s cabinet, including the home secretary, foreign secretary and chancellor, have been associated with the group’s past and current initiatives.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

How vested interests tried to turn the world against climate science

The Guardian - Fri, 2019-10-11 01:00

For decades fossil fuel majors tried to fight the consensus – just as big tobacco once disputed that smoking kills

In 1998 a public relations consultant called Joe Walker wrote to the American Petroleum Institute (API), a trade association representing major fossil fuel companies, with a proposed solution to a big problem.

In December the previous year, the UN had adopted the Kyoto protocol, an international treaty that committed signatory countries to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions in order to avert catastrophic climate breakdown.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Carbon taxes have to rise sharply to avoid climate crisis, says IMF

The Guardian - Fri, 2019-10-11 00:30

Fund says governments could use money to help vulnerable people or invest in green energy

Avoiding dangerous global heating will require governments around the world to impose stringent taxes on fossil-fuel usage that will mean a 43% jump in household energy bills over the next decade, the International Monetary Fund has said.

The Washington-based Fund said the battle against climate change could only be won if the average carbon tax levied by its member states increased from $2 (£1.63) a ton (907kg) to $75 a ton.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Two-thirds of bird species in North America could vanish in climate crisis

The Guardian - Fri, 2019-10-11 00:01

Continent could lose 389 of 604 species studied to threats from rising temperatures, higher seas, heavy rains and urbanization

Two-thirds of bird species in North America are at risk of extinction because of the climate crisis, according to a new report from researchers at the Audubon Society, a leading US conservation group.

Related: Record numbers of Australia's wildlife species face 'imminent extinction'

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

WCI carbon floor price holding for 2020, but could drop further

Carbon Pulse - Thu, 2019-10-10 23:57
Static year-on-year inflation kept the WCI cap-and-trade programme’s price floor on track for $16.67 next year, but a direct comparison with the Oct. 2018 rate suggests the price could slide further, according to US federal data released Thursday.
Categories: Around The Web

Extinction Rebellion: Flight delayed as activists vow to 'shut down' airport

BBC - Thu, 2019-10-10 22:50
Extinction Rebellion activists say they want to "shut down" London City Airport for three days.
Categories: Around The Web

Shell expands carbon neutral driving offer to UK with land offsets

Carbon Pulse - Thu, 2019-10-10 22:02
Oil major Shell will offer British drivers the chance to offset their carbon footprint, it said on Thursday, expanding from its Dutch initiative as part of a global commitment to invest $300 million in land-based emissions-curbing initiatives.
Categories: Around The Web

EU Midday Market Brief

Carbon Pulse - Thu, 2019-10-10 21:52
European carbon prices continued to rebound somewhat on Thursday, rising further from yesterday's six-month low on bullish auction results, as well as short-covering and opportunistic compliance buying.
Categories: Around The Web

Israel cave bones: Early humans 'conserved food to eat later'

BBC - Thu, 2019-10-10 21:25
Early humans living 200,000-420,000 years ago were previously not thought capable of such planning.
Categories: Around The Web

'Molar Berg' does a quick Antarctic pirouette

BBC - Thu, 2019-10-10 21:21
Satellite spies the White Continent's newest giant iceberg as it spins around.
Categories: Around The Web

Oil firms to pour extra 7m barrels per day into markets, data shows

The Guardian - Thu, 2019-10-10 21:00

Projected production surge in next 12 years to be led by Shell despite climate crisis

The world’s 50 biggest oil companies are poised to flood markets with an additional 7m barrels per day over the next decade, despite warnings from scientists that this will push global heating towards catastrophic levels.

New research commissioned by the Guardian forecasts Shell and ExxonMobil will be among the leaders with a projected production increase of more than 35% between 2018 and 2030 – a sharper rise than over the previous 12 years.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Mining firms worked to kill off climate action in Australia, says ex-PM

The Guardian - Thu, 2019-10-10 21:00

Kevin Rudd says industry still has huge influence in a country beset by climate policy torpor

The former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd says three of the world’s biggest mining multinationals have run sophisticated operations to kill off climate action in Australia and continue to wield day-to-day influence over government through a vast lobbying network and an “umbilical” relationship with the Murdoch media.

Australia’s climate policy paralysis has been ongoing for more than decade, from the Rudd Labor government’s doomed attempt to bring in an emissions trading scheme in 2008, to the Liberal prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s failed attempt to introduce the national energy guarantee last year.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Pages

Subscribe to Sustainable Engineering Society aggregator - Around The Web