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The appalling treatment of Congo's rubber workers led to the world's first photographic human rights campaign.

Climate crisis group members gluing themselves to doorways to block members of Congress from attending evening vote

Protesters from the climate crisis group Extinction Rebellion are causing disruption at the US Capitol in Washington, confronting politicians and glueing themselves to doorways in order to block them.

Six protesters blocked two doorways connecting the Cannon building to the US Capitol in an attempt to stop members of Congress from attending an evening vote.

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Queensland announces 10 wind, solar and battery storage projects that will compete for contracts with newly formed CleanCo.

The post Queensland shortlists 10 big renewable and storage projects for CleanCo contracts appeared first on RenewEconomy.

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

House Democrats unveiled plans to develop a market-related strategy that will achieve net-zero GHGs by 2050 in committee on Tuesday, but specific legislation and future compatibility with progressive lawmakers' Green New Deal has not yet been determined. 

Zali Steggall, the Winter Olympian turned Tony Abbott slayer, will deliver her maiden speech to Federal Parliament this morning.

The teen activist is ridiculed by some French MPs ahead of her speech to parliament.

The Ohio House of Representatives agreed to Senate amendments on Tuesday that will subsidise two nuclear plants while weakening and eventually ending the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), as critics lambasted the bill as a corporate bail-out and regression on promoting clean energy at the US subnational level.

The UK government has imposed fines totalling over £80,000 on a dozen companies including utility Uniper and automaker Rolls Royce for EU ETS non-compliance in the latest round of climate-related penalties.

Sphagnum moss is a vital carbon store but peat bogs are being dug up to fuel our love of horticulture

Left to its own devices, Sphagnum fallax, together with a large number of close relatives, will form dense mats of plants on wet ground and become deep peat bogs. These bogs create a habitat for a vast number of creatures, the most prominent of which are dragonflies and frogs but there are literally thousands of others, mostly microscopic.

Related: Plantwatch: is sphagnum the most underrated plant on Earth?

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Many rural town water supplies cannot weather even a single year of drought. This is a failure of planning and funding on a grand scale. Michael Roderick, Professor, Research School of Earth Sciences and Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, Australian National University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Sue Taylor has visited spots as remote as Macquarie Island in the Southern Ocean and as familiar as Phillip Island in Victoria in search of rarities

• The Guardian/Bird Life Australia bird of the year poll will be back in October
  

There’s something very romantic about islands. For a start there’s the wonderful isolation, the feeling of relaxing remoteness, the total absence of bustling city commuters. Picture tropical palm trees waving above pristine white beaches, lapped by sparkling turquoise seas. Whatever the reason, everyone loves an island. People go to Rottnest in Western Australia to admire the quokkas, to Norfolk Island to soak up the fascinating history and bucolic scenery, and to Christmas Island for the red crab migration.

I am a twitcher and for me it’s always the birds. I go to Rottnest for terns, waders and red-capped robins, to Norfolk for parakeets, gerygones and California quail, and to Christmas Island for Abbott’s boobies, frigatebirds and rare vagrants. I’ve seen some fantastic vagrants (birds outside their usual range) on my five visits to Christmas Island. Apart from all the exciting endemics (birds that are unique to one place), I’ve seen 12 extraordinary vagrants, including such rarities as a red collared dove, a Malayan night heron and, best of all, a corn crake.

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With a year to go until the Olympics and Paralympics in Tokyo, meet the robots that will be used on site at the events.

The UK could drastically undercut the EU ETS if it exits the scheme in November and imposes a replacement scheme that initially only delivers a single-digit carbon price, experts have warned.

Scientists warn of ‘alarming’ lag between human-driven seasons shift and animals’ behavioural changes

The speed of climate disruption is outstripping many animals’ capacity to adapt, according to a study that warns of a growing threat to even common species such as sparrows, magpies and deer.

Scientists behind the research described the results as alarming because they showed a dangerous lag between a human-driven shift in the seasons and behavioural changes in the natural world.

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Spanish utility Endesa reported on Tuesday a 45% decline in coal power output over the first half of the year while natural gas generation rose, likely reducing the company’s EUA demand.

California Carbon Offset (CCO) prices are tightening against WCI allowance values amid increased demand from compliance entities and sluggish issuances by state regulator ARB, market sources said.

Manufacturer told DVSA it would not retrofit polluting vehicles, despite other firms agreeing to modifications

Nissan’s decision to ignore a government request for emissions modifications to thousands of polluting cars has been branded a scandal by environmental campaigners.

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) discovered that the Sunderland-made diesel Qashqai model emits 17 times more nitrogen oxides (NOx) than EU limits allow.

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A strong auction result pushed EU carbon prices to a new 11-year high on Tuesday, with bulls now targeting €30 as a scorching heatwave arrives in Europe, threatening to push energy prices up even further.

Nasa has outlined more details of its plans for a landing craft that will take humans to the Moon's surface in the 2020s.