Around The Web

Nine US states and Washington DC will begin work to develop a cap-and-trade programme for the transportation sector and will aim to complete the design process before the end of 2019, officials announced Tuesday.

EU carbon prices took a breather on Tuesday following the 20% rally over the previous four sessions, but managed to pare most of the day’s losses and held above €24.

High levels of metals have been found in green turtles and their habitats near Townsville. Scientists say these threats have flown under the radar until now.

Australia has more than 500 national parks covering 28 million hectares - almost 4% of the country.

Protecting and maintaining these treasures falls to our park rangers, who undertake a multi-faceted role that includes protecting biodiversity, managing visitors and maintaining facilities and paths.

Guardian Australia heads to Victoria’s Grampians national park to follow ranger Connor Smith around for a day where we learn there’s more to being a park ranger than you might think

Continue reading...

In a pre-emptive move ahead of a potential ‘no-deal’ Brexit, the European Commission will temporarily suspend the allocation and auctioning of EU Allowances by the UK, as well as the exchange of international credits by the country’s emitters in the bloc’s registry.

In the cold southern oceans, underwater mountains support deep-sea reefs. Nic Bax, Director, NERP Marine Biodiversity Hub, CSIRO Alan Williams, Researcher, CSIRO Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Virginia will propose cap-and-trade legislation to raise revenue from auctions as the state aims to join the RGGI programme by 2020, a state official told Carbon Pulse.

Ex-Pluto spacecraft New Horizons maintains the trajectory taking it to its next dramatic encounter.

Governments hail nature-based tourism as a win-win but conservationists say Australia’s wild places belong to everyone and shouldn’t be sold out

• My favourite national park: tell us why it’s important to you
  

The development planned for Cradle Mountain in Tasmania’s north-west is arguably the most high profile example of the dilemma faced by governments dealing with the growing popularity of nature-based tourism in national parks.

Visited by more than 268,000 tourists in 2017, and with visits growing at 12% a year, the facilities at Cradle Mountain were stretched to the limit. So the Tasmanian government pledged $160m to build a new visitor centre and tourism village on the edge of the heritage area.

Continue reading...

Toys feature in more than half of EU alerts for products containing banned chemicals

Christmas shoppers are being warned to avoid plastic toys after they appeared in more than half of EU intergovernmental alerts for products containing banned chemicals this year.

In all, 290 of the 563 warnings sent out on the EU’s rapid alert system concerned toys with illegally high levels of toxins, most of which were plastic dolls, and all of which could be on sale on British high streets.

Continue reading...

Seal pups across the UK are "at risk" from man-made toxic chemicals present in their mothers' milk.

Scientists accuse officials of cherry-picking data to defend disease-control scheme

More than 32,000 badgers were killed in England this autumn during the annual cull, which is intended to reduce tuberculosis in cattle.

Government officials claimed the culls were effective and starting to reduce prevalence of the disease in cows. But independent scientists said the officials were cherry-picking data and making up targets as they went along.

Continue reading...

Rare species of snail found near A47 will be monitored in new home until 2023

Snails with legally protected status could delay a road scheme by five years as a project to rehome them is kept under observation.

Ditches alongside a section of the A47 in Norfolk are a habitat for little whirlpool ramshorn snails, whose shells measure just a few millimetres in diameter.

Continue reading...

An ultra-bullish trader has made a bet that EU carbon prices will top €100 before the end of 2020.

Coalition says new wind and solar will allow it slash electricity emissions by 26% by 2022, after which it expects emissions to rise and new investment to stop.

The post Coalition has an energy vision: No more renewables, or emission cuts, before 2030 appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The Andrews Labor Government has announced $1.1 million worth of grants to support renewable energy projects in local communities across Victoria.

The post Boosting renewables and cutting energy costs appeared first on RenewEconomy.

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

Santos kicks off ARENA-backed plans to shift all of its remote crude oil beam pumps to 100% solar and battery storage – a move that would save it 140 barrels of oil a day.

The post Santos to convert 56 crude oil pumps to 100% solar and battery storage appeared first on RenewEconomy.

People will have to pay a returnable deposit on bottles, cans and disposable cups in a new strategy.

The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) advanced a proposal Monday that would price carbon in its wholesale electricity market, but stakeholders continued to express reservations about how to set the level as the mechanism inched closer to a final vote.