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WA mine approved on 10 April despite native species risk and not announced until 24 April

The Morrison government is under fire for quietly approving a giant uranium mine in outback Western Australia the day before the federal election was called, despite warnings it could lead to the extinction of native species.

Canadian company Cameco’s Yeelirrie uranium mine, 500 kilometres north of Kalgoorlie, was approved by the environment minister, Melissa Price, on 10 April. There was no public notification on the decision until 24 April, when documents were posted on the environment department website.

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EU industry’s free allocation of carbon allowances must be phased out urgently as part of a wide-ranging industry climate policy framework to ensure the sector decarbonises following years of flatlining emissions, campaigners Carbon Market Watch said on Thursday.

The Canadian government is still planning to impose its ‘backstop’ output-based pricing system (OBPS) on Ontario emitters despite the province having said it will create its own regulation for large installations in place of the national mechanism, a federal official confirmed Thursday.

A committee of the US wholesale electricity market operator PJM on Thursday voted to assess methods of integrating a carbon price in the 14-jurisdiction market, a policy that could alleviate concerns about emissions leakage in the northeast US RGGI cap-and-trade programme.

EUAs lost more ground on Thursday but kept within sight of their 11-year highs near €28 in choppy, technically-bound trade amid bullish energy signals.

Teenager Greta Thunberg said the UK's carbon emissions reduction relied on "creative accounting".

California officials on Thursday offered a strong rebuke to an academic report that claims California’s forestry protocol under its carbon market inflates the amount of emission reductions that have occurred, arguing the study did not fully understand the protocol or leakage risk.

California legislators may take action on the WCI cap-and-trade programme's growing allowance oversupply if state regulator ARB refuses to do so, a state senator told Carbon Pulse.

Elon Musk recounts "insane” first quarter for the EV maker, with half of Tesla's global deliveries carried out in the final 10 days of the reporting period.

The post Tesla gears up from production hell to logistical nightmare appeared first on RenewEconomy.

China's coal generation costs are similar to Australia - and they are not cheap.

The post Electricity in China isn’t cheap anymore appeared first on RenewEconomy.

With Easter and ANZAC Day now over, the federal election will shift up a gear next week as the campaign fast approaches the half-way mark.

A new global study has found bigger waves and more extreme winds have hit the world's oceans over the past 33 years, as the Victorian coastline is set to be battered by a massive swell today.

Court decision blocking fossil fuel activity in swaths of the Arctic complicated administration plans to ramp up fossil fuel extraction

The Trump administration has shelved plans to vastly expand offshore oil and gas drilling in the wake of a recent court decision that blocked fossil fuel activity in swaths of the Arctic.

The administration had opened up almost all US waters to companies seeking to drill oil or gas deposits but this expansion has been halted due to a legal setback, according to David Bernhardt, the interior secretary.

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With unusual inflated winged fruits growing on "sickness country", the tree flummoxed local botanists who had not seen anything like it before. Gregory John Leach, Honorary Fellow at Menzies School of Health Research, Charles Darwin University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Ceremony in London park marks break in activism after day spent targeting the City

Hundreds of Extinction Rebellion activists have gathered at Hyde Park Corner in London to celebrate a pause in the protests that have gripped London for over a week and are preparing to take the fight back to local communities.

Climate protesters targeted the city’s financial hub on Thursday to highlight the role the sector plays in climate change. The environmental group said it was the last day of action before choosing to stop this stage of its campaign of peaceful mass civil disobedience, following protests in which hundreds of people were arrested and thousands of police officers deployed to sites occupied by the group for more than a week.

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600 scientists call on the EU to make trade with Brazil more sustainable to protect the planet.

Hundreds of scientists and Indigenous leaders have asked the EU to demand tougher imports standards to protect Brazil's rainforests, wetlands and savannahs. Claire F.R. Wordley, Research Associate in Conservation Evidence, University of Cambridge Laura Kehoe, Researcher in Conservation Decision Science and Land Use, University of Oxford Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Lawyer who abandoned a courtroom career to campaign for an international crime of ecocide

What would it take to create a legal duty of care for the Earth? That is the question the Scottish barrister Polly Higgins found herself asking 15 years ago; a question that led her to abandon her courtroom career and embark on a quest to establish an international crime of ecocide. Such a crime would render persons of superior responsibility (such as company chief executives and government ministers) liable to prosecution for causing or contributing to large-scale ecosystem destruction.

Polly, who has died aged 50 of cancer, had begun to see the climate activist movement take up her call in the weeks before her death, with Extinction Rebellion actions demanding that ecocide law be established around the world.

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Three noisy falcon chicks hungry for food reveal themselves in a cathedral spire nest.

After two weeks of mass civil disobedience, we look at what has changed

Organisers of the climate protests that have seen peaceful mass civil disobedience across London over the past two weeks have said the first stage of the “rebellion” is drawing to a close. How much of an impact has it had, and how realistic are its goals?

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