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Five mid-size California grocery stores participated in a pilot project run by an industry group and an offset developer to ease the financial burden of transitioning to environmentally friendly refrigeration by selling thousands of carbon offsets, a press release announced Thursday.

Kneading is typical kitten behaviour but may be retained into adulthood because it can help communicate messages. Susan Hazel, Senior Lecturer, School of Animal and Veterinary Science, University of Adelaide Julia Henning, PhD Candidate, University of Adelaide Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Energy ministers have dumped one bad Coalition idea and embraced a good one from another Coalition government. Here's how the Capacity Investment Scheme will work.

The post Coalkeeper killed off as Labor states embrace Matt Kean’s auction and underwriting plan appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Singapore-based commodity trading house Trafigura on Thursday said its carbon trading team will focus going forward on developments related to Article 6 of the Paris Agreement and its development of nature-based CO2 removal projects.

The charitable arm of a Tennessee-headquartered financial services firm on Wednesday committed an undisclosed amount of funds towards developing a database that will assess blue carbon credit potential over portions of the US coastline.

An option to raise €20 billion for the REPowerEU package by selling allowances held in the supply-managing MSR is still being discussed by legislators in final negotiations, an MEP close to the process said Thursday, a controversial idea that had been widely considered as ‘off-the-table’. 

Putting water companies on the naughty step and doling out tame financial penalties in not enough

Here’s the short piece of good news from regulator Ofwat’s annual assessment of the performance of the English and Welsh water companies: overall leakage stands at its lowest level since privatisation. That, unfortunately, was about it – and, note, progress on leaks came with the important qualification that there is a very long way to go to meet 2050 targets. The rest of the annual review was as bleak as any in recent years, especially on the most troubled issue of all – pollution.

Six of the 10 major firms found themselves on the regulator’s naughty step – the ones labelled laggards in terms of operational performance. They are Northumbrian Water, Southern Water, South West Water, Thames Water, Welsh Water and Yorkshire Water. Only Severn Trent of the big water and wastewater beasts got a “leading” rating and it was joined by water-only operators South Staffs and Bristol. The skew towards underperformance was marked and depressing.

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Energy bills are about to hurt. But what can the government actually do to ease the pain? Tony Wood, Program Director, Energy, Grattan Institute Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

As the Conservatives squabble over planning and housing targets, England’s countryside is being destroyed

The English countryside is sick. It can feel as though a day never passes without its green and pleasant land falling victim to the threat of windfarms, coalmines, solar arrays and housing estates. Boris Johnson seemed to want a turbine in every field. Liz Truss wanted “investment zones” even in protected areas. Rishi Sunak called for 300,000 new houses a year – until he didn’t.

This week the new environment secretary, Thérèse Coffey, could not enlighten a Commons committee on her policy for farms, given the shambles of Brexit. Meanwhile, the environment secretary, Michael Gove, found himself capitulating to onshore windfarms one minute and a coalmine in Whitehaven the next. As for Labour’s Keir Starmer, he savaged Sunak for abandoning housing targets the same week as he said he would stop telling local councils what to do.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

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As ministers proved again they’ve lost the plot, Keir Starmer sought to show business bigwigs his is the party to back

Back to the future. A Tory government in its extended death throes. Any number of sex and sleaze scandals. Disengaged backbench MPs planning for life outside Westminster. A weak prime minister totally out of ideas. Just reacting to the latest rebellion. No discernible coherent policies. Sound familiar?

Take Thursday. One MP has the whip withdrawn after a police complaint. Michelle Mone swears blind there was nothing wrong with her for trousering £29m for recommending a startup company that specialised in useless PPE. Headless gowns for headless chickens.

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Ed Miliband vows party will seek to prevent ‘climate-destroying’ plan and if elected would deliver green jobs

Labour would stop the new coalmine in Cumbria from going ahead if elected, and will seek to prevent it progressing before then, the party has said.

Ed Miliband, the shadow climate change secretary, said: “A Labour government will leave no stone unturned in seeking to prevent the opening of this climate-destroying coalmine, and instead ensure we deliver the green jobs that people in Cumbria deserve.”

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The inside story of what happened on the first two days of the biodiversity summit in Montreal

Wednesday, 7 December

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau’s pledge of C$800m (£510m) over seven years to support Indigenous-led conservation projects was preceded by a ceremony led by the First Nations Elder, Ka’nahsohon Kevin Deer. It made a change from the day before when Trudeau was interrupted by Indigenous protesters at the opening ceremony.

The UN secretary general António Guterres spoke powerfully about the need to protect the rights of environment protesters, saying “human rights must be at the centre of all environmental concerns and namely, the work of the [UN convention on biodiversity] CBD”.

A new draft text of the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) is littered with more than 1,000 brackets, which will need dealing with over the next two weeks. The text has been described as a “mess”, with many concerned about the amount that still needs to be done.

Despite more than 20 targets being negotiated, the 30x30 goal to protect 30% of land and oceans by 2030 is stealing the limelight. As delegates arrived at Montreal airport, there was no escaping the slew of posters promoting the ambition.

Both Canada and China have given delegates welcome bags – the former contained a snood, and the latter, a silk scarf and tea. Masks are also back and each day delegates are taking Covid tests in order to get into the conference centre.

The EU representative Ladislav Miko criticised Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying it brings about “long-term environmental degradation”. Russian delegate Denis Rebrikov responded by saying the subject should be outside the scope of the biodiversity summit. “It’s hard to avoid the impression that these countries are deliberately trying to sabotage the adoption of a global framework,” he said.

It’s currently 3C in Montreal and some delegates are struggling with the cold. One was seen wearing a thick coat and woolly hat with headphones over the top in the main plenary hall.

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Xpansiv, owner of the CBL carbon credit marketplace, has shuffled its leadership after a flurry of takeovers that includes registry administrator APX and the intermediary Evolution Markets.

A nature-focused carbon fund manager is set to boost its portfolio of funds next year, with the owners eyeing what they see as growing demand for carbon credits from institutional investors.

New money for climate damage, but little progress on emissions. A round up of what was agreed in Egypt.

West Cumbria Mining, which set up Whitehaven office during push for new mine, owned by EMR Capital

• What is the Cumbrian coalmine and why does it matter?

The first deep coalmine to be dug in the UK in a generation is ultimately owned by an international private equity company, with executives whose mining interests have stretched to Russia, Asia, Africa and across Australia.

West Cumbria Mining positioned itself as a local company with an office in Whitehaven, and promised it would provide jobs for people in the area, during its campaign for permission to extract 2.8m tonnes of coking coal a year from the site.

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The EU needs a 2035 deadline to fully replace the bloc's fossil-powered truck fleet to keep in line with its climate neutrality 2050 goal, some 44 companies including several multinationals argued in a letter to EU leaders on Thursday that called for the timeline to be enshrined in law as soon as possible.

The Environmental Markets Trader will be primarily responsible for developing and capturing profitable commercial trading opportunities in multiple environmental attributes markets. Specific knowledge of carbon offset (both VCM and compliance), renewable natural gas, and responsibly sourced gas markets in North America will be critical for success.

Serious pollution, poor service and weak financial management embedded, says England and Wales water industry regulator

Serious pollution by water companies has increased in the past year, the regulator has said in a damning report on the performance of the sector in England and Wales.

Ofwat said poor performance by some firms was embedded, and named Northumbrian Water, Southern Water, South West Water, Thames Water, Welsh Water and Yorkshire Water as lagging in the way they served customers and ran the system.

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Nearly 5,000 primary school students took part in the Australian Conservation Foundation’s Wild at Art competition, which invites children to create an artwork depicting one of the country’s threatened native animals or plants

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