Around The Web

Three ARR forestry projects in Uruguay have had slight downgrades in ratings by one agency this week, although they were still given a moderate chance of avoiding or removing CO2, while a fresh rating was awarded to a renewables projects in India.

France on Friday became the latest EU nation to signal that it will withdraw from the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), with the governments concerned that the pact will undermine their efforts to cut emissions in line with the Paris Agreement.

John Kerry tells the BBC he hopes the King reconsiders his decision not to go to the UN climate summit in Egypt.

This week marks the one-year anniversary since a handful of crypto outfits burst onto the scene to send shockwaves through the carbon market, and despite a series of setbacks since then participants remain convinced that Web3 will play a major role in the future of carbon trading.

European carbon continued to trade in its narrow channel on Friday, setting up the narrowest weekly high-low since April as many traders again stayed away, while energy prices fell back as the prospects of healthy winter supplies erased Thursday's gains.

Traded volumes in China’s national emissions trading scheme remained stable over the past week with prices moving just marginally, and observers expect the negative sentiment to continue in the near term.

The wildlife authority describes this as a landmark punishment in the protection of rare species.

Climate activists defiant as public order bill aims to curtail civil disobedience tactics

UK climate activists have vowed to continue their disruptive protests until the government imposes the death penalty for their actions, as they signalled their contempt for a new bill aimed at curtailing their civil disobedience tactics.

The public order bill, which passed through the Commons this week and is now before the House of Lords, takes aim at “criminal, disruptive and self-defeating guerrilla tactics” used by groups such as Just Stop Oil and Insulate Britain.

Continue reading...

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) has approved nine new climate projects worth $544.1 million, and a further $1.7 billion with co-financing, it announced in Friday as it concluded its final board meeting for the year.

Despite an increase in interest for ocean-based CO2 removals, experts are sceptical on their capacity to grow into large-scale carbon credit-generating technologies amid substantial hurdles relating to MRV, regulation, and the nascency of the technology itself.

The bison that were reintroduced to the UK as part of an ambitious rewilding project in Kent have had a calf.

Exclusive: Efficiency recommendations of experts rejected in European Commission ‘Euro 7’ proposals

Almost 100m highly polluting cars could appear on Europe’s roads over the next decade after the European Commission moved to disown its own experts efficiency recommendations in a leaked proposal seen by the Guardian.

About 70,000 premature deaths in 2018 were caused by road transport emissions, mostly nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate matter (PM), and the commission had been expected to tighten pollution limits in the next “Euro 7” regulation, which takes effect in 2025.

Continue reading...

When three bison were released in Kent in July in a pioneering rewilding project, one of the bison was pregnant, although the rangers were not aware of this. Bison are known to conceal their pregnancies to prevent predators targeting animals and their offspring. The female calf was discovered after a couple of days when rangers could not locate the mother, who had found a secluded site to give birth. The bison ranger Tom Gibbs said 'she has come on leaps and bounds, literally'

Continue reading...

The best of this week’s wildlife pictures, including a mud-covered kangaroo, a baby grey seal and rescued elephants

Continue reading...

Campaigners call for protection and careful tree-planting to help restore the temperate rainforests that once covered swathes of the country

Temperate rainforest, which has been decimated over thousands of years, has the potential to be restored across a fifth of Great Britain, a new map reveals.

Atlantic temperate rainforest once covered most of the west coasts of Britain and Ireland, thriving in the archipelago’s wet, mild conditions, which support rainforest indicator species such as lichens, mosses and liverworts. Today, it covers less than 1% of land, having been cleared over thousands of years by humans and is only found in isolated pockets, such as the waterfalls region in the Brecon Beacons and Ausewell Wood on Dartmoor.

Continue reading...

The Western Australian government has placed stricter GHG emission sequestration controls on Chevron’s Gorgon LNG CCS facility in the state’s north west.

Yellowfin and bigeye tuna catches rise outside 1.5m sq km marine protected area, proving value of no-catch zone, researchers say

Six years ago, the then US president, Barack Obama, created the world’s largest fully protected ocean reserve by expanding the existing Papahānaumokuākea marine national monument in Hawaii, a world heritage site that include islands, atolls and archeological treasures. Now scientists have found that the reserve, which spans 1.5m sq km (580,000 sq miles) and is inhabited by whales and turtles, has brought unexpected benefits to the surrounding ocean.

Catches of yellowfin tuna, known as ahi in Hawaiian, were found to have risen by 54% between 2016 and 2019 near the reserve, within which fishing is banned, while catches of bigeye tuna rose by 12%.

Continue reading...

Exclusive: Unexpected arrival at a pioneering rewilding project in Kent after introduction of animals in July

A pioneering rewilding project has had an early surprise: a bouncing baby bison. It is the first wild bison to be born in the UK for thousands of years.

Three bison were released in Kent in July but, unknown to the rangers, one had a secret passenger on board. Bison conceal their pregnancies to prevent predators targeting pregnant animals or their offspring.

Continue reading...

A Sydney-based sustainable biomass company has successfully completed the first trial of renewable carbon material that can directly replace the use of fossil carbon in Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) steelmaking, it announced on Friday.

Victoria says it couldn't "sit around" waiting for coal plants to close, and insists state government ownership of energy will ensure profits kept in the state.

The post D’Ambrosio: We can’t sit around waiting for coal plants to close appeared first on RenewEconomy.