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Free EUA allocation should be phased out if the EU introduces a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), several key MEPs on the EU Parliament's environment committee said on Wednesday.

It's a big-engineering solution that costs twice as much the equivalent amount of batteries. Bruce Mountain, Director, Victoria Energy Policy Centre, Victoria University Steven Percy, Senior Research Fellow, Victoria University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Environmental campaigners raise concerns over sustainability of some eco-friendly items

Disposable nappies, cotton buds , pet food and novelty Donald Trump toilet paper were among the products on sale on Amazon’s new eco-friendly section of its website, prompting concerns about the sustainability of some of the products on offer.

The world’s biggest online retailer launched the new section of the website on Tuesday in the UK and Europe with more than 40,000 items on the new platform chosen for their sustainability credentials.

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Scientists put new numbers of Chinese trees' ability to pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

EUAs fell to a new four-month low just above €23 on Wednesday after buyers struggled to absorb the bumper UK auction and wider financial markets tumbled on worsening coronavirus prospects.

Japanese industries are likely to add to the fast-growing global demand for voluntary carbon credits as hundreds of companies strive to align with Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s net zero emissions target and the introduction of a domestic cap-and-trade programme remains improbable.

South Korea's new net zero adds to a drumbeat of death knells for Australia's coal exports

The post South Korea’s net zero target adds to Australia’s carbon export woes as denial deepens appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Deferring a carbon emissions target for Australia’s industry by another decade would be the sector’s worst option, a report released Wednesday said, adding the Safeguard Mechanism could be the ideal lever to decarbonise the sector.

Standing 500m (1,640ft) tall, the "blade-like" reef was found off Australia's far north.

China is developing an offset mechanism for its national emissions trading scheme, a government official said Wednesday, reaffirming the market’s intended 2019-2020 compliance obligation but not responding to questions on when the programme might see its first trades.

UNSW solar researcher takes out a PM’s prize for science, for work on sustainable thin film solar cells.

The post UNSW ‘green’ thin-film solar researcher awarded PM’s prize for science appeared first on RenewEconomy.

As a new report spells out how financial institutions contribute to biodiversity loss, the clamour is growing for a new approach

The scientific community has long been unequivocal about biodiversity destruction. Last month, the UN reported that the world had failed to meet fully any of the 2020 Aichi bioiversity targets that countries agreed with fanfare in 2010, even as it found that biodiversity is declining at an unprecedented rate, and the pressures driving this decline are intensifying.

This week’s Bankrolling Extinction report finds that financial institutions provide the capital that is funding over-exploitation of our lands and seas, putting biodiversity in freefall. Last year, the world’s 50 biggest banks provided $2.6tn (£1.9tn) in loans and other credit to sectors with a high impact on biodiversity, such as forestry and agriculture. Bank by bank, the report authors found a cavalier ignorance of – or indifference to – the implications, with the vast majority unaware of their impact on biodiversity.

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Billion-dollar export trade puts lives of animals and crew at greater risk of ‘total loss’ through faulty design and inexperience

Ships carrying live animals are at least twice as likely to suffer a “total loss” from sinking or grounding as standard cargo vessels, the Guardian has found.

In the past year alone there have been two disasters involving animals in transit. Last November, at least 14,000 sheep drowned after the Queen Hind capsized en route to Saudi Arabia from Romania. And last month, Gulf Livestock 1, a carrier transporting almost 6,000 cattle, sank off the Japanese coast en route to China from New Zealand. Forty crew members remain missing and are presumed dead.

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Australian scientists have discovered a massive detached coral reef just off Cape York on the Great Barrier Reef that’s taller than the Empire State Building. The 500m high reef was discovered while a team from James Cook University were mapping the northern Great Barrier Reef seabed.

• Scientists discover 500 metre-tall skyscraper reef at Australia's Great Barrier Reef

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Intervention by ‘economically rational Liberal’ comes as Anthony Albanese hedges on 2030 emissions targets

• Australian PM’s office omits net zero emissions from account of Morrison’s talk with Johnson
• Overwhelming majority believe Australia is already experiencing climate change
  

The New South Wales environment minister, the Liberal Matt Kean, has launched a clarion call for his party to represent “the forgotten people” who “don’t march down George Street” and “don’t have a platform on Sky News” but support meaningful action on climate change.

Borrowing “the forgotten people” from the Liberal party founder, Robert Menzies, Kean told a forum organised by the Australia Institute on Wednesday that the free market was driving an inexorable transition to low-emission energy sources but “politics and ideology” had been getting in the way of market forces.

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The detached reef, taller than the Empire State Building, was discovered at the northern end of the Great Barrier Reef off Cape York

Australian scientists have discovered a detached reef more than 500 metres high – taller than the Empire State Building – at the northern end of the Great Barrier Reef.

The “blade-like” vertical reef about 130km off Cape York, Australia’s north-eastern tip, was found during a 3D seabed mapping exercise conducted from a ship owned by the Californian non-profit Schmidt Ocean Institute.

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South Korea will bring its net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050, President Moon Jae-in said Wednesday, following recent similar statements from neighbours China and Japan to create momentum for climate action in the East Asia region.

The failure of a lithium mining company highlights why it's time Australia took a strategic interest via a Sovereign Wealth Fund for battery metal mining.

The post How high-cost foreign debt sunk an Australian lithium mining asset appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Matt Kean delivers passionate rebuke of claims that his support for climate action and clean energy is inconsistent with conservative politics.

The post Matt Kean: Conservatives should embrace wind and solar, not fight it appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Cubico and REP get state planning approval for 500MW Wambo wind farm, to be built with a four-hour big battery in south-west Queensland.

The post Huge Wambo wind and battery storage project gets planning approval appeared first on RenewEconomy.