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Scuba divers removed about 200lb of garbage from California’s Lake Tahoe on Friday. The dive was part of a six-month effort to rid the lake of fishing rods, tyres, aluminium cans, beer bottles and other rubbish accumulating underwater.

The team plans to look for rubbish along the entire 72 miles (115 km) of shoreline in what could be the largest trash cleanup in the lake’s history, said Colin West, founder of Clean up the Lake, the non-profit organising the project. The team includes 10 divers, as well as support kayaks and jet skis

• ‘I was blown away’: divers haul 200lb of trash from Lake Tahoe in a day

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US team succeeds in captive breeding of sunflower sea stars and aims to reintroduce them to the wild

Scientists in a San Juan Island laboratory in Washington state have successfully raised sunflower sea stars, or starfish, in captivity for the first time, in an effort to help save these charismatic ocean creatures from extinction.

Sunflower sea stars, whose colours vary widely, can grow as big as a bicycle wheel and have about 20 legs. They were once abundant in coastal waters from Alaska to Mexico, but since 2013, nearly 6 billion of these now critically endangered animals have died from a gruesome wasting disease linked to warming seas. Populations have plummeted by more than 90%.

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

California Carbon Allowance (CCA) prices surged to new highs on Friday afternoon ahead of the May WCI auction next week, with traders pointing to increased speculative interest being the primary driver on the secondary market.

Researchers responded this week to criticism of their report that questioned the emissions reductions attributed to California-registered forestry projects, while developers claimed the group’s conclusions may be the result of critical flaws.

WCI compliance entities cut California Carbon Allowance (CCA) holdings this week as speculative interest continued to surge on the secondary market, while financial firms held their length roughly flat week-on-week, according to US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data published Friday.

EU carbon prices resumed their record-breaking run on Friday, leaping another €2 as wider markets recovered from inflationary jitters and gas continued to climb.

The six-wheeled robot is ready to make the hazardous descent to the surface of the Red Planet.

Food-growing areas will see drastic changes to rainfall and temperatures if global heating continues at current rate

A third of global food production will be at risk by the end of the century if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at their current rate, new research suggests.

Many of the world’s most important food-growing areas will see temperatures increase and rainfall patterns alter drastically if temperatures rise by about 3.7C, the forecast increase if emissions stay high.

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Carbon finance is growing and countries are faced with an array of choices—including whether to pursue projects, nesting or jurisdictional REDD+, which standards to use in doing so, and what finance opportunity to pursue.  The landscape can be a confusing array of options.  In this contribution to the Shades of REDD+ series, targeted for forest countries, we try to demystify three opportunities to capture finance for jurisdictional REDD+ performance.

Marine life charities and wildlife tour operators observe growing interest in and empathy for whales

When a sick baby minke whale lost its way up the Thames earlier this week, hundreds of people gathered to watch the rescue efforts at Richmond and Teddington over the course of two days.

It was the furthest upriver a whale had ever ventured, a feat so out of the ordinary that the curiosity among the crowds flocking to the weir and those following the whale’s misguided journey on social media was matched by the outpouring of sadness when the little whale didn’t survive.

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A summary of legislative and regulatory action on carbon pricing, clean fuel standards, and clean energy at the US subnational and federal level this week, including developments in California's Scoping Plan process, North Dakota's long-term climate goal  and a major East Coast offshore wind project.

China is now just weeks away from offering companies in its national emissions trading scheme the long-awaited opportunity to trade CO2 allowances, after industry group China Electricity Council conducted final tests of the exchange and the permit registry over the past week.

Part of the River Tame in Greater Manchester is the most plastic-polluted riverbed in the UK, scientists say.

Alok Sharma is working with health experts and Scottish government on best way for climate summit to go ahead

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The UK government will use Covid-19 vaccinations and testing to try to ensure vital UN climate talks this year go ahead in person, rather than as an online event.

Alok Sharma, a former UK business secretary and now president-designate of Cop26, the climate summit to be held in Glasgow this November, said: “I have always been very clear that this should be the most inclusive Cop ever. I have been travelling around the world and it is very clear to me that people want to see a physical Cop, in particular developing countries want this to be face to face.”

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The UK is planning on host the COP26 UN climate negotiations as an in-person summit in Glasgow in November and is considering various ways of ensuring protection against the coronavirus pandemic, the meeting’s president Alok Sharma said on Friday.

Australia’s in-progress carbon credit exchange will likely over time expand beyond domestic credits to host trade in other emissions units as well as certified low carbon energy, steel, and aluminium for export, according to the Clean Energy Regulator.

Carbon’s been on a bit of a journey in the last week, and to judge from the chatter in the market there really is no end in sight. How high can it go? What can stop it? Who’s going to call the top? Most of the reasons why carbon is rising are clear and not really new. But what *is* new, to me at least, is the “fine mess” that has developed involving natural gas and carbon prices.

Top experts in how diseases spread are calling for massive improvements to the air in buildings.

Peter Meijer, 33-year-old Michigan congressman, says Republicans are in midst of ‘generational shift’ – but progress is slow

Lies that hamburgers will be banned, conspiracy-laden claims of government tyranny, blame for environmental degradation foisted upon immigrants – the Republican response to Joe Biden’s climate agenda suggests the base instincts of Donald Trump still strongly animate the party.

Related: Asia is home to 99 of world’s 100 most vulnerable cities

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