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Post-pandemic shifts in travel habits could undermine the logic behind many infrastructure projects.

Nature United seeks a proven and dynamic Provincial Policy Advisor to work with the Director of Strategic Partnerships and conservation program leads to develop and implement strategies to advance provincial and territorial government relations and achieve Nature United’s conservation goals through public policy, funding, and programming. 

European utilities Enel and Uniper both reported a year-on-year rebound in power output for Q1 on Thursday, with last year’s generation levels disrupted by the start of the coronavirus crisis and dampened by warmer weather.

EUAs resumed their record-breaking run on Thursday, climbing back above €50 to extend the week's all-time high as bullish sentiment continued to hold sway.

Fossil fuels, cattle and rotting waste produce greenhouse gas responsible for 30% of global heating

Slashing methane emissions is vital to tackling the climate crisis and rapidly curbing the extreme weather already hitting people across the world today, according to a new UN report.

In 2020 there was a record rise in the amount of the powerful greenhouse gas emitted by the fossil fuel industry, cattle and rotting waste. Cutting it is the strongest action available to slow global heating in the near term, Inger Andersen, the UN’s environment chief, said.

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Steelmaker ArcelorMittal saw a substantial demand recovery in Q1, achieving the “strongest” quarterly results in a decade following the COVID-19 crisis, it said in financial results on Thursday that also unveiled new deals to reduce emissions at its European facilities.

Reducing methane emissions needs to play a much more important role in tackling global warming.

Sighting of two of UK’s resident orcas is ‘proof of the value of our coastal seas’, says expert

Two killer whales have been spotted off the Cornish coast.

Experts believe this is the first sighting of the UK’s only resident population of killer whales travelling this far south.

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Electrification of cars and home boilers best choice to fight the climate crisis, say scientists

Using hydrogen-based fuels for cars and home heating risks locking in a dependency on fossil fuels and failing to tackle the climate crisis, according to a new analysis.

Fuels produced from hydrogen can be used as straight replacements for oil and gas and can be low-carbon, if renewable electricity is used to produce these “e-fuels”. However, the research found that using the electricity directly to power cars and warm houses was far more efficient.

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Environmental markets platform IncubEx has hired a new director to further develop its European carbon and renewables certificates offerings.

California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) rebounded towards a one-month high this week even after the programme posted its highest quarterly credit surplus in four years.

Unless actions by governments and corporations cut emissions in the here and now, a dose of scepticism is in order

So it’s goodbye climate deniers, hello – and you’ll pardon me for being blunt here – climate bullshitters.

The impacts of the climate emergency are now so obvious, only the truly deluded still deny them. Instead, we are at the point where everyone agrees something must be done, but many are making only vague, distant promises of ineffective action. As a result, we are currently on track for a 0.5% cut in global emissions from 2010 levels by 2030, when a 45% drop is needed to avoid climate catastrophe.

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Toby Willison has taken leading role at water firm due in court for sentencing after sewage dumping

A former chief of the environment watchdog has defended his move to take up a senior position at a water company that is under investigation by the regulator.

Toby Willison has taken a leading role at Southern Water, which this summer is due in court for sentencing after admitting dumping poisonous, noxious substances including raw sewage. The case followed a criminal investigation by Willison’s former employer, the Environment Agency.

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South Korean carbon allowances have rebounded 28% since hitting a 5-year low last month, though uncertainty is high in the market as the government has yet to announce the exact ETS emissions balance for 2020.

There are signs infections have slowed in some regions - but is India past the worst?

Spindly rows of plastic-wrapped trees represent a misguided urge to control nature and risk polluting our countryside

Remember the English hedge? That meandering, bushy-bottomed muddle of blossom and blackberries, honeysuckle and wild rose, singing warblers and gothic trees half-buried in the greenery? More than 150,000 miles were grubbed out by farmers between the end of the second world war and the 1970s to make room for their big machines.

What have been called the countryside’s “locust years” ended, mercifully, and in the 80s there were a few halfhearted attempts at planting new, mixed hedges. But over the past decade, and especially the last two years, a new threat has emerged. Not destruction this time but debasement. We’ve entered the era of the ersatz hedge, a hybrid of plastic and bush that is being planted across lowland England, especially in arable areas, and which is managed as ruthlessly as a suburban privet border.

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Despite pandemic-enforced isolation, scientists from around the world have produced a vital climate change forecast

Sea levels are going to rise, no matter what. This is certain. But new
research I helped produce shows how much we could limit the damage: sea level rise from the melting of ice could be halved this century if we meet the Paris agreement target of keeping global warming to 1.5C.

The aim of our research was to provide a coherent picture of the future of the world’s land ice using hundreds of simulations. But now, as I look back on the two years it took us to put the study together, what stands out is the theme of connection running through it all – despite the world being more disconnected than ever.

Connecting digitally: our study brought together 84 people working at 62 institutes in 15 countries (nine in Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and China). I led the study but haven’t met many of my co-authors. Even if we had planned to meet, over half the 120 days I spent on the study have been since the first UK lockdown.

Connecting parts of the world: the world’s land ice is made up of global glaciers in 19 regions, and the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets at each pole. Our methods allow us to use exactly the same predictions of global warming for each. This may sound obvious, but is actually unusual, perhaps unique at this scale. Each part of the world is simulated separately, by different groups of people, using different climate models to provide the warming levels. We realigned all these predictions to make them consistent.

Connecting the data: at its heart, this study is a join-the-dots picture. Our 38 groups of modellers created nearly 900 simulations of glaciers and ice sheets. Each one is a data point about its contribution to future sea level rise. Here, we connected the points with lines, using a statistical method called “emulation”. Imagine clusters of stars in the sky: drawing the constellations allow us to visualise the full picture more easily – not just a few points of light, but each detail of Orion’s torso, limbs, belt and bow.

Our process of joining the dots meant we could make a more complete prediction of the full range of possible futures – mapping out our uncertainties in the levels of the rising seas. For instance, if we reduce emissions from current pledges to meet the Paris agreement targets, which would reduce warming from more than 3C to 1.5C, the median predictions for sea level rise from melting ice reduce by half, from 25cm to 13cm, by 2100. For the upper end, there is a 95% chance the level would be less than 28cm if we limit warming to 1.5C, compared with 40cm under current pledges.

Connecting to each other: some of the initial conversations for the study were in person. Most memorable and important among them were visiting the ice sheet project lead, Sophie Nowicki, at Nasa to analyse their data in June 2019, and long walks discussing the statistical methods with my mentor and friend Jonty Rougier in Hastings. But even when we went digital, many of us kept a personal, sometimes emotional, connection under the pressures of work and family life amid the pandemic, and with a number of people involved in the research living in California close to the huge wildfires last summer.

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Australians have endured floods, bushfires and hailstorms and more over the last two years. The government is better aligning policy to deal with disasters, but its plan is somewhat half-baked. Paul Barnes, Research Fellow (Disaster & Urban Resilience), UNSW Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Taylor promises $15 million to Darwin big battery, which is designed to support more solar and cut gas generation, and more funds for renewable micro-grids.

The post Taylor awards $15 million grant to Darwin big battery that will cut gas generation appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Queensland’s state Labor government joins Victoria’s in indicating it won’t back a move to tax solar households for electricity sent to the grid.

The post Queensland joins Victoria in opposing rooftop solar tax, prefers battery support appeared first on RenewEconomy.