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All creatures great and small will be protected in the new proposals, according to the Queen's Speech.

They are benevolent vegetarian gods. They watch over, through shielded eyes, the very few animals that have a fringe.

William Topaz McGonagall, the “worst poet in the history of the English language”, is responsible for some of my mother’s favourite words in the world to say. She delivers them in a decent-enough Scottish accent, and she does so whenever the opportunity presents itself: “On yonder hill there stood a coo / It’s no’ there noo / It must’a shif’ted”. When I hear this rhyme I picture a Scottish highland cow, its coat waving in the icy flaff.

McGonagall, who has a certain genius for coos, unfortunately also felt moved to capture in rhyme disasters, “calamities” and freak accidents. He chose to pay tribute to the people who died in the 1879 Tay Bridge disaster thus:

Beautiful railway bridge of the silv’ry Tay
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last sabbath day of 1879
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.”

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84-turbine site off Massachusetts will be capable of generating power for 400,000 homes and businesses

Joe Biden’s administration has approved the construction of the US’s first large-scale offshore windfarm, with 84 turbines to be erected off the coast of Massachusetts.

The approval of the project, which will generate about 800 megawatts of energy, enough to power around 400,000 homes and businesses, is a boost to Biden’s agenda of ramping up renewable energy production across the US in order to confront the climate crisis.

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The Kenyan government is “at an advanced stage” in establishing a national emissions trading system, a government official said Tuesday.

A former emissions trader for Bank of America Merril Lynch and Gazprom has joined a London-based carbon investment firm.

Great Eastern Brood set to emerge in the last two weeks of May and into early June, with hordes of bugs to push up from underground

Brood X, otherwise known as the great cicada hatching of 2021, is drawing closer as soil temperatures in some parts of America move closer to 64F (18C) – the trigger, according to scientists, for trillions of the insects to push up to the surface and into the trees to mate.

Related: If we want to save the planet, the future of food is insects

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Nearly 59m hectares of forests have regrown since 2000, showing that regeneration in some places is paying off

An area of forest the size of France has regrown around the world over the past 20 years, showing that regeneration in some places is paying off, a new analysis has found.

Nearly 59m hectares of forests have regrown since 2000, the research found, providing the potential to soak up and store 5.9 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide – more than the annual emissions of the entire US.

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The European Commission is considering whether to propose financing an EU-wide carbon contracts for difference (CCfD) scheme through the ETS Innovation Fund, a senior EU official said Tuesday.

For miles around Walleys Quarry in Silverdale, people have reported waking up in the night struggling to breathe

It may have been labelled the country’s smelliest village but it is much more than a bad stench making life miserable for the residents of Silverdale in Staffordshire.

For miles around Walleys Quarry landfill near Newcastle-under-Lyme, people have reported waking up in the middle of the night struggling to breathe, with itchy eyes and sore throats. Those with asthma have had their medication increased, and some have reported nosebleeds.

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From the world's smallest flow battery to the megawatt-hour scale, Redflow unveils steps to a larger-scale market for its zinc-bromine batteries.

The post Redflow targets megawatt-scale battery market with unveiling of Pod Z appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The UK will hand out 39.1 mln free carbon allowances in 2021 - the first year of the country's new emissions trading scheme - the government announced Tuesday, confirming that it was slashing the allocations by a third versus what it has originally earmarked.

Singapore is developing a taxonomy and guidelines for carbon credits as part of its push to secure a role as a hub for the global voluntary offset market, a minister said Tuesday, a process that could include setting up a new exchange.

Clean energy and electric vehicles again ignored in a federal budget focused on propping up fossil fuels.

The post Money for big emitters, gas projects, in another miserly budget for clean energy and EVs appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The real threat to our way of life – and Saturday night steak – is an oligopoly food system that teetered close to collapse last spring when its workers were overcome by Covid

First President Obama was coming for your guns. Didn’t happen. Then President Trump said the socialists were going to take away our energy. The lights are on after 100 days, although it got dicey in Texas for awhile (and no, wind turbines didn’t cause the ice storm).

But whoa, Nellie! We hear a Hamburglar will steal your right to beef before you can say “pass the ketchup”.

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Funding soared in 2020, while study shows 80% of people are open to eating meat grown in bioreactors

The nascent industry growing real meat in bioreactors had a record-breaking year in 2020, with investment growing sixfold and dozens of new companies being founded.

A study also indicates that 80% of people in the UK and US are open to eating meat produced in a factory rather than a field, with the researchers concluding that cultivated meat is likely to be widely accepted by the general public.

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Shifting the all-English final from Istanbul would reduce carbon emissions but there is still a lack of long-term thinking from Uefa when it comes to doing the right thing

It was bad enough in 2019 when tens of thousands of football supporters from the United Kingdom traipsed across Europe to watch two English clubs, Tottenham and Liverpool, play the Champions League final at Atlético Madrid’s stadium in Spain. More easily, cheaply and comfortably they could have hopped on a train or coach, or driven to meet each other halfway in Birmingham.

Now, not only are we still in the middle of a pandemic, with Turkey, where this season’s Champions League final between Manchester City and Chelsea was initially scheduled to take place on 29 May, registering an average of 29,000 new coronavirus cases per day, but since 2019 there has been a rising tide of awareness about the climate emergency and the urgent need to reduce carbon emissions.

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New wind and solar power projects in China, Europe and the US spurred 45% rise in capacity

The world’s renewable energy industry grew at its fastest pace since 1999 last year, despite the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, and may have established a standard for growth in the future, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The global energy watchdog revealed that the delivery of renewable energy projects, including windfarms and solar power projects, grew by 45% last year in a step change for the global industry.

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State government extends support to plans to double the storage capacity of the big battery component of 1414 Degrees' Aurora Energy Project.

The post South Australia backs plan for bigger big battery at Aurora project appeared first on RenewEconomy.

It was bad enough when Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey were railing against wind farms, but it's now getting beyond a joke.

The post Batteries not included: Coalition’s stunning hatred of new technology appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Conservation groups say naturally restored forests can help in the fight against climate change.