Feed aggregator

The former PM has form when it comes to pushing corporate interests and meeting populists halfway

When Tony Blair came out this week to say current net zero policies were “doomed to fail”, there was something familiar in his arguments: phasing out fossil fuels wouldn’t work because people perceived it as expensive, arduous and not their problem. Stop banging on about renewables; won’t someone think of the things we don’t know how to do, like carbon capture and such wizardry as is still locked in tech bros’ imaginations? Basically, net zero had lost the room, according to the former prime minister. And if anyone knows where the room is, and how to get it back, it must be him.

He said something similar about “woke”, which sadly lost the room in 2022. “Plant Labour’s feet clearly near the centre of gravity of the British people,” Blair advised Starmer. “[They] want fair treatment for all and an end to prejudice, but distrust and dislike the ‘cancel culture’, ‘woke’ mentality.” What exactly does “woke” mean, if not an end to prejudice? Just how effective is cancel culture, if Blair himself could work as a lobbyist for a Saudi oil firm in 2016, advised the government of Kazakhstan after it brutally suppressed public protests in 2011, and yet still walks among us as the voice of the progressive left? Memo to my fellow cancellers: we are bad at this.

Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Continue reading...

Colombia remains committed to engaging Paris Agreement carbon markets, but the process will be systematic and unhurried, external consultants working with the government told Carbon Pulse on the sidelines of the Colombia Carbon Forum in Bogota on Thursday.

Putting some of the proceeds from the EU's incoming Emissions Trading System for road and heating fuels (ETS2) towards direct payments to citizens may be essential to making the scheme fair and politically viable, according to a group of environmental NGOs.

ArcelorMittal will review its investment priorities in Europe once the EU lays out more of its policy and implementation plans, as the steel giant warned of overall trade disruptions caused by tariffs.

More than 60 countries and organisations announced new commitments to sustainable ocean action at the Our Ocean Conference (OOC) in South Korea this week, pledging a total of $9.1 billion.

A non-profit has warned that the design of the EU ETS2, the bloc's new carbon market for transport and heating fuels, could hand the far-right its biggest present yet and have significant negative consequences.

A partnership unveiled Wednesday seeks to provide a solution to stubble burning and agricultural waste in India with the launch of a biochar-based carbon credit platform.

In order to protect the integrity of forest carbon finance, researchers have called for a standardisation of methodologies across both UNFCCC and voluntary crediting programmes.

RWE posted a 1.6% increase in power generation covered by the EU ETS in the first quarter of the year compared to the same period in 2024, it said in preliminary figures published on Wednesday.

Only three out of 10 ocean-based carbon removal (CDR) methods could each offset 10 million tonnes of CO2 annually within German waters, a new study has found.

The financial sector must change how it engages with Indigenous Peoples, while negotiating nature-related financing in areas including biodiversity credits, UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) said in a recent report.

India's Ministry of New and Renewable Energy this week launched the Green Hydrogen Certification Scheme to standardise and verify the production and export of the fuel, with first H2 exports destined for Japan and Singapore.

The BioCarbon standard has registered a second project under its Biodiversity Crediting Programme, with the initiative planning to generate credits over a 10-year period, the company told Carbon Pulse.

Commercial fusion power has taken a large step forward after ITER, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, announced Wednesday it has completed all components required to build the world’s largest and most powerful magnet.

Plastic credit project developers often fail to understand and properly meet some of the key requirements set out by US-based standard setter Verra, including the 'non-negotiable' additionality criterion, a company manager told a webinar on Tuesday.

European carbon prices moved higher, towards the upper end of their recent range, as selling interest diminished ahead of another holiday break, and position data showed investment funds had slightly reduced their modest net long position.

Former PM also sparks Labour fury, with top MP accusing him of ‘handing talking points’ to Tories and Reform

• UK politics live – latest updates

Climate experts and politicians have criticised Tony Blair for claiming that any strategy that relied on rapidly phasing out fossil fuels was “doomed to fail”.

The former prime minister’s comments, published in a report from the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), prompted an internal row in Labour, with some accusing him of playing into the hands of a narrative used by rightwing parties to delay climate action.

Continue reading...

Private equity giants have stakes in more than 500 fossil fuel assets across 53 countries, according to a tracker launched Wednesday by a climate data consortium.

‘Huge volumes of chicken muck’ entering rivers are harmful to fish and plants, campaigners argue at Cardiff high court

Clean river campaigners have told a court that planning permission for a poultry megafarm in Shropshire is unlawful and should be overturned.

In the high court in Cardiff on Wednesday, Dr Alison Caffyn argued that the council had failed to take into account all the environmental impacts of the industrial chicken units, which will house 230,000 birds at any one time, in particular the effects of spreading manure on land.

Continue reading...

As of Q1 2025, global carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) capacity in operation exceeded 50 million tonnes, showing a modest increase from the previous year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Wednesday.