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Cost of using electric car charging point in UK up 42% since May
Soaring energy prices after invasion of Ukraine have added almost £10 to cost of charging family-sized car, says RAC
The price of charging an electric car using a public rapid charger has jumped by almost £10 since May because of soaring energy costs after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The increased price of wholesale gas and electricity has pushed up the price to charge an average family-size car by 42% to above £32, according to analysis by the RAC. That was £9.60 more than in May, and £13.59 more than a year earlier.
Continue reading...Backcountry visitors are leaving poo piles in the Australian Alps – and it's a problem
Queensland reaches 66 pct wind and solar for first time as it prepares massive green push
Wind and solar briefly provide two thirds of Queensland's electricity demand as the country's most coal dependent state gears up to announce big leap into green future.
The post Queensland reaches 66 pct wind and solar for first time as it prepares massive green push appeared first on RenewEconomy.
The safeguard mechanism: Australia’s emissions trading scheme in all but name
From the time it was created, the mechanism has been subject to obfuscation. Labor is about to try and make it work, but it won’t be smooth sailing
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Climate policy can sometimes seem like it is being spoken in a different language. Take the issue of the moment in Australia: the safeguard mechanism.
For people deeply embedded in the mechanics of how governments plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the safeguard mechanism has become a reasonably familiar subject since it was introduced by the Coalition six years ago – even though the Morrison government and its predecessors didn’t like to talk about it much.
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Continue reading...The Guardian view on Philip Larkin at 100: a lasting gift | Editorial
Whatever we may feel about the man, some things are eternal, and in his work he found the words for them
When, 50 years ago, the Department of the Environment commissioned a poem from Philip Larkin, he produced, as a reader recently pointed out to the Guardian, Going, Going, about felled trees, bleak high-rises, spreading shopping centres and parking lots. It is about the erosion, too, of his previous trust that “earth will always respond / However we mess it about”. If he had lived until this year, when he would have turned 100, he would, one suspects, have been disappointed but not at all surprised that we are still chucking filth in the sea. The poem ends the way many Larkin poems do, with a deceptively conversational profundity: “Most things are never meant.” Which doesn’t change the damage done.
Despite a difficult period in the 1990s – after publication of Andrew Motion’s biography and an edition of his letters that revealed his racism and misogyny, not to mention infidelity, porn use and general puerility – Larkin has never gone away, and the poetry is why. Even the most unpoetic recognise the demotic bluntness of “They fuck you up, your mum and dad.” Or, “Sexual intercourse began / In nineteen sixty-three / (Which was rather late for me) – / Between the end of the ‘Chatterley’ ban / And the Beatles’ first LP.” In recent weeks Keir Starmer in parliament and thousands on Twitter have quoted his lines on Elizabeth II, written for her silver jubilee in 1977: “In times when nothing stood / but worsened, or grew strange, / there was one constant good: / she did not change.”
Continue reading...Flood gardens to combat drought and biodiversity loss, says Natural England
Experts say ditching concrete and creating mini wetlands could help water systems cope better with effects of extreme weather
This year has seen one of the driest summers on record, with most of the country still officially in drought. Millions of people in England are under hosepipe bans because of water shortages, and reservoir and river levels remain low.
The solution to this? People should flood their gardens and create bogs in order to stop the effects of drought and reverse biodiversity loss, according to the head of Natural England.
Continue reading...Labour will bring green jobs built on strong trade unions – because we cannot go back to the 1980s | Angela Rayner and Ed Miliband
From fracking to bankers’ bonuses, we know where this government’s interests lie. It must be stopped
The Tory budget on Friday made clear where the party stands: for failed trickle-down economics and for helping the already wealthy get richer.
The cost of living crisis is wreaking havoc, with spiralling energy bills, stagnating wages, and the highest inflation in 40 years. Behind these economic buzzwords are harrowing realities, and families in every city and town having to make impossible choices this winter.
Angela Rayner is MP for Ashton-under-Lyne and deputy leader of the Labour party; Ed Miliband is MP for Doncaster North
Continue reading...Kwasi Kwarteng denies plans to relax environmental rules in push for growth
Wildlife groups concerned by apparent plans to loosen protections in 38 ‘investment zones’
Kwasi Kwarteng has tried to play down concerns that ministers plan to tear up a series of environmental regulations in their push for growth, after a furious backlash from wildlife and green groups.
“We’re not going to relax environmental rules,” the UK chancellor told BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg show, arguing the only aim was to reduce red tape.
Continue reading...Head of World Bank under pressure after White House condemns his ‘climate denial’ comments
David Malpass apologises after saying he ‘doesn’t know’ if he accepts climate science
David Malpass, president of the World Bank, faces an uncertain future this week, after the White House joined a chorus of influential figures in condemning his apparent climate denialism.
Malpass remains in post for now but under severe pressure, despite issuing an apology and trying to explain his refusal last week to publicly acknowledge the human role in the climate crisis.
Continue reading...Chicken farm giant linked to River Wye decline was sued over water blight in US
Cargill was taken to court 20 years ago in Oklahoma over the same pollution issue it is now linked to in UK
One of the world’s biggest food giants with a supply chain linked to the ecological decline of the River Wye faced claims over similar pollution scandals in the US, the Observer can reveal.
Campaigners warned two years ago that the clear waters of the Wye, one of Britain’s best-loved rivers, were being blighted by thick green algae blooms linked to poultry production.
Continue reading...The staggering numbers behind Australia’s 82 per cent renewables target
Chris Bowen reveals some of the staggering numbers behind Australia's 82 per cent renewables target, and some of the labour and supply challenges.
The post The staggering numbers behind Australia’s 82 per cent renewables target appeared first on RenewEconomy.
In bloom: canola is top of the crops on NSW south-west slopes – in pictures
Despite the wet weather, the canola fields in southern New South Wales are blooming
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Australia has a golden opportunity to expand solar energy manufacturing
World’s desire to wean off over-reliance on China could be a boon for local producers, according to the Australian PV Institute
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Australia has a golden opportunity to expand its solar energy manufacturing capacity as the industry booms and nations scramble to cut their over-dependence on China, a report by the Australian Australian PV Institute Institute says.
The country is installing 4GW of solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity a year already but meeting just 3% of that from a local supplier, Adelaide’s Tindo Solar. That annual installation tally, though, is predicted to triple by 2050, particularly if Australia becomes a major supplier of hydrogen produced by renewable energy for export.
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Continue reading...Storm Ian delays launch of Nasa's Artemis I Moon rocket
Conservation groups brand mini-budget an ‘attack on nature’
RSPB, Wildlife Trusts and National Trust criticise plans to create 38 ‘investment zones’ across England
The government has been accused of launching an “attack on nature” with its mini-budget, which conservationists warn could roll back environmental rules.
Groups including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), the Wildlife Trusts and the National Trust have criticised plans, announced on Friday, to create 38 “investment zones” across England.
Continue reading...Government poised to scrap nature ‘Brexit bonus’ for farmers
Defra accused of ‘all-out attack’ on environment by wildlife groups
The government is to scrap the “Brexit bonus” which would have paid farmers and landowners to enhance nature, in what wildlife groups are calling an “all-out attack” on the environment, the Observer can reveal.
Instead, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) sources disclosed, they are considering paying landowners a yearly set sum for each acre of land they own, which would be similar to the much-maligned EU basic payments scheme of the common agricultural policy.
Continue reading...This dash for growth represents the death of green Toryism
Boris Johnson was far more eco-conscious than recent Conservative predecessors. But this mini-budget is a reversion to type
The dash for growth by Kwasi Kwarteng means unshackling City bankers and property developers from the taxes and regulations that prevent them from paving over what’s left of Britain’s green and pleasant land.
The humble concrete mixer will be elevated to exalted status. There will be more executive homes built on greenfield sites. More distribution sheds dotted along busy A-roads. And more urban renewal of the kind that involves tearing down buildings in a plume of dust and carbon emissions to replace them with something not much better, at least not in environmental terms.
Continue reading...Huge new nickel mine aims for 100 pct renewables, with world’s biggest renewable micro-grid
Huge $1.7 billion copper and nickel mine in remote part of Australia will feature world's biggest off-grid renewables plant, delivering low cost and low emissions minerals.
The post Huge new nickel mine aims for 100 pct renewables, with world’s biggest renewable micro-grid appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Buzz stops: bus shelter roofs turned into gardens for bees and butterflies
Bee bus stops first appeared in the Dutch city of Utrecht. Now the UK is planning for more than 1,000 and there is growing interest across Europe and in Canada and Australia
Butterflies and bees are getting their own transport network as “bee bus stops” start to pop up around UK cities and across Europe. Humble bus shelter roofs are being turned into riots of colour, with the number of miniature gardens – full of pollinator-friendly flora such as wild strawberries, poppies and pansies – set to increase by 50% in the UK by the end of this year.
Leicester is leading the charge with 30 bee bus stops installed since 2021. Derby has 18, and there are others in Southhampton, Newcastle, Sunderland, Derby, Oxford, Cardiff and Glasgow. Brighton council installed one last year after a petition was signed by almost 50,000 people.
Continue reading...CP Daily: Friday September 23, 2022
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