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Wind could be more productive way than fracking to boost electricity supplies and bring down prices

Kwasi Kwarteng looks likely to lift a de facto ban on new onshore windfarms after the UK government said it would bring planning consent into line with that for other infrastructure.

It has been very difficult for onshore windfarms to get planning permission since David Cameron put in place a tough consent regime in 2015. Earlier this year, Kwarteng pushed for the restrictions to be lifted but he encountered cabinet opposition.

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EUAs tumbled as much as 5.5% on Friday morning as traders reacted to news that Germany is mulling an idea for a larger revenue target for allowances sales under the RePowerEU plan, while energy markets were marginally weaker as forecasts showed windy conditions and temperatures above seasonal norms.

The business secretary has been filmed trying to convince staff at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy that ‘domestically’ produced gas is green, adding that this is why ‘we must get every cubic inch of gas out of the North Sea’. Jacob Rees-Mogg made the comments on Thursday at an internal meeting in which he gave his first address to BEIS staff since taking on the role

• Factcheck: is Jacob Rees-Mogg right that fracking is safe and vital?
  

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Studies collectively examined nearly 30,000 samples over the past five years in ‘disturbing’ findings

Toxic PFAS chemicals were detected in every umbilical cord blood sample across 40 studies conducted over the last five years, a new review of scientific literature from around the world has found.

The studies collectively examined nearly 30,000 samples, and many linked fetal PFAS exposure to health complications in unborn babies, young children and later in life. The studies’ findings are “disturbing”, said Uloma Uche, an environmental health science fellow with the Environmental Working Group, which analyzed the peer-reviewed studies’ data.

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Cost of safely clearing waste from ageing power stations is soaring, says Nuclear Decommissioning Authority

The cost of decommissioning the UK’s 20th-century nuclear waste could rise to £260bn as the aged and degrading sites present growing challenges, according to analysis presented to an international group of experts.

As the government pursues nuclear energy with the promise of a new generation of reactors, the cost of safely cleaning up waste from previous generations of power stations is soaring.

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Singaporean stakeholders are calling for greater clarity over the eligibility criteria for securing international carbon credits, a released government document shows, as respondents filed comments to proposed changes to Singapore’s carbon pricing scheme.

Mark Menzies challenges business secretary to ‘lead by example’ and start drilling in North East Somerset

Jacob Rees-Mogg should “lead by example” and make his the first constituency to be fracked, a Conservative MP has said.

Mark Menzies, the MP for Fylde, challenged the business secretary to start drilling in North East Somerset before imposing fracking on other constituencies.

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Trading activity in China’s national emissions market was lacklustre again this week amid deep-seated pessimism about the policy outlook, as the offset market recorded an uptick in demand over the past week although volumes remain modest due to limited supply.

Campaigners say revoking of post-Brexit protections amounts to ‘legislative vandalism’

Hundreds of Britain’s environmental laws covering water quality, sewage pollution, clean air, habitat protections and the use of pesticides are lined up for removal from UK law under a government bill.

Environmentalists accused Liz Truss’s government of reneging on a commitment made after Brexit to halt the decline of nature by 2030. They say the revoking of 570 environmental laws that were rolled over from EU law after Brexit amounts to a deregulatory free-for-all leaving the environment unprotected.

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Issuances for Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) have slid down to its lowest amount in recent months, while the Australian and US governments have signed a clean energy investment agreement, and Woodside Energy has joined a methane emissions reduction initiative.  

The best of this week’s wildlife pictures, including a rescued fox, a snub-nosed monkey and beached whales

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

The Tories were once the party of business. Now all they know how to do is drag Britain back to the 1980s

If Liz Truss believes wholeheartedly in one thing, it’s that nobody likes being told what to do. People don’t want to be nagged about their weight, or nudged to eat less and move more. They don’t want to be told what they can say on social media. And above all, businesses want to be free to make piles and piles of money, unhindered by regulation and red tape and what David Cameron famously called “green crap”. But when she said she didn’t mind making herself unpopular in the process of unleashing all that growth, she didn’t mean with the people doing the growing.

What to make, then, of the fact that this week more than 100 big corporate names from Ikea to Amazon, Coco-Cola and Sky signed an open letter urging the government not to backtrack on net zero, following hints that Truss might be considering doing exactly that? This wasn’t in the script, either for the deregulatory right or arguably that part of the left convinced that capitalism loves nothing more than warming its rapacious hands over a bonfire of crackling red tape, while watching the planet burn. What, exactly, is going on?

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

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This weekend’s ballot could see Switzerland also giving farm animals the constitutional right ‘not to be intensively farmed’

Swiss voters will vote on Sunday on whether to ban factory farming as unconstitutional and end imports of intensively farmed meat.

The latest polling shows 52% of voters oppose a ban, and 47% support one. If the factory-farming ballot initiative is passed, Switzerland’s constitution, which already protects the “welfare and dignity of animals”, would be modified to include an animal’s right “not to be intensively farmed”, and new laws would lower animal stocking rates to meet organic standards.

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Lacklustre efforts to tackle aviation emissions by governments and industry bodies have put the sector well outside a 1.5C pathway, with global aviation emissions potentially tripling from 2019 levels by 2050 in the absence of stronger policies, a report has found.

The creation of a secondary crediting scheme in the reformed Safeguard Mechanism could spark volatility in the market in the early years after the reform is implemented, and the government should introduce measures to minimise that, Australia’s peak body for financial institutions have warned.

Campaigners say protesters arrested for blocking roads getting ‘lost in prison system’ while on remand

Climate campaigners arrested on suspicion of blocking roads or other offences are waiting up to six months in prison before being tried.

Josh Smith, a 29-year-old stonemason from Manchester, has been held on remand in HMP Peterborough for more than two months.

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UK government lifts moratorium on gas fracking, flags new oil and gas licensing round; France launches first offshore wind farm with promise to fast-track renewables.

The post Energy crisis: UK fracks back, France fast-tracks offshore wind, Sweden lets off steam appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Germany is weighing a proposal to increase the revenue target for carbon allowance sales under the EU’s REPowerEU plan, but wants to ensure measures are taken to protect the integrity of the ETS.

US and Australia sign deal to allow major US corporations including Amazon, Google and Unilever to invest more easily in Australian renewables projects.

The post Bowen inks deal to bring big corporate bucks to Australian renewables appeared first on RenewEconomy.