Category Archives: Greenhouse gas emissions

ExxonMobil ‘tried to get European Green Deal watered down’

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Climate lobbying watchdog claims US oil giant met EC officials in run-up to policy

The US oil firm ExxonMobil met key European commission officials in an attempt to water down the European Green Deal in the weeks before it was agreed, according to a climate lobbying watchdog.

Documents unearthed by InfluenceMap revealed that Exxon lobbyists met Brussels officials in November to urge the EU to extend its carbon-pricing scheme to “stationary” sources, such as power plants, to include tailpipe emissions from vehicles using petrol or diesel.

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HS2 legal challenge launched by Chris Packham

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Naturalist says approval of high-speed rail project failed to take account of climate impact

A fresh legal challenge to HS2 has been launched by the naturalist and broadcaster Chris Packham, arguing that the UK government’s decision to approve the high-speed rail network failed to take account of its carbon emissions and climate impact.

Packham and the law firm Leigh Day said the Oakervee review, whose advice to proceed with HS2 in full was followed by Boris Johnson last month, was “compromised, incomplete and flawed”.

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World may miss carbon targets unless big firms improve – Mark Carney

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Bank of England governor warns City about need for businesses to fully disclose climate impact

Businesses must improve how they disclose their impact on the environment or risk failing to meet climate targets, the Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, warned the City on Thursday.

Without disclosure rules that allow investors to compare how businesses are meeting the climate challenge, the world risks missing targets to be carbon neutral by 2050, Carney said.

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Malcolm Turnbull warns of ‘catastrophic’ future without net zero emissions goal – politics live

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The former prime minister has stepped into the climate debate, with a stark warning to moderate Liberals to act. All the day’s events, live

Greg Hunt will be giving the next coronavirus update at 1.10pm

Meanwhile, the lights keep flickering in Parliament House, which can only mean that my moods have begun to physically manifest.

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Bill Gates orders £500m hydrogen-powered superyacht

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Microsoft billionaire’s innovative and eco-fuelled 112m Aqua vessel to launch after 2024

Bill Gates has ordered the world’s first hydrogen-powered superyacht, worth an estimated £500m ($644m) and featuring an infinity pool, helipad, spa and gym.

The billionaire co-founder of Microsoft has commissioned the Aqua ship – a 112-metre (370ft) luxury vessel completely powered by liquid hydrogen – which was publicised last year at the Monaco yacht show by the Dutch design firm Sinot.

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Car industry could see price war on hybrid vehicles in 2020

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Firms may cut prices on plug-in electric hybrids to escape new EU emissions fines

Carmakers are bracing for a hybrid electric car price war this year as they try to avoid steep EU fines for carbon dioxide emissions.

Related: 2020 set to be year of the electric car, say industry analysts

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US and Europe clash over climate crisis threat on last Davos day

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US Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin downplay risks posed by climate emergency

The US and Europe have clashed over the threat posed by global heating as Donald Trump’s finance minister downplayed the risks of a climate crisis during the final session of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Steve Mnuchin, the US Treasury secretary, said the debate should be about “environmental issues” rather than climate change, that the costs were being over-estimated and that climate was only one of several concerns that needed to be discussed.

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Scott Morrison looks for wriggle room on climate as he detects the whiff of backlash | Sarah Martin

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The prime minister is clearly under pressure as the bushfire crisis lays bare the consequences of a warmer planet

It’s too early to say whether the prime minister, Scott Morrison, is speaking with a forked tongue when he says the government will “evolve” its climate change policy.

What appeared on Sunday to be a shift in rhetoric on the government’s emission reduction targets may be meaningful – or it may yet prove to be deliberately duplicitous.

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Craig Kelly interview: Piers Morgan calls MP ‘disgraceful’ for denying climate link to bushfires

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In Good Morning Britain appearance Australian Liberal MP accuses other politicians of trying to exploit tragedy

The Conservative Liberal MP Craig Kelly – a renowned critic of climate change action – has sparked a storm of controversy and been lambasted as a “denier” and “disgraceful” after telling UK television that there was no link between climate change and Australia’s bushfire crisis.

In a combative television interview with the conservative British commentator Piers Morgan and the meteorologist Laura Tobin, Kelly defended his view that climate change was not driving the bushfire crisis that has so far claimed 25 lives and almost 2,000 homes.

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Russia announces plan to ‘use the advantages’ of climate change

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Kremlin website recognises global heating as a problem but lists ‘positive’ economic effects

Russia has published a plan to adapt its economy and population to climate change, aiming to mitigate damage but also “use the advantages” of warmer temperatures.

The document, published on the government’s website on Saturday, outlines a plan of action and acknowledges changes to the climate are having a “prominent and increasing effect” on socioeconomic development, people’s lives, health and industry.

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‘It’s a food forest’: Amazon villagers face down Bolsonaro threat

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Project part-funded by Global Greengrants Fund UK provides economic incentive to protect forest

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From space, the Amazon rainforest resembles a giant dark-green lung veined with blue rivers that is steadily succumbing to the disease-like spread of grey fires, orange roads and square-cut farms. What the satellite images cannot show is how most of the remaining bands of verdant, healthy foliage are defended on the ground by forest dwellers who act as antibodies to drive out malignant invaders.

Among the most impressive of these is the Tapajós-Arapiuns Extractive Reserve in the state of Para in northern Brazil, where residents are trying to bolster their economic resistance with a series of new agro-forestry and solar power projects.

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Barcelona to open southern Europe’s biggest low-emissions zone

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City bans most polluting vehicles from area 20 times the size of Madrid’s zone

The largest low-emissions zone in southern Europe opens in Barcelona on New Year’s Day, banning the most polluting vehicles from entering an urban area including the city and some satellite towns.

Petrol-driven cars bought before 2000 and diesels older than 2006 will be banned and face a fine of €100-€500 (£85-£425) each time they enter the zone. A moratorium will be in place for the first three months, during which time offenders will receive notification of the infraction but will not be fined.

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Converting coal plants to biomass could fuel climate crisis, scientists warn

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Experts horrified at large-scale forest removal to meet wood pellet demand

Plans to shift Europe’s coal plants, including the giant Drax complex in North Yorkshire, to burn wood pellets instead could accelerate rather than combat climate crisis and lay waste to forests equal to half the size of Germany’s Black Forest per year, according to campaigners.

Climate thinktank Sandbag said the heavily subsidised plans to cut carbon emissions will result in a “staggering” amount of tree cutting, potentially destroying forests faster than they can regrow.

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UN climate talks end with limited progress on emissions targets

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Partial agreement at COP25 that countries must be more ambitious to fulfil Paris goals

Climate talks in Madrid have ended with a partial agreement to ask countries to come up with more ambitious targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions in order to meet the terms of the 2015 Paris accord.

Few countries came to this year’s talks with updated plans to reach the Paris goals, though the EU finally agreed its long-term target of reaching net zero emissions by 2050. Experts say more ambitious emissions cuts are needed globally if the Paris pledge to hold global heating to no more than 2C is to be met.

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Richer nations accused of stalling progress on climate crisis

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Brazil, India and China singled out in UN talks as acting to block agreement on article 6 of Paris agreement

Poor countries have accused a handful of richer nations of holding up progress on tackling the climate crisis at UN talks in Madrid, as demonstrators and activists vented their frustration in the final hours of two weeks of negotiations.

The talks dragged on with negotiators battling into the early hours of Saturday to salvage a result, as governments wrangled over the details of a seemingly arcane issue: carbon markets, governed by a provision of the 2015 Paris agreement known as article 6.

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European Green Deal to press ahead despite Polish targets opt-out

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Poland opts out of 2050 net-zero emissions after hours of wrangling over timetables and money

European Union leaders have vowed to press on with a major economic plan to confront the climate emergency, despite Poland’s opt-out from a net-zero emissions target by 2050.

The Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, told journalists he had secured an exemption for Poland on the 2050 target, which is meant to become the legally binding centrepiece of the “European Green Deal” , a plan to transform Europe’s economy announced two days ago.

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Australia’s bushfires have emitted 250m tonnes of CO2, almost half of country’s annual emissions

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Exclusive: forest regrowth can reabsorb emissions from fires but scientists fear natural carbon ‘sinks’ have been compromised

Bushfires in New South Wales and Queensland have emitted a massive pulse of CO2 into the atmosphere since August that is equivalent to almost half of Australia’s annual greenhouse gas emissions, Guardian Australia can reveal.

Analysis by Nasa shows the NSW fires have emitted about 195m tonnes of CO2 since 1 August, with Queensland’s fires adding a further 55m tonnes over the same period.

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EU leaders meet to try to agree on carbon neutrality by 2050

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Greenpeace activists unfurl climate emergency banner on Brussels venue before event

European leaders meeting at a summit in Brussels will make a new attempt to set the European Union on course for carbon neutrality by 2050, in a test of the bloc’s credibility on the climate emergency.

Hours before EU leaders were due to arrive on Thursday, Greenpeace activists unfurled a banner on the side of the summit venue warning of the climate emergency.

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European Green Deal will change economy to solve climate crisis, says EU

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Everything from travel to air quality has been looked at in order to create ‘a growth that gives back’

Nearly every major aspect of the European economy is to be re-evaluated in light of the imperatives of the climate and ecological emergency, according to sweeping new plans set out by the European commission on Wednesday.

The comprehensive nature of the European Green Deal – which encompasses the air we breathe to how food is grown, from how we travel to the buildings we inhabit – was set out in a flurry of documents as Ursula von der Leyen, the new commission president, made her appeal to member states and parliamentarians in Brussels to back the proposals, which would represent the biggest overhaul of policy since the foundation of the modern EU.

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COP25 climate summit: put children at heart of tackling crisis, says UN

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Young activists including Greta Thunberg put pressure on negotiators to break deadlock

Children and young people must be at the heart of dealing with the climate crisis, the UN and campaigners have said as climate talks in Madrid enter their second week with little concrete progress.

Young people, including Greta Thunberg, played a leading role in protests at COP25 over the weekend, and on Monday appeared at the conference to put pressure on negotiators to come up with a plan for reducing greenhouse gases and tackling the impacts of climate breakdown.

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