Category Archives: Environment

Size of Nord Stream blasts equal to large amount of explosive, UN told

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Experts suggest maintenance robots may have planted bombs, as concern grows over methane buildup

Denmark and Sweden have said leaks from the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea were caused by blasts equivalent to the power of “several hundred kilograms of explosive”.

The conclusions were made in a joint report by Denmark and Sweden which was delivered to the United Nations. The UN environment programme said on Friday the ruptures are likely to have led to the biggest single release of climate-damaging methane ever recorded.

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How Truss’s post-Brexit farming policy descended into chaos

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Rumours rife as farmers fear PM plans U-turn on financial subsidy measures to improve environment

The chaos in the English countryside began with the click of a civil servant’s mouse. At the end of last week, farmers who had been working with the government on environmental subsidy schemes saw that their regular meetings about it had been removed from their online diaries without warning.

This appeared to hint at what had been feared – that the new post-Brexit farming subsidy scheme was in danger of being scrapped.

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Spanish police seize smuggled baby eels worth €270,000

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Dozens arrested in operation as officials warn of resurgence in trafficking of endangered elvers

Spanish police have arrested 29 people after seizing 180kg of critically endangered young European eels with a value on the hidden market of €270,000 (£237,000).

The Guardia Civil said the operation, in collaboration with Europol, had also led to 20 arrests elsewhere in Europe.

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Boston bans artificial turf in parks due to toxic ‘forever chemicals’

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The city joins a growing number across the US in limiting the use of artificial turf made with dangerous PFAS compounds

Boston’s mayor, Michelle Wu, has ordered no new artificial turf to be installed in city parks, making Boston the largest municipality in a small but growing number around the nation to limit use of the product because it contains dangerous chemicals.

All artificial turf is made with toxic PFAS compounds and some is still produced with ground-up tires that can contain heavy metals, benzene, VOCs and other carcinogens that can present a health threat. The material also emits high levels of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and sheds microplastics and other chemicals into waterways.

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Weather tracker: Typhoon Noru wreaks havoc across south-east Asia

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As Hurricane Ian hits the Americas, Noru has been ripping through the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand

Hurricane Ian has been in the headlines but it is not the only storm that has been causing havoc in the past week.

On Tuesday, Typhoon Noru struck south of the city of Da Nang in Vietnam, heading westwards to Thailand. Initially a tropical storm, Noru originated in the Philippine Sea on 23 September, propagating westwards while gathering moisture and strengthening.

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Labor’s deal with gas exporters will lock in high prices, consumer groups say

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Agreement raises concerns transition to lower emissions energy sector will be harder and more expensive

Energy user groups have condemned the Albanese government’s agreement with gas exporters saying it will lock in high prices that will force businesses to close, hurt households and hobble the transition of the electricity sector off fossil fuels.

The resource minister, Madeleine King, on Thursday said the government had signed a new agreement with the big gas exporters from eastern Australia that would ensure there was sufficient supplies to meet local demand.

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NSW renames national park over pastoralist Ben Boyd’s links to slavery in Pacific

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New name Beowa means orca in Thaua language and comes after consultation with Aboriginal and South Sea Islander communities

A national park in New South Wales that was named after a pastoralist linked to the slave trade has been renamed.

The move to rename Ben Boyd national park was announced last year and new signs were installed at Beowa national park near Eden on Friday.

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Could a digital twin of Tuvalu preserve the island nation before it’s lost to the collapsing climate?

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With rising seas expected to submerge the nation by 2100, official says ‘we should always be able to remember Tuvalu as it is, before it disappears’

When Tuvalu vanishes beneath rising seas, its diaspora still want somewhere to call home – and that could be a virtual version of the tiny Pacific nation.

Global heating is threatening to submerge Tuvalu by the end of the century, and its 12,000 inhabitants are considering the future.

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NSW on alert after more than a dozen cane toads found an hour north of Sydney

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Agriculture minister says size of colony in Mandalong indicates there could be many more of the toxic intruders in the area

New South Wales is on alert after more than a dozen cane toads were found on a private property an hour’s drive north of Sydney.

The state’s Department of Primary Industries (DPI) biosecurity helpline confirmed a report had been made by a member of the public on 19 September after a “number” of cane toads were found at a property in the rural town of Mandalong, west of Lake Macquarie.

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More than 1,700 environmental activists murdered in the past decade – report

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Figures likely to be an underestimate, says Global Witness, as land defenders are killed by hitmen, crime groups and governments

More than 1,700 murders of environmental activists were recorded over the past decade, an average of a killing nearly every two days, according to a new report.

Killed by hitmen, organised crime groups and their own governments, at least 1,733 land and environmental defenders were murdered between 2012 and 2021, figures from Global Witness show, with Brazil, Colombia, the Philippines, Mexico and Honduras the deadliest countries.

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AGL will close Victoria’s coal-fired power station Loy Yang A a decade early

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Energy company accelerates its exit from coal, although timeline for closure of Bayswater in the NSW Hunter Valley remains unchanged

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AGL Energy will shut down Australia’s biggest single carbon polluting power plant a decade earlier than planned, changing the closure date of its coal-fired Loy Yang A power station in Victoria from 2045 to 2035.

The company, Australia’s biggest electricity generator and polluter, is accelerating its exit from coal, according to plan released to the stock exchange on Thursday. . The strategy details its transition to renewable energy after opposition from its largest shareholder, billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes, forced it in May to ditch plans to demerge.

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Cop27: Egyptian hosts urge leaders to set aside tensions over Ukraine

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Organisers call on nations to carry on crucial climate negotiations despite differences on geopolitical issues

The Egyptian hosts of the next UN climate summit have issued a plea for countries to set aside tensions and animosity over the Ukraine war for the sake of focusing on the climate crisis.

Egypt will host the Cop27 conference in Sharm El-Sheikh in November, intended as a forum for companies to fulfil the promises they made at the landmark Cop26 summit in Glasgow last year.

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Nord Stream gas leaks may be biggest ever, with warning of ‘large climate risk’

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‘Colossal amount’ of leaked methane, twice initial estimates, is equivalent to third of Denmark’s annual CO2 emissions or 1.3m cars

Scientists fear methane erupting from the burst Nord Stream pipelines into the Baltic Sea could be one of the worst natural gas leaks ever and pose significant climate risks.

Neither of the two breached Nord Stream pipelines, which run between Russia and Germany, was operational, but both contained natural gas. This mostly consists of methane – a greenhouse gas that is the biggest cause of climate heating after carbon dioxide.

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Will Labour’s energy plans work?

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While there are questions about the pace of Labour’s proposals, criticism in rightwing newspapers is bizarrely wide of the mark

Labour’s ambitious plan for zero-carbon power by 2030 raises legitimate questions – which we’ll come to shortly – but the commentary in rightwing newspapers is bizarrely wide of the mark.

Perhaps the strangest was a Daily Telegraph editorial that claimed Labour’s plan “would make the country more dependent on imported gas, not less”. As should be obvious, the opposite is true.

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Queensland government pledges to end reliance on coal-fired power by 2035

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Annastacia Palaszczuk says state is facing a ‘climate emergency’ while unveiling $62bn energy plan

Queensland will end its reliance on coal-fired power by 2035 under a 10-year $62bn energy plan to create a clean “super-grid” of solar, wind and hydroelectric power.

In a historic announcement for a state known for its coal mining, the premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, said Queensland was facing a “climate emergency” and a bold vision was needed.

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Germany delays exit from nuclear power to offset energy shortfall

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Two nuclear plants’ lives extended as country copes with loss of Russian gas and shortage of French electricity

Germany’s planned exit from nuclear power by the end of this year has been officially delayed in order to shore up energy supplies during an expected shortfall this winter, the economic minister, Robert Habeck, announced on Tuesday.

The decision follows a shortage in supplies of electricity coming from France due to the fact that more than half of its nuclear power stations are offline, Habeck told journalists in Berlin.

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Great British Energy: what is it, what would it do and how would it be funded?

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The details behind Keir Starmer’s proposed publicly owned energy company when Labour take power

The key pledge of Keir Starmer’s Labour conference speech was the proposed launch of Great British Energy, a publicly owned energy company to invest in clean UK power as part of the party’s commitment to “fight the Tories on economic growth”. But how does it work, and is it the same as renationalising energy?

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Australia urged to adopt 75% emissions reduction target by 2035 if it is to reach net zero

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Investor Group on Climate Change says clear price on carbon needed and removal of all fossil fuel subsidies by 2050

Australia needs an ambitious 75% emissions reduction target by 2035, a clear price on carbon, and to remove all fossil fuel subsidies by 2025 in order to unlock the investment needed to reach net zero by 2050, according to a new report.

The Investor Group on Climate Change has released its policy priorities report for 2022-2025, outlining key areas for reform that would align Australia’s emissions target to the Paris goal of limiting warming to 1.5C and ensure the country was able to manage an “orderly” retreat from coal.

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NSW convenes first meeting of disaster taskforce ahead of more wet weather

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Task Force Hawk formed to address issues raised in an independent inquiry into floods earlier this year

Emergency agencies will brief a New South Wales government taskforce set up to improve the state’s response to disasters on Wednesday as residents brace for more wet weather in the third consecutive La Niña.

The meeting will be the first for Task Force Hawk – the newly formed permanent crisis committee of cabinet ministers and officials from the state’s emergency management agencies to learn from mistakes made during the February and March floods.

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Keir Starmer promises to launch publicly-owned UK energy company as he hails ‘Labour moment’ – UK politics live

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Latest updates: the Labour party leader used his conference speech to spell out his plan for the UK

The decision to pay Liz Truss’s new chief of staff, Mark Fullbrook, through a private company has been dropped after criticism from within the Conservatives as well as from opposition parties.

The government admitted over the weekend that Fullbrook would be paid through his lobbying firm, a move that could have helped him avoid paying tax. He had previously claimed the firm had stopped all commercial activities.

The world we are heading for is a bumpy few weeks. The chancellor is now going to have quite a tough time because he has now set out plans to balance the books in November. That is going to be very hard.

Actually balancing the books in November is going to be harder than it would have been to show you are balancing the books last week because higher interest rates will make it harder to do. You might need £15bn worth of tough choices now that you didn’t need last Friday.

In the end, lower taxes will mean worse public services, or other people’s taxes having to go up, and it is those choices and ducking those choices that markets are looking at and saying that is not what serious policymaking looks like.

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