Environment news

• Luxembourg to become first country to make all public transport free

  05-12-2018 19:38
  Government seeks to prioritise environment and end some of world’s worst traffic congestionLuxembourg is set to become the first country in the world to make all its public transport free.Fares on trains, trams and buses will be lifted next summer under the plans of the re-elected coalition government led by Xavier Bettel, who was sworn in for a second term as prime minister on Wednesday. Continue reading...
  
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• The Guardian view on climate change: too much, too soon | Editorial

  05-12-2018 19:28
  We are losing the war against climate change; the use of fossil fuels is driving higher carbon emissions when they need to be coming downOutside of the desperate and the deluded, everyone knows that the world is in the early stages of a truly catastrophic climate change. As Sir David Attenborough told the UN climate change conference in Poland, “the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon”. We have even worked out, with scrupulo
  
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• Sea levels may rise more rapidly due to Greenland ice melt

  05-12-2018 19:19
  Run-off from vast ice sheet is increasing due to manmade global warming, says studyRising sea levels could become overwhelming sooner than previously believed, according to the authors of the most comprehensive study yet of the accelerating ice melt in Greenland.Run-off from this vast northern ice sheet – currently the biggest single source of meltwater adding to the volume of the world’s oceans – is 50% higher than pre-industrial levels and increasing exponentially as a result
  
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• Fossil preserves 'sea monster' blubber and skin

  05-12-2018 19:02 via bbc.co.uk
  Scientists identify fossilised blubber from an ancient marine reptile that lived 180 million years ago.
  
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• Cars and coal help drive 'strong' CO2 rise in 2018

  05-12-2018 19:01 via bbc.co.uk
  CO2 emissions hit an all time high, rising nearly 3% in 2018 thanks to coal and a booming global market for cars.
  
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• 'Brutal news': global carbon emissions jump to all-time high in 2018

  05-12-2018 19:00
  Rapid cuts needed to protect billions of people from rising emissions due to increase in use of cars and coalGlobal carbon emissions will jump to a record high in 2018, according to a report, dashing hopes a plateau of recent years would be maintained. It means emissions are heading in the opposite direction to the deep cuts urgently needed, say scientists, to fight climate change.The rise is due to the growing number of cars on the roads and a renaissance of coal use and means the world remains
  
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• Funding Nemo: £600m power cable connects UK and Belgium

  05-12-2018 17:09
  Energy link covers 80-mile route along seabed between Richborough and ZeebruggeA £600m cable connecting the UK and Belgium’s energy systems is about to be switched on, becoming the first of a new generation of interconnectors that will deepen the UK’s ties to mainland Europe just as it prepares to leave the EU.The Nemo link is in the final stages of testing and from early 2019 is expected to transmit power over an 80-mile route along the seabed between Richborough in Kent and Z
  
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• IEA: Global carbon emissions set to rise in 2018, breaking five year decline

  05-12-2018 16:08
  The amount of carbon emitted by the world's most economically advanced nations is set to rise before the end of 2018, bucking a five-year decline in emissions, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has warned.
  
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• Save millions of lives by tackling climate change, says WHO

  05-12-2018 16:01
  Global warming and fossil fuel pollution already killing many, UN climate summit toldTackling climate change would save at least a million lives a year, the World Health Organization has told the UN climate summit in Poland, making it a moral imperative.Cutting fossil fuel burning not only slows global warming but slashes air pollution, which causes millions of early deaths a year, the WHO says. In a report requested by UN climate summit leaders, the WHO says the economic benefits of improved he
  
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• South Western Railway relents and allows use of reusable cups

  05-12-2018 15:41
  Rail operator said ‘safety aspect’ was involved in giving those on board disposable cupsA rail operator has done a U-turn and agreed to let passengers use their own reusable cups for hot drinks bought on board its trains after criticism by environmental campaigner Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.South Western Railway changed its policy after the chef complained on Twitter during a journey that buffet car staff – employed by catering company Rail Gourmet – had “refused&r
  
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• Barclays customers in switch threat over tar sands investment

  05-12-2018 15:26
  Up to 30,000 account holders sign petition against pipeline projects in US and CanadaThousands of Barclays customers have threatened to switch to another bank unless it promises not to invest in pipelines for oil from tar sands, dubbed the “dirtiest fuel on the planet”.Greenpeace, which occupied a branch of Barclays on Wednesday morning and erected signs branding it “The Dirty Bank”, said 30,000 customers signed a petition calling on the lender to pledge never to fund con
  
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• In the face of climate change, ranking states by prosperity invites disaster

  05-12-2018 14:50
  Forget standings that put wealthy countries ahead of poor ones on the path to development, we’re all in this togetherIf you were asked to name the most prosperous countries in the world, you’d probably reach for a familiar list. It would start with the Scandinavian social democracies, the Netherlands or Switzerland, meander across to Canada, and end up somewhere between Australia and New Zealand.Such a thought process would be completely valid. These nations regularly feature at or n
  
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• Game-on for UK's Team Tao in ocean XPRIZE final

  05-12-2018 14:28 via bbc.co.uk
  A UK-based team arrives in Greece for the grand final of a contest to find innovative solutions for seafloor mapping.
  
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• ING: Green technologies could cut global energy emissions by 64%

  05-12-2018 13:58
  Low-carbon technologies including electric vehicles (EVs), renewable energy arrays and innovative new fuels could help the world reduce carbon emissions currently accounted for by energy generation and use by almost two-thirds (54%), new research from ING has found.
  
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• World's first carbon-negative fuel set to be unveiled at COP24 Summit

  05-12-2018 12:37
  A Swedish startup is set to unveil what it claims is the world's first carbon-negative fuel at the COP24 climate summit in Poland, in a bid to help nations decarbonise the hard-to-abate transport and heat sectors.
  
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• Lost lands? The American wilderness at risk in the Trump era

  05-12-2018 12:14
  Exclusive: a new study reveals the scale of how public lands are being opened up to the energy industry. The Guardian heard from three communities on the frontlines
  In the great expanses of the Grand Staircase-Escalante national monument, the silence hits you first. Minutes pass, smooth and unbroken as glass. The smallest sound – a breath of wind, a falling rock – can seem as loud as passing traffic.Colter Hoyt knows this landscape well. As an outdoor guide, he walks the monument alm
  
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• Survey: Just 10% of UK businesses have set carbon reduction targets

  05-12-2018 11:46
  Employee appetite for tackling climate change is beginning to outstrip corporate action on carbon reduction, with nine in ten UK businesses yet to set specific emission reduction targets, a survey of 1,000 companies has found.
  
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• Beef-eating 'must fall drastically' as world population grows

  05-12-2018 11:29
  Current food habits will lead to destruction of all forests and catastrophic climate change by 2050, report findsPeople in rich nations will have to make big cuts to the amount of beef and lamb they eat if the world is to be able to feed 10 billion people, according to a new report. These cuts and a series of other measures are also needed to prevent catastrophic climate change, it says.More than 50% more food will be needed by 2050, according to the World Resources Institute (WRI) report, but g
  
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• Government pledges £60m to spur development of bioplastic innovations

  05-12-2018 10:56
  The UK Government has today (5 December) unveiled plans to invest £60m in projects aimed at developing closed-loop bioplastics made from industrial or post-consumer food waste.
  
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• 'We're sounding the alarm': half of Canada's chinook salmon endangered

  05-12-2018 10:00
  Prospects for species look dire as federal science body finds that only one of the country’s 16 populations is believed to be stableHalf of Canada’s chinook salmon are endangered, with nearly all other populations in precarious decline, according to a new report, confirming fears that prospects for the species remain dire.The report by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada concluded that eight of the country’s 16 populations are considered endangered, fou
  
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• Inside the 7 December issue of The Guardian Weekly

  05-12-2018 10:00
  As the world meets in Poland to hammer out a deal to make the 2015 Paris accord a reality – have we left it too late? Subscribe to The Guardian WeeklyTwo months ago, the UN’s climate change panel warned that unless humanity takes drastic action, we will only have 12 years to save the planet from disaster. But will we? Representatives from almost 200 nations are currently meeting in the Polish coal-mining town of Katowice to try to turn the pledges made in Paris in 2015 into a politic
  
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• Coalition wants voter ID laws for federal elections – as it happened

  05-12-2018 08:46
  Also, Shorten says Morrison has ‘sought to weaponise’ the schools discrimination bill; and the government moves closer to passing encryption legislation. This blog is now closed• Coalition pushes for voter identification laws and launches attack on GetUp• Crash or crash through: Morrison politicises religious discrimination debate
  • Turnbull speech draft said Labor’s 45% emissions target might not drive up bills 7.43am GMT And with that, we are going to finish up
  
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• Royal Society Publishing photography competition 2018 winners

  05-12-2018 08:00
  The Royal Society’s annual photography competition celebrates ‘the power of photography to capture science in its many forms’ Continue reading...
  
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• Coalition wants voter ID laws for federal elections – politics live

  05-12-2018 07:53
  Also, Shorten says Morrison has ‘sought to weaponise’ the schools discrimination bill; and the government moves closer to passing encryption legislation. All the day’s events, live 6.49am GMT Labor loses the motion to adjourn the debate.Chris Bowen starts talking about the legislation as the debate begins. He says the legislation is 30-something pages (33?) but the explanatory notes run for 109 pages and if the government has brought on the debate, it means every government MP
  
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• Trump's disbelief won't stop dangerous climate change

  05-12-2018 07:00
  Republican platform is not only at odds with science but potentially US voters in 2020
  “I don’t believe it,” said Donald Trump when asked about the fourth national climate assessment, authored by 13 government agencies and hundreds of the US’s top climate scientists. His administration had tried to hide the report, publishing it on Black Friday when many Americans were either recovering from a Thanksgiving food coma or stampeding department store sales.The administration&
  
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• Country diary: a clan of jackdaws takes to the air

  05-12-2018 06:30
  Each bird knows which birds to fear and which show them respect
  The silent dynamite of morning sunlight blasts a limestone quarry. It’s a moment of illumination as the last yellow fire of sallow leaves burns under a sky roiling with wildness. At the quarry’s far end, its clan of jackdaws takes to the air. There are 50 or so birds, a fraction of a large corvid society that occupies the Wenlock area, roosts communally at dusk but divides into clans shifting between territories during t
  
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• Shorten: Morrison has 'sought to weaponise this dispute' on discrimination in schools – politics live

  05-12-2018 03:32
  PM says he’ll make bill ‘a conscience issue’; as government moves closer to passing encryption legislation after in-principle support from Labor. All the day’s events, live 2.32am GMT It is the annual Nationals Seafood lunch at parliament house, where seafood providers (largely) donate their goods to their Nationals MPs to promote the region.Which is mostly from Queensland. In particular, mostly from the Hinkler electorate, where Urangan fisheries and Ocean King have dona
  
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• Taking place TOMORROW: edie's 'Preparing to lead' sustainable business power hour webinar

  05-12-2018 02:45
  Sustainability professionals seeking advice and insight on how to hit the ground running in 2019 to transform their approach to CSR and increase actions and ambitions are invited to register for a free edie webinar on Thursday (6 December), featuring speakers from Ball Corporation, Canary Wharf Group and PwC.
  
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• Victorian Liberal leader hopeful John Pesutto lashes out at federal party after losing seat

  05-12-2018 02:15
  Pesutto blames loss of Hawthorn on Coalition’s leadership woes and stance on climate change Victorian Liberal leader hopeful John Pesutto has blamed the federal party’s stance on climate change and leadership crisis for the loss of his blue-ribbon seat at the state election.Labor’s John Kennedy had little chance of winning Hawthorn in the inner east ahead of the Andrews’ government’s thumping election victory on 24 November. Continue reading...
  
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• Scott Morrison says he'll make school anti-discrimination bill 'a conscience issue' – politics live

  05-12-2018 02:03
  PM says ‘let’s take the parties out of’ bill delayed until next year; as government moves closer to passing encryption legislation after in-principle support from Labor. All the day’s events, live 1.03am GMT Bill Shorten has called a press conference of his own for 12.30pm 1.02am GMT Andrew Wilkie wants the major parties to have a conscience vote. The Lib/Lab deadlock risks no anti-discrimination protection for school students and staff. The PM and Opposition Leader shoul
  
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• Students left hanging during Canberra trip to confront Morrison on climate change

  05-12-2018 01:50
  Group rallies outside Parliament House after being told they needed to have a prearranged meeting organised High school students from across Australia calling for emergency action on climate change have travelled to Canberra to confront the prime minister after he criticised them for skipping school to stage national strikes.Students from Scott Morrison’s southern Sydney electorate of Cook – as well as Townsville, Melbourne and Brisbane – arrived at Parliament House on Wednesda
  
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• Rats and pigeons 'replace iconic species'

  05-12-2018 01:44 via bbc.co.uk
  "Iconic" animals such as tigers are being replaced by "cosmopolitan" species found everywhere - researchers.
  
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• Ash dieback: ash woodlands 'may flourish once again'

  05-12-2018 01:44 via bbc.co.uk
  Scientists say there is hope that some ash trees can survive in the future, despite ash dieback.
  
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• Report: UK among nations leading the world's low-carbon transition

  05-12-2018 01:01
  When it comes to implementing policies and fostering corporate leadership ambitions which help reduce emissions and mitigate the negative effects of climate change, the UK has adopted a leadership position that is second only to Denmark.
  
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