Environment news

• UK to stop funding overseas fossil fuel projects

  11-12-2020 23:28 via theguardian.com
  
  Move follows EU member states’ agreement to 55% cut in carbon emissions by 2030 on verge of interim climate summitThe UK taxpayer is to stop funding fossil fuel projects overseas as part of the government’s push for international action on the climate ahead of a key summit on Saturday. Related: The Paris agreement five years on: is it strong enough to avert climate catastrophe?Continue reading...
  
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• Fighting for Fraser Island: how tourism and climate change put an ancient environment at risk

  11-12-2020 20:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Campaigners who helped end logging and mining in the spectacular paradise of lakes, rainforests and beaches now fear global heatingBefore he died in February 2019, John Sinclair had been fighting for Fraser Island off the Queensland coast for the best part of 50 years.In the early 1970s the world’s biggest sand island – an ethereal paradise of lakes, towering rainforests and ancient dunes – was under pressure from sand mining and more than a century of logging. Continue reading
  
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• Finally there's global action on the climate crisis, and Britain must lead the way | Dominic Raab

  11-12-2020 18:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Covid hasn’t stopped the climate emergency. As a nation, we can encourage others to take ever more ambitious actionDominic Raab is the foreign secretary
  On Saturday the UK, UN and France will co-host the climate ambition summit alongside partners Italy and Chile, on the fifth anniversary of the UN’s landmark Paris agreement. The summit brings together the world’s most ambitious climate leaders from government, business and civil society, all seeking to ramp up action and ensure
  
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• Grand Junction is 'darn hard to get to': ranchers split on public lands agency's move west

  11-12-2020 17:01 via theguardian.com
  
  The Bureau of Land Management is moving from Washington to Colorado – but some see it as an attempt to undermine the agencyIn November 2017, less than a year after Donald Trump took office, Ryan Zinke proposed ejecting the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), a federal agency that oversees 250 million acres of federal land, from its longtime headquarters in Washington DC.The BLM’s key responsibilities include administering grazing permits for ranchers, mining, and oil and gas extraction
  
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• EU member states agree 55% cut in carbon emissions by 2030

  11-12-2020 15:03 via theguardian.com
  
  Accord reached after Poland held out for concessions puts bloc on path to climate neutrality by 2050EU member states have agreed to strengthen their target for cutting greenhouse gas emissions in the next decade, in line with their long-term goal of net zero carbon by 2050.Carbon will be cut by 55% in the EU by 2030, compared with 1990 levels, after wrangling among member states into early Friday morning, as Poland held out for concessions. Continue reading...
  
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• #SustyTalk: Epson's Daniel Quelch on employee engagement and climate expectations

  11-12-2020 13:46
  
  edie's #SustyTalk interview series continues with an exclusive interview with Epson Europe's sustainability manager Daniel Quelch, who discusses how climate expectations and employee engagement have changed during 2020.
  
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• Hydrogen, nuclear and wind: UK's energy network operators chart course to net-zero

  11-12-2020 12:28
  
  Energy Networks Association - the industry body representing all major energy network operators in the UK - has published a routemap outlining how they will align with net-zero and support the transition to green electricity, heat, transport and industry.
  
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• WHSmith targets net-zero emissions by 2025

  11-12-2020 12:08
  
  Retailer WHSmith has unveiled a new five-year sustainability plan to reduce its operational emissions to zero by 2025, with the company set to engage with suppliers to help them become net-zero.
  
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• Bike blog test ride: are commuter e-bikes worth the price tag?

  11-12-2020 11:39 via theguardian.com
  
  We look at four e-bikes, from the hi-tech to the conventional, to see which offers the best experience
  It’s fair to say I learned two main things in trying to test out a series of commuter-type e-bikes over the past few months. One was more of a rediscovery: they’re fantastic fun. The other was a surprise: at the moment, they’re really hard to get hold of.The coronavirus pandemic changed the UK in many ways, and one of the minor impacts was to spark an explosion of interest in
  
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• Jacobs reaches 100% renewables and net-zero emissions for business operations

  11-12-2020 11:25
  
  Engineering firm Jacobs has revealed it is now powered by 100% renewable energy and has reached net-zero emissions for its operations and business travel, pledging to become carbon negative by 2030.
  
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• Just Eat, Co-Op and Bensons for Beds launch new EVs in time for festive deliveries

  11-12-2020 10:58
  
  Retail giants Co-Op and Bensons for Beds, as well as takeaway delivery platform Just Eat, have launched new electric bikes and vans in time for Christmas.
  
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• Just Eat, Co-Op and Bensons for Beds launch new EV schemes in time for festive deliveries

  11-12-2020 10:58
  
  Retail giants Co-Op and Bensons for Beds, as well as takeaway delivery platform Just Eat, have launched new electric bikes and vans in time for Christmas.
  
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• EU clinches hard-fought deal on 55% 2030 climate target

  11-12-2020 10:11
  
  European leaders haggled through the night to clinch a deal on the bloc's updated climate target for 2030 on Friday morning (11 December), agreeing an EU-wide goal of cutting net greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030.
  
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• The North Carolina hog industry's answer to pollution: a $500m pipeline project

  11-12-2020 10:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Instead of implementing safer systems, activists say Smithfield Foods is seeking to profit from hog waste under the guise of ‘renewable energy’Elsie Herring of Duplin county, North Carolina, lives in the house her late mother grew up in, but for the past several decades her home has been subjected to pollution from nearby industrial hog farms.“We have to deal with whether it’s safe to go outside. It’s a terrible thing to open the door and face that waste. It makes y
  
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• EU leaders reach deal to cut emissions by at least 55% by end of decade

  11-12-2020 09:22 via theguardian.com
  
  The 27 member states avoid deadlock after night-long discussions ahead of UN climate meetingEuropean Union leaders reached a hard-fought deal Friday to cut the bloc’s greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by the end of the decade compared with 1990 levels, avoiding a hugely embarrassing deadlock ahead of a UN climate meeting this weekend.Following night-long discussions at their two-day summit in Brussels, the 27 member states approved the EU executive commission’s proposal to tou
  
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• EU leaders agree to cut emissions by at least 55% by end of decade

  11-12-2020 09:22 via theguardian.com
  
  Member states avoid embarrassing deadlock after night-long talks before UN climate meetingEuropean Union leaders have reached a hard-fought deal to cut the bloc’s greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by the end of the decade compared with 1990 levels, avoiding a hugely embarrassing deadlock before a UN climate meeting this weekend.Following night-long discussions at their two-day summit in Brussels, on Friday the 27 member states approved the EU executive commission’s proposal to
  
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• Climate change: 700-year history of wind recorded in island mud

  11-12-2020 08:57 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Lake sediments on remote Marion Island tell the story of the Southern Hemisphere's westerlies.
  
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• Think Zero: Grosvenor plots pathway to net-zero by 2030

  11-12-2020 08:56
  
  Property developer Grosvenor Britain & Ireland has outlined plans to become a net-zero business by 2030 and earmarked £90m to retrofit and 'future-proof' its portfolio of buildings across London.
  
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• Country diary: carrion crows become intensely territorial

  11-12-2020 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Langstone, Hampshire: The most plausible explanation for this attack was resource competition, the crows asserting their dominance to ensure priority access to this prime feeding siteWith temperatures plummeting over the past few days, the birds and mammals visiting my garden have begun to forage with increased urgency. Grey squirrels are active before dawn, and I wake to the rhythmic sound of the lid of the squirrel feeder creaking open and snapping shut as they take it in turns to pluck out a
  
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• Climate change: Covid drives record emissions drop in 2020

  11-12-2020 02:16 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The world has seen the biggest annual fall in CO2 emissions since World War Two, say researchers.
  
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• Paris climate agreement: 54 cities on track to meet targets

  11-12-2020 01:01 via theguardian.com
  
  Mayor of Paris praises ‘important milestone’ on fifth anniversary of the landmark agreementMore than 50 of the world’s leading cities are on track to help keep global heating below 1.5C and tackle the worst impacts of the climate crisis, according to a new report.From mass tree-planting in Buenos Aires to new public transport networks in Mexico City, 54 of the world’s leading cities are now rolling out plans that will cut their greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Pa
  
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