Topics tagged with 'Carbon News world'
UN pushes for worldwide disaster alerts as extreme weather ‘spirals’
22 Oct 2025
Climate-related hazards have killed more than 2 million people in 50 years, said the UN’s meteorological agency, 90 percent of them in developing countries.
Brazil greenlights oil drilling in Amazon as environmentalists raise alarm
22 Oct 2025
Conservationists argue president’s oil expansion plans clash with his image as a global leader on climate change.
On Louisiana’s Gulf Coast, residents fume as insurers hike rates and invest in fossil fuel projects
22 Oct 2025
Locals face a perfect storm — they can’t afford insurance and climate change threatens their livelihood.
States sue to stop Trump cancellation of $7 billion solar grant program
21 Oct 2025
Nearly two dozen states are suing the Trump administration over its cancellation of a $7 billion grant program aimed at expanding solar energy in low-income communities, according to court papers.
Why countries struggle to quit fossil fuels, despite higher costs and 30 years of climate talks and treaties
21 Oct 2025
Fossil fuels still power much of the world, even though renewable energy has become cheaper in most places and avoids both pollution and the climate damage caused by burning coal, oil and natural gas.
How one country’s Russian gas crisis became a green energy boom
21 Oct 2025
When Russia invaded Ukraine, Moldova quickly empowered its small towns to produce their own renewable energy so no one could push it around.
International coalition joins push for fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty
21 Oct 2025
The International Union for Conservation of Nature adopted Motion 42 on Thursday, explicitly calling fossil fuel production a threat to nature, and urging its member groups to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels.
Mystery heatwave warms Pacific Ocean to new record
21 Oct 2025
The waters of the north Pacific have had their warmest summer on record, according to BBC analysis of a mysterious marine heatwave that has confounded climate scientists.
UK Prime Minister will attend Brazil climate summit
21 Oct 2025
Keir Starmer will travel to the Amazon rainforest for the COP30 United Nations climate summit next month, Downing Street has confirmed, after weeks of speculation that he would not.
EU plans support for countries affected by carbon border levy
20 Oct 2025
The European Union will offer development funding to countries affected by the bloc's carbon border tariff, the European Commission said on Thursday, as it attempts to soothe developing economies' concerns over the policy.
Carbon credits are failing to help with climate change — here’s why
20 Oct 2025
The idea that emissions can be offset through projects that claim to avoid releases or to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is fatally flawed.
New UN carbon market rules could reshape how investors value nature
20 Oct 2025
A debate over carbon permanence – how long CO2 must stay stored to count towards offsetting emissions – is reshaping global carbon markets and could determine whether nature remains investable.
'We’re in God’s hands now': A dispatch from Western Alaska
20 Oct 2025
An immense disaster has wrought deep trauma on Western Alaska’s Indigenous residents and is raising existential questions about the future of their low-lying communities amid a changing climate and a tightening state budget.
Drought, sand storms and evacuations: how Iran’s climate crisis gets ignored
20 Oct 2025
Iran and Israel fought a 12-day war in June. Although a ceasefire was declared the same month, news coverage of Iran continues to focus on the conflict’s aftermath and the Middle East’s tense political situation. Meanwhile, Tehran – home to more than 10 million people – is facing one of its worst water shortages in decades.
UN agency says CO2 levels hit record high last year, causing more extreme weather
17 Oct 2025
Heat-trapping carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere jumped by the highest amount on record last year, soaring to a level not seen in human civilisation and “turbo-charging” the Earth’s climate and causing more extreme weather.
Australian rainforests no longer a carbon sink – study
17 Oct 2025
Australia's tropical rainforests are among the first in the world to start emitting more carbon dioxide than they absorb, scientists said Thursday, linking the "very concerning" trend to climate change.
Climate scientists and republican lawyers are taking aim at Big Tech’s emissions
17 Oct 2025
Technology companies have long been one of the biggest investors in clean energy, but new accounting rules could upend that.
Judge dismisses suit by young climate activists against Trump’s pro-fossil fuel policies
17 Oct 2025
Plaintiffs had ‘overwhelming evidence’ of climate crisis but a court injunction would be ‘unworkable’, ruling says.
Indonesia restarts international carbon trade after four years
17 Oct 2025
Indonesia's President Prabowo Subianto has issued a new decree to restart international carbon emission trading after a four year hiatus.
For Australia to get moving on electric vehicles, we must ban petrol and diesel cars by 2035
17 Oct 2025
COMMENT: If nothing is done, transport is projected to be Australia’s largest emissions source by 2030.
Record global renewable energy growth remains short of climate target, report says
16 Oct 2025
A new report finds that a record amount of global renewable energy capacity was added last year, but that still leaves countries “short of targets towards meeting a UN climate goal to triple capacity by 2030”.
Government told to prepare for 2C warming by 2050
16 Oct 2025
The UK should be prepared to cope with weather extremes as a result of at least 2C of global warming by 2050, independent climate advisers have said.
India calls on COP30 to focus on lack of funds for developing nations
16 Oct 2025
India has said the United Nations climate conference in Belm, Brazil, should focus on tackling the critical shortage of resources that developing countries need to adapt to climate change and curb greenhouse gas emissions.
Uninsurable buildings should focus minds on climate adaptation
16 Oct 2025
The bleak future faced by one small town offers a cautionary tale about the threat from global heating.
In China, climate litigation starts with the state
16 Oct 2025
With thousands of dedicated courts and more than a million recent cases, environmental and climate litigation is booming in China, but it often looks different to the trend seen elsewhere.
Landslides and flooding cut off 300 communities in Mexico with dozens dead and missing
16 Oct 2025
When a river that winds through the mountains of central Mexico suddenly turned into a crushing wall of water over this past week, it practically wiped the 400-person village of Chapula off the map.
World falling far behind deforestation goals with farms and fires driving loss, report says
15 Oct 2025
The report said the world permanently lost 8.1 million hectares (20 million acres) of forest, an area about the size of England, in 2024 alone.
Climate investment is only growth opportunity of 21st century, says leading economist
15 Oct 2025
Investment in climate action is the economic growth story of the 21st century, while growth fuelled by fossil fuels is futile because the damage it causes ends in self-destruction, the economist Nicholas Stern has said.
What the least developed countries need from COP30
15 Oct 2025
Evans Njewa, chair, Least Developed Countries Group on Climate Change, details his hopes for the Belem climate talks, fears on 1.5C and red lines on finance.
Four Brazilians to watch at COP30
15 Oct 2025
Influential Brazilians, from government figures to Indigenous activists, will take center stage during UN climate talks in the Amazon next month.
MPs across Latin America unite to stop fossil fuels in the Amazon
14 Oct 2025
A network of more than 900 lawmakers presented the results of a parliamentary investigation into the phaseout of fossil fuels in the Amazon at the Brazilian National Congress in Brasília.
Planet’s first catastrophic climate tipping point reached, report says, with coral reefs facing ‘widespread dieback’
14 Oct 2025
Unless global heating is reduced to 1.2C ‘as fast as possible’, warm water coral reefs will not remain ‘at any meaningful scale’, a report by 160 scientists from 23 countries warns.
How Caribbean states are shifting climate legislation
14 Oct 2025
The Caribbean region is among the most vulnerable to climate change, despite historically contributing less than half of one percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
China carbon prices hit two-year low as market faces oversupply pressures
14 Oct 2025
Carbon credit prices in China have fallen to their lowest point since mid-2023, pressured by an excess of supply and tepid demand amid ongoing adjustments to the national emissions trading system.
Angola lowers climate ambition in blow to spirit of Paris Agreement
14 Oct 2025
Angola has scaled back its targets for reducing emissions in its new national climate plan, saying it chose “realism and implementability” over the Paris Agreement's calls for governments to set progressively more ambitious goals.
Why Trump is not a death knell for global climate action
14 Oct 2025
In his rambling speech to the United Nations last month, United States President Donald Trump described climate change as “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world”.
US threatens visa restrictions, sanctions against UN members that back IMO emissions plan
13 Oct 2025
The United States threatened to use visa restrictions and sanctions to retaliate against nations that vote in favour of a plan put forward by a United Nations agency to reduce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from ocean shipping.
More than 40 Trump administration picks tied directly to oil, gas and coal, analysis shows
13 Oct 2025
Report looks at White House nominees and appointees and agencies dictating energy, environment and climate policy.
Climate critics try to discredit IPCC author for linking disasters to global warming
13 Oct 2025
Roger Pielke Jr. and oil industry supporters are attacking climate scientist Friederike Otto, whose work has been used in lawsuits against polluters.
'Not up for discussion': Brussels rejects Washington's pressure on climate rules
13 Oct 2025
In response to US demands to roll back the EU's environmental legislation, the European Commission defended its autonomous power to adopt laws.
Scientists discovered something alarming seeping out from beneath the ocean around Antarctica
13 Oct 2025
Planet-heating methane is escaping from cracks in the Antarctic seabed as the region warms, with new seeps being discovered at an “astonishing rate".
Researchers compare the footprint of meat vs. plant-based dog foods. The differences were staggering.
13 Oct 2025
Global pet food emissions rival those of a small country. A new UK study reveals that switching dogs to plant-based foods could slash emissions tenfold—without sacrificing nutrition.
Nestle leaves climate alliance for dairy emission reductions
10 Oct 2025
The Swiss consumer goods company previously said its overall greenhouse gas emissions declined 20% in 2024.
Overshoot: Exploring the implications of meeting 1.5C climate goal ‘from above’
10 Oct 2025
The first-ever international conference on the contentious topic of “overshoot” was held last week in a palace in the small town of Laxenburg in Austria.
Pakistan's catastrophic floods show why we need just and effective climate finance
10 Oct 2025
Images of catastrophe flicker across our screens with alarming regularity: parched lands cracking under relentless heatwaves in the Sahel, coastal communities swallowed by rising tides in the Pacific and, now, devastating torrential floods in Pakistan.
National security threatened by climate crisis, UK intelligence chiefs due to warn
10 Oct 2025
The UK’s national security is under severe threat from the climate crisis and the looming collapse of vital natural ecosystems, with food shortages and economic disaster potentially just years away, a powerful report by the UK’s intelligence chiefs is due to warn.
Solar panel efficiency record broken in big boost for renewable energy
10 Oct 2025
Scientists in Sydney have smashed the efficiency record for a new type of solar panel.
Cancelled artwork in Belém generates 57,765 Cultural Degrowth Credits
10 Oct 2025
The figures represented the anonymous decision-makers behind the greenhouse gas emissions driving the climate crisis.
Bonaire residents take Netherlands to court over climate
9 Oct 2025
The trial is a first for Europe and follows an advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice, which provides a legal interpretation of international climate law.
Media and political attacks on Australia’s emissions targets ‘straight out of the climate obstruction playbook’
9 Oct 2025
Recent political and media attacks on renewable energy and climate action in Australia have come “out of the climate obstruction playbook” that has been honed over decades around the world by fossil fuel interests, according to professor Christian Downie.
Environmental groups call for ETS reform
Today 12:00pm
Several environmental organisations are calling on political parties to make climate and biodiversity central to the 2026 election campaign, with reforming the Emissions Trading Scheme seen as a key priority.
Media round-up
Today 12:00pm
In our round-up of climate coverage in local media: 'Every tonne matters': The climate scientist who wants to give you hope; Minister says managed retreat is an option; and climate change is here – is New Zealand ready?
NZ’s government wants tourism to drive economic growth – but how will it deal with aviation emissions?
22 Oct 2025
By Robert McLachlan, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University | Following a brief dip during the COVID pandemic, aviation is back in a growth phase.
Singapore sets first ever sustainable aviation fuel levy, as Southeast Asia’s fuel industry grows
Tue 17 Feb 2026
Flying in and out of Singapore, home to Southeast Asia’s busiest airport, will get slightly more expensive this year as the city state begins imposing a levy of between 75 cents to $32 per ticket to fund sustainable aviation fuel.
Greens slam move to disband Environment Ministry
Today 12:00pm
The Green Party has joined climate and health advocates in condemning the Government's decision to disestablish the Ministry for the Environment as part of a multi-ministry merger.
Govt’s own modelling shows LNG leads to higher electricity prices than other solutions
Thu 19 Feb 2026
By Christina Hood | COMMENT: According to modelling conducted by Concept Consulting for MBIE, either developing the Tariki gas storage facility or managing electricity demand would deliver lower wholesale electricity prices than the Government’s preferred solution of an LNG import terminal.
New study looks to nature markets to accelerate climate response
Wed 18 Feb 2026
The Nature Conservancy is teaming up with local groups to study the most affordable and effective ways of restoring native habitats at the top of the South Island, including ways to fund the work using international voluntary carbon markets and biodiversity credits.
Carbon price drops as volatility continues
Tue 17 Feb 2026
By Liz Kivi | The carbon market is still displaying extreme volatility, with prices dropping back to below $40 yesterday, after trading as high as $46.25 last week.
Flawed decision-making around taxing electricity to fund LNG import terminal
Mon 16 Feb 2026
By Simon Orme | COMMENT: The Government's decision to back an LNG import terminal exemplifies an egregious failure in public policy and energy sector governance.
LNG: a rational choice compared to unpalatable alternatives
10 Feb 2026
By Pattrick Smellie | COMMENT: By deciding to underwrite the private construction of a liquefied natural gas import facility in Taranaki, the Government has made a rational choice in favour of energy security and affordability.
Sustainable retail-office project breaks ground under new Green Star framework
Thu 19 Feb 2026
Construction is set to begin on a new retail-office development in central Auckland, which is targeting a 40% reduction in embodied carbon and 25% lower energy.
Opposition attacks Govt over fossil fuel phaseout backdown
2 Feb 2026
By Liz Kivi | Revelations that Resources Minister Shane Jones ruled out New Zealand signing up to a 'road map' away from fossil fuels at last year’s global climate summit show the National Party’s minor coalition partners’ undue influence over the Government, according to Labour leader Chris Hipkins.
Carbon market rallies but auction floor still out of reach
13 Feb 2026
By Liz Kivi | The carbon market has rallied, with secondary market prices up more than 25% in the past two weeks, although current prices in the mid-$40s are still far below this year’s $71 auction floor, with the first auction of 2026 less than three weeks away.
DOC trims costs and winds down jobs for nature
10 Nov 2025
The Department of Conservation (DOC) is entering a new phase of tighter budgets and structural change as it winds down the pandemic-era Jobs for Nature programme and reshapes its operations to absorb long-term cost pressures.
Transport dominates NZ’s rising consumer emissions
10 Dec 2025
By Shannon Morris-Williams | Transport pollution was the biggest contributor to an increase in New Zealand’s consumption-based emissions in 2023, with emissions from household travel up 12%, and consumption-based emissions totalling 58.3 million tonnes – up 1.6% from the previous year.
Slash for cash turns storm debris into jobs and climate resilience
Thu 19 Feb 2026
A community-led initiative in Tairāwhiti is transforming storm-damaged forestry slash into jobs, soil regeneration and long-term climate resilience.
Calls for action to reduce emissions as extreme weather bites
Tue 17 Feb 2026
By Liz Kivi | Renewable energy advocates and environmental groups are calling for more action to reduce emissions and increase resilience as severe weather wreaks havoc across the country.
RMA to speed up fossil fuel consents
18 Aug 2025
By Liz Kivi | An energy lobby group has welcomed a last-minute amendment to the RMA that puts fossil fuels on the same footing as renewables, however a sustainable energy expert says the move “beggars belief.”
European Central Bank's green supervision grows teeth, but will banks avoid being bitten?
13 Feb 2026
After several years of issuing guidance and repeatedly calling on banks to take climate and environmental risk management seriously, the European Central Bank is moving from guidance and expectations to enforcement.
Green Member’s Bill aims to give whales legal ‘personhood’
9 Feb 2026
The Green Party wants to give whales legal rights, including the right to sue.
Claims that AI can help fix climate dismissed as greenwashing
Wed 18 Feb 2026
Tech companies are conflating traditional artificial intelligence with generative AI when claiming the energy-hungry technology could help avert climate breakdown, according to a report.
Govt missing opportunity to slash electricity prices, says expert
11 Feb 2026
By Liz Kivi | The Government’s fixation on eliminating the "dry-year risk margin" as a lever to reduce costs misses a much bigger opportunity to lower electricity prices, according to Christina Hood, head of Compass Climate.
Media round-up
13 Feb 2026
In our round-up of climate coverage in local media: Senior UK ministers have asked their New Zealand counterparts to explain new climate policies, National’s LNG blunders are a warning ahead of election campaign, and what are the lessons New Zealand should take from another summer of weather disasters?
Wales council to buy and demolish homes prone to flooding
4 Feb 2026
A row of homes in a village in south Wales is to be bought by a local authority and demolished as they can no longer be protected from flooding caused by the climate crisis.
Climate law change spanner in the works for Waitangi Tribunal Inquiry
19 Dec 2025
By Liz Kivi | The Government’s controversial changes to New Zealand’s legal framework for climate policy have thrown a spanner in the works for a long-running Waitangi Tribunal Inquiry into climate change.
Australian gas producer Santos wins court fight over net zero claims
Wed 18 Feb 2026
An Australian court on Tuesday threw out a lawsuit against gas producer Santos that alleged the company misled the public on its plans to achieve net zero carbon emissions.
Govt unveils plans for carbon storage regulations – and ETS rewards
18 Dec 2025
By Liz Kivi | The Government has released plans to regulate carbon capture and storage in natural geological formations, which include Emissions Trading Scheme incentives, with the aim of introducing related legislation in 2026.
Seabed miners quit South Taranaki fast-track bid
Today 12:00pm
By Craig Ashworth, Local Democracy Reporter | Would-be seabed miners have abandoned their fast-track bid to mine in South Taranaki waters, saying they can’t change the minds of the panel that rejected their application.
NZ's latest climate target 'weak' – Climate Action Tracker
24 Jun 2025
By Shannon Morris-Williams | New Zealand's new international climate target to 2035 is weak, and could even allow for higher emissions than the 2030 target, according to a global scientific project that tracks government climate action.
Partnership to advance Pacific science and environmental leadership
Thu 19 Feb 2026
Media release | Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland, and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen collaboration in Pacific-led science, research and capacity-building, with a strong focus on environmental sustainability and ocean stewardship.
Lawyers seek answers on climate impacts of LNG import facility
13 Feb 2026
By Shannon Morris-Williams | Lawyers for Climate Action has written to Climate Change and Energy Minister Simon Watts warning that the Government's plan for an LNG import terminal could be in conflict with New Zealand’s climate obligations and emissions reduction targets.
Commentators slam Govt inaction in aftermath of climate change-fuelled storms
30 Jan 2026
By Liz Kivi | Climate action - or inaction - is shaping up to be an election issue, with multiple commentators drawing a line between the Coalition Government’s backsliding on climate targets and the deadly extreme weather events of the past week.
Kiwi startup takes on global plastic pollution
12 Feb 2026
A New Zealand startup is launching what it says is the world’s first plastic-free effervescent drink tablet, with the ambitious aim of eliminating bottled beverages to reduce global plastic pollution.
78% of NZers want bottom trawling banned as Govt pushes to catch more coral in South Pacific
Tue 17 Feb 2026
Media release | New polling shows overwhelming support from New Zealanders for a ban on bottom trawling in the South Pacific high seas, says Greenpeace.
Critical minerals talks with US questioned in Waitangi Tribunal climate inquiry
9 Feb 2026
By Shannon Morris-Williams | New Zealand and the United States' negotiations over critical minerals have raised questions for the Waitangi Tribunal’s long-running inquiry into climate change.
IEA Declaration strengthens international co-operation on critical minerals
Today 12:00pm
Media release – NZ Government | New Zealand has joined international leaders at the 2026 International Energy Agency Ministerial meeting in committing to strengthen global co-operation on critical minerals to strengthen long‑term energy security.
Antarctic sediment core reveals past ice sheet retreat during warmer climates
Wed 18 Feb 2026
A record-breaking sediment core drilled from beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is giving scientists new insight into how the ice sheet responded to warmer climates in the past — and what that could mean for future sea-level rise.
Solar households to get little-noticed tax break
23 Sep 2025
A provision in the government’s latest tax bill would exempt households from paying tax on income they earn by selling excess electricity back to the grid.
NZ-UAE partnership boosts advanced tech
9 Feb 2026
Media release | A new Antarctic science partnership with a leading UAE university will grow New Zealand’s advanced engineering and modelling capability, supporting high-value jobs, encouraging economic growth, and enabling smarter climate risk management, Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Dr Shane Reti says.
Pacific climate response in question as NZ finance remains unclear
19 Dec 2025
By Shannon Morris-Williams | With New Zealand's $1.3 billion international climate finance commitment set to end with no clarity on what follows, the Auditor-General says oversight of that funding remains patchy and long-term outcomes are unclear.
Infrastructure plan calls for ‘predictable approach’ to electrifying economy
Wed 18 Feb 2026
Aotearoa’s first National Infrastructure Plan, introduced to Parliament yesterday, calls for "a predictable approach to electrifying the economy" as one of ten priorities for the next decade.
Climate ambassador moves on
13 Feb 2026
By Liz Kivi | The Government is on the hunt for a new top climate diplomat, with previous climate ambassador Stu Horne moving on to a posting in Honolulu as New Zealand’s Consul General to Hawai’i.
EU to ban destruction of unsold clothes and shoes
12 Feb 2026
The European Commission has adopted new measures that will require medium and large companies to stop discarding unsold clothing and footwear, in the bloc’s latest move to target textile waste.
New research on climate adaptation as severe weather hits
Mon 16 Feb 2026
As extreme weather batters the country yet again, researchers have published the first ever empirical study of climate adaptation justice in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Study finds warming world increases days when weather is prone to fires around the globe
Today 12:00pm
The number of days when the weather gets hot, dry and windy — ideal to spark extreme wildfires — has nearly tripled in the past 45 years across the globe, with the trend increasing even higher in the Americas, a new study shows.
Hydrogen plant to start construction
10 Feb 2026
Construction is set to start this month on Hiringa Energy’s long delayed green hydrogen project in South Taranaki, after years of consenting fights that culminated in the Court of Appeal rejecting Greenpeace’s challenge in late 2023.
