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Work starts on Scunthorpe Hospital solar panel covered car park
Work starts on Scunthorpe Hospital solar panel covered car park

BBC News

timean hour ago

  • Health
  • BBC News

Work starts on Scunthorpe Hospital solar panel covered car park

Work has started to build a car park covered with solar panels at Scunthorpe carports will replace the existing staff car park and provide 450 is part of a £27m project to reduce the hospital's carbon emissions by more than 4,000 tonnes a work includes replacing gas-powered heating boilers with electric ones and improving insulation across the site. More than £20m of the money came from the government's Public Sector Decarbonisation Best from the NHS Humber Health Partnership said the NHS made up "more than 5% of the UK's total carbon footprint"."We know we're a significant part of the problem," he said."That also gives us the chance to play a big part in putting it right."Listen to highlights from Hull and East Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here. Download the BBC News app from the App Store for iPhone and iPad or Google Play for Android devices.

Amid Heart Morass revival in Gippsland, RMIT reveals wetlands climate benefits
Amid Heart Morass revival in Gippsland, RMIT reveals wetlands climate benefits

ABC News

time6 hours ago

  • Science
  • ABC News

Amid Heart Morass revival in Gippsland, RMIT reveals wetlands climate benefits

Almost 20 years after restoration efforts began, the Heart Morass wetland near Sale, eastern Victoria, is flourishing — a rare success story in a region where many freshwater wetlands are degraded. Gippsland local and duck-hunting enthusiast Gary Howard began restoring the large wetland wedged between the Thomson and Latrobe rivers in 2006. So began the journey for Mr Howard and his friends to conserve the ecosystem at Heart Morass. "The Heart wasn't in a very good condition," he said. "It was just coming out of the millennium drought, which was very severe." A new study by RMIT supports what people like Mr Howard have seen firsthand. RMIT's Centre for Nature Positive Solutions has found that restored floodplain wetlands, including the Heart Morass, can slash carbon emissions by 39 per cent within a year and without the methane spike in other types of wetland restoration. By comparison, net carbon emissions from unrestored control wetlands increased by 169 per cent in the same period. The report's lead author, Lukas Schuster, says wetlands are emerging as unlikely climate allies. "That's how we can actually mitigate climate change, by taking up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and locking it away. "Basically, within one year we see massive benefits of carbon emissions reduction, which we don't usually see in other wetlands." But carbon is just part of the story. The research at 12 degraded sites along the Loddon River in Kerang, north-central Victoria, also showed restored wetlands retained more water — 55 per cent more than before. The higher soil moisture levels, even after drying, increased drought resilience in the wetlands and associated areas. "If the wetlands are staying wetter much longer to retain more moisture during summer, you don't have dry vegetation and the dry soil that can promote fires," Dr Schuster said. At the same time, healthy wetlands also help reduce flooding by absorbing water more easily. While the Heart Morass is thriving, Mr Howard fears for other wetlands across Gippsland. "In the near future, some of these wetlands with salt intrusion are going to become desert," he said. "Once we lose the vegetation, the next thing that we experience, particularly around the lake shore, is erosion." He's seen the damage — growing up, he often visited Marlay Point near Lake Wellington in Gippsland, where he could climb from the shore into a big tree on the water's edge. "That tree is now probably 200 metres in the lake, that is how much it has eroded in my time," he said. Dr Schuster says that's why this research is so important. "Australia has a lot of freshwater wetlands," he said. "Most wetlands are degraded, which means they don't have this flood and drought mitigation potential at the moment, because they can't really take up water or release it during droughts." One challenge is the cost of making this research a widespread tool. "The [restoration] may need government funding or some incentives to restore and get the water into the property and maintaining that water flow," Dr Schuster said. And sourcing water for the restoration is not difficult. "Luckily, a floodplain or a wetland means they are connected to a river, so it's about reopening those channels."

Amazon's Emissions Climbed 6% in 2024 on Data Center Buildout
Amazon's Emissions Climbed 6% in 2024 on Data Center Buildout

Bloomberg

time12 hours ago

  • Business
  • Bloomberg

Amazon's Emissions Climbed 6% in 2024 on Data Center Buildout

Inc. 's carbon emissions rose for the first time in three years in 2024, driven by data center construction and fuel consumption by its delivery providers. The world's largest online retailer emitted 68.25 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent last year, up 6% from the prior year, Amazon said in its annual sustainability report, which was published on Wednesday. The company's emissions last year were up by a third since Amazon pledged in 2019 to eliminate them by 2040.

Climate Council warns against ‘dumb' proposal to allow forestry on peatlands
Climate Council warns against ‘dumb' proposal to allow forestry on peatlands

Irish Times

timea day ago

  • Politics
  • Irish Times

Climate Council warns against ‘dumb' proposal to allow forestry on peatlands

Controversial moves to introduce incentives for planting trees on peatlands will only increase carbon emissions, the Climate Change Advisory Council has warned. In its annual review of agriculture, land use and forestry, published on Wednesday, the council said: 'Urgent action and strengthened policy levers are required to incentivise increased tree planting to ensure Ireland's forestry sector does not become a source of greenhouse gas emissions.' The Government's forestry policy is not achieving planting levels needed to meet climate targets despite an overhaul in recent years, it stated. 'Current afforestation policy is inadequate to meet our future needs as tree-planting rates remain well below the target of 8,000 hectares per year.' In 2024 the State added just 1,573 hectares of new forest; the lowest number in nearly 80 years. READ MORE Minister of State Michael Healy-Rae has said it may be necessary to plant trees on deep peatlands to address timber shortages. But the independent advisory body has concluded that all evidence suggests 'this leads to significant carbon losses over time'. It is, therefore, 'essential that current constraints on afforestation on deep peat remain unchanged and are rigorously enforced', it said. Mr Healy-Rae told the Seanad in May that he and officials in the Department of Agriculture would look at planting trees on peatland in what would be a reversal of current restrictions. He suggested the ban on planting trees on deeper peatlands could result in a future shortage of timber, meaning a 'stupid' reliance on Scottish imports. [ Storm Éowyn's €500m toll on Irish forestry revealed by satellite imagery Opens in new window ] In response, leading climate scientist Prof Peter Thorne of Maynooth University, who is chair of the council's adaptation committee, said afforesting peatlands was 'environmental vandalism' and 'about the dumbest thing we can do' from the point of view of climate action. Commenting on the need for improved performance in the forestry sector, council chair Marie Donnelly said: 'What we have seen in the sector is a failure of policy, with schemes to incentivise more planting not delivering the results required. This has been exacerbated by damage to forests during the winter with Storms Darragh and Éowyn, which resulted in over 26,000 hectares damaged by windthrow.' There is a need for a policy from Government that will 'actively encourage afforestation in the areas most suited to planting'. The council highlighted the opportunity for the forestry sector to deliver modern methods of construction, notably expansion of timber frame construction with potential for a strong domestic market for locally-produced timber. This would reduce significant amounts of carbon, it said, given one cubic metre of timber replacing concrete and steel in construction saves 0.77 tonnes of CO2 emissions. Yet only 24 per cent of building construction in Ireland is timber, compared with more than 80 per cent in Finland, Scotland and Sweden. Building with timber is at cost parity with conventional construction systems. With emissions from agriculture having decreased by just 1.7 per cent in 2024 relative to 2023, and by 4.6 per cent relative to 2018, the council said an accelerated roll out of proven on-farm measures were required. With agriculture remaining Ireland's largest source of emissions, it called for 'deployment of methane-reducing manure additives and greater use of protected urea fertilisers', which reduce ammonia loss and greenhouse gases. [ The Irish Atlantic rainforest pulsing life back into the Beara peninsula Opens in new window ] Increasing diversification in farming is critical alongside scaling up biomethane production using anaerobic digesters, it said. 'Implementation of the national biomethane strategy has been piecemeal to date, leading to a worryingly low level of interest in progressing this mitigation option.' The Government needs to ensure all available instruments, including taxation, regulation and incentives, are in place to enable farmers to make necessary changes to on-farm practices. 'Diversification is vital for the long-term sustainability of the sector, and the Government should set annual targets for the roll out of diversification options including bioenergy, organic productions systems, expanded tillage and agroforestry with policies to support this,' Ms Donnelly said.

Government ditches plan to stop businesses ‘greenwashing'
Government ditches plan to stop businesses ‘greenwashing'

Times

timea day ago

  • Business
  • Times

Government ditches plan to stop businesses ‘greenwashing'

The government has dropped a plan to introduce a framework for standardising the calculation of carbon emissions as a way of cracking down on companies and investment funds making exaggerated environmental claims. The plan for a so-called green taxonomy, a classification tool that would have required companies to be more accurate and rigorous in their environmental claims, has been ditched, the Treasury said. 'After careful consideration of the responses [to a recent consultation], the government has concluded that a UK taxonomy would not be the most effective tool to deliver the green transition and should not be part of our sustainable finance framework,' it said. • How to avoid greenwashing in your carbon-neutral claims Other policies, it said, were 'of higher priority to accelerate investment into the transition to net zero and limit greenwashing'. The planned policy was seen by environmentalists as an important tool for stamping out so-called greenwashing as well as helping direct new capital into areas most likely to help reduce climate change. The UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association, which has 300 members with £19 trillion of assets under management, described the move as 'disappointing'. While 45 per cent of 150 responses to a Treasury consultation on the proposed taxonomy were positive, 55 per cent were 'mixed' or negative, it said. Concerns centred around 'the real-world application of this policy, primarily driven out of experience of working with other taxonomies'. Some respondents said other policies would have more impact. Separate rules from the Financial Conduct Authority on the labelling and naming of funds came into force earlier this year, while rules from the Competition and Markets Authority and Advertising Standards Authority have also been used to challenge greenwashing. Some large companies in Britain already use an EU-devised taxonomy to calculate their emissions and impact on climate change. Companies and fund managers have been able to make all kinds of 'sustainability' and green claims without an independently set framework through which to judge them. 'There was limited evidence of a compelling use case for a specific UK taxonomy that would achieve outcomes which could not be otherwise achieved using existing taxonomies or market frameworks, or other policy,' the Treasury concluded.

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