WOBO thanks edie for the links to a variety of their news items and reports.
Reeves confirms higher tax on North Sea oil and gas, pauses expensive roads schemes
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has made a string of measures to plug gaps in the UK Government’s finances, including new taxes and funding suspensions relating to the nation’s low-carbon energy and transport transition.
Reeves delivered a summary of her first public spending audit in the House of Commons today (29 July), promising to prevent the financial downturn seen after the 2022 min-budget overseen by Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng from happening again.
She set out measures which should deliver some £5.5bn of savings and earnings within a year, then a further £8.1bn the year after, in a bid to tackle what she described as “reckless overspending” by the prior Conservative-led Government.
Report: Scope 3 emissions rise for fashion giants despite science-based targets in place
New research has revealed that less than half of the world’s top 250 fashion brands are publishing emissions reduction targets verified by the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), with Scope 3 emissions still rising for one-third of these brands.
This is according to Fashion Revolution’s ‘What Fuels Fashion?’ report, which has analysed and ranked 250 of the world’s biggest fashion brands and retailers (with a turnover of $400m or more) based on their public disclosure of climate and energy-related actions. These brands span across Europe, North America, South America, Asia and Africa.
According to the report, about 47% of major fashion brands now have SBTi-validated targets in place, a 13% increase from last year’s 34%.
UK Govt wants to block legal case on environmental harms of Australia trade deal, say campaigners
Environment and food campaign group Feedback claims that the UK Government is seeking to drive up costs relating to its judicial review of the UK-Australia trade deal, to the point that the legal case won’t go ahead.
The trade deal has previously been flagged for potentially undercutting the UK’s environmental standards on food production.
In June of last year, Feedback was granted permission by the High Court for a full judicial review of the trade agreement over the concerns that it could enable Australian beef, lamb and mutton and dairy producers to undercut British farmers on animal welfare and environmental standards.
UK to host international energy security summit, ease planning for large renewables
The UK Government will host an international summit on energy security early next year, in partnership with the International Energy Agency (IEA). Politicians will convene to strategise around balancing energy security with key decarbonisation targets and reducing costs.
At the same time, the UK Government posted more details on its intention to ease planning rules for renewables and progressed the next phase of its assessment of a new small modular nuclear reactor design from Holtec International (more on this below the subheading).
The Summit will bring together dozens of energy ministers from across the world, as well as political advisors, industry analysts and business leaders.
Uber partners with BYD to deploy 100,000 electric vehicles
Uber Technologies and BYD have announced a multi-year strategic partnership aimed at introducing 100,000 new BYD electric vehicles (EVs) to the Uber platform across key global markets.
This initiative will commence in Europe and Latin America, with plans to expand to the Middle East, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
The partnership is designed to reduce the total cost of EV ownership for Uber drivers. This effort is expected to accelerate the adoption of EVs within Uber’s network and offer millions of riders greener transportation options.
According to a driver’s survey conducted by Uber, the high price of EVs and the lack of financing remain the primary obstacles to EV adoption.
€5bn plan to boost EU wind industry now underway
The European Investment Bank (EIB) has launched a €5bn initiative to support the wind-energy industry in Europe, beginning with a €500m counter-guarantee to Deutsche Bank AG.
The counter-guarantee will allow Deutsche Bank to establish a portfolio of up to €1bn in banking guarantees for wind energy manufacturers within the EU.
This will enable manufacturers to secure advance payments and provide performance guarantees for new wind projects. Additionally, the guarantee scheme will allow manufacturers to prepay their suppliers for components such as turbines, grid connection infrastructure, cables and transformer stations.
This transaction marks the first operation under the EIB’s December 2023 plan to provide €5bn to enhance the provision of commercial bank guarantees for the European wind industry.
Vast majority of corporations not measuring nature or plastics impacts, study finds
Only 5% of large businesses globally assess and disclose how their operations impact nature and fewer than one in five provide any numerical evidence that they are reducing plastic waste.
These are some of the eye-opening findings of the World Benchmarking Alliance’s (WBA) new Nature Benchmark.
Published today (7 August), the Benchmark assesses the nature-related strategies and disclosures of more than 800 large businesses hailing from more than 20 different industries. It covers impacts on biodiversity and ecosystems, water stewardship and plastic waste – and how companies approach the social sustainability impacts linked to these issues.
The Benchmark finds that many big businesses are not backing up top-line, vague commitments to protect nature with tangible action plans. Most are also failing to collect and publish good data to prove they are meaningfully making progress.
The Royal Mint unveils new facility to ‘mine’ recycled gold from electronic waste
The Royal Mint has opened a new factory in Wales which will use next-generation recycling technology to extract gold from e-waste, ready for use in new products including jewellery.
The 3,700 square metre facility in Llantrisant in South Wales has been in the works for around two years, with the Royal Mint working closely at the site with Canadian innovators Excir to develop a new process for extracting gold from printed circuit boards (PCBs).
PBCs are found in a range of electronics and electricals including TVs, laptops and smartphones.
Valuable metals in these devices are, more often than not, not recaptured at the end of their working life.
Fish hotels among suggestions for ‘nature-inclusive’ offshore wind farms
Measures such as ‘fish hotels’ and artificial reefs should be incorporated into the design of offshore wind farms to provide marine life with habitats for shelter, feeding and spawning.
That’s according to a new report released by the Scottish Offshore Wind Energy Council, which explores how developers can go above and beyond current industry practices to maximise opportunities for nature.
The report was produced as part of the Collaboration for Environmental Mitigation and Nature Inclusive Design (CEMNID) project involving offshore wind developers and Scottish regulators.
It highlighted multiple promising “nature-inclusive” measures which should undergo further trials and investigation and subsequently be considered by developers when designing offshore wind farms.
Report: Global wind capacity to double by 2030, but fall short of 1.5C climate goal
New research has revealed that nations intend to collectively double the world’s wind energy capacity this decade. However, this increase still falls significantly short of the tripling required to stay on track with the 1.5C climate pathway.
According to Ember’s latest report on global wind targets, the urgent goal of tripling global renewable energy capacity, pledged by more than 100 nations at COP28 last year, is not on track to be delivered in full.
The report highlights that national strategies and policy documents predict a rise in wind capacity to 2,157gigawatts (GW) by 2030, a 2.4-fold increase from 2022 levels. This figure, however, leaves a substantial gap of 585GW between current targets and the necessary 2,742GW needed for a global tripling.