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Business council praises Labor's 'bridge' to emissions trading scheme

Surprise praise from business lobby group centres on ALP climate policy’s potential to become bipartisan, despite Coalition criticism

Labor’s climate policy has won unexpected praise from the Business Council of Australia’s chief executive, Jennifer Westacott, who said the plan could provide a platform for bipartisanship and “build a bridge” for an emission trading scheme.

Related: Turnbull warns Labor’s emissions trading schemes will destroy jobs

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Source: Guardian Environment

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India's drought migrants head to cities in desperate search for water

Parts of India are being parched by a drought that means farmers are unable to irrigate their fields, with some areas even running out of drinking water

No one in the slum of Murtinagar wants to play with Temri and Chinna. The brother and sister don’t speak the local Hindi or Marathi languages – they came here, to Mumbai, India’s financial capital, 10 days ago from their village, Andhra, and grew up speaking the regional language of Telegu. Jaya Kummari, their mother, brought Chinna and Temri to Mumbai because of a drought that has left Andhra without water.

In the corner of the one-bedroom apartment that their parents are renting for 4,000 rupees (£40) a month, Temri and Chinna play board games. “We miss our friends,” Chinna says.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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What one milk carton says about sustainability messaging around the world

To be truly sustainable, companies must reconcile the different marketing messages they use around the world

You might not realise it when you walk along the aisles of your local supermarket, but you are surrounded by marketing messages. These differ in every country. Buying milk in the UK? You’ll probably see messages about climate change and the environment. Go to China and the packaging is more likely to emphasise its origins and address consumer concern about food safety.

These simple but fundamental differences, with in this case milk, illustrate how businesses adapt their marketing strategies depending on the market. They use whatever elements of sustainability consumers care most about in a given market.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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MPs: UK air pollution is a 'public health emergency'

Cross-party committee of MPs says the government needs to do much more to tackle the crisis, including a scrappage scheme for dirty old diesel cars

Air pollution in the UK is a “public health emergency”, according to a cross-party committee of MPs, who say the government needs to do much more including introducing a scrappage scheme for old, dirty diesel vehicles.

The government’s own data shows air pollution causes 40,000-50,000 early deaths a year and ministers were forced to produce a new action plan after losing a supreme court case in 2015.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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LED innovation aims to make traffic lights, mobiles and TVs more sustainable

LED lighting could play a key role in decarbonising the global economy because of its energy savings

An Australian semiconductor company believes it is finally getting closer to “pay day”, more than a quarter of a century after its breakthrough technology first began taking shape at Sydney’s Macquarie University.

Related: Mushrooms, whales and hurricanes: how bio-inspiration boosts energy efficiency

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Labor proposes two emissions trading schemes costing $355.9m

Opposition maintains ambitious targets but aims to minimise cost to households and defers details until after election

Labor is proposing two emissions trading schemes – one for big industrial polluters and an electricity industry model similar to one once backed by Malcolm Turnbull – in a climate policy that trumps the Coalition’s ambition but minimises the hit on household power bills and leaves important detail to be determined post-election.

Related: Climate change plan: thinktank suggests policy both sides of politics can embrace

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Nuclear fears 30 years after Chernobyl | Letters

Thirty years on from the tragedy of Chernobyl (theguardian.com, 26 April), the potential of nuclear power to provide cheap, safe, decarbonised energy is not diminished. While we pause to reflect on this worst imaginable accident, we must not let misplaced perceptions of risk mean we overlook reality. Nuclear power is our safest option for the supply of baseload, low-carbon electricity. Coal power has killed more than a thousand times more people per unit of energy produced than nuclear power, including both UN confirmed deaths from reported incidents and epidemiological evidence. All new nuclear build has passive redundant safety systems and must be able to withstand the worst-case disaster, no matter how unlikely. The UK also has a clear programme in place to deal with all our nuclear waste, including the reduced volumes generated by new-build reactor designs compared to current reactors.

The planned generation of nuclear technologies offer the UK security of supply and low-carbon solutions to our power needs. There is also a significant economic opportunity, including highly skilled jobs in construction and operation, provided the government holds firm on a minimum percentage commitment to the British supply chain for all new nuclear projects. We must keep nuclear fears in proportion and our minds open in order to keep the lights on.
Tim Yeo
Chair of New Nuclear Watch Europe
Professor Bill Lee
Director, Centre for Nuclear Engineering, Imperial College London
Professor Malcolm Joyce
Chair of nuclear engineering, Lancaster University
Professor Colin Boxall
Chair in nuclear decommissioning and engineering, Lancaster University

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Yemen braces for locust ‘plague’

SciDev.Net: The ongoing civil war and the need to protect the bee industry make it difficult to use insecticides

Yemen is bracing itself for a “locust plague” that scientists are unable to stop due to fears that any intervention would also kill bees that are vital to its economy.

The country’s Desert Locust Control Centre issued a warning on 18 April that many desert locusts in the country had reached their flying adult phase, while the remaining juveniles could do likewise in a matter of weeks.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Asian wasp listed as threat to UK's sweet chestnut trees

Forestry commission elevates oriental chestnut gall wasp to high-priority tree pest after 2015 outbreaks

An Asian wasp that threatens the UK’s sweet chestnuts has been designated a high-priority tree pest for the first time.

The oriental chestnut gall wasp (Dryocosmus kuriphilus) was first found in the UK last year, in Farningham woods near Sevenoaks in Kent, and a street in St Albans in Hertfordshire.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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