More than 95% of investors urged commodities firm to keep highly profitable fossil fuel arm to help maximise shareholder cash
Glencore has scrapped plans to spin off its coal business after shareholders urged the commodities company to hold on to the highly profitable but heavily polluting division.
The FTSE 100 company said that an overwhelming majority of its shareholders favoured retaining the coal business over its plan to list the division as a separate company on the New York stock exchange.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
08/07/2024 - 07:16
08/07/2024 - 06:30
This has been a summer of extreme heat around the world. The Guardian is investigating how it harms our planet and leaves the world’s most vulnerable people exposed to its impact
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A staple of dystopian science fictions is an inner sanctum of privilege and an outer world – chemical desert/airless waste/District 12 – peopled by the desperate poor. The insiders, living off the exploited labour of the outlands, are indifferent to the horrors beyond their walls. Well, here we are.
Even as extreme heat raged across the southern United States this summer, the governors of Florida and Texas struck down heat protections for outdoor workers. Construction companies and agricultural firms lobbied against the rights of workers to water, shade and rest breaks when temperatures soar – and Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott, two men also lavishly funded by the fossil fuel industry, gave them what they wanted.
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08/07/2024 - 06:30
Kamala Harris’s running mate boasts a strong record on climate policy and green energy as Minnesota governor
US elections campaign – live updates
Tim Walz, tapped as Vice-President Kamala Harris’s running mate on Tuesday, may not be a household name, but the Minnesota governor is well known as a climate champion in green advocacy circles.
“Like Vice-President Harris, Governor Walz knows that climate change is the existential threat of our time,” the Sierra Club executive director, Ben Jealous, said in a statement. “The Harris-Walz ticket is one that understands the fight before us.”
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08/07/2024 - 03:17
The weather system has inundated parts of the country including Florida and Georgia, whipping up tornadoes and submerging streets in waist-high flood waters
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08/07/2024 - 02:49
The development, planned to be offshore from Sydney to Newcastle, was vetoed by Scott Morrison when resources minister
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The company behind the contentious Pep11 offshore New South Wales gas exploration project has lost patience with persistent delays from the federal and state governments and has asked the court to force them to make a decision.
BPH Energy and Bounty Oil and Gas NL, the parent companies of Pep11 joint-venture operator Asset Energy, notified the Australian Stock Exchange on Tuesday that Asset Energy has begun proceedings in the federal court in Western Australia against the joint authority responsible for determining whether the proposed PEP11 project can proceed.
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08/07/2024 - 00:00
Our former environment correspondent had solar panels installed in 2010 and later added a heat pump. He’s totted up the energy generated and cash saved over the years
An abiding memory of a day in August 2010, the first time my solar panels were connected to the grid, was of the builders downing tools and watching the electricity meter whiz round backwards.
It was a sunny day and they were supposed to be finishing the plastering and insulation, but the novel sight of the old-style electricity meter in reverse was too entertaining.
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08/06/2024 - 23:15
Eight Australian sea lions were enlisted to map the ocean floor by sticking cameras with satellite tracking to their backs. Almost 90 hours of footage and 500km later, conservationists hope to have much clearer ideas on how to protect the sea lions. “I can watch this stuff for hours,” says Prof Simon Goldsworthy. “It’s like the best slow TV ever. You just don’t know what you’re going to see next.”
‘Best slow TV ever’: scientists mount cameras on endangered sea lions to map Australia’s ocean floor
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‘Best slow TV ever’: scientists mount cameras on endangered sea lions to map Australia’s ocean floor
08/06/2024 - 23:14
Eight females from two seal colonies have filmed almost 90 hours across more than 500km, helping scientists map 5,000 sq km of habitat
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The Australian sea lions glide and dart through underwater tunnels, over seagrass beds and rocky reefs, searching for a meal and dancing with dolphins around a giant bait ball of fish – all the action captured by a camera stuck on their back.
“I can watch this stuff for hours,” says Prof Simon Goldsworthy. “It’s like the best slow TV ever. You just don’t know what you’re going to see next.”
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08/06/2024 - 23:00
Gardeners and pest controllers say wasps, important predators and pollinators, appear to be in sharp decline
The UK is not doing enough to track wasp populations as numbers appear to plummet, a leading expert has warned.
While there were national monitoring schemes for some invertebrates, including bees and butterflies, there was no such programme in place for wasps, said Dr Gavin Broad, principal curator of wasps at the Natural History Museum.
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08/06/2024 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 07 August 2024; doi:10.1038/s44183-024-00076-4
Buckley and Cooper’s1 estimates of surfing’s economic contributions via enhanced mental health were extrapolated from national park visitation. We extend their argument by distinguishing benefits from green and blue spaces, and the particularities of surfing, both as therapy and recreation. Personal Wellbeing Index scores reveal improved outcomes among Australian surfers, compared to the national population. These diverse well-being effects highlight the value of surfing as an ocean-based ecosystem service.
