On broken fingers and lost teeth

Hi friend,

Have you ever had so much fun doing roly-polys down an embankment that you didn’t realise that you broke three fingers and your mom only took you to the hospital A WEEK LATER when it was still bruised and swollen because she thought it was “just a sprain”?

Yeah, me either.

I was the bad mother in this story and Ayva at least has a cool story to tell about the first time she broke a bone (or three). But that’s not the only thing that derailed my week. In my rush to get the kid to the hospital, I locked the car and house keys in the car, leaving us stranded in the parking lot until my brother could rescue us and take us home to break into the house (which is a lot easier to do in Australia than in South Africa) to get the spare keys. And it’s school holidays. And I start a new job on Monday. And my tooth fell out. Needless to say, I have nothing intelligent to write about this week but there were some encouraging developments in the climate and sustainability space, which you can read about below.

Hopefully next week will be better. Maybe it won’t. But at least there’s wine.

— Tarryn ✌️

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This week's climate and sustainability news worth noting

🇦🇺 Australia turned off its oldest coal power station. The 50-year-old Liddell power station in New South Wales will be demolished to make way for a new clean energy project. Over 90% of the materials in the power station will be recycled.

🇪🇺 The EU has agreed to reform its carbon market and cut emissions by 62% below 2005 levels by 2030, up from its previous target of 43%. It will also do away with free CO2 permits for factories by 2034 and will add shipping emissions to the carbon market from 2024. And, from 2026, the EU will introduce a levy on imports of high-carbon goods, including steel, cement, aluminium, and fertilisers. But wait, there’s more. The EU will also set binding targets for airlines in Europe to increase their use of sustainable aviation fuels.

❌ The EU Parliament has also approved a landmark deforestation law to ban imports into the EU of coffee, beef, soy, palm oil, cocoa, leather, chocolate, and other commodities if they are linked to forest destruction. Companies that sell these goods into the European Union must prove that they were not grown on land deforested after 2020, or face heavy fines.

🎛️ New York could become the first state in the USA to ban natural gas in most new buildings. The law would require new buildings to go all-electric and is expected to take effect in 2026.

🇨🇳 China has established an “ecological protection red line” aimed at preserving its ecosystems and reverse some of the damage caused by rapid urbanisation and industrial growth. The line covers around three million square kilometres of land, or 30% of China, and 150,000 square kilometres of marine areas, in line with a global pact to protect 30% of Earth’s land and seas by 2030.

🥵 Climate change has made severe droughts in the Horn of Africa 100 times more likely than in the preindustrial era, according to a new study. The region is already on the brink of famine, with millions of people facing food and water shortages.

🐓 Researchers have developed a tool that can tell whether a supermarket chicken was cage-farmed or free-range. It can also pinpoint where salmon and farmed shrimp come from. They do this by deciphering clues in animal genomes that can reveal unique information about the conditions in which they were raised.

And in business news:

💸 More than half of the world's GDP (equal to $58 trillion) depends on nature, PwC research has found – up from $44 trillion in 2020. PwC says more than half of the market value of listed companies on 19 major stock exchanges are exposed to physical nature risk, and that the potential impacts of nature's decline on the global economy could be far-reaching.

I'll leave you on this happy note...

A happy galloping sheep.

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