Latest news with #greeninfrastructure
The Sun
a day ago
- Business
- The Sun
Fury as Ed Miliband's mad dash towards Net Zero will slap an extra £104 onto YOUR energy bills
ED Miliband's Net Zero crusade will slap an extra £104 on to household energy bills by 2030. Energy regulator Ofgem yesterday gave the green light to plough £24billion into making the country's power networks greener. It is part of an £80billion five-year scheme to overhaul electricity infrastructure, ensuring the grid is equipped to meet Net Zero demands. Taxpayers will foot the bill for 80 projects, which include boosting the number of power lines, cables and green tech. Ofgem said the splurge marks the biggest expansion of the grid since the 1960s. But the extra cost comes despite Energy Secretary Mr Miliband promising before the Election that he would cut bills by £300. Shadow Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho said: 'This reveals the true cost of Red Ed's plans — bills going up for families to pay for the massive expansion in the grid needed just to meet his Net Zero targets.' Ofgem chief Jonathan Brearley insisted ministers had 'no option' but to invest in 'critical national infrastructure'. He said: 'The sooner we build the network we need, and invest to strengthen our resilience, the lower the cost for bill payers will be in the future. 'However, this can't be done at any price, which is why we have built in cost controls and negotiated a fair deal for both investors and consumers.' Families can get FREE washing machines, fridges and kids' beds or £200 payments this summer – and you can apply now Unlock even more award-winning articles as The Sun launches brand new membership programme - Sun Club.
CBC
20-06-2025
- Climate
- CBC
Boston ditches roadside grass
Hello, Earthlings! This is our weekly newsletter on all things environmental, where we highlight trends and solutions that are moving us to a more sustainable world. Keep up with the latest news on our Climate and Environment page. This week: Boston ditches roadside grass The grand boulevards and parkways of cities are often divided by a grassy median — a long green mound, typically enclosed by a cement curb. That may add a bit of welcome green to a broad strip of asphalt. But some cities, such as Boston, say there's no place in their urban environments for roadside grass that, frankly, does so little useful work. "We're slowly trying to transition away from vegetation medians that are not managing stormwater," said Kate England, director of Boston's Office of Green Infrastructure, which works with all city departments including Transportation. The replacement seems similar, if less tidy: the grass appears unmowed and mixed with plants in varying shades of green and splashes of white, yellow and purple flowers. But look closer, and you'll notice it's a depression rather than a mound. And the curb has some odd breaks in it. Earlier this spring, our newsletter looked at how Vancouver has embraced "green infrastructure" such as rain gardens to absorb rainwater, preserve sewer capacity, filter pollutants and prevent flooding. That's what Boston is doing, too. The city's Office of Green Infrastructure is transforming strips of grass along its roadways — both the edges and in the middle — into a type of "green infrastructure" called a bioswale. That's a landscaped depression designed to capture and filter rainwater, while improving air quality, reducing urban heat islands and providing habitat for wildlife. England said the city is seeing more intense and frequent storms and flooding due to climate change. When that happens with traditional mounded medians and curb strips, water runs off them, adding to the water flooding onto streets and into drains (and making it harder to keep grass and trees on them alive). "We know that we need to do something more than just, you know, the standard storm drain infrastructure," she added. Turning those areas into bioswales means digging out soil until they're lower than the road, and making breaks in the curb so water will flow off the road into the garden, which is planted with native wildflowers and grasses. Boston now has a policy that requires green infrastructure in major roadwork projects. "So moving forward, all our street projects that do some kind of reconstruction … will all have green infrastructure in them," England said, "which is very cool." A big street project for 2025 is the reconstruction of Cummins Highway in southwest Boston that previously had one of the highest rates of traffic crashes in the city. It will include 32 gardens designed to capture rainwater and the addition of a porous asphalt bike lane on both sides of the roadway. Rain gardens are also included in about 20 Boston neighbourhood " slow streets" projects, which aim to calm traffic and improve pedestrian safety with features such as "bump-outs" – curb extensions that narrow the road at intersections, improving pedestrian safety, and can be used as planters. Boston created its Office of Green Infrastructure (OGI) in 2022 to build, install and maintain green infrastructure in roads, parks and other city property. "We are taking advantage of the fact that we have all this available land," England said. A recent audit that found the city owns more than 1,000 small parcels of underutilized land, or about 88 hectares. While many Boston city departments embraced the idea of green infrastructure on their property, their staff were also hesitant due to their lack of knowledge about keeping plants alive. So one of the OGI's key roles is maintaining all of it, England said. That's through a maintenance contractor, a group of local volunteers and through PowerCorpBOS, the city's 10-month green job skills training program for youth, in collaboration with city working groups with staff from different departments and local watershed associations and community groups. "Maintenance is a big deal for us," England said. "So we really went at it hard and came up with a way to make sure that these green infrastructure features are getting the attention they need." Christine Mettler, former director of Green Infrastructure at Green Communities Canada, said in Canada, Vancouver has done a good job of involving volunteers in maintenance, which not only keeps green infrastructure healthy, but helps with community engagement and support. England says community support is key to success. She said it's difficult for her office to say no if a group of community members such as a school ask to build a rain garden. "Your best and strongest advocates are going to come from your neighbourhoods and finding ways to actively engage them will make your life easier," she said. "We're all kind of in the same boat when it comes to climate resilience here. And this is a really easy kind of win-win for everybody." Check out our podcast and radio show. In our newest episode: Don't have a garden? Adopt a roundabout and plant things for the bees! We meet a TikToker who's done just that. And then we travel from coast to coast to hear about a push to let sections of city parks grow a little wild. We head to one of these meadows to hear how they attract pollinators, and hear why creating "pollinator pockets" for busy bees and "hairy" moths can be a climate solution across the country – and a patriotic one at that. What On Earth drops new podcast episodes every Wednesday and Saturday. You can find them on your favourite podcast app or on demand at CBC Listen. The radio show airs Sundays at 11 a.m., 11:30 a.m. in Newfoundland and Labrador. Reader Feedback Last week, Bridget Stringer-Holden looked at tips for making your garden more sustainable and eco-friendly to provide habitat for pollinators. Eric Gallienne wrote: "I live in a mature neighbourhood in north Burlington, [Ont.] I have two very large honey locust trees that are just finishing their flowering stage. In the past, you would have thought I lived next to an airport with the loud humming of bumble bees foraging on the locust flowers. There would typically be 2,000 to 3,000 bees on the trees for a week or so. This year, I counted five bumble bees in total. This would not seem to be a loss of habitat issue here as there is an abundance of woods along the escarpment, open fields and flowering gardens throughout the neighbourhood and that has not changed much in the past 30 years. The decline has been happening for a number of years. I would surmise that there must have been a change in the use of or in the type of insecticides being applied. Europe and the U.K. have banned many chemicals shown to kill bees. Canada has not followed suit and should do so. We cannot afford to lose our pollinators." Alison Rodrigues had a complaint about one of the photos in last week's story: "Why use a beautiful garden shot that is mainly non-native plants? Surely someone has a beautiful pollinator garden pic with loads of native plants?" So, readers, we'd love to see a photo of your native plant gardens — when you send them in, please include your location and what plants are included in the photo so other readers know what works in their region. The Big Picture: Where are all the EVs? A map of Vancouver-area municipalities shows the percentage of EVs among new vehicle sales is highest in a number of suburban communities. A similar trend, with higher EV adoption in a ring around dense urban centres, can be seen in a map of southern Ontario below showing the number of battery EV registrations per 100 people. Joanna Kyriazis, director of public affairs for Clean Energy Canada, says suburbs are "your best place to go electric" because they're dominated by single-family homes where it's easy to install home charging. Suburban dwellers tend to have long car commutes that make fuel savings add up more quickly when they buy an EV. To explore the interactive versions of these maps, check out this article on what groups of Canadians are buying EVs and where. — Emily Chung A battery that stores heat in sand has started working in the southern Finnish town of Pornainen. The town has a district heating system that can now stop burning oil with help from the battery. Here's how it works. About half the residents of Vienna live in social housing. Here's what changes the city is making to get social housing off natural gas by 2040 and reduce climate risks for residents. Toronto's bike sharing program is so popular that it runs out of bikes at many locations, frustrating riders. In this video, CBC's Chris Glover explains how the city plans to solve this problem — by learning from what New York City did. China is already the global leader in making lithium-ion batteries, and now it's working ahead on mass producing sodium-ion batteries. These salt batteries could reduce the need for certain raw materials, and are already being used for energy storage and in electric scooters. BBC takes a look at how China's salt battry industry is expanding. From 'greenwashing' to 'green hushing' — companies complain new law stifles environmental efforts Some corporate leaders say new anti-greenwashing legislation has had the unintended effect of dissuading companies from taking climate action. But environmental organizations and others say that's a cop out. Bill C-59's changes to the Competition Act were meant to prevent companies from misrepresenting the environmental benefits of their products or practices — known as "greenwashing." The bill also gave the Competition Bureau more power to penalize companies that can't back up their claims with detailed evidence. But critics say requiring all such claims conform to "internationally recognized methodology" leaves too much room for interpretation and makes companies vulnerable to legal action. Michael McCain, the executive chair and former CEO of Maple Leaf Foods, calls this "green hushing." It's "the opposite of encouragement for companies to do the right thing," McCain told Laura Lynch, host of CBC Radio's What on Earth. The changes create so many "obstacles and consequences" to touting a company's environmental efforts, that the companies stop doing them, he said. Royal Bank has "retired" its commitment to facilitate $500 billion in sustainable finance by this year, pointing to changes in the Competition Act. Likewise, the investment arm of the Canada Pension Plan dropped its promise to invest in line with Canada's target to reach net zero by 2050, because of "recent legal developments," said CEO John Graham. Tyson Dyck, a lawyer who consults on environmental and climate matters for corporate clients, including many in the energy sector, says clients across the country have been "very concerned" about the changes, which took effect last June. He says the business community expected clarity about how to make environmental or climate-related claims. Instead, they got "confusion," he said. "And I think they struggled interpreting the new provisions." But environmental groups say no one is forcing companies to talk about their climate efforts, and that corporations should behave sustainably because it's the right thing to do, not for the boost to public image. Matt Hulse, a lawyer with Ecojustice, an environmental law charity headquartered in Vancouver, says many companies complaining about the changes were previously alleged to be greenwashing. They "made ambitious claims around climate and environmental action and have been accused of not following through on those things," said Hulse. That suggests, to him, that the "legislation is actually working.' 'Unintended consequence' But McCain says businesses have a legitimate concern that the legislation isn't written effectively. "This is a case of very good intentions in the underlying policy with a very grossly negative unintended consequence, which by definition makes it bad policy." The problem, he said, is requiring a company's claims to be backed up by "internationally recognized methodologies." There aren't enough internationally recognized organizations or standards, he said, or they are not "scientifically credible, in our judgment." He says it's "patently unreasonable" to expect a company to spend tens of millions of dollars on environmental works "and not be able to shout from the mountaintop the good things that we're doing." Fair playing field Emilia Belliveau, energy transition program manager for the advocacy group Environmental Defence in Vancouver, says there was good reason for keeping the language in the act flexible — keeping the law itself flexible as best practices change across various industries. Also, holding companies to internationally recognized methodologies prevents them from doing their own analyses "that can skew the data," she said. "It creates a fair playing field across companies so that we're measuring the same things, and we're able to make sure that the quality of the data, the evidence that's being used as proof for these green claims, holds up to rigour." Former MP Charlie Angus worked on a number of green initiatives over the years, and voted in favour of the changes. He stands by them. "You can't sell a car and say it's the safest on the road when you know there's serious problems with it. You can't sell cigarettes and say, the way they used to, 'This is the lighter brand of cigarettes,' when all cigarettes make you sick," he said. The changes "make sure that when companies are talking about net zero and reducing emissions, that they actually were telling the truth and not lying." The Competition Bureau released its final guidance on the anti-greenwashing legislation on June 5, which both corporations and some environmental groups had hoped would provide more specifics. Hulse, at Ecojustice, said "there was room for improvement," but that overall, it's not that hard for a corporation to establish a basis for their claims, looking to other jurisdictions abroad, and applying well-established principles from accounting and the scientific method. They can also pay a $5,000 fee to seek an opinion from the bureau about any claim they intend to make — "a trivial amount" for a large corporation, he says.
ABC News
18-06-2025
- Science
- ABC News
Vine-covered car parks helping to cool Western Sydney's urban heat islands
A new approach to providing shade at notoriously hot car parks has been shown to slash surface temperatures by up to half on summer days in Western Sydney. Surface temperatures at a busy car park in Merrylands are being reduced by as much as 35 degrees Celsius by vine-covered trellises which were installed and planted two years ago. On the hottest days, surface temperatures were shown to drop from 70C to 35C when in shade. Results from a study by Western Sydney University (WSU) and Cumberland City Council also show a reduction in air temperatures by up to 2.5C under the shading vines. The trellises are part of what the study described as Australia's first cool car park. Fast-growing vines grow over the top of metal supporting structures and then spread over a stainless steel mesh roof. Cumberland Mayor Ola Hamed said the project was promising for the area where temperatures in summer heatwaves have reached 45C. "Merrylands and Granville top some of those suburbs as well in terms of urban heat," Ms Hamed said. Ms Hamed said the shading structures at council-run car park Holroyd Gardens did not reduce car parking spaces. The initiative was funded by a grant from the NSW government to foster green infrastructure. WSU's Professor Sebastian Pfautsch, who has been studying the vine-covered trellises' impact for the past three years, said the vines were expected to grow completely over the metal wire mesh in two years. "We demonstrate with our solution that you can do it in a way so that you don't even lose valuable car parking space." Professor Pfautsch said the trellises were made of a wire mesh that birds could not rest on, so residents did not find their cars defecated on, and used vines that did not grow fruit that could drop on parked vehicles. Professor Pfautsch said more than 6 square kilometres of Western Sydney were dark-surfaced car parks, and only 1 per cent of that was effectively shaded. Cumberland council's area includes 1 square kilometre of uncovered car park. He said these car parks could have surface temperatures greater than 70C on a hot day. "It's always those unshaded car parks that come out as micro heat islands," Professor Pfautsch said. A WSU report presenting the findings from the car park shades said the issue was pointed in Sydney's west where there was a greater dependence on cars because of a lack of public transport alternatives. Urban heat islands are particularly harsh in Western Sydney where temperatures can reach above 40 degrees during summer heatwaves. Extreme heat has killed 300 people and hospitalised more than 7,000 across the country over the past decade, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Professor Pfautsch said Western Sydney also experienced hotter temperatures in summer due to the geographical bowl that traps heat in, and increased development replacing green environments. "That bowl means once you have hot air in it, it's very difficult to blow it out," Professor Pfautsch said. Another cool car park structure has been set up at a commuter car park in Wentworthville, also in the Cumberland council area. Ms Hamed hoped more of them could be set up at car parks in the area, including at public and privately owned car parks. "We're looking at other places around the LGA where we can replicate this as well," she said.
Zawya
18-06-2025
- General
- Zawya
Qatar expands public parks, green infrastructure to fight land degradation
Doha, Qatar: On the occasion of the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, observed annually on June 17, the Ministry of Municipality has reaffirmed its unwavering commitment to environmental sustainability by scaling up the nation's green infrastructure. This strategic focus on expanding public parks and increasing vegetation cover is a key component of Qatar's national efforts to combat desertification, curb the effects of drought, and promote long-term sustainable development. Under the theme 'Restore the land. Unlock the opportunities', the 2025 observance shines a light on how restoring nature's foundation — land — can create jobs, boost food and water security, support climate action and build economic resilience. With land degradation now impacting up to 40% of the world's land area, the observance serves as a vital reminder of the urgency to restore and protect terrestrial ecosystems. Qatar is responding with action, aligning its greening policies with international environmental goals and taking decisive steps to manage land sustainably. The Ministry of Municipality underscored the essential role that public parks and green spaces play in building resilience against drought and land degradation. As of today, Qatar is home to 127 public parks and 153 established green areas, including public parks, landscaped plazas, and scenic Corniches. Ambitiously, the Ministry is working to increase the number of green spaces, which is expected to reach 160 soon. More than three million square meters of green space have already been developed. These initiatives are being implemented with a focus on sustainability and efficiency. Landscaping projects prioritise native and drought-tolerant plant species, which are ideally suited to Qatar's arid climate. Additionally, the Ministry has adopted smart water-saving technologies and continues to use treated wastewater for irrigation, significantly reducing the ecological footprint of these developments. Expanding public parks and green infrastructure can play a crucial role in combating land degradation by promoting sustainable land use, improving soil health, and managing water resources. These green spaces offer a multitude of benefits, including enhanced biodiversity, reduced urban heat island effects, and improved air and water quality. The Ministry's landmark Plant Ten Million Trees Initiative, designed to enhance biodiversity, increase carbon absorption, and improve overall ecological balance. Complementing this afforestation programme is a comprehensive strategy to expand green belts, ornamental agriculture, and aesthetic landscaping across urban areas. Sustainability in Qatar is not just about planting trees — it's about cultivating a culture of environmental responsibility. The Ministry continues to lead public awareness campaigns that educate citizens about the value of agriculture and green living, fostering greater community participation in conservation and urban farming. Through these outreach efforts, residents are empowered to contribute to a greener, healthier environment. As Qatar moves forward with its environmental agenda, the Ministry of Municipality embraces the guiding principle that 'Every tree we plant and every square metre we green is an investment in a greener future for Qatar.' This vision reinforces the nation's commitment to environmental stewardship and intergenerational equity, ensuring that future generations inherit a livable, resilient, and sustainable homeland. In solidarity with the global movement to halt land degradation and restore ecosystems, Qatar's initiatives offer a powerful model of how urban development, climate adaptation, and community engagement can converge to create a thriving green legacy. © Dar Al Sharq Press, Printing and Distribution. All Rights Reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (
BBC News
11-06-2025
- General
- BBC News
Alternative designs for condemned Gateshead flyover unveiled
Designs reimagining a condemned concrete carriageway as a green landmark have been University's Farrell Centre invited ideas for how the Gateshead flyover, which was closed six months ago due to structural concerns and is set to be demolished, could be entries, now on display at the centre, imagine it as a lush green space lined with trees and gardens, which could also become a walking and cycling is hoped the designs could spark a conversation about the future of Tyneside's wider infrastructure – including the Central Motorway. Suggestions for how the flyover and the space underneath it could be used by the Gateshead community include allotments, markets, play areas, repair shops, performance spaces, and sports facilities such as basketball courts and football Centre director Owen Hopkins told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: "The council has decided what it wants to do and that is their role, but what we wanted to do was to use this as an opportunity for a counterpoint. "We are not necessarily trying to influence or change any decisions that have been made, it is about showing the possibilities for when other situations like this inevitably occur."There are a good amount of flyovers and ageing bits of concrete infrastructure... we feel that there are opportunities to creatively reimagine those." Anneliese Hutchinson, strategic director for economy, innovation and growth at the council, said that while the structure's condition meant it had to be demolished rather than repaired or repurposed, the council welcomed the competition's "imaginative approach".She added: "Many of the ideas put forward are not actually reliant on the flyover remaining in place."So there might be potential to integrate some of these ideas into our wider regeneration plans for the town centre and nearby neighbourhoods." Follow BBC Newcastle on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
