Regulator Ofwat says it will claw back £131m in ‘unjustified’ payments as it announces bills can rise by 35% by 2030
Water bills for households in England and Wales to rise by 36%
Thames Water will have to pay an £18.2m penalty after the water industry regulator confirmed the troubled utilities company had breached dividend rules.
The Guardian revealed on Wednesday that Thames would be penalised over two dividend payments, made in 2023 and 2024, and that it would allow the water company to increase bills by just over a third. The industry watchdog Ofwat confirmed the penalty and bills rise on Thursday.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
12/19/2024 - 02:38
Tanya Plibersek says projects in NSW and Queensland produce coal for making essential steel as critics say move ‘opposite of climate action’
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The Albanese government has approved the expansion of four coalmines that climate campaigners estimate will release more than 850m tonnes of CO2 over their lifetime – equivalent to almost double Australia’s annual emissions.
The four mines will target mostly coal to be used for steelmaking with some thermal coal for burning in power stations.
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12/19/2024 - 01:00
Law around illegal wood burning in smoke-control areas is not being enforced, campaigners say
Only four fines out of 5,600 complaints have been issued for illegal burning of wood in smoke-control areas from September 2023 to August 2024 in England, data has revealed.
The new data, from freedom of information requests submitted by the campaign group Mums for Lungs, shows that the law around illegal wood burning is not being enforced in England, campaigners said.
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12/19/2024 - 00:00
Scientists race to discover new species before destruction of natural world drives them to extinction
From a toadstool with teeth to a vine smelling of marzipan and a flower that has cheated its way out of having to photosynthesise, a weird and wonderful host of new plant and fungus species have been discovered in 2024.
Other plants given scientific names for the first time include beautiful new orchids, a ghostly palm and a hairy plant that appears to have stolen a gene from an unrelated family. The species are among the 172 new plants and fungi named by scientists from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and their partners.
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12/19/2024 - 00:00
Popular in Victorian times, they are sustainable, a good source of protein and brilliant for biodiversity, say those championing the bivalves
A splash of white wine, a handful of basil leaves and a few minutes preparation are all it takes to transform mussels that 24 hours ago were filtering seawater off the south Devon coast, into a delicious starter.
At the training kitchen in London’s oldest fish market, Billingsgate, in Poplar, we learn that fresh mussels require two vital preparation steps that the vacuum-packed, cooked variety don’t: “debearding” or pulling off the “byssus” thread that attaches the shell to rocks and other substrate, and the discarding of any with broken or open shells
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12/19/2024 - 00:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 19 December 2024; doi:10.1038/s44183-024-00091-5
Drifting fish aggregating devices in the Indian ocean impacts, management, and policy implications
12/18/2024 - 15:18
Court rules in favor of 16 young people who said their health and prospects were being imperiled by climate crisis
Montana’s top court on Wednesday held that the state’s constitution guaranteed a right to a stable climate system and invalidated a law barring regulators from considering the effects of greenhouse gas emissions when permitting new fossil fuel projects.
The Montana supreme court upheld a landmark trial court decision last August in favor of 16 young people who said their health and futures were being jeopardized by climate change, which the state aggravates through its permitting of energy projects.
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12/18/2024 - 13:46
Exclusive: Long-awaited decision by water regulator Ofwat falls short of utility’s requested 59% rise
Troubled Thames Water will be allowed to increase customer bills by just over a third by 2030 after a decision by the industry regulator, the Guardian has learned.
Ofwat is poised to announce on Thursday that the heavily indebted company, which serves 16 million consumers in London and the Thames Valley area, will be permitted to raise bills by just over half the level the company had demanded.
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12/18/2024 - 11:43
Powerful storm in drought-hit region confirmed to have killed 45 people in Mozambique and 13 in Malawi
Mayotte before and after: satellite images show damage
The death toll from Cyclone Chido has continued to rise, with authorities confirming that 45 people were killed in Mozambique and 13 in Malawi.
French officials said the number of deaths on the Mayotte archipelago remained unclear, having previously expressed fears that hundreds, possibly thousands, of people were killed in slums flattened by the storm. So far, 22 deaths and 1,500 injuries, 200 of them critical, have been confirmed.
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12/18/2024 - 10:42
EPA agreed to grant the state’s requests and permit similar proposals from other states, a step Trump has vowed to undo
The Biden administration granted two requests from California to enforce strict standards for vehicle emissions, including a rule aimed at banning sales of new gas-powered cars by 2035 in a move that Donald Trump is expected to roll back immediately.
The Environmental Protection Agency said it would grant California’s request for the waivers to allow the state to enforce the proposed rules, the agency announced on Wednesday.
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