Australia’s major banks and superannuation funds are failing to mitigate environmental risks

Australia’s major banks and superannuation funds are failing to properly assess the damage their investments and financial decisions do to nature or set targets to reverse that damage, according to new analysis. How businesses manage nature-related risk is one of the major items under negotiation at COP15 in Montreal where countries are trying to settle a new international agreement for nature.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is confident his government's energy relief package will pass parliament with the support of all major parties when it goes to a vote on Thursday, despite the Greens flagging they will oppose sections of the bill. The Greens do not want fossil fuel companies compensated for the price caps.

In relation to this, Shell has suspended its role in a landmark gas supply deal designed to prevent shortfalls on the east coast next year as it assesses the impact of the Albanese government’s plan to cap fossil fuel prices.

‘Abysmal’ number of Australian banks or super funds have policies to mitigate environmental risks: report
Australia’s major banks and superannuation funds are failing to properly assess the damage their investments and financial decisions do to nature or set targets to reverse that damage, according to new analysis. How businesses manage nature-related risk is one of the major items under negotiation at a global conference in Montreal where countries are trying to settle a new international agreement for nature. Countries at the Cop15 biodiversity conference are preparing to vote on a global target that would require businesses and financial institutions to report on how dependent their supply chains and portfolios are on nature, as well as the impact they have on nature.

Energy relief bill to face contest in parliament, Albanese confident it will be passed
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is confident his government's energy relief package will pass parliament with the support of all major parties when it goes to a vote on Thursday, despite the Greens flagging they will oppose sections of the bill. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is confident his government's energy relief package will pass parliament with the support of all major parties when it goes to a vote on Thursday, despite the Greens flagging they will oppose sections of the bill. The Greens do not want fossil fuel companies compensated for the price caps.

East coast gas supply pact at risk as price controls loom
Global energy supermajor Shell has suspended its role in a landmark gas supply deal designed to prevent shortfalls on the east coast next year as it assesses the impact of the Albanese government’s plan to cap fossil fuel prices.

Saddler to supercharger: Tenterfield’s Tesla site sparks local debate on EVs
The network of electric vehicle (EV) ‘supercharging’ stations in rural New South Wales is expanding, with a multibay site about to open in the New England town immortalised in the Peter Allen song, Tenterfield Saddler. Yet high diesel costs, anti-renewables sentiment, EV affordability, and calls for more local parking in Tenterfield, all suggest the era of the country fuel stop isn’t about to disappear quietly.

Researchers discover 'true giant wombat' megafauna species fossil in central Queensland
Scientists have concluded a seven-year study into 130-kilogram giant wombats — comparable in size to "really large sheep" — that lived in Central Queensland about 80,000 years ago. A team led by Griffith University's Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution excavated and studied the extinct megafauna species after a skull was found at Johannsen’s Cave north of Rockhampton in the early 2000s. Ramsayia magna are closely related to modern wombats but were much larger.