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Forecast downturn still ‘nowhere near steep enough’ to limit temperature rise to 1.5C, says watchdog

After almost six years of negotiations over the tangle of convoluted rules required to integrate the world’s burgeoning carbon markets – which were first put forward in article 6 of the 2015 Paris climate agreement – negotiators announced they had agreed a common set of tools. These would allow carbon markets to operate globally, and unleash trillions of dollars of green investments through so-called carbon offset programmes.

On Thursday night the Danish government voted in favour of the plans to cancel the country’s next North Sea oil and gas licensing round, 80 years after it first began exploring its hydrocarbon reserves. Denmark’s 55 existing oil and gas platforms, scattered across 20 oil and gas fields, will be allowed to continue extracting fossil fuels but the milestone decision to end the hunt for new reserves in the ageing basin will guarantee an end to Denmark’s fossil fuel production.

The methane emissions leaking from the world’s coalmines could be stoking the global climate crisis at the same rate as the shipping and aviation industries combined.Coalmines are belching millions of tonnes of methane into the atmosphere unchecked, because policymakers have overlooked the rising climate threat, according to new research.