Tootfinder

There's a mysterious 'carbon sink' in the hinterlands of the South Island... absorbing more carbon than expected... I'm following this research with interest. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/564407…

Most carbon taxes are not designed to lower carbon emissions, study finds #carbon

Most carbon taxes are not designed to lower carbon emissions, study finds
Carbon taxes are widely seen as one of the most effective policy options for reducing emissions. However, the main rationale behind initially low carbon taxes is often not to reduce emissions but to generate tax revenues or meet international expectations, according to a study published in One Earth. As noted by the authors, the observations cast doubt on whether carbon taxes should always be viewed as climate policies.

The new party The Left by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, despite not even having an official name yet, is currently polling at 15%, and hence even with Labour.
This is an incredible feat and I wish best of luck to the party and its success!

Amazon's 2024 sustainability report says it emitted 68.25M metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, up 6% from 2023 and the first rise in three years (Matt Day/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-16/a…

Amazon’s (AMZN) Carbon Emissions Climbed 6% in 2024 on Data Center Buildout
Amazon.com Inc.’s carbon emissions rose for the first time in three years in 2024, driven by data center construction and fuel consumption by its delivery providers.

Moving Beyond Marginal Carbon Intensity: A Poor Metric for Both Carbon Accounting and Grid Flexibility
Philipp Wiesner, Odej Kao
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.11377

Moving Beyond Marginal Carbon Intensity: A Poor Metric for Both Carbon Accounting and Grid Flexibility
Marginal Carbon Intensity (MCI) has been promoted as an effective metric for carbon-aware computing. Although it is already considered as impractical for carbon accounting purposes, many still view it as valuable when optimizing for grid flexibility by incentivizing electricity usage during curtailment periods. In this statement paper, we argue that MCI is neither reliable nor actionable for either purpose. We outline its fundamental limitations, including non-observability, reliance on opaque …

"Analysis: UK foreign aid for nature hits £800m record due to cash for carbon credits"
#UK #UnitedKingdom #Environment

Analysis: UK foreign aid for nature hits £800m record due to cash for carbon credits - Carbon Brief
The UK’s climate-aid spending on “nature protection and restoration” reached record levels of nearly £800m last year, according to government figures

J'utilise les LLMs comme des amis experts et jamais comme des écrivains fantômes !
#LLM

💔 Climate-protecting carbon sinks of EU forests are declining
#forests

Climate-protecting carbon sinks of EU forests are declining
Forests cover about 40% of the EU's land area. Between 1990 and 2022, they absorbed around 10% of the continent's man-made carbon emissions. However, the carbon dioxide absorption capacity of forests, also known as carbon sinks, is becoming increasingly weaker.

Quantifying the Energy Consumption and Carbon Emissions of LLM Inference via Simulations
Miray \"Ozcan, Philipp Wiesner, Philipp Wei{\ss}, Odej Kao
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.11417

Quantifying the Energy Consumption and Carbon Emissions of LLM Inference via Simulations
The environmental impact of Large Language Models (LLMs) is rising significantly, with inference now accounting for more than half of their total lifecycle carbon emissions. However, existing simulation frameworks, which are increasingly used to determine efficient LLM deployments, lack any concept of power and, therefore, cannot accurately estimate inference-related emissions. We present a simulation framework to assess the energy and carbon implications of LLM inference under varying deployme…