In today’s edition:

⚡️ Green Batteries in Europe

🚜 Labri-culture’s on the up

🌳 EU nature plans on ice

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⚡️ Energy (1-minute read)

EU Legislation give green batteries a boost

Batteries: The EU parliament approved on Wednesday new rules to make batteries more durable, sustainable, and better performing. The rules set out targets for EU countries to collect 70% of used batteries by 2030 (Up from 45% currently), as well as to report on the emissions generated in production. They also will enforce an obligation to use minimum recycled cobalt, lithium, nickel and lead in 8 years' time.

Importance: Europe’s battery demand is set to soar this decade, spurred by the 30 million electric vehicles the EU says its citizens will drive by 2030. The laws seek to ensure demand is met sustainability, with greater transparency over supply chains while also balancing challenges of critical raw materials shortages.

🚜 AgriTech (1-minute read)

World’s largest meat processor starts building lab-grown meat factory

Brazil giant JBS has started construction in Spain of its first commercial-scale plant to produce lab-grown meat. The lab-grown meat plant, which produces cultured meat from a sample of cells collected from livestock, will be the largest in the world (per JBS). The new plant puts JBS in a unique position to lead innovation within the cultivated meat market, which, according to McKinsey, could reach $25 billion by 2030.

A climate win? JBS’s lab-grown meat will require less land and water than its traditional beef products, and these environmental benefits provide a powerful incentive to continue expanding “labri-culture”. However, a study by Oxford University found that unless lab-grown meat production can transition to being powered by renewable energy, it won’t provide a cure-all for the detrimental climate impacts of conventional animal-protein production.

🌳 Nature (1-minute read)

Key EU nature vote put on hold

What’s happened: The European parliament were forced to delay a highly charged vote on the Nature Restoration Law on Thursday after running out of time to go through more than 2,000 proposed amendments. Many nations supported heavy revisions to allow national governments more leeway in applying the reforms due to the potential impact on food prices, farmers and fishermen.

The details: The Nature Restoration Law was initially envisaged by the commission to protect and restore landscapes in Europe that had been degraded through years of pollution or heavy agriculture. It should also ensure that the bloc meets its international commitments, agreed at the COP15 biodiversity conference last year, to restore and conserve 30% of the world’s ecosystems.

What changed: The commission’s original proposal that countries should restore 30% each of six different kinds of habitat — including wetlands and forests — by 2030 has been reduced to a target of 30% across all ecosystems. To placate densely populated countries such as the Netherlands, countries would no longer need to prevent healthy habitats from deteriorating but rather “endeavour to put in place, where possible”, the necessary measures.

💭 Little Bytes

Quote: “Climate change is not a North versus South issue. It is a tidal wave that does not discriminate. The only way we can avoid being swallowed by it is by investing in climate action.” UN’s executive secretary for climate change, Simon Stiell.

Stat: Global surface air temperatures crossed the crucial 1.5C warming threshold at the start of June, as the world’s oceans hit record-high temperatures for two months running.

Watch: The Indian startup using plastic waste to make bricks

🗞 In other news…

• EU countries strike a deal that significantly increases renewable energy targets, requiring 42.5% of EU energy to be renewable by 2030, replacing the bloc's current 32% target for that date.

• The asset management arm of Australian bank Macquarie Group Limited (MQG.AX) has bought a majority stake in waste management firm Coastal Waste & Recycling, the bank said on Tuesday.

• the Global Environment Facility’s governing body will consider a record $1.4 billion work program and set the contours of a new Global Biodiversity Framework Fund, speeding up international efforts to confront species loss and related crises.

• Researchers in Finland have developed Flying Aero-robots, which is a microscopic, lightweight, skeleton-free nanorobots designed to pollinate areas where there are no insect pollinators.

• Glastonbury organisers have confirmed that a wind turbine has been erected on the site as a way of producing renewable energy for food outlets to reduce the festival’s environmental footprint.

• Switzerland passed a law to cut fossil fuel use and reach zero emissions by 2050 following a fractious referendum that tested the strength of green politics in one of the world’s wealthiest countries.

• The rapidly melting glaciers in Asia’s Hindu Kush Himalayan regions, home to the world’s highest mountains, threaten the lives and livelihoods of as many as 2 billion people downstream.

🎣 Gone Phishing

Three of these stories are true, one we've made up. Guess which:

• University morgue manager charged with trafficking human remains

• Brazilian man smashes the 24-hour tree-planting challenge record

• Woman declared dead knocks on own coffin during the wake

• Korean convenience shop selling gold bars in vending machines

🌞 Climate meme of the week

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