Historic CO2 emissions levels: Everything to know about the environment this week

The aviation industry needs to take "urgent action" to align with the world's climate goal, including curtailing growth in air travel and rapidly scaling up use of sustainable aviation fuels, a report on Thursday said. Climate Action 100+, the world’s largest grouping of investors pushing for corporates to move faster on cutting emissions, said the actions were needed to help limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial norms.

Thousands of Australians returned to their homes on Thursday after torrential rains eased and floodwaters receded as authorities ramped up clean-up efforts and unveiled new support packages for residents who lost their homes. Relentless rains since late last month burst river banks across Australia's southeast, submerging homes, farms and bridges, and cutting off entire towns. Twenty-one people have been killed so far, in what was declared on Wednesday a national emergency.

A group of the world's top oil companies, including Saudi Aramco, Shell and Exxon Mobil, said on Tuesday that it has committed to cut fugitive emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, to near zero by 2030. The decision by Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI), which includes 12 of the world's largest oil and gas company follows calls by governments at the Glasgow COP26 climate summit last year to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 2030.

Companies in the United States and elsewhere will voluntarily use new global climate-related disclosures even if making them a mandatory requirement takes longer, the chair of a new standard setter said on Thursday.

The International Sustainability Standards Board was set up in November at the COP26 climate summit to try to give more coherence to disclosures from companies and stop potential "greenwashing" or inflated climate-friendly credentials.

ISSB chair Emmanuel Faber said the Frankfurt-based board's first set of standards would be put to public consultation this month.

ISSB sister body, the International Accounting Standards Board, took over 20 years to persuade 140 countries one-by-one to make its norms mandatory.

"We don't have 25 years to get there, we have a few years," Faber told the London Business School, adding there was an alternative markets-directed pathway.

Farmers in the United States have adopted conservation strategies that have led to gains for climate-friendly agriculture in recent years, but the Department of Agriculture has “more work to do” as it attempts to tackle climate change, according to a new report from the agency.

The findings, released on Thursday, are based on a survey by USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service of farming practices between 2013 and 2016. The report compares those findings to a prior survey that collected data between 2003 and 2006.

"We’re seeing the level of conservation practices go up, we’re making significant gains in terms of the practices that producers are adopting," said Robert Bonnie, USDA Under Secretary for Farm Production and Conservation. "At the same time, there’s still challenges. We’ve got more work to do."

In the decade between the two surveys, farmers implemented more structural practices, like building buffers or wind breaks around fields, which prevent soil erosion and the runoff of fertilizers into waterways.