Environment

Tripling renewable energy by 2030 ‘ambitious but doable’

By Catherine HOURS PARIS, Nov 30, 2023 (AFP) – Host United Arab Emirates wants nearly 200 nations attending the COP28 climate summit starting Thursday to commit to tripling installed renewable energy capacity worldwide by 2030, a goal experts say is “ambitious but achievable”. If the UN forum sets that target in stone, it could become a key marker of COP28’s success, especially if coupled with a pledge to drawn down fossil fuel use. – Why […]

Climate crises drove 27 mn children into hunger in 2022: charity

NAIROBI, Nov 28, 2023 (AFP) – Extreme weather events in countries vulnerable to climate change drove more than 27 million children into hunger last year, Save the Children said on Tuesday. The figure represented a sharp 135 percent increase over 2021, the UK-based charity said in an analysis ahead of the COP28 climate summit opening in Dubai on Thursday. It said children made up nearly half the 57 million people pushed into crisis levels of […]

Half of Peru’s Andes glacier ice has melted: government

The Peruvian Andes’ mountaintop ice, which represents most of the world’s tropical glaciers, has lost more than half of its area due to climate change, the Ministry of Environment said Thursday. To wit, the glaciers have receded by 1,348 square kilometers (520 square miles) since 1962, according to the latest measurements, the National Institute of Glacier and Ecosystem Research reported. Mount Pastoruri, which at some 5,250 meters (17,200 feet) in the northern Ancash region is […]

Madagascar heatwave rooted in human-caused climate change: study

A prolonged heatwave that hit Madagascar in October would not have occurred without human-caused climate change, a scientific study said on Thursday. Scientists from the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group said the heatwave in the Indian Ocean island, which affected millions of people, “would have been virtually impossible without human-caused climate change”. The study by 13 researchers looked at three variables to investigate the heatwave: the island’s average temperatures over October and the seven-day minimum […]

Ay Karumba: ‘Smelly’ rats plague Australian fishing towns

Plagues of “bold as hell” rats have overrun tropical fishing towns in northern Australia, where residents are clearing piles of “smelly” dead rodents off the beach every morning. The native long-haired rats have been steadily marching towards the coast after a bumper wet season in inland Australia, spreading hundreds of kilometres in their hunt for new crops to nibble on. Now they have reached the gulf towns of Karumba and Normanton in the state of […]

Iguana invasion: Thailand rounds up rogue reptiles

Thailand has captured more than 150 rogue iguanas that were rampaging through the countryside, raiding farms and damaging the local environment, officials said. The lizards are not native to the kingdom, hailing originally from Central and South America, but are increasingly popular as pets in Thailand. Environmental concerns have been raised over the activities of the herbivorous lacertilians, which are thought to be pets that have either escaped or been deliberately released into the wild. […]

Iceland may spray water on lava to save town

Icelandic authorities on Wednesday said they were considering pumping water onto any lava that spews out if a volcanic eruption threatens the evacuated town of Grindavik. Authorities would use the water to cool and divert the flow of lava to protect the fishing port of 4,000 people on Iceland’s southern Reykjanes peninsula. Residents were ordered out on November 11 after magma shifting under the Earth’s crust caused hundreds of earthquakes — a warning of a […]

Toyota ad rapped as ‘irresponsible’ to the environment

LONDON, Nov 22, 2023 (AFP) – Britain’s advertising watchdog on Wednesday said it had banned an advert for a Toyota 4×4 vehicle because it promoted “irresponsible behaviour” towards the environment. The paid-for post on Facebook and poster ad for the Japanese firm’s Hilux sports utility vehicle showed a line of SUVs driving off road in a cloud of dust before joining a tarmacked road. A complaint was made to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) that […]

World’s richest 1% emit as much carbon as bottom two-thirds: report

The richest one percent of the global population are responsible for the same amount of carbon emissions as the world’s poorest two-thirds, or five billion people, according to an analysis published Sunday by the nonprofit Oxfam International. While fighting the climate crisis is a shared challenge, not everyone is equally responsible and government policies must be tailored accordingly, Max Lawson, who co-authored the report, told AFP. “The richer you are, the easier it is to […]

1.5C limit ‘only option’ for saving Earth’s ice and snow

BANGKOK, Nov 16, 2023 (AFP) – Allowing global temperatures to rise two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels will be catastrophic for the world’s ice sheets, glaciers, polar seas and permafrost, a new report warned Thursday. The assessment of the global “cryosphere” — parts of the Earth covered in ice and snow for at least some of the year — urges upcoming climate talks to commit to keeping warming below 1.5C. “Because of what we have […]

UAE inaugurates giant solar plant, two weeks before climate talks

AL DHAFRA, United Arab Emirates, Nov 16, 2023 (AFP) – The United Arab Emirates inaugurated on Thursday one of the world’s biggest solar plants, two weeks before the oil-rich Gulf state hosts UN climate talks. The Al Dhafra plant, south of the capital Abu Dhabi, stretches over 21 square kilometres (eight square miles) of desert, an area about one-fifth the size of Paris. Its rows of photovoltaic panels rotate to follow the sun and are […]

PepsiCo sued by New York state over plastic pollution

New York state sued PepsiCo on Wednesday, pointing to the soda giant’s plastic waste as a scourge of waterways and blasting the company’s “misleading” statements on the environment. The civil suit, filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James in the state Supreme Court, seeks a finding that PepsiCo contributed to a “public nuisance” in the Buffalo River; the imposition of financial penalties and compensatory damages on the company; and an order that PepsiCo cease […]