Environment

Ethiopia starts generating power at Nile mega-dam

by Robbie Corey-Boulet gence France-Presse GUBA, Ethiopia (AFP) – Ethiopia began generating electricity from its mega-dam on the Blue Nile on Sunday, a milestone in the controversial multi-billion dollar project. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, accompanied by high-ranking officials, toured the power station and pressed a series of buttons on an electronic screen, a move that officials said initiated production. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is set to be the largest hydroelectric scheme in Africa but […]

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Mexico’s nature defenders put lives on line

by Jennifer Gonzalez Covarrubias Agence France-Presse OCAMPO, Mexico (AFP) – In the fir forests of Mexico, one of the world’s most dangerous countries for environmentalists, the legacy of butterfly defender Homero Gomez lives on two years after his suspected murder. Despite the dangers of standing up to illegal loggers, fellow conservationists continue Gomez’s work guarding the El Rosario monarch butterfly sanctuary in Mexico’s central highlands. The agricultural engineer dedicated much of his life to protecting […]

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Australia’s largest coal-fired power plant to close

by Andrew BEATTY Agence France-Presse SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) – Australia’s largest coal-fired power plant will shut in 2025 — several years sooner than planned — operators announced Thursday, saying the facility is no longer viable given the low cost of renewables. Origin Energy told investors the “influx of renewables” was “undermining the economics” of the vast decades-old Eraring plant just north of Sydney. Australia is one of the world’s largest coal producers and the climate […]

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Bananas to fish scales: fashion’s hunt for eco-materials

by Eric RANDOLPH Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) – Sneakers made from banana or pineapple leaves, dresses from nettles or fish scales — the search for sustainable materials has taken the fashion industry to some wild places. Experts warn these new textiles are not a quick fix for fashion’s enormous problems with over-consumption and waste, but may be a necessary step in developing cleaner technologies. “You could possibly eat the final product,” said Hannes Schoenegger, […]

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Morocco announces $1 billion drought relief plan

RABAT, Morocco (AFP) – Morocco said Wednesday it will launch a nearly $1 billion aid programme to help its agriculture industry, which has been hit hard by a particularly acute drought in recent years. The emergency plan “aims to mitigate the effects of delay in rainfall, to alleviate the impact on agricultural activity and to provide assistance to the farmers and livestock breeders affected”, the royal palace said in a statement. The plan will cost […]

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China govt to help run coal power plants at full capacity

BEIJING, China (AFP) – China will help its coal-fired power plants run at full capacity, the government has announced, raising further alarm about the fate of Beijing’s climate pledges. Swathes of the world’s second-biggest economy were paralysed last year because of power shortages, partly caused by a drop in coal supply as global prices of the fossil fuel soared. China is the world’s biggest emitter of the greenhouse gases responsible for climate change, and has pledged […]

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DR Congo flouting forest protection deal: Greenpeace

KINSHASA, DR Congo (AFP) – Environmental group Greenpeace on Tuesday said the Democratic Republic of Congo has failed to respect a multi-million-dollar agreement signed with Britain last year to finance protecting its ecologically vital forests. The DRC and Britain approved funds worth $500 million as part of the Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI) two months ago in Glasgow, which hosted the COP26 climate change conference. Greenpeace said Congo’s environment ministry failed to publish before the […]

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Agreement reached on transfer of oil from abandoned tanker off Yemen: UN

UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP) – An ‘agreement in principle’ has been reached to transfer the toxic cargo from a rusting oil tanker abandoned off the coast of war-torn Yemen to another ship, the UN said Tuesday. Experts warn of the risk of a major environmental disaster posed by the 45-year-old FSO Safer, moored since 2015 off Yemen’s western port of Hodeida. An oil spill could destroy ecosystems in the Red Sea, shut down the […]

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Faroe Islands begin review of controversial dolphin hunt

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AFP) – The Faroe Islands, a Danish autonomous territory, said Tuesday it had begun discussions about the future of its controversial dolphin hunt, with a decision expected in the coming weeks. A petition with almost 1.3 million signatures calling for a ban on the traditional hunt was submitted to the Faroese government on Monday, the prime minister’s office and whale conservation groups told AFP. At a meeting on Tuesday in Torshavn, the government […]

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Nord Stream 2 ‘in all our interests’: France’s Engie

PARIS, France (AFP) – French energy giant Engie warned Tuesday that a conflict between Russia and Ukraine would be “bad news” for Europe’s gas supplies and defended the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline as being “in all our interests”. Engie is one of five European partners in the massive Russian pipeline running under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany. The pipeline, which has been completed but is still awaiting regulatory approval in Germany, has […]

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Sea level projected to rise a foot on US coasts by 2050

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The US coastline is expected to experience up to a foot (30 centimeters) of sea-level rise by the year 2050 because of climate change, making damaging floods far more common than today, a US government study said Tuesday. The Sea Level Rise Technical Report combined tide gauge and satellite observations with climate modeling from the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to make projections for the next 100 years. […]

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Plastic, chemical pollution beyond planet’s safe limit: study

by Marc PRÉEL Agence France-Presse STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AFP) – The torrent of man-made chemical and plastic waste worldwide has massively exceeded limits safe for humanity or the planet, and production caps are urgently needed, scientists have concluded for the first time. There are an estimated 350,000 different manufactured chemicals on the market and large volumes of them end up in the environment. “The impacts that we’re starting to see today are large enough to be […]

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