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RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AFP) – Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon set a new record for January just three weeks into the year, according to data released Wednesday, a worrying sign of the surging destruction of the world’s biggest rainforest. Nearly 360 square kilometers (140 square miles) of forest cover — an area more than six times the size of Manhattan — were destroyed in the Brazilian Amazon from January 1 to January 21, said […]
QUITO, Ecuador (AFP) – An oil spill caused by a ruptured pipeline in Ecuador’s Amazon region leaked almost 6,300 barrels into an environmental reserve, according to information provided Wednesday by the company that owns the conduit. The firm OCP said it had “collected and reinjected 5,300 barrels of crude into the system” since the accident on Friday when heavy rains caused a boulder to fall on the pipeline in a mountainous region. OCP said the […]
VIENNA, Austria (AFP) – Austria will challenge a European Commission decision to give a sustainable finance label to investments in nuclear power, the environment minister said Wednesday. The European Commission defied protests from green campaigners and dissent in its own ranks to give a sustainable finance label to investments in both gas and nuclear power on Wednesday. The EU argues that both have a role to play as cleaner power sources during the transition to […]
by Peter Martell Agence France-Presse VARISEIA, Cyprus (AFP) – In a long-abandoned village in the UN buffer zone that divides Cyprus, an endangered curly-horned wild sheep offers hope not only for wildlife but that bitter ethnic divisions might slowly be healed. The mouflon, a majestic breed endemic to the Mediterranean island, is one of many species flourishing in the no-man’s-land created when inter-communal strife sliced Cyprus in two in the 1960s. “Without human influence, the […]
by Alex PIGMAN Agence France-Presse BRUSSELS, Belgium (AFP) – The EU will face the fury of opponents to nuclear and gas energy on Wednesday when it proposes new criteria for a “green label” for investment projects intended to help fight climate change. The fight over the European Union’s classification of power sources is the latest dust-up in discussions between the 27 member states on how to achieve a net zero-carbon economy by 2050. Brussels had […]
by Michael O’HAGAN Agence France-Presse KAMPALA, Uganda (AFP) – Chinese and French oil giants finally sealed a $10-billion deal Tuesday to unlock Uganda’s energy resources and build a vast regional oil pipeline, a mega-project that has incensed environmental groups. The so-called Final Investment Decision should pave the way for the export of millions of barrels of black gold that was first discovered in 2006 in Uganda, one of the world’s most biodiverse regions. The decision […]
by Marlowe HOOD Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) – Coral reefs that anchor a quarter of marine wildlife and the livelihoods of more than half-a-billion people will most likely be wiped out even if global warming is capped within Paris climate goals, researchers said Tuesday. An average increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels would see more than 99 percent of the world’s coral reefs unable to recover from ever more frequent marine heat […]
by Samir Tounsi Agence France-Presse MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AFP) – Relations between the United States and Mexico are under strain as the Mexican government pushes ahead with planned energy sector reforms that have alarmed Washington and foreign investors. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador wants to strengthen the state-owned electricity provider and roll back the effects of liberalization under previous governments that he says favored private companies. That has prompted warnings that Mexico is in danger […]
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AFP) – Greenland’s immense ice sheet has lost enough ice in the past 20 years to submerge the entire United States in half a metre of water, according to data released this week by Danish researchers. The climate is warming faster in the Arctic than anywhere else on the planet and melting ice from Greenland is now the main factor in the rise in the Earth’s oceans, according to NASA. Since measurements began […]
by Robin MILLARD Agence France-Presse GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) – The World Health Organization warned Tuesday that the vast amount of waste produced in tackling the Covid-19 pandemic posed a threat to human and environmental health. The tens of thousands of tonnes of extra medical waste had put a huge strain on healthcare waste management systems, the WHO said in a report. The extra waste is “threatening human and environmental health and exposing a dire need […]
WASHINGTON, D.C., United States (AFP) – The US government announced Monday it wants to revive a regulation limiting air emissions of mercury and other toxic substances from fossil fuel-fired power plants that had been undermined by the previous administration. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) “is proposing to reaffirm that it is appropriate and necessary to regulate emissions of hazardous air pollutants from coal- and oil-fired power plants,” the agency said in a statement. In May […]
QUITO, Ecuador (AFP) – An oil spill in eastern Ecuador has reached a nature reserve and polluted a river that supplies water to indigenous communities, the country’s environmental ministry said Monday. Nearly two hectares (five acres) of a protected area of the Cayambe-Coca national park have been contaminated, as well as the Coca river — one of the biggest in the Ecuadoran Amazon, the ministry said in a statement. The park of some 400,000 hectares […]
