Environment

Southern EU leaders target climate change at Greek summit

ATHENS, Greece (AFP) – Greece is hosting a summit of southern EU leaders on Friday that will focus on climate change and “security challenges” including migration and the Afghan crisis. Greek government spokesman Yiannis Economou said the one-day meeting, with EU chief Ursula von der Leyen in attendance, will address issues “jeopardising safety and stability in the Mediterranean”. The agenda includes migration and the situation in Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover but Economou said Athens was placing […]

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Giant sequoias wrapped in foil to protect from US forest fires

LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) — The world’s biggest trees were being wrapped in fire-proof blankets Thursday in an effort to protect them from huge blazes tearing through the drought-stricken western United States. A grove of ancient sequoias, including the 275-foot (83-meter) General Sherman Tree — the largest in the world — were getting aluminum cladding to fend off the flames. Firefighters were also clearing brush and pre-positioning engines among the 2,000 ancient trees in […]

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Climate activists heckle Germany’s Laschet at election rally

BREMEN, Germany (AFP) – Climate activists on Thursday heckled Armin Laschet, the conservative candidate seeking to replace Chancellor Angela Merkel, disrupting a rally just over a week before general elections. Holding posters reading “the climate crisis kills” and “our lives in your hands”, the militants booed Laschet as he sought to address the gathering in the northern city of Bremen. “We came from all over Germany. We intend to carry out this kind of action at […]

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Faroe Islands to re-evaluate dolphin-hunting after outcry

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AFP) – The Faroe Islands, an autonomous territory of Denmark, said Thursday it would take another look at the practice of dolphin-hunting after the slaughter of more than 1,400 of the mammals earlier this week sparked an outcry. “The government has decided to start an evaluation of the regulations on the catching of Atlantic white-sided dolphins,” the northern archipelago’s prime minister, Bardur a Steig Nielsen, said in a statement. “Although these hunts are considered […]

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World leaders will hold closed-door climate meet at UN

UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP) – UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will host a closed-door meeting of world leaders Monday on the sidelines of the General Assembly in New York to boost climate commitments. The roundtable comes less than six weeks before a major United Nations climate meeting, COP26, in Glasgow, aimed at ensuring the world meets its goal of holding century-end warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. “UNGA is the […]

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UNESCO announces 20 new biospheres in 21 countries

ABUJA, Nigeria (AFP) – UNESCO on Wednesday added 20 new sites in 21 countries to its global network of biosphere reserves, the UN agency’s designation for specially protected regions. New biosphere reserves are designated each year to promote sustainable development, protect terrestrial, marine and coastal ecosystems and encourage conservation. For the first time, Lesotho, Libya and Saudi Arabia joined the list. In Lesotho, the Matseng Biosphere Reserve covers an area of 112,033 hectares in the northern […]

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Tunis residents decry beaches too polluted for swimming

by Akim Rezgui with Francoise Kadri in Tunis EZZAHRA, Tunisia (AFP) — Tahar Jaouebi looks out from a beach south of Tunis remembering the 1990s, when the water was still clean enough to bathe in. “Now I can’t swim any more, and neither can my son,” he says. Jaouebi, 47, is one of hundreds of protesters who formed a human chain over the weekend to highlight the pollution plaguing the coast south of the Tunisian […]

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La Niña climate cycle may reemerge in 2021: UN

  GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — The weather phenomenon La Niña could resurface before the end of 2021, after petering out four months ago, the UN said Thursday, predicting above-average temperatures despite its generally cooling influence. The World Meteorological Organization said that there was now a 40-percent chance that La Niña, which last held the globe in its clutches between August 2020 and May, would reappear again by year-end. “But despite La Niña’s cooling influence, temperatures […]

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Solar could comprise almost half US power by 2050, govt says

NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — Solar power could account for nearly half of the United States’ electricity supply by the middle of the century, according to a government study released Wednesday. The report, released by the Department of Energy, said solar could account for much as 40 percent of the power supply by 2035 and 45 percent by 2050, up from its current level of just three percent. However reaching this level would require […]

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On thin ice: Near North Pole, a warning on climate change

by Ekaterina ANISIMOVA A massive icebreaker cuts its way through the frozen waters of the Arctic Ocean, clearing a path to the North Pole, all white as far as the eye can see. But even here, the impact of climate change can be felt. Dmitry Lobusov has seen it. For 13 years he has captained the “50 Let Pobedy” (“50 Years of Victory”), part of a growing fleet of icebreakers that Russia is using to […]

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Donkey milk soap soaking up fans in Jordan

by Mussa Hattar MADABA, Jordan (AFP) — Friends and family initially mocked one Jordanian family’s new venture making soap from donkey milk. But now, a year on, the company is cleaning up as customers bray for more. Atan Donkey Milk Soaps produces 100 percent natural soaps from its farm in Madaba, 35 kilometres (21 miles) southwest of Amman, where it keeps 12 donkeys, and a small manufacturing workshop in the Jordanian capital. Although other regions […]

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Merkel’s record mixed as she takes wheel at last IAA show

by Sophie MAKRIS Agence France-Presse BERLIN, Germany (AFP) – No German leader’s diary would be complete without a visit to the venerable IAA motor show, which welcomes Angela Merkel on Tuesday for the last time in her chancellorship. But the biennial celebration of all things auto-related is mired in controversy this year as Germany struggles to adapt its flagship industry to the electric and digital revolution. Merkel, who is quitting politics after an election on […]

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