Environment

The women guarding India’s rainforest ‘refugees’

by Laurence THOMANN Agence France-Presse WAYANAD, India (AFP) – As deforestation and climate change ravage India’s UNESCO heritage-listed Western Ghats mountain range, an all-female rainforest force is battling to protect one of the area’s last enclaves of biodiversity. The region is home to at least 325 globally threatened flora, fauna, bird, amphibian, reptile and fish species but the International Union for the Conservation of Nature has ranked its outlook as a “significant concern”. But at […]

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Poland’s ‘priceless’ primeval forest pits environmentalists against state

by Bernard OSSER Agence France-Presse TEREMISKI, Poland (AFP) – Stopping by a giant oak tree in Europe’s largest surviving primeval forest, environmental journalist Adam Wajrak pauses in admiration. “The trees here were born when the United States did not exist yet, when electricity had not been invented,” said the journalist, who moved to a village in the vast Bialowieza forest 25 years ago. “It’s shocking that we protect historical monuments that are 400 years old […]

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Major methane deal at climate summit — without China

by Patrick GALEY and Jitendra JOSH Agence France-Presse GLASGOW, United Kingdom (AFP) – Countries on Tuesday issued a landmark pledge to slash their methane emissions this decade, with US President Joe Biden chiding China’s leader for skipping the make-or-break COP26 climate summit. Nearly one hundred nations joined a United States and European Union initiative to cut emissions of methane — a potent greenhouse gas — by at least 30 percent this decade, with China among […]

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Extreme Greenland ice melt raised global flood risk: study

by Patrick GALEY Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) – The 3.5 trillion tonnes of Greenland’s ice sheet that has melted over the past decade has raised global sea levels by one centimetre and is heightening worldwide flood risks, new research showed on Monday. The ice sheet atop the world’s largest island contains enough frozen water to lift oceans some six metres (20 feet) globally, and extreme melting events there have been increasing in frequency for […]

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COP26 leaders vow new drive to save forests, pledge to end deforestation by 2030

by Jitendra JOSHI / Patrick GALEY Agence France Presse GLASGOW, United Kingdom (AFP) — World leaders will conclude a two-day climate summit on Tuesday with a multibillion-dollar pledge to end deforestation by 2030 — a date too far away for campaigners who want action sooner to save the planet’s lungs. The pledge was to be issued at the UN’s COP26 conference, which will continue for another fortnight to try to craft national plans to forestall […]

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Climate change main cause of fires in US west: study

LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) — Climate change caused overwhelmingly by human activity is the primary source of the unprecedented forest fires regularly ravaging the western United States, according to a study published Monday. Fires destroyed an average of 13,500 square kilometers (5,200 square miles) per year in the American west between 2001 and 2018 — twice as much as between 1984-2000. “It’s happened so much faster than we previously anticipated,” Rong Fu, who led […]

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Madagascar: Severe drought could spur world’s first climate change famine

21 October 2021 More than one million people in southern Madagascar are struggling to get enough to eat, due to what could become the first famine caused by climate change, according to the World Food Programme (WFP). The region has been hit hard by successive years of severe drought, forcing families in rural communities to resort to desperate measures just to survive. Madagascar, the fourth largest island in the world, has a unique ecosystem which includes animals and plants found […]

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Drought to downpour: California weather whiplash is climate change sentinel

  by Paula RAMON Agence France Presse LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) — It had been completely dry in Sacramento for six months. Then the heavens opened and a record-breaking amount of rain fell in one day. Such extreme shifts are becoming more frequent in California and are a harbinger of what is to come for the rest of a warming planet, scientists say. “California is a sentinel state. It’s like a canary in a […]

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Gas giants: Can we stop cows from emitting so much methane?

  by Myriam LEMETAYER Agence France Presse That cow may look peaceful and harmless, munching on some grass in a verdant pasture. But don’t be fooled — it is emitting methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas contributing to runaway global climate change. Agriculture is responsible for 12 percent of global man-made greenhouse gas emissions, much of it due to methane, the second most warming gas after carbon dioxide. Methane is around 25 times more potent […]

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No tilling, no chemicals in S.African farmer’s revolution

by Linda Givetash and Griffin Shea in Johannesburg Agence France-Presse BALFOR, South Africa (AFP) – It’s spring in South Africa, and Danie Bester’s tillers are rusting in a corner of his farm. Freshly-turned earth stretches for miles on other farms as his neighbours prepare their fields. “I’m still playing golf,” said 37-year-old Bester. He might sound like Aesop’s grasshopper, wasting away the spring days while the ants next door work. But he’s actually made a […]

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Activist fund says Royal Dutch Shell should break itself up

NEW YORK, United States (AFP) – A leading activist investor called Wednesday for Royal Dutch Shell to break itself up, bolster its low-carbon investment and return more cash to shareholders. Bemoaning how the Anglo-Dutch giant’s stock valuation has lagged that of oil industry rivals, activist Daniel Loeb called for a “bold strategy” shift from the oil giant as he announced that he took a stake in the company. “Shell has too many competing stakeholders pushing […]

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India vows to take up ‘climate justice’ combat at COP26

NEW DELHI, India (AFP) – India will be a fighter for “climate justice” at the upcoming COP26 summit, seeking to make rich nations pay for measures to ease rising temperatures, the country’s environment minister said Wednesday. And the world’s third biggest source of greenhouse gases is not yet guaranteeing that it will offer new mitigation efforts at the crucial conference which starts Sunday in Glasgow. India, along with the world’s leading gas emitter China, is […]

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