Environment

Tottenham Spurs aiming to stage world’s first ‘net-zero carbon’ match

LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) – Tottenham are aiming to host the “world’s first net-zero carbon” football match at an elite level when the Premier League team face Chelsea on September 19. Spurs have joined forces with the British government and broadcaster Sky to raise awareness of the dangers of climate change. The London club hope the fixture, branded “GameZero”, will inspire fans to reduce their own carbon footprints. The eco-friendly London derby comes less than […]

Funding needed to tackle life-shortening air pollution: report

by Natalie HANDEL PARIS, France (AFP) — Even as air pollution shaves years off life expectancy, fossil fuel projects get more funding than clean air initiatives, a global report said Tuesday. An annual survey by the Clean Air Fund, which looks into how much money is given to the fight against air pollution by donor governments and philanthropic organisations, found that air quality is low on the list of funding priorities. Less than one percent […]

Crews work to contain oil spill in Gulf after Ida’s passage

WASHINGTON D.C., United States (AFP) – Workers have deployed containment booms and skimmer devices as they attempt to contain a sizable oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico discovered after Hurricane Ida roared through the area, the US Coast Guard said Sunday. The spill is in waters off Port Fourchon, Louisiana — near where Ida made landfall — in a region that is a major hub of the US petrochemical industry. An oil slick now […]

Conservation meet mulls plan to protect 80% of Amazon

by Marlowe HOOD Agence France-Presse MARSEILLE, France (AFP) – Should 80 percent of the Amazon be declared a protected area by 2025? The world’s top conservation body is on Sunday poised to decide whether its 1,400 members can vote on this controversial proposal, put forward by indigenous groups. Submitted under an emergency provision to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the measure calls for a “global action plan” to halt rampant deforestation […]

Climate action cannot wait for pandemic to end, medical journals warn

PARIS, France (AFP) — Global warming is already affecting people’s health so much that emergency action on climate change cannot be put on hold while the world deals with the Covid-19 pandemic, medical journals across the globe warned on Monday. “Health is already being harmed by global temperature increases and the destruction of the natural world,” read an editorial published in more than 220 leading journals ahead of the Cop26 climate summit in November. Since […]

Swiss glaciologist bears witness to relentless Alpine glacier melt

by Eloi ROUYER Agence France-Presse SWITZERLAND (AFP) — After hiking for hours across the mountain and a vast expanse of white, Swiss glaciologist Matthias Huss crouches down near the middle of the massive glacier and checks the measurements. Analysis of the data gathered from Aletsch, the largest glacier in the Alps, paints a dire picture of the toll that climate change is taking on the behemoth. Aletsch glacier alone holds about a fifth of the […]

Rapid Arctic warming triggers extreme winter events in US: study

by Lucie AUBOURG Agence France-Presse WASHINGTON D.C., United States (AFP) — Rapid warming of the Arctic is likely a key driver of extreme winter weather in the United States, according to a new study that addresses a longstanding apparent contradiction in climate science and could explain events like February’s cold snap in Texas. The paper, published in the journal Science, used observational data and modeling to establish a link between planetary warming linked to human […]

Colombian photographer documents world’s largest variety of butterflies

by Hector Velasco JARDIN, Colombia (AFP) — Like the more than 3,000 species of butterflies in Colombia, agronomist Juan Guillermo Jaramillo underwent his own metamorphosis several years ago, as his passion for photographing nature took an unexpected twist. The 65-year-old, who used to run an animal feed business, originally took photographs of birds, but he is now a key figure in the world of Colombian butterflies. Jaramillo is the co-author of an inventory that led […]

Climate and weather related disasters surge five-fold over 50 years, but early warnings save lives – WMO report

  Climate change and increasingly extreme weather events, have caused a surge in natural disasters over the past 50 years disproportionately impacting poorer countries, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) said on Wednesday. According to the agencies’ Atlas of Mortality and Economic Losses from Weather, Climate and Water Extremes, from 1970 to 2019, these natural hazards accounted for 50 per cent of all disasters, 45 per cent of […]

Weather, climate disasters surge fivefold in 50 years: UN

  by Nina LARSON Agence France Presse Weather-related disasters have skyrocketed over the past half-century, causing far more damage even as better warning systems have meant fewer deaths, the UN said Wednesday. A report from the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) examined mortality and economic losses from weather, climate and water extremes between 1970 and 2019. It found that such disasters have increased fivefold during that period, driven largely by a warming planet, and warned […]

Sri Lanka reports rare birth of elephant twins

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AFP) — Sri Lanka’s main elephant orphanage recorded a rare twin birth Tuesday as a 25-year-old named Surangi delivered healthy male calves. They are the first elephant twins born in captivity in Sri Lanka since 1941, according to elephant expert Jayantha Jayewardene. “Both the calves and the mother are doing fine,” Renuka Bandaranaike, head of the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage, told AFP. “The babies are relatively small, but they are healthy.” She said […]

Drought diplomacy helps boost Israel-Jordan ties

by Ben Simon JERUSALEM, Undefined (AFP) — As scientific warnings of dire climate change-induced drought grow, many in Israel and Jordan cast worried eyes at the river running between them and the critical but limited resources they share. This month the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change showed unequivocally that the climate is changing faster than previously feared, heaping pressure on finite water supplies even as demands grow greater than ever before. But experts say […]