Breaking News, Latest Philippines Headlines, World, Entertainment, Politics, Weather & Video News
by Noe LEIVA Agence France-Presse CEDEÑO, Honduras (AFP) — The coastline of Cedeno, a fishing village in southern Honduras, looks like it was hit by an earthquake. Houses, businesses and clubs stand in ruins. Forsaken. But it was not a quake. Nor a tsunami. A much slower, but equally destructive force is at work in Cedeno and other villages on the Pacific Gulf of Fonseca: sea level rise. The creeping ocean has claimed ever more […]
Geneva, Switzerland | AFP | by Robin MILLARD An exceptionally long La Nina weather phenomenon that intensified drought and flooding is finally ending, the United Nations said Wednesday — but what comes next might bring its own problems. The outgoing La Nina phenomenon, a cooling of surface temperatures that can have a widespread impact on global weather conditions, started in September 2020. However, despite La Nina’s cooling effect, both 2021 and 2022 were warmer than […]
UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP) — Earthquakes, floods, storms — the world is not adequately prepared to face increasing disasters, said a report published Tuesday calling for a rethink on global risk management. Since 1990, more than 10,700 disasters have affected over six billion people worldwide, according to data from the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. In 2015, the international community adopted global goals to lower casualties and damage by the year 2030 […]
by Poornima WEERASEKARA Agence France-Presse BEIJING, China (AFP) — China last year approved the largest expansion of coal-fired power plants since 2015, according to a study published Monday, despite its vow to begin phasing down use of the fossil fuel in just three years. The coal power capacity that China began building in 2022 was six times as much as that in the rest of the world combined, the report by the Center for Research […]
Montreal, Canada | AFP | The Rideau Canal Skateway, the world’s largest open-air ice rink and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, will not open this year for the first time in its history because of a mild winter, managers confirmed Friday. “Despite our best efforts, the weather got the best of us for the first time in our history,” the Ottawa facility said on its Twitter account. “We share everyone’s disappointment,” it added in a […]
by Mikhail FLORES Agence France-Presse BARAS, Philippines (AFP) — From her house in a Manila suburb, Rowena Jimenez can’t see the bare mountains around the built-up city. But she feels the impact of deforestation every time her living room floods. Slash-and-burn farming, illegal logging, open-pit mining and development fueled by population growth have stripped the once-densely forested Philippines of much of its trees. In Manila, where more than 13 million people live, low-lying areas are […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — Major industrial and economic centers in China and the United States are among the most vulnerable regions in the world to the increasingly destructive power of climate change-driven weather extremes, according to a comprehensive analysis Monday. The new findings underscore the urgent need for governments to focus on decarbonization and adaptation measures such as flood-proofing — and show the economic fallout from climate change could be grave and widespread. Nine of […]
by Marlowe HOOD Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Planting more trees in urban areas to lower summertime temperatures could decrease deaths directly linked to hot weather and heatwaves by a third, researchers said Wednesday. Modelling found that increasing tree cover to 30 percent would shave off 0.4 degrees Celsius (0.7 degrees Fahrenheit) locally, on average, during hot summer months, they reported in The Lancet. Of the 6,700 premature deaths attributed to higher temperatures in […]
by Peter HUTCHISON Agence France-Presse NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — The idea of New York in wintertime conjures up images of Manhattan’s Times Square and Central Park shrouded in snow. Not this year. No snow Sunday meant the city broke a 50-year record for the latest first snowfall of the season. It is also close to recording its highest number of consecutive days without any measurable flakes. The snowless streak has New Yorkers puzzled, […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — More than one third of the Amazon rainforest may have been degraded by human activity and drought, researchers said Thursday, and action is needed to protect the critically important ecosystem. In a study published in the journal Science, the researchers said the damage done to the forest which spans nine countries is significantly greater than previously known. For the study, they examined the impact of fire, logging, drought and changes […]
Vienna, Austria | AFP | Tuesday 1/24/2023 Evidence is emerging that climate-related disasters are becoming a cause of human trafficking as criminal gangs exploit a growing number of uprooted people, the UN said Tuesday. The continuing war in Ukraine is also another risk factor for increased human trafficking, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in a report. “Climate change is increasing vulnerability to trafficking,” the UNODC report said. “While a systematic […]
Togoru, Fiji (AFP) by Steven TRASK The sea has already swallowed the village graveyard in Togoru, Fiji, and long-time resident Lavenia McGoon is dreading the day it claims her house. She piles old rubber car tyres under the coconut trees that line the beachfront, hoping this makeshift seawall will at least buy some time. The 70-year-old believes climate change, and the creeping ocean, will inevitably force her family to leave. “Nobody can stop it,” she […]
