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As powerful Cyclone Batsirai closed in on eastern Madagascar on Saturday people sought shelter in more secure concrete buildings while others reinforced their roofs with large sandbags. Batsirai is expected to lash the eastern parts of the cyclone-prone Indian ocean island with powerful winds and torrential rains on Saturday. The Meteo-France weather service warned of winds of up to 260 kilometres per hour (162 miles per hour) and waves as high as 15 metres (50 […]
January of this year was the hottest month in the Colombian Amazon in a decade, leading to an increase in forest fires in the southeastern region and very likely impacting air quality in the capital Bogota, according to an Environment Ministry report seen by AFP Friday. It said the month of January recorded the “highest hot spot values in the last 10 years” in the Colombian Amazon. The phenomenon occurs, the ministry said, when the […]
by Daniel ARONSSOHN Agence France-Presse BRUSSELS, Belgium (AFP) – The European Commission on Wednesday defied angry dissent from EU governments and protests from green campaigners to give a sustainable finance label to investments in both gas and nuclear power. Austria warned it will go to court to try to halt the measure, while Germany — which backed the inclusion of gas — called extending the labelling to nuclear “unacceptable”. Critics of nuclear energy point to […]
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AFP) – Extreme weather events such as heatwaves and floods have cost Europe almost 510 billion euros and around 142,000 lives over the past 40 years, according to a new report published Thursday. In its study, the European Environment Agency (EEA) called for continued adaptation measures at both individual and state level. A small number of extreme events, about three percent of the total, were alone responsible for about 60 percent of 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 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 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 […]
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 Santiago PIEDRA SILVA QUITO, Ecuador (AFP) — The heaviest flooding to hit Ecuador in two decades has killed at least 22 people in Quito, inundating homes, swamping cars and sweeping away athletes and spectators on a sports field, officials said Tuesday. Twenty people are missing and 47 injured, Ecuador’s SNGRE emergency service said on Twitter. Video footage showed torrents of water carrying stones, mud and debris down streets in the Ecuadoran capital, as rescuers […]
QUITO, Ecuador (AFP) – At least 11 people were killed and 32 injured on Monday after the heaviest flooding to hit Ecuador in nearly two decades triggered a massive landslide in capital Quito, authorities said. Torrents of water carrying stones and mud swept down an avenue in the Ecuadorian city, washing away cars and flooding houses and streets, according to images released by the emergency services. The torrential downpour caused a water collection structure to […]
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 […]
by Kelly MACNAMARA Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) – Climate change is on track to ramp up the annual cost of US flood damage more than 25 percent by 2050, according to new research Monday that warns disadvantaged communities will likely bear the brunt of the financial burden. The study published in the journal Nature Climate Change used new flood models to map out the present and future impact of sea level rise, tropical cyclones and […]
