by Kelly MACNAMARA and Patrick GALEY Agence France-Presse GLASGOW, United Kingdom (AFP) – Tens of thousands of protesters braved rain and wind in Glasgow Saturday as part of worldwide demonstrations against what campaigners say is a failure of crunch UN climate talks to act fast enough to tame global warming. Dozens of events were planned worldwide to demand cuts in fossil fuel use and immediate help for communities already affected by climate change, particularly in […]
Tag: COP26
Chasm opens between COP26 words and climate action
by Patrick GALEY Agence France-Presse GLASGOW, United Kingdom (AFP) – COP26’s first week saw keynote pledges to end deforestation, phase out coal, and mobilise trillions for green investment. But observers say there is a gulf between host Britain’s proclamations and the emissions cuts that must be achieved. Mohamed Adow, director of the Nairobi-based climate think tank Power Shift Africa, told AFP that there had been “two realities” at the global climate conference in Glasgow. “One […]
Mexican president slams COP26 ‘hypocrisy’
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AFP) – Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador Wednesday slammed participants in a major UN climate summit for their “hypocrisy,” accusing them of failing to address the root causes of the crisis and pointing to their use of private jets. The world’s top business and political figures are gathered in Glasgow this week for COP26, which is aimed at forging an ambitious new climate agreement. But Mexico’s leftist leader — also known […]
Bulgaria coal miners brace for ‘disaster’ as phaseout looms
by Rossen BOSSEV Agence France-Presse STARA ZAGORA, Bulgaria (AFP) – Nikolay Dinev, 34, has worked as a coal miner for 12 years but now faces an uncertain future as an EU-wide exit from coal is being discussed at the UN’s COP26 climate conference in Glasgow. “It will be a disaster… The closure is inevitable,” Dinev told AFP on the outskirts of the Maritsa East complex in central Bulgaria. Bulgaria — which joined the EU in […]
Coal workers feel pain of France’s climate goals
by Estelle EMONET Agence France-Presse GARDANNE, France (AFP) – The Gardanne smokestack is the highest in France at 295 metres (975 feet) but the mood at the power station beneath the once-proud chimney has reached an all-time low. Gardanne is one of the last remaining French coal-fired stations. Ever since the government announced the closure of its coal plants three years ago to help meet climate goals, anger and despair has spread across this community of […]
Damaged Amazon rainforest teetering on the brink
by Joshua Howat Berger Agence France-Presse SAO FELIX DO XINGU, Brazil (AFP) – Something is wrong. Holed up in her lab, Brazilian atmospheric chemist Luciana Gatti crunches her numbers again and again, thinking there is a mistake. But the same bleak conclusion keeps popping up on her screen: the Amazon, the world’s biggest rainforest — the “lungs of the Earth,” the “green ocean,” the thing humanity is counting on to inhale our pollution and save us […]
Planet vs people as Panama’s mangroves are turned into coal
by Moises AVILA Agence France-Presse Elieser Rodriguez emerges blackened from the thick smoke of burning pyres slowly transforming the limbs of mangroves into charcoal — a livelihood much maligned by environmental and climate campaigners in Panama. He says he has no other choice for a living. “This is the daily survival of my family, of my children, of my wife,” Rodriguez told AFP in El Espave, a town about 80 kilometers (50 miles) southwest of Panama […]
For Stella McCartney, fashion must ditch leather or die trying
by Jordi ZAMORA Agence France-Presse GLASGOW, United Kingdom (AFP) – The fashion industry must prepare to eliminate waste and take radical stances such as ditching animal leather altogether, said British designer Stella McCartney. In an interview with AFP on the sidelines of the UN climate summit in Glasgow Wednesday, McCartney said that fashion houses must “swap out bad business with good business” for the sake of the planet. “Sadly we are one of the most […]
UK to unveil plan for first ‘net zero’ financial centre
LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) – Finance minister Rishi Sunak is to announce plans to make Britain the world’s first net zero financial services centre by 2050, the Treasury said Tuesday. The chancellor of the exchequer will set out the plans on carbon emissions in a speech at the COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow on Wednesday morning. Sunak will unveil proposals for financial institutions and listed companies that operate primarily in Britain to be required […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]





