Environment

Environment

Supporters of a global phaseout of fossil fuels must find creative ways to keep the proposal alive, including making it voluntary rather than binding, the UK energy secretary, Ed Miliband, has said in the closing stages of the UN climate talks. As the Cop30 summit in Brazil carried on past the Friday night deadline, the prospect of countries agreeing on the need for a roadmap to a global transition away from fossil fuels looked increasingly dim. A first draft of the potential outcome text from the summit had contained the formulation, but in the updated draft text produced on Friday by the Brazilian presidency it had been excised.

Iran has urgently requested international assistance to combat a devastating wildfire that has been raging for nearly three weeks in the ancient Hyrcanian Forests, which have been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2019. The blaze, which began near the village of Elit in Mazandaran Province on October 31, has defied containment efforts and continues to threaten one of the world's oldest and most biodiverse ecosystems.

Australia's Bureau of Meteorology said Fina, a Category 3 cyclone sitting in the Van Diemen Gulf with wind gusts up to 165 kilometres per hour (102 miles per hour), was forecast to hit the region's remote Tiwi Islands and Cape Hotham on Saturday afternoon. It would then likely pass north of Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory, on Saturday as a severe tropical cyclone.

As the executive director of UPROSE, Brooklyn's oldest Puerto Rican community-based organization, Yeampierre is reshaping what climate action looks like when it's rooted in community, culture, and collective care. UPROSE's mission is simple yet powerful: to build a just, sustainable future by equipping frontline communities to lead the solutions. From community-owned solar to climate education and youth leadership programs, the organization is proving that the most effective climate solutions are those designed by the people most affected.

In 1995, when the first conference of the parties (Cop) of the UN's climate change convention met in Berlin, the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration was approximately 360.67 parts per million. The then German chancellor, Helmut Kohl, gave a passionate speech about how greenhouse gases must be reduced to save the planet from overheating. There was a relatively unknown East German woman, the environment minister, Angela Merkel, chairing the conference. She was red hot at keeping order.

Gary Francis had spent much of his life fishing, boating and diving in the vast blue waters of the Caribbean. When he came to New York City, he was mystified. The city is surrounded by water, but access to it was incredibly limited. Largely closed off and isolated, the city's water was unwelcoming, much of it bordered by barbed wire or "no trespassing" signs.

This was "a nightmare scenario," said a firefighter with the park, who also spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. During the last government shutdown six years ago, the revelation that vandals appeared to have chopped down a few of the Dr. Seuss-esque trees grabbed national headlines. In this instance, the firefighter estimates more than a thousand trees were torched.

A cabruca in Terra Vista during the chocolate harvest.Teia dos Povos A crowd of protesters - largely Indigenous Amazonian people - marched into a restricted area of the 30 th annual United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) this month in Belém, Brazil, declaring that their forests are not for sale. "We want our lands free from agribusiness, oil exploration, illegal miners and illegal loggers," one Tupinamba community leader proclaimed. Global carbon emissions continue to rise, and deforestation is moving full speed ahead across Brazil.

Since at least 2008, scientists have warned that unchecked groundwater pumping for the city and for agriculture was rapidly draining the country's aquifers. The overuse did not just deplete underground reservesit destroyed them, as the land compressed and sank irreversibly. One recent study found that Iran's central plateau, where most of the country's aquifers are located, is sinking by more than 35 centimeters each year.

For half a century, scientists have been warning about the risk of the planet warming by "2 degrees." It's a catchphrase that plagues the conversation about climate concerns, including at the United Nation's COP30 meeting in Belém, Brazil, this month. Take U.N. General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock's remarks to the press this week, in which she stated that member countries had previously committed to limiting global warming " well below two degrees." That's a huge mistake. Well, the math is right. But the wording, at least where Americans are concerned, is dead wrong.

He's taken up the mantle of keeping the world's zoos in check at an interesting time, when their role in modern society is the subject of heated debate, with rows about lonely gorillas or penguins kept in a basement seem to erupt every week. Keeping wild animals solely for entertainment purposes was socially acceptable some decades ago, but there are now far more concerns for their welfare and the conservation objectives of their captivity. This particularly applies to animals such as elephants, which need large spaces to roam and in the wild have complex relationships within giant social groups.

What we'd like to do is make the City of South Lake Tahoe a city where bears would be given some rights,

"The average peak electricity demand per property was lower than we would expect."

Indonesia has experienced rapid economic growth over the past two decades, at an average of 5% a year since 1997. But this progress has been powered by carbon-intensive resources at a steep cost to the environment. Deforestation, peatland drainage and the extraction and burning of coal have powered Indonesia's development model, reshaping landscapes through timber, pulp and mineral excavation and palm-oil booms.

When there's a vacuum, something or someone will fill it. In the climate leadership space, we now see many countries from the Global South stepping up,

Advocates for geoengineering-or, at a minimum, of pursuing research into geoengineering-say that such risks impose obligations. They note that, since attempts to limit warming have failed, it's incumbent on humanity to consider all the options. "If sunlight reflection could save lives and protect the environment, it is at least worth discussing," David Keith and Zeke Hausfather, both climate scientists, wrote in a recent essay for the Times. "I don't think we have the luxury of saying there are certain options we don't explore and study," Yedvab, the co-founder of Stardust, said. "Just as a metaphor, if there is one person in a household who's in a crisis, you want to make sure that you have all the options in front of you of how to deal with this crisis."

Turkiye will host next year's COP31 summit in the city of Antalya, ending a long standoff with Australia over the location of the top United Nations climate meeting. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced on Thursday morning that Australia had reached an arrangement with Turkiye to host negotiations in the lead-up to the 2026 UN climate meeting along with Pacific nations while Turkiye will assume the presidency of the official meeting.

From one perspective, Australia's long running bid to host the Cop31 UN climate conference next year has ended in clear failure. It campaigned for more than three years for the rights to put on the world's biggest climate summit and green trade fair, which would have brought tens of thousands of people to the South Australian capital of Adelaide next November.

"What surprised me the most is how little it takes to become deadly," said Britta Baechler, a co-author of the study and director of Ocean Plastics Research at the Ocean Conservancy. Less than three sugar cubes' worth of plastic could kill an Atlantic puffin. Two baseballs' worth would do in a sea turtle. The equivalent of a soccer ball is enough to off a seal or dolphin. "For seabirds, ingesting just six tiny pieces of rubber, each smaller than about the size of a pea, can result in a 90 percent chance of death," Baechler said.

The full year average emissions intensity compares favourably vs industry benchmarks of 0.84g CO2e per impression for programmatic display, and 1.24g CO2e per impression for programmatic video. This means that pDOOH advertising with VIOOH is on average more than 20x carbon emission efficient compared with programmatic display, and over 30x more efficient than programmatic video. This exceptional performance is driven by the broadcast nature of DOOH, a significantly streamlined supply chain, and VIOOH's network of screens increasingly powered by renewable energy.

With toy safety concerns continuing to make headlines-from recent research finding potentially toxic elements like barium, lead, chromium, and antimony at levels up to 15 times above legal limits in plastic toys-buying gifts for children requires more vigilance than ever. According to a 2024 Toy Association survey , 45% of parents under 40 now consider a toy's sustainability credentials before purchasing.

VolkerRail combined green steel rail, low-carbon concrete, recycled ballast and renewable biofueled trains during recent engineering work to reduce the carbon intensity of the work. Steel rails, concrete sleepers, and ballast, all traditionally produced through carbon-intensive processes, account for a significant share of the overall carbon footprint in track renewals, as much as 90%. The project used green steel rail manufactured in an electric arc furnace, achieving around 60% lower carbon intensity than traditional blast-furnace steel.

Rescuers were trying to reach people stranded in homes or on rooftops in central and southern Vietnam on Thursday, as the government said that 41 people had died in the latest round of flooding and landslides, following weeks of heavy rains. Coastal cities ranging from Hoi An to the tourist destination of Nha Trang to the south were among the worst hit.

One of the homeowners found the bear as he entered his garage around 4:30 a.m., according to a news release from the Nevada Department of Wildlife. The man subsequently backed away, but the bear scratched his hand and followed him into the house, the department said. While in the house, the bear also scratched the other homeowner. Eventually, the bear left the house. Both residents had minor injuries and were released from the hospital, the department said.