As India went into the world’s biggest lockdown to combat the deadly coronavirus, trains, planes, automobiles and factories came to a halt. And the skies in some of the most polluted cities on the planet turned blue. Cities across the country, which was home to ...
Armed with good data, engineers wage quiet battle for cleaner air
As countries try to slash air pollution and step up action on climate change, many are looking at a key culprit: tailpipes. India in 2016 put into effect its first fuel economy standards for passenger cars and by 2021 is expected to have lowered planet-warming ...
Air pollution has decreased in urban areas across Europe during lockdowns to combat the coronavirus, new satellite images showed on Monday, but campaigners warned city-dwellers were still more vulnerable to the epidemic. Cities including Brussels, Paris, Madrid, Milan and Frankfurt showed a reduction in average ...
Mighty Nile River threatened by waste, warming and a giant Ethiopian dam
Early one morning in Cairo, volunteers paddle their kayaks across the Nile, fishing out garbage from the mighty waterway, which gave birth to Egyptian civilization but now faces multiple threats. Egypt's lifeline since pharaonic days and the source of 97 percent of its water is ...
Water efficiency an under-used weapon in fight against climate change, U.N. says
Using water more efficiently in everything from daily life to agriculture and industry would help reduce planet-warming emissions and curb climate change — a potential benefit that has yet to be widely recognized, the United Nations said on Sunday. In a report issued on World ...
Air quality is improving in countries under coronavirus quarantines, experts say, but it is far too early to speak of long-term change. Images by the U.S. space agency NASA are clear, in February the concentration of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) fell dramatically in Wuhan, China, the ...
The global victory over ozone-killing chemicals is coming undone
Ozone-destroying chemicals once thought to be successfully banished are now making their way into the air again, slowing down our atmosphere's recovery after those same chemicals effectively ripped a hole in it in the mid-20th century. Slowing things down still further: Scientists haven't been able ...
Close to tipping point, Amazon forest could collapse within 50 years
The Amazon rainforest is nearing a threshold that, once crossed, would see one of the world's largest and richest ecosystems morph into arid savanna within half a century, scientists said Tuesday. Another major ecosystem, Caribbean coral reefs, could die off in only 15 years if ...
Air pollution vanishes across China's industrial heartland amid virus lockdown
China's lockdown measures to minimize further coronavirus infections have created one unexpected benefit — a dramatic improvement to the nation's air quality. Satellites operated by NASA and the European Space Agency have detected significant drops of major airborne pollutants above vast swaths of the country. Before-and-after ...
As bush fires and floods fuel public concerns in Australia about global warming, the country's powerful mining lobby is facing increasing pressure from investors to drop support for new coal mines, according to a dozen interviews with shareholders in global mining companies. Nearly a third ...
Coronavirus outbreak slashes China carbon emissions, study shows
The coronavirus epidemic that has paralyzed the Chinese economy may have a silver lining for the environment. China's carbon emissions have dropped by least 100 million metric tons over the past two weeks, according to a study published on Wednesday by the Center for Research ...
Snow-capped peaks used to be clearly visible from the streets of Almaty and Bishkek, two of the largest cities in Central Asia that both lie in plains surrounded by mountains. But now a heavy cloud of dark smog often blots out the view as air ...
