Trump coal moves hasten but don't increase emissions, say U.S. officials
The Trump administration's decision to lift a moratorium on coal sales from public lands could hasten the release of more than 5 billion tons of greenhouse gases, but officials concluded Wednesday it would make little difference in overall U.S. climate emissions. That conclusion from the ...
Industries in northeastern China have spewed large quantities of an ozone-depleting gas into the atmosphere in violation of an international treaty, scientists said Wednesday. Since 2013, annual emissions from northeastern China of the banned chemical CFC-11 have increased by about 7,000 tons, they reported in ...
U.S. research on children's health risks in doubt due to EPA funding cut
Long-running research projects credited with pivotal discoveries about the harm that pesticides, air pollution and other hazards pose to children are in jeopardy or shutting down because the Environmental Protection Agency will not commit to their continued funding, researchers say. The projects being targeted make ...
Malaysia, flooded with plastic waste, to send scrap back to source
Malaysia, which has become the dumping ground for the world's plastic waste, will send back nonrecyclable plastic scrap to the developed countries that sent it there, its environment minister said on Tuesday. Malaysia last year became the leading alternative destination for plastic scrap after China ...
Second only to the United States in the world in terms of per-capita volume of single-use plastics, Japan must increase its efforts to reduce plastic waste.
Increasingly complex, growing and related risks, from global warming to pollution and epidemics, threaten human survival if left to escalate, the United Nations warned on Wednesday. A biennial assessment report on how the world is dealing with disasters said the past could no longer be ...
Mexico City declares pollution alert over smoke from brush fires
Mexico City declared a pollution emergency Tuesday because of smoke from brush fires that has cast a pall over the city of 9 million people. The extremely small particles that are choking the city reached over 1½ times acceptable limits. The emergency declaration is not accompanied ...
Trash found littering Mariana Trench floor in deepest-ever sub dive
On the deepest dive ever made by a human inside a submarine, a Texas investor found something he could have found in the gutter of nearly any street in the world: trash. Victor Vescovo, a retired naval officer, made the unsettling discovery as he descended ...
Roughly 180 countries agree on treaty to regulate trade in plastic waste
Nearly all countries agreed on Friday to a legally binding framework to curb plastic waste, which has become a major threat to the marine environment, the United Nations said. Under the amended Basel Convention, which regulates the transboundary movements of hazardous wastes, dirty plastic deemed ...
Ex-ministers blast Jair Bolsonaro for dismantling Brazil's environmental protections
Eight former Brazilian environment ministers blasted new right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro and his administration in a letter on Wednesday, saying it is dismantling the country's environmental protections. The former officials criticized the government's decision to strip the environment ministry's authority over forestry and water agency ...
Humanity is squandering the natural capital that has allowed society to thrive, and driving a million plant and animal species to the brink of extinction in the process, the U.N.'s first comprehensive report on biodiversity warned Monday. Relentless plundering and poisoning of water, wildlife, air, ...
Major U.N. biodiversity report to call for 'Paris moment' to protect nature and avoid human misery
Revamping global food production, retooling the financial sector, moving beyond gross domestic product as a measure of progress and other "transformative changes" are needed to save nature and ourselves, a major U.N. biodiversity report will conclude. Delegates from 130 nations were to wrap up weeklong ...
