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India’s buildings sector to overshoot country’s entire carbon budget: Report
India's buildings sector currently accounts for 25 per cent of the...
Chemicals in plastics far more numerous than previous estimates, report says
While the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) had...
India seeks cheaper renewable power contracts to spur solar, wind projects
“India’s shift away from fossil fuels is absolutely critical to limiting global climate change,” said Sunil Dahiya, a New Delhi-based analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. “Policies to promote clean energy and its renewable power auctions have given it geopolitical clout, which might diminish if the projects fail to take off. The country has to be more aggressive in making sure projects get built.”
Emissions hit new record, put world on track for 3C warming – U.N
“The year 2020 is on course to be one of the warmest on record, while wildfires, storms and droughts continue to wreak havoc,” said Inger Andersen, UNEP’s Executive Director.
The annual “emissions gap” report measures the gap between anticipated emissions and those consistent with limiting the global temperature rise this century as agreed in the 2015 Paris Agreement.
EU-wide ban would save nature from 500,000 tonnes of microplastics – agency
HELSINKI: Banning the use of microplastics in products such as cosmetics and detergents across the European Union would prevent 500,000 tonnes of microplastics from polluting the environment over 20 years, the EU Chemicals Agency ECHA said on Wednesday. The...
Last month was the hottest November ever
“These records are consistent with the long-term warming trend of the global climate,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service. “All policy-makers who prioritize mitigating climate risks should see these records as alarm bells.”
“All policymakers who prioritise mitigating climate risks should see these records as alarm bells and consider more seriously than ever how to best comply with the international commitments set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement”.
EU climate deal unlikely without breakthrough on budget, envoy says
The climate and budget issues are interlinked.The EU has agreed that hundreds of billions of euros from its 1.8-billion-euro budget and attached COVID-19 recovery fund will be spent on helping countries cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The European Commission wants the EU to commit to cut net emissions at least 55% by 2030, from 1990 levels. The bloc’s current 2030 target is a 40% emissions cut.
4 of 5 cyclones this year were in severe cyclonic storms category and above
India Meteorological Department (IMD) Director General Mrutunjay Mohapatra said since 1990 four cyclones have formed every year in the seas along the eastern and western coasts (Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea) of the country.
“It is normal to have five cyclones a year,” he said.
US, Norwegian investors pressure SBI over loan to Adani mine in Australia
BlackRock, which holds shares of both Adani and SBI, has met with the companies tied to the Carmichael project and raised its objections because the plan has ESG-related risks, according to a person familiar with the matter, who declined to be identified because the conversations are private. In February, BlackRock rebuked Siemens AG for similar reasons when it signed an 18 million-euro ($21.8 million) contract to provide rail-signaling systems for the mine.
North American farmers profit as consumers pressure food business to go green
Investments in sustainability remain a tiny part of overall spending by the agriculture sector, which enjoyed healthy profits in 2020. They may help to head off more costly regulations down the road now that Democratic climate advocate Joe Biden was elected U.S. president.
Sustainable techniques farmers are adopting include refraining from tilling soil at times to preserve carbon. Some are adding an off-season cover crop of rye or grass to restore soil nutrients instead of applying heavy fertilizer loads over the winter that can contaminate local water supplies.
“Biodiversity provides medicine and food of good quality and fights against climate risk, it makes sense to protect it”
Biodiversity-loss-among-very-top-risks:Axa’s AXA’s Chief Risk and Investment Officer AXA Group’s chief risk and investment officer, Alban de Mailly Nesle is required to ponder myriad dangers to the Paris-based insurer and its 830 billion-euro ($995 billion) asset management arm. He says one of the greatest and most under-appreciated threats to human health, economic vitality and the climate is the rapid reduction of the planet’s biodiversity.
In 1993, when he started his career at BNP Paribas SA, he didn’t imagine the earth’s ecosystems would become a top priority. But last year, AXA – the firm he joined in 2000 – and the WWF presented a report to the environment ministers of the Group of Seven countries about the economic impact of biodiversity loss.
De Mailly Nesle speaks to Bloomberg about biodiversity, its link to the climate, and the challenges of measuring so-called natural capital.
New Zealand declares climate emergency, promises carbon neutral govt by 2025
In her first term she passed a Zero Carbon Bill, which sets the framework for net zero emissions by 2050 with an exemption for farming, and banned new offshore oil and gas exploration.
Nearly half of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture, mainly methane.
The government on Wednesday promised the public sector will achieve carbon neutrality by 2025. Government agencies would have to measure and report emissions and offset any they can’t cut by 2025.