UNITED NATIONS: China has for the first time made specific emission cut pledges, though its goal of reducing planet-warming greenhouse gases just seven to 10 percent by 2035 is seen as far too modest.But Beijing has often under-promised and over-delivered, analysts say, and its pledge offers a path towards more ambitious efforts to tackle climate…
HAYWARDS HEATH: Deep underground beneath the Sussex countryside in southern England, millions of seeds are kept frozen in a vault built to withstand fire, flooding, and any other disaster. The Millennium Seed Bank at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew holds more than 2.5 billion wild plant seeds from around 40,000 species. The seeds are stored…
A massive fire that has scorched through more than a third of Namibia’s best-known national park has been contained, the environment minister said Monday. The blaze at Etosha National Park, one of Africa’s largest game reserves, broke out on September 22 and spread rapidly due to high winds and parched vegetation.It forced the government to…
The world’s major cities are now experiencing a quarter more very hot days every year on average than they did three decades ago, according to a new analysis published on Tuesday. Researchers at the UK-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) examined temperature data from 43 key cities, including the 40 most populous capitals,…
MADRID: The number of heat-related deaths in Spain between May 16 and September 30 hit 3,832, an 87.6-percent increase from the same period in 2024, the health ministry said Thursday.Nearly two-thirds of the deaths involved people over the age of 85, and almost 96 percent were over 65, it said in a statement.The figures were…
Most unboxing videos follow a predictable script: an exuberant influencer slashes open the packaging, reaches inside, and pulls out the prize. Pets Man’s post was no different, except for one detail. This influencer was wary of handling the contents of the package: a pair of live emperor scorpions.Native to West Africa, emperor scorpions are classified…
NEW DELHI: In a move that will fast-track the establishment of municipal solid waste management facilities and common effluent treatment plants (CETPs), the Union environment ministry has proposed exempting such projects from prior environmental clearance.The ministry came out with two separate draft notifications for this purpose last week, arguing that such facilities are basically “essential…
PARIS: The world just had its third-hottest September on record, the Copernicus Climate Change Service said on Thursday, as global average temperatures remained stuck near historic highs for yet another month.September did not break the record for the month set in 2023 and was only marginally cooler than the same period last year, said the…
ABU DHABI: The world’s top conservation body is holding its world congress starting Thursday in the Emirati capital Abu Dhabi and will unveil its updated “red list” of threatened species.The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), whose decisions help set the global agenda on environmental protection, will on Friday publish its list ranking at-risk…
ABU DHABI: Arctic seals and birds are coming under increasing threat, mainly due to climate change and human activity, according to an updated list of endangered species released Friday by the world’s top conservation body.The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said habitat loss driven by logging and agricultural expansion as a threat to…
Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav is set to travel to Brasília on October 13-14 for a pre-COP meeting as India steps up preparations for the UN climate summit COP30, scheduled in Belém, Brazil, in November. The meeting aims to streamline negotiations on key issues and build consensus among ministers before the main conference. He confirmed…
Brazil hopes COP30 in Amazon can unite world for climate action BRASILIA: Brazil is betting its much-hyped climate summit in the Amazon next month can deliver something increasingly rare in a fractured world: proof that nations can still unite to confront a global crisis.It faces tough odds, with a hostile United States unlikely to show…
BASRA: Iraqi farmer Umm Ali has watched her poultry die as salinity levels in the country’s south hit record highs, rendering already scarce water unfit for human consumption and killing livestock.“We used to drink, wash and cook with water from the river, but now it’s hurting us,” said Umm Ali, 40, who lives in the…
NEW DELHI: Levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere increased by a record amount to new highs last year, committing the planet to more long-term temperature increase, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said in its latest greenhouse gas (GHG) bulletin released on Wednesday. The annual rise from 2023 to 2024 was, in fact,…
SYDNEY: Australia’s tropical rainforests are among the first in the world to start leaking more carbon dioxide than they absorb, scientists said Thursday as they linked the worrying trend to climate change. The world’s rainforests are typically thought of as crucial “carbon sinks,” sucking huge quantities of planet-heating emissions from the atmosphere.But new research has…
FILE – A group of women, part of Asociacion Nuestra Casa Comun, or Our Community House Association, go by boat to an area destroyed by illegal mining, on the Quito River, the Atrato River’s main tributary, near Paimado, Colombia, Sept. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia, File) FILE – An illegal mining camp, sits along the…
SAN JUAN ISLAND: As dawn broke over San Juan Island, a team of scientists stood on the deck of a barge and unspooled over a mile of fibre-optic cable into the frigid waters of the Salish Sea. Working by headlamp, they fed the line from the rocky shore down to the seafloor – home to…
LONDON: UK climate advisers warned the government for the first time on Wednesday to prepare for 2C of global warming by 2050, stressing current efforts to adapt to extreme weather are falling far short.Britain is among many countries experiencing record-breaking temperatures this year, with four heatwaves coming alongside below-average rainfall in some areas and prolonged…
