Conservation summit agrees global levy on drugs from nature’s genetics and stronger indigenous representation, but developing nations furious at unmet funding promises
A global summit on halting the destruction of nature ended in disarray on Saturday, with some breakthroughs but key issues left unresolved.
Governments have been meeting in Cali, Colombia, for the first time since a 2022 deal to stop the human-caused destruction of life on Earth. Countries hoped to make progress during the two-week summit on crucial targets such as protecting 30% of the Earth for nature and reforming parts of the global financial system that damage the environment.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
11/03/2024 - 01:00
11/02/2024 - 10:23
Plant’s owners hope analysis of tiny sample will help to establish how to safely decommission facility
A piece of the radioactive fuel left from the meltdown of Japan’s tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has been retrieved from the site using a remote-controlled robot.
Investigators used the robot’s fishing-rod-like arm to clip and collect a tiny piece of radioactive material from one of the plant’s three damaged reactors – the first time such a feat has been achieved. Should it prove suitable for testing, scientists hope the sample will yield information that will help determine how to decommission the plant.
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11/02/2024 - 08:49
Advocates urge government to allow ‘precision breeding’ to combat disease, but RSPCA warns of ethical dangers
Ministers are preparing to introduce legislation that will permit the growing of gene-edited crops in England and Wales. But the new legislation will not cover the use of this technology to create farm animals that have increased resistance to disease or lower carbon footprints.
The decision has dismayed some senior scientists, who had expected both uses of gene editing would be given the go-ahead. They fear the decision could hold back the creation of hardier, healthier herds and flocks. Animal welfare groups have welcomed the move, however.
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11/02/2024 - 08:00
Concerned students press for their high schools – some with $1bn endowments – to reinvest in clean energy
A high school in California has decided not to invest in coal, oil or gas, instead pledging to put money into clean energy. It’s the latest win in a new fossil fuel divestment campus campaign launched by high schoolers across 11 countries that is gaining support in the US.
The Nueva School, an elite private school outside San Francisco, pledged in spring 2024 to invest a portion of its $55m endowment in renewable power. The commitment followed months of pressure from students.
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11/02/2024 - 07:14
Pedro Sánchez orders largest peacetime troop deployment to deal with flooding that has killed 211 people
Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has ordered the country’s largest peacetime military deployment, announcing that 10,000 troops and police officers will be drafted in to help deal with the aftermath of this week’s devastating floods, which have killed at least 211 people in eastern, southern and central regions.
Speaking after chairing a meeting of the flood crisis committee, Sánchez said the government was mobilising all the resources at its disposal to deal with the “terrible tragedy”, which stuck hardest in the eastern region of Valencia. He also acknowledged that much of the help still wasn’t getting through and called for unity and an end to political bickering and blame games.
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11/02/2024 - 00:00
Big farms rake in record profits when food prices soar, while small farms struggle on razor-thin margins
‘Welfare for the rich’: how farm subsidies wrecked Europe’s landscapes
The income gap between the biggest and smallest farms in Europe has doubled in the past 15 years and hit record levels at the same time as the number of small farms has collapsed, a Guardian analysis of agricultural income data has found.
Figures from the European Commission’s Farming Accountancy Data Network (FADN) and Eurostat suggest farmers across the continent raked in record profits when the war in Ukraine sent food prices soaring, boosting a long-running trend of rising average incomes that has outstripped inflation.
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11/01/2024 - 18:00
Bondi beach’s newest residents may look strange to human eyes, but goose barnacles are a normal part of the natural marine environment
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Goose barnacles look as strange as their name, with a long, noodle-like stalk emerging from smooth white plates. The crustacean, also known as percebes, is also extremely expensive – in Europe, where it’s enjoyed as a delicacy, a kilo might cost hundreds of dollars.
And this week, a bunch washed up at Horseshoe Bay, south of Adelaide.
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11/01/2024 - 14:10
Politicians say use of common yet toxic paraquat can’t be justified due to apparent health and environment risks
More than 50 US lawmakers are calling on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to join dozens of other countries in banning a widely used weedkiller linked to Parkinson’s disease and other health dangers.
In a 31 October letter to the agency, seven US senators said that paraquat, a weedkiller commonly applied on US farms, was a “highly toxic pesticide whose continued use cannot be justified given its harms to farmworkers and rural communities”. The call for a ban from the senators came after 47 members of the US House of Representatives sent a similar letter to the EPA calling for a ban earlier in October.
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11/01/2024 - 13:43
Researchers developed citizen science platforms as a new data source to evaluate the effectiveness of the 742 protected areas for birds across Germany. This research shows that although these areas are well placed, their effectiveness varies greatly.
11/01/2024 - 13:30
More than 200 deaths and widespread destruction in Valencia are the latest sign of danger in a warming world
The death toll from floods in Spain’s Valencia region has topped 200. A huge clean-up is under way amid desperate conditions, with severe weather warnings still in place. The storms which caused this devastation – with roads turned into muddy rivers, thousands of homes deluged and cars swept into piles – were unprecedented. The gota fría, or “cold drop”, is a regular occurrence when cold autumnal air moves over the warm Mediterranean, causing dense clouds to form. But this rain, according to the Spanish weather service, was 10 times stronger than a normal downpour.
Extreme weather in Spain, and the rest of southern Europe, is more commonly understood to mean dangerous heat, drought and wildfires. The regional government is under attack regarding the lack of sufficient warnings and there is no doubt that the severity of these floods came as a terrible shock.
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