Environment

FILE PHOTO: The remains of cars that were burnt during the bushfire season, are piled up in the community of Wytaliba, New South Wales, Australia January 27, 2020. REUTERS/Jorge Silva SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia on Monday began the first hearings of a powerful inquiry into the causes of catastrophic bushfires that swept across the country,

KOLKATA/DHAKA (Reuters) – A powerful cyclone that tore through India’s eastern state of West Bengal this week has caused a damage of 1 trillion rupees ($13 billion) to infrastructure and crops, state officials said. A man walks with his bicycle under an uprooted tree after Cyclone Amphan made its landfall, in South 24 Parganas district,

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazilian Environment Minister Ricardo Salles called on the government to push through further deregulation of environmental policy while people are distracted by the coronavirus pandemic, in a video the Supreme Court ordered released on Friday. FILE PHOTO: Brazil’s Environment Minister Ricardo Salles looks on during a ceremony to sign a memorandum of

KOLKATA/DHAKA (Reuters) – Prime Minister Narendra Modi, peering down from his aircraft on Friday, saw the devastation and flooding caused by the most powerful cyclone to strike India and Bangladesh in more than a decade, before he landed in the stricken city of Kolkata. FILE PHOTO: India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks to the media

FILE PHOTO: Greyhound buses are lined up in New York City, U.S., June 12, 2017. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The largest U.S. bus company Greyhound Lines agreed to pay a $125,000 penalty to the District of Columbia and will bar idling by buses when parked nationwide, according to a court filing Thursday. Greyhound,

MIDLAND, Mich. (Reuters) – Rising floodwaters unleashed by two dam failures submerged parts of the central Michigan town of Midland on Wednesday, displacing thousands of residents and spreading into a Dow Chemical Co plant in the riverfront city. By late morning, floodwaters were confirmed to be “comingling with on-site containment ponds,” at the Dow plant,

DHAKA/KOLKATA (Reuters) – Heavy rains and winds lashed two eastern Indian states and parts of Bangladesh hours before a powerful cyclone made landfall on Wednesday, with rescue teams evacuating millions of villagers to higher ground in an operation complicated by the coronavirus pandemic. Rescue workers cut fallen tree branches after heavy winds caused by Cyclone

HARARE (Reuters) – Rosemary Pamire struggled to feed her family well before Zimbabwe entered lockdown in March to combat the coronavirus pandemic. Now she can hardly put together a meal a day as the country faces a deepening food crisis. Rosemary Pamire cleans her home during a nationwide lockdown to help curb the coronavirus disease

LONDON (Reuters) – Europe’s top oil and gas companies have diverted a larger share of their cash to green energy projects since the coronavirus outbreak in a bet the global health crisis will leave a long-term dent in fossil fuel demand, according to a Reuters review of company statements and interviews with executives. FILE PHOTO:

FILE PHOTO: Desert locusts are seen on a tree at a ranch near the town of Nanyuki in Laikipia county, Kenya, February 21, 2020. REUTERS/Baz Ratner DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran may use its military for a second year to help fight locusts that have invaded the south of the country, an Agricultural Ministry official was

LISBON (Reuters) – Portugal, which usually attracts huge mounds of rubbish from other European states because of its low waste management fees, has suspended imports of trash until the end of 2020 to protect domestic landfill capacity, the government said on Saturday. FILE PHOTO: Imported waste is seen piled at the port of Leixoes in

(Reuters) – Two of the most popular national parks in the American West – Yellowstone and Grand Canyon – will welcome back visitors on a limited basis over the next several days after lengthy closures due to the coronavirus, the government announced on Wednesday. FILE PHOTO: People use phones and tablets to photograph Old Faithful

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. air quality has improved since the coronavirus crisis emptied the roads of traffic, giving the country a futuristic glimpse of the clearer skies that could come with an electric vehicle fleet, according to preliminary findings by National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration labs. FILE PHOTO: The Flatiron Building stands next to Madison

FILE PHOTO: A man walks by the logo of French cosmetics group L’Oreal in the western Paris suburb of Levallois-Perret, France, February 7, 2020. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes (Reuters) – Comestics group L’Oreal (OREP.PA) said on Tuesday it was launching a 150 million euros ($162.99 million) programme of climate change initiatives and financial aid to support vulnerable

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s environment ministry on Monday called on China Minmetals Corp [CHMIN.UL] to improve implementation of environmental protection measures and oversight of subsidiaries in a less than glowing report on the state-run metals producer’s compliance. FILE PHOTO: The company logo of Minmetals Resources is displayed outside its headquarters in Hong Kong April 26,

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Ships transporting cargo from Argentina’s Rosario grain hub through the Parana River are having to reduce their cargoes after a bank collapse obstructed the navigation channel, exporters told Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Grain is loaded aboard ships on a port on the Parana river near Rosario, Argentina, January 31, 2017. REUTERS/Marcos Brindicci/File

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest rose sharply in April, government data showed on Friday, as the coronavirus outbreak keeps many environmental enforcers out of the field and the country prepares to deploy troops to fight illegal logging. FILE PHOTO: An aerial view shows a deforested plot of the Amazon near Porto Velho,

(Reuters) – The Trump administration on Thursday agreed to change rules governing key renewable energy tax credits, a win for wind farm owners seeking more time to claim the subsidies because new projects have been stalled by the global coronavirus pandemic. FILE PHOTO: A wind farm shares space with corn fields the day before the

LONDON (Reuters) – The Chairman of Barclays said the British bank “can and should play a leading role” in tackling climate change, hours after environmental activists sprayed imitation oil on its headquarters to call on the lender to divest from fossil fuels. FILE PHOTO: A Barclays bank building is seen at Canary Wharf in London,

LONDON (Reuters) – Europe’s top oil and gas companies, which account for roughly 7% of global crude consumption, have committed themselves to greenhouse gas emission reduction targets which vary in scope and detail, making them hard for investors to compare. FILE PHOTO: The logo of BP is seen at a petrol station in Kloten, Switzerland

Oxwash, a UK-based laundry startup that’s aiming to disrupt traditional but environmentally costly washing and dry-cleaning processes by using ozone to sterilize fabrics at lower temperatures, along with electric cargo bikes for hyper local pick ups and deliveries, has bagged a £1.4 million (~$1.7M) seed. Backers in the funding round include TrueSight Ventures, Biz Stone

FILE PHOTO: People walk by the JP Morgan & Chase Co. building in New York in an October 24, 2013 file photo. REUTERS/Eric Thayer (Reuters) – New York City’s pension fund leader claimed a win on Friday after JPMorgan Chase & Co set a timetable to replace its lead independent director, a former Exxon Mobil

NEW YORK (Reuters) – When the COVID-19 crisis hit, a Girl Scout troop in central New York thought it might have to scrap its group bird-counting trip altogether. Jordan Miller, 11, birdwatches in her back yard in Manlius, New York, U.S., April 25, 2020 after her Girl Scout troop’s group outing to a New York

FILE PHOTO: Aker Solutions flag flutters next to their headquarters in Fornebu, Norway, June 1, 2017. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins OSLO (Reuters) – Norwegian engineering company Aker Solutions has had its carbon-capture technology approved for use at Norcem’s cement plant in Brevik, it said on Wednesday. The Brevik plant is part Norway’s larger plan to capture CO2

BERLIN (Reuters) – Governments should focus on climate protection when considering fiscal stimulus packages to support an economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday. FILE PHOTO: German Chancellor Angela Merkel gives a media statement after a video conference of EU leaders on the spread of the new coronavirus disease

FILE PHOTO: Thyssenkrupp’s logo is seen outside the elevator test tower in Rottweil, Germany, January 21, 2020. REUTERS/Michaela Rehle FRANKFURT (Reuters) – German companies including ThyssenKrupp, Salzgitter, Bayer, Covestro, E.ON, HeidelbergCement, Puma, Allianz and Deutsche Telekom have called for coronavirus-related state aid to be tied to climate action, daily Handelsblatt reported. “We appeal to the

GUMMERSBACH, Germany (Reuters) – Germany’s forests, covering a third of its territory and as much a part of its cultural landscape as its physical one, are in danger. An aerial view shows a forest near Gummersbach, Germany, April 24, 2020, following an unusually warm, dry winter after a summer of record temperatures leaving forests dried

Mark Mills Contributor Mark Mills is the author of the book, “Digital Cathedrals: The Information Infrastructure Era,” and is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a Faculty Fellow at Northwestern University’s McCormick School of Engineering, and a partner in Cottonwood Venture Partners, an energy-tech venture fund. An epic number of citizens are video-conferencing to

(Reuters) – The world is looking for signs that the arrival of warmer weather in the northern hemisphere could slow the spread of the coronavirus outbreak, which has killed more than 190,000 people and sent the global economy into a tailspin as countries impose lockdowns and restrict travel. FILE PHOTO: The ultrastructural morphology exhibited by

In a small suburb of Melbourne, two entrepreneurs are developing a technology that could mean big changes for the packaging industry. Stuart Gordon and Mark Appleford are the co-founders of Varden, a company that has developed a process to take the waste material from sugarcane and convert it into a paper-like packaging product with the

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump addresses the daily coronavirus task force briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S., April 23, 2020. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The coronavirus appears to weaken more quickly when exposed to sunlight, heat and humidity, a U.S. official said on Thursday in a potential sign that the pandemic

The Los Angeles Cleantch Incubator is rebooting its incubator program and moving from rolling applications to a cohort model beginning with sixteen new startups.  Los Angeles’ not-for-profit incubator exchanges sweat equity in the form of services and office space, and the promise of $20,000 in funding for local pilot projects, for a 1.5 percent to

Google’s data centers run 24/7 and suck up a ton of energy — so it’s in both the company’s and the planet’s interest to make them do so as efficiently as possible. One new method has the facilities keeping an eye on the weather so they know when the best times are to switch to

LONDON (Reuters) – U.N. chief Antonio Guterres urged governments to use their economic responses to the coronavirus pandemic to tackle the “even deeper emergency” of climate change, in a message for the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. FILE PHOTO: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres attends an interview with Reuters, at the U.N. Climate Change Conference

FILE PHOTO: People sit in a Starbucks cafe in a mall in Beijing, China, January 29, 2019. REUTERS/Thomas Peter/File Photo (Reuters) – Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O) said on Monday it would roll out a new plant-based lunch menu in China this week, launching Beyond Meat Inc’s (BYND.O) products in a country where it is trying to

(Reuters) – The Trump administration on Thursday withdrew the legal justification for an Obama-era rule that forced coal-fired power plants to cut their mercury emissions, saying the cost of compliance far outweighed the public health benefits. FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump arrives for the daily coronavirus task force briefing in the Rose Garden at

HONG KONG (Reuters) – A zero food waste cafe in Hong Kong is trying to tackle the financial hub’s escalating trash problem by providing meals that are fully compostable, such as vegetables and herb flatbreads, and packaging that is turned into fertiliser. Mana Cafe’s founder Bobsy Gaia poses with a book at his cafe in

(Reuters) – A bear ambles across a forest glade and a herd of deer stroll down a silent road. At Yosemite National Park in Northern California, coronavirus restrictions mean no tourists – and bolder wildlife. FILE PHOTO: The Merced River flows through Yosemite Valley in Yosemite National Park, California, U.S., March 30, 2019. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/File

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australian public life could be constrained for another year because of the coronavirus pandemic, Prime Minister Scott Morrison warned on Friday, as the country’s most populous state mulled sending children to school in shifts. The mostly deserted city centre is seen following the implementation of stricter social-distancing and self-isolation rules to limit

NASA and Planet have deemed their pilot partnership a success, and the result is that NASA will extend its contract with Planet to provide the company’s satellite imagery of Earth to all research programs funded by the agency. NASA had signed an initial contract last April with Planet to provide Planet imagery to a team

(Reuters) – The Trump administration is expected on Thursday to withdraw the legal justification for an Obama-era rule that forced coal-fired power plants to cut their mercury emissions, according to three sources familiar with the matter. FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump arrives for the daily coronavirus task force briefing in the Rose Garden at

Microsoft is embarking on a new sustainability initiative as part of its overall approach to support environmental protection measures, with a project it calls the ‘Planetary Computer.’ This will actually be a computing endeavor that uses aggregated global environmental data collected from a number of sources as its input, and that will seek to employe

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The U.S. Forest Service has suspended controlled burns on public lands in wildfire-prone California because of the coronavirus pandemic, upsetting officials who see the program as key to preventing seasonal infernos like those that devastated parts of the state in 2018. FILE PHOTO: A charred landscape is left by a wildfire

(Reuters) – Rescue workers and homeowners across the U.S. South on Monday sifted through what remained of hundreds of structures destroyed by a series of tornadoes that killed at least 26 people, as the deadly weather system churned up the East Coast. Damaged buildings are seen in the aftermath of a tornado in Monroe, Louisiana,

(Reuters) – The death toll from a series of tornadoes that hammered the U.S. South over the weekend rose to at least 18 on Monday as rescue workers and homeowners dug through debris left in the wake of a weather system now threatening the U.S. East Coast. Damaged buildings and vehicles are seen in the

SAN ANTONIO DEL TEQUENDAMA, Colombia (Reuters) – A small zoo in central Colombia has called on its social media followers to come up with names for newborn primates delivered in the current birthing season – and most suggestions are related to the coronavirus pandemic. A spider monkey hugs its baby inside a cage at the

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest rose in March, government data showed on Friday, indicating that illegal loggers and land speculators have not stopped destroying the forest with the onset of the coronavirus outbreak. FILE PHOTO: Indigenous people from the Mura tribe show a deforested area in unmarked indigenous lands, inside the Amazon

ATHENS (Reuters) – Greek researchers say a sudden decline in human-generated noise levels due to a nationwide coronavirus lockdown is giving them valuable insights into the inner rumblings of earth. FILE PHOTO: A man wearing a protective face mask makes his way on the empty Kotzia square, during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Athens,