Environment

Karma Automotive has raised a $100 million lifeline from outside investors, as reported by Bloomberg, with the struggling electric vehicle maker’s fortunes likely buoyed by the current market optimism on other EV companies including Tesla. Karma is the reincarnated version of Fisker Automotive, which previously faced bankruptcy before being acquired by Wanxiang Group in 2014.

Tesla’s 2014 acquisition of SolarCity turned the electric vehicle manufacturer into the undisputed largest player in residential solar, but that lead has steadily eroded as its major competitor, Sunrun, surged ahead with more aggressive plans. Now with the $3.2 billion dollar acquisition of the residential solar installation company, Vivint Solar, Sunrun looks to solidify its

Replenysh has been kicking since 2016, but up til now, the Orange County, California startup hasn’t done much press. That changes today, as the company announces that it has raised a $2 million seed round with the fairly lofty goal of transforming recycling in the U.S. A press release outlining Replenysh’s plans offers up plenty

As perennial front runner for the title of probably-the-most-evil tech company, Amazon has a long way to go to rehabilitate its image as a take-no-prisoners, industry-consolidating wealth machine. In a bold effort to do so, the company announced today that it would buy the rights to Seattle’s KeyArena, an aging stadium currently under redevelopment in

DroneBase, a Los Angeles-based provider of drone pilots for industrial services companies, has raised $7.5 million during the pandemic to double down on its work with renewable energy companies. While chief executive Dan Burton acknowledged that the company was fundraising prior to the pandemic, the industrial lockdown actually accelerated demand for the company’s services. Even

Roger Duncan Contributor Roger Duncan is a former Research Fellow at the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin and the former General Manager of Austin Energy. He is the co-author of the upcoming book, “The Future of Buildings, Transportation and Power.” The economic lockdown resulting from the coronavirus pandemic has had an

OUAGADOUGOU (Reuters) – At an open-pit granite quarry in Burkina Faso’s capital, workers’ children play in the rubble while others toil alongside their parents after the coronavirus pandemic closed schools. Neimatou Ouedraogo, 9, carries a bucket of water in Pissy informal granite quarry, since schools closed amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in

Pale Blue Dot, a newly outed European venture capital firm focused on climate tech, announced this week the first closing of its debut fund at €53 million. Targeting pre-seed and seed stage startups, the firm says it will consider software and technology investments with a strong positive climate impact. Current areas of focus include food/agriculture,

SALYERSVILLE, Kentucky (Reuters) – In May 2012, Hanson and Michael Rowe noticed an overpowering smell, like rotten eggs, seeping from an abandoned gas well on their land in Kentucky. The fumes made the retired couple feel nauseous, dizzy, and short of breath. FILE PHOTO: Hanson Rowe, a landowner who blames a leaky gas well on

Finland-based Swappie has closed a €35.8 million ($40.6M) Series B to expand into new markets in Europe. The ecommerce business refurbishes and resells used iPhones, taking care of the entire process from testing and repairing used handsets, to selling the refurbished devices via its own marketplace, with a 12-month warranty. Local VC and private equity

(Reuters) – Six European Union countries, including Germany, France and the Netherlands, have called for EU legislation and increased funding to support hydrogen, a low-carbon technology in line for cash from the bloc’s coronavirus recovery fund. FILE PHOTO: European Union flags fly outside the European Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, February 19, 2020. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File

(Reuters) – Unilever Plc (ULVR.L) said on Monday it will invest 1 billion euros in a fund to invest in climate change projects and reduce to net zero greenhouse gas emissions from all its products by 2039, 11 years ahead of the Paris Agreement deadline. FILE PHOTO: Unilever headquarters in Rotterdam, Netherlands August 21, 2018.

(Reuters) – Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue on Friday unveiled what he called a “blueprint” for enabling energy extraction, mining, grazing and logging in federal forests by speeding up environmental reviews and permitting. FILE PHOTO: U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue holds a U.S. flag-themed face mask while speaking about the nation?s food supply chain during

Volkswagen has started to sell a home-charging device as the automaker prepares to bring its new ID family of electric vehicles to market. The ID.3 is the first electric vehicle under the ID label and will only be sold in Europe. Customers who made reservations for the launch edition, known as ID.3 1st, will be

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest rose for a 13th consecutive month in May, government data showed on Friday, despite President Jair Bolsonaro’s deployment of the military to fight soaring environmental destruction in the region FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO: An aerial view shows a deforested plot of the Amazon near Porto Velho, Rondonia

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Deforestation of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest was worse than previously reported in 2019, revised government data showed on Tuesday, during the first year of President Jair Bolsonaro, who is keen to develop the forest crucial to curbing global warming. FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO: An aerial view shows a deforested plot of the Amazon

FILE PHOTO: Tropical Storm Cristobal is seen on a northern track over the Gulf of Mexico in a satellite image taken June 7, 2020. NOAA/Handout via REUTERS (Reuters) – Tropical Depression Cristobal became a post-tropical cyclone on Tuesday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said in its latest advisory. The storm system was located about

South Africa-based renewable energy startup Sun Exchange has raised $3 million to close its Series A funding round totaling $4 million. The company operates a peer-to-peer, crypto-enabled business that allows individuals anywhere in the world to invest in solar infrastructure in Africa. How’s that all work? “You as an individual are selling electricity to a

FILE PHOTO: An electric car parks next to a charging station in Ostfildern near Stuttgart, Germany, August 19, 2019. Picture taken August 19, 2019. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski BERLIN (Reuters) – The German economy ministry wants to earmark 500 million euros ($566.95 million) from Berlin’s bumper stimulus package to support private investors building charging stations for electric

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Energy companies on Monday began preparations to resume oil and gas production in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, a day after Tropical Storm Cristobal blew through with high winds and heavy rains. FILE PHOTO: The logo of Royal Dutch Shell is seen at a petrol station in Sint-Pieters-Leeuw, Belgium January 30, 2019.

Tropical Storm Cristobal is seen on a northern track over the Gulf of Mexico in a satellite image taken June 7, 2020. NOAA/Handout via REUTERS (Reuters) – The center of Tropical Storm Cristobal has made landfall along the coast of southeast Louisiana between the mouth of the Mississippi River and Grand Isle, the U.S. National

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Tropical Storm Cristobal on Saturday dumped rain from Louisiana to the Florida peninsula as it moved through the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, prompting evacuations of several southeast Louisiana towns and dozens of offshore oil platforms. Workers disembark from a helicopter after being evacuated from oil production platforms ahead of Tropical Storm Cristobal,

Workers disembark from a helicopter after being evacuated from oil production platforms ahead of Tropical Storm Cristobal, at Bristow Galliano Heliport in Galliano, Louisiana, U.S. June 6, 2020. REUTERS/Jonathan Bachman HOUSTON (Reuters) – Tropical Storm Cristobal moved through the U.S. Gulf of Mexico on Saturday carrying strong winds and heavy rains that prompted the evacuation

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin chided the billionaire boss of Norilsk Nickel on Friday over a huge Arctic fuel spill and ordered changes to the law to try to prevent such a disaster from happening again. FILE PHOTO: President and Chairman of the Board of MMC Norilsk Nickel Vladimir Potanin attends a session of the

FILE PHOTO: The Environmental Protection Agency headquarters is seen in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 19, 2020. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released on Thursday a proposed overhaul of how major clean air rules are written by changing the cost-benefit analysis process, a move that would affect the stringency of future

FILE PHOTO: A bridge is decorated with the logo of a Bayer AG, a German pharmaceutical and chemical maker in Wuppertal, Germany August 9, 2019. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay/File Photo (Reuters) – German agrochemicals group Bayer AG has been blocked from selling its dicamba herbicide in the United States after an appeals court rejected a federal regulator’s

A fossil of a 425 million-year-old millipede called Kampecaris obanensis and unearthed in Scotland is shown in this undated handout photo released to Reuters on May 27, 2020. British Geological Survey/Handout via REUTERS WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A fossilized millipede-like creature discovered in Scotland may represent the oldest-known land animal, a humble pioneer of terrestrial living

The U.S. has suffered from devastating wildfires over the last few years as global temperatures rise and weather patterns change, making the otherwise natural phenomenon especially unpredictable and severe. To help out, Stanford researchers have found a way to track and predict dry, at-risk areas using machine learning and satellite imagery. Currently the way forests

HAVANA/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Ken Hutton is worried Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas where he lives is far from rebuilt after being devastated by Hurricane Dorian last year yet he is bracing for another hurricane season in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. FILE PHOTO: A man walks among the debris of his house

London-based Greyparrot, which uses computer vision AI to scale efficient processing of recycling, has bagged £1.825 million (~$2.2M) in seed funding, topping up the $1.2M in pre-seed funding it had raised previously. The latest round is led by early stage European industrial tech investor Speedinvest, with participation from UK-based early stage b2b investor, Force Over

Vast monoculture farms outstripped the ability of bee populations to pollinate them naturally long ago, but the techniques that have arisen to fill that gap are neither precise nor modern. Israeli startup BeeHero aims to change that by treating hives both as living things and IoT devices, tracking health and pollination progress practically in real

The European Commission is proposing to direct billions of euros of financial relief into high tech and green investments to help the bloc recover from the coronavirus crisis. Technologies such as 5G, AI, cloud, cybersecurity, supercomputing and renewable energy look set to benefit from a €750BN pan-EU support package set out today — aligning with

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Eight European countries have urged the European Union to include natural gas in future funding, as the bloc’s executive prepares to unveil its plan for a green economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. FILE PHOTO: A European flag is seen outside the EU Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium November 6, 2019. REUTERS/Yves

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,