Deforestation

PANMUNJOM, South Korea—Meters from where the leaders of North and South Korea recently planted a pine tree to memorialize their blossoming bid for peace, North Korean soldiers once crushed the skulls of two U.S. soldiers with the blunt end of their axe heads. The attack came after the Americans tried to trim a poplar tree. The men’s disfigured bodies were left beside the tree. In May, just days after the spectacular inter-Korean summit had occurred there, I visited the truce village of Panmunjom, also known as the Joint Security Area, on the border between North and South Korea. The atmosphere was like that of a church the morning after a wedding where, but for some stray flowers and a forgotten shawl, there is no sign of the previous evening’s festivities—just an austere sanctuary. The pine tree of peace, at one end of a row of blue and silver conference buildings for negotiators, was propped up by what appeared to be wooden support rods, a rather too on-the-nose metaphor for the …

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A minister has vowed to look at where trees burnt for energy in the UK are coming from in the wake of a Telegraph investigation. Zac Goldsmith said he planned to "look very closely" at how wood used in industrial biomass burners run by energy company Drax was sourced. Speaking to the environment, food and rural affairs committee, the environment minister said: "When you've got a system as big as Drax, then if you get it even slightly wrong in terms of the input that's going to have big implications, so we've got to be sure that we're not. "I'm not an expert on this, and I probably will never be an expert, but I will be looking more in detail." It comes after an investigation by The Telegraph linked Drax's suppliers to logging in some of Europe's most important forests, including rare habitats that are supposed to be protected under EU law. Similar concerns have been raised over trees used to make pellets in the US and Canada which are then shipped to be burnt in the …

[Read more...] about Minister vows to look into source of trees burnt for energy in UK

Prince Charles and Camilla are the ‘big guns’ says Myers Sign up for FREE now and never miss the top Royal stories again. SUBSCRIBE Invalid email We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you've consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info Prince William and Prince Charles will likely start "taking back" causes particularly close to the heart of young generations which have been championed by Meghan and Prince Harry , according to US brand and reputation management expert Eric Schiffer. The California-based commentator noted the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been able to appeal to Millennials and Generation Z members with their approach to causes close to their heart - including equality and the protection of the environment. Related articles Queen talks to her two callers through an …

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Smoking industrial chimneys, exhaust fumes, fires in the Amazon — yearly carbon emissions recently swelled to 12,000,000,000 tons (12 gigatons).And as carbon increases, so do temperatures. Around half of emissions released remain in the atmosphere. Nature absorbs the rest , holding it in carbon sinks , such as soil, oceans and vegetation. These natural storage solutions slow climate change far more effectively than any human technology — carbon storage factories store just 40 megatons of CO2 annually or 0.003% of anthropogenic emissions. Natural carbon sinks could perform even better with a little tweaking and for a comparatively small price tag. But humans are destroying more and more natural CO2 sinks, damaging our most successful tool to halt a climate catastrophe. Nature struggling to keep up As humans rapidly increased their carbon emissions by burning fossil fuels, the amount of CO2 absorbed by plants, soils and oceans also increased. Plants actually benefit …

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While some hailed a pact that kept negotiators in Glasgow for an extra day , many activists and international leaders said that despite some progress, there's still a long way to go. Nearly 200 parties to the United Nations' most recent climate conference agreed on the Glasgow Climate Pact on Saturday, after some last-minute wrangling over the exact wording of the deal. "It's an important step, but it is not enough," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres lamented. Conference President Alok Sharma said he was grateful for the hard work of governments during the climate conference that many had billed as the last chance for decisive action to address the worsening climate crisis. "This is a fragile win. We have kept 1.5 alive. That was our overarching objective when we set off on this journey two years ago, taking on the role of the COP presidency-designate," Sharma said. "But I would still say that the pulse of 1.5 is weak." Many have said that the conference …

[Read more...] about COP26 takeaways: Some progress in climate pact but much more needed, activists say

The United Kingdom, which hosted the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow over the past two weeks, hailed the agreement released on Saturday as "game-changing" yet "tinged with disappointment". "Yesterday evening, we finally came to the kind of game-changing agreement that the world needed to see," UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said at a Downing Street press conference, calling it a "decisive shift in the world's approach to tackling climate emissions". He said it also marked the "beginning of the end" to coal power -- stating the parties to the agreement gave a mandate to cut coal. "Glasgow has sounded the death knell for coal power," Johnson said. The final agreement called upon countries to accelerate "efforts towards the phasedown of unabated coal power and phase-out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies", which many said was a compromise in the final minutes that dealt a blow to the pact. Conference President Alok Sharma said that "you phase down before …

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A team of researchers from Israel's Ben Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) has demonstrated, for the first time, a technique for converting human excrement into hydrochar—a safe, renewable biomass fuel that resembles charcoal—as well as a nutrient-rich fertilizer. According to the team, this process could potentially address two major issues that affect many less-affluent countries—poor sanitation and growing energy needs. While access to waste treatment worldwide has improved significantly in recent years, approximately 2.3 billion people still lack basic sanitation services, according to the World Health Organization. Of those, around 892 million people—most of whom live in rural areas—defecate in the open. "Human excreta are considered hazardous due to their potential to transmit disease," Amit Gross, from the Department of Environmental Hydrology and Microbiology at BGU, said in a statement. "While it is rich in organic matter nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus and …

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AUKUS deal is a 'Brexiteer's dream' says Nigel Farage Sign up for FREE now and never miss the top politics stories again SUBSCRIBE Invalid email We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you've consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info The Prime Minister warned during the meeting in New York the gap between what industrialised nations have promised and what they are actually delivering remains "vast". He wants them to ramp up their efforts to hit a key financial pledge to help developing nations. Mr Johnson conceded there is only a "six out of 10" chance of hitting this promise before the UK hosts the COP26 climate summit in November. Related articles France demands compensation over UK submarine deal M25 traffic latest: M25 to be shutdown by climate change protesters …

[Read more...] about Boris in New York: ‘Nowhere near enough!’ PM launches blistering attack at UN meeting