Environment news

• Welsh seagrass meadow sows hope for global restoration

  15-09-2020 22:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Project to revive climate-boosting wonder plant in Pembrokeshire could spur similar schemesSeagrass is a wonder plant but unrecognised and sorely neglected. This is a flowering plant with long ribbon-like leaves that often grows in the sea in lush underwater meadows.It is an unsung hero in the fight to clean up carbon dioxide and the climate emergency. Its credentials are astonishing: it absorbs carbon from the atmosphere up to 35 times faster than tropical rainforests, stores 10% of the annual
  
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• Most plastic will never be recycled – and the manufacturers couldn’t care less | Arwa Mahdawi

  15-09-2020 18:45 via theguardian.com
  
  Oil and gas companies make far more money churning out new plastic than reusing old. Meanwhile, the public gets the blamePlastic recycling is a scam. You diligently sort your rubbish, you dutifully wash your plastic containers, then everything gets tossed in a landfill or thrown in the ocean anyway. OK, maybe not everything – but the vast majority of it. According to one analysis, only 9% of all plastic ever made has likely been recycled. Here’s the kicker: the companies making all t
  
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• Bear from Ice Age found 'completely preserved' in Russian Arctic

  15-09-2020 17:04 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The ancient bear, unearthed by reindeer herders, has been hailed as a find of "great importance".
  
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• UN: 'Business-as-usual' must be transformed to prevent collapse of nature

  15-09-2020 16:11
  
  The UN has revealed that 14 of the 20 goals set in 2010 to halt the accelerating decline of nature have not been met and is urging governments, businesses and individuals to accelerate habitat and biodiversity restoration.
  
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• ITV commits to net-zero emissions by 2030

  15-09-2020 16:11
  
  ITV has built on a recent science-based targets announcement by committing to reaching net-zero emissions across the business by 2030.
  
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• World fails to meet a single target to stop destruction of nature – UN report

  15-09-2020 15:15 via theguardian.com
  
  ‘Humanity at a crossroads’ after a decade in which all of the 2010 Aichi goals to protect wildlife and ecosystems have been missedThe world has failed to meet a single target to stem the destruction of wildlife and life-sustaining ecosystems in the last decade, according to a devastating new report from the UN on the state of nature.From tackling pollution to protecting coral reefs, the international community did not fully achieve any of the 20 Aichi biodiversity targets agreed in J
  
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• Extinction: Urgent change needed to save species, says UN

  15-09-2020 15:15 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Humanity is at a crossroads and action is needed to slow nature's accelerating decline, says the UN.
  
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• 'A savagely broken food system': Cory Booker wants radical reform ... now

  15-09-2020 15:01 via theguardian.com
  
  The US senator says everybody loses – except for the massive corporations that have taken over the American food industryFrom a viral pandemic to the movement for racial justice to the worsening climate crisis, Senator Cory Booker says the massive challenges facing the US right now are all tied to a “savagely broken food system”.And last week, his most recent challenge to that system gained new momentum, when a coalition of 300 farm, food, and environmental advocacy organizatio
  
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• Dolphin numbers up in Hong Kong after Covid crisis halts ferries

  15-09-2020 14:18 via theguardian.com
  
  Revival prompts calls to divert boats to help protect native Indo-Pacific humpbacksCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageLarge numbers of dolphins returned to Hong Kong waters within weeks of the Covid-19 crisis shutting down high-speed ferries, and researchers are now calling for protections before the ferries resume.Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins, also known as Chinese white dolphins and pink dolphins, are native to the Pearl River estuary, but typically avoided the
  
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• Farm animals and pandemics: nine diseases that changed the world

  15-09-2020 13:40 via theguardian.com
  
  Covid has got experts thinking urgently about the risk of diseases passing from farmed animals to humans. We examine the major outbreaks of the past two centuries Continue reading...
  
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• Lego unveils $400m investment to drive low-carbon transition and single-use plastic phase-out

  15-09-2020 13:30
  Toymaker Lego Group has unveiled a swathe of new sustainability commitments around plastics, waste, emissions and the circular economy, backed up with a $400m (£310m) investment package.
  
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• Drought, plague, fire: the apocalypse feels nigh. Yet we have tools to stop it | Art Cullen

  15-09-2020 12:26 via theguardian.com
  
  In climate change, the Four Horsemen have a perfect force of destruction. Maybe these fires and floods will be a wakeup call to stop stalling
  As the west coast burns into an orange hellscape you have to wonder if those preaching the end of time aren’t on to something. The people smart enough to make a cellphone have been warning that we have no more than a decade to tamp down the climate crisis. Other wise men and women think we don’t even have that much time. We should listen.People
  
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• #SustyTalk: Timberland's Zach Angelini on regenerative agriculture and the circular economy

  15-09-2020 11:45
  
  edie's SustyTalk series continues with Timberland's environmental manager Zach Angelini discussing how the fashion brand plans to scale up regenerative agriculture practices in supply chains and align with circular economy principles.
  
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• Facebook launches climate science information centre, targets net-zero value chain by 2030

  15-09-2020 11:45
  
  Facebook has launched a dedicated digital space where users can access “factual and up-to-date” information on climate science, modelling the tool after its Covid-19 information centre.
  
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• Business and investor giants urge EU to raise 2030 emissions target

  15-09-2020 10:15
  
  More than 150 businesses and a group of investors with €33trn in assets under management have today (15 September) called on the European Union (EU) to back the ambitions set out in its Green Deal by committing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030.
  
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• Young climate activists start own climate talks after Cop26 delay

  15-09-2020 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Mock Cop26 set up in frustration at lack of progress due to coronavirus crisis Young climate activists have begun a parallel process to the UN climate crisis talks, in frustration at the lack of progress they perceive in world governments’ efforts to address the emergency.Crunch negotiations aimed at fulfilling the Paris climate agreement, called Cop26, were to be hosted by the UK this November, but have been delayed by the coronavirus crisis. Activists, participants and observers have tol
  
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• 'I don't think science knows': Trump denies climate change link to wildfires – video

  15-09-2020 08:50 via theguardian.com
  
  The US president is urged to recognise the changing climate and what it means to forests, during a briefing on the wildfires in California on Monday. Trump interrupts an official, Wade Crowfoot, the secretary of California’s Natural Resources Agency, to argue the climate 'will start getting cooler, you just watch'.Crowfoot responds: 'I wish science agreed with you.' To which Trump retorts: 'I don’t think science knows actually'Biden calls Trump a 'climate arsonist' as president denie
  
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• Road congestion levels in outer London higher than before lockdown

  15-09-2020 07:22 via theguardian.com
  
  Exclusive: congestion climbed above 2019 levels in August as people went back to using cars after lockdownRoad traffic congestion in outer London is now far higher than it was last year as people have gone back into their cars after lockdown, according to new data.Congestion climbed above 2019 levels in August, and has increased to nearly a fifth on average above last year, in roads outside the capital’s central congestion charging zone, even while it has dropped sharply in the centre of t
  
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• PwC targets net-zero operations and supply chain by 2030

  15-09-2020 07:02
  
  PwC has unveiled plans to become a net-zero company by 2030, reducing and offsetting emissions from operations, travel and the supply chain.
  
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• Facebook and Google announce plans to become carbon neutral

  15-09-2020 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Firms join Apple and Microsoft in committing to put no excess carbon into the atmosphereFacebook and Google are becoming carbon neutral businesses, joining competitors Apple and Microsoft in committing to put no excess carbon into the atmosphere, both companies have independently announced.But the details of the two companies’ ambitions differs greatly. At Google, which first committed to going carbon neutral in 2007, the announcement sees the company declaring success in retroactively off
  
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• Scott Morrison's power plan is nothing but a gas-fuelled calamity | Katharine Murphy

  15-09-2020 06:35 via theguardian.com
  
  The Coalition has royally stuffed up energy policy when Australia should be moving to fuels of the futureIt really is remarkable, to have lived through the bushfire season at the start of this year, and emerge from that as a political leader stronger in your conviction that the answer is locking in more fossil fuels, for longer.Mind-boggling, in truth. Continue reading...
  
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• Country diary: appreciating the minutiae of a lizard’s life

  15-09-2020 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Buxton, Derbyshire: If careful, you can closely observe tiny details, such as how their scales glisten individually in the sunThe perimeter to the old reservoir at Lightwood is outlined by a semi-circular wooden fence and in late summer it acquires a secondary purpose as the favourite sunbathing spot for the area’s common lizards. Some days there can be more than a dozen dotted along the broad-topped beams.There are many pleasures to common lizards. For one, they have such gloriously varie
  
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• SBTi kickstarts process on global standard for science-based corporate net-zero targets

  15-09-2020 02:02
  
  The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) has today (15 September) issued its first guidance on what will ultimately lead to the development of a new global standard to ensure that corporate net-zero carbon targets are aligned with climate science.
  
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• Ship with no crew to sail across the Atlantic

  15-09-2020 01:03 via bbc.co.uk
  
  A full-size, crewless research ship is to make one of the world's first autonomous transatlantic voyages.
  
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