Group of 85 countries and blocs press for ambition in plastic waste treaty after no agreement was reached in Busan
Binding global targets to cut plastic production must be at the centre of any continuing negotiations to secure the world’s first treaty to tackle plastic waste, a group of 85 countries has said.
Talks in Busan, South Korea, attempting to secure agreement between more than 200 countries on the details of a plastic pollution treaty ended in failure over the weekend.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
12/02/2024 - 05:33
12/02/2024 - 04:04
An ambitious multi-part project will transform seven miles of seabed into an artistic destination with a cautionary message
Over the next few years, coastal waters just off of Miami Beach will be transformed by The ReefLine, an ambitious new project that aims to occupy seven miles of seabed within shouting distance of the sands. The ReefLine aims to one day create an enormous, art-studded underwater playland, including a sculpture park, snorkel trail and hybrid reef.
One of the first pieces of this project, Miami Reef Star – a gigantic 90ft star that will eventually be visible to landing aircraft descending over the waters – will be on exhibition during Art Basel Miami Beach. Set up in prototype on Miami Beach itself, it will be a part of Star Compass, a series of three large-scale installations curated by Ximena Caminos and Dodie Kazanjian. In addition to Reef Star, Star Compass will also include The Great Elephant Migration, a work consisting of 100 life-sized sculptures of elephants, and Voile/Toile – Toile/Voile by French conceptual artist Daniel Buren, which will stage an enormous sailboat race.
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12/02/2024 - 04:00
Move to exclude fossil fuel firms from investment portfolios follows years of campaigning by staff and students
More than three-quarters of UK universities have pledged to exclude fossil fuel companies from their investment portfolios, according to campaigners.
The move, which is part of a wider drive to limit investment in fossil fuels, follows years of campaigning by staff and students across the higher education sector.
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12/02/2024 - 02:00
Bringing back the long-vanished bird to the UK was hailed as a conservation triumph. Then farmers started finding the corpses of their prized livestock
Photographs by Murdo MacLeod
Two spinal columns, a dozen ribs and a hollowed-out head lie next to a peak called “rock of the eagle” in Gaelic. These are the remains of a pair of three-month-old lambs. It’s muggy, and maggots and foxes will make light work of the remaining skin and bone. In a few weeks, it’ll be as if it never happened.
Ruaridh MacKay, who has been farming here at Stronmagachan Farm in Inveraray for 25 years, picks up one of the spines: sodden and slimy from successive fronts of rain, every morsel of flesh has been excavated. He was expecting to take these lambs to market next month.
Mackay says the mysterious deaths started about 12 years ago
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12/02/2024 - 01:29
Aemo says it does not want to ‘directly control people’s rooftop solar’ but it may be necessary to reduce or cut off power gleaned from the sun
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The power grid in eastern Australia could experience “outage conditions” as soon as next spring unless states speed up actions to cope with surplus generation from solar panels on sunny days, the Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo) has warned.
In a report released on Monday, Aemo called for an “emergency backstop” mechanism to ensure grid stability when households and other solar photovoltaic (PV) owners export excess electricity.
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12/02/2024 - 00:00
Direct flights from the US to Nuuk expected to double next year but there are concerns about the expected influx
The capital’s new airport has been opened, two more are in the making, and expectations are high: the Americans are coming to Greenland.
On Thursday, the first ever international flight into Nuuk, the most populous settlement on the autonomous Danish territory, landed to cheers on the ground and in the cabin of Air Greenland flight GL781 where passengers were served miniature bottles of Nicolas Feuillatte champagne.
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12/01/2024 - 18:35
Leading the charge towards clean energy would bring some much-needed positive momentum to international climate policy
When Australia announces its 2035 emissions target to the world, there will be a unique opportunity to promote Australia’s ambition to help other countries decarbonise through exports of renewable energy-based commodities, while coal and gas exports will fall.
Coal and gas exports from Australia are equivalent to well over a billion tonnes of CO2 when burned in other countries. That is around 3% of global fossil fuel CO2 emissions – far more than Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions at home that the national emissions target applies to.
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12/01/2024 - 12:00
Dave Lewis says the near-constant stream of clean electricity could supply the grid as early as 2030
In the south-west of Morocco, a sprawl of wind and solar farms stretching across an area the size of Greater London could soon generate the green electricity powering more than 9m British homes.
This is the unflinching vision of Sir Dave Lewis, the former Tesco boss who is hoping to build the world’s longest subsea power cable in order to harness north Africa’s renewable energy sources and power Britain’s clean energy agenda.
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12/01/2024 - 11:00
As neighbors face an uncertain political future, the city’s only Afghan restaurant provides a sense of community – and ‘a bit of happiness’
An aromatic blend of spices and bolani, stuffed pan-fried bread, and the voice of Asad Badie, an Afghan pop singer who rose to stardom in the 1980s, foreshadowed a meal experience that one could easily believe was taking place thousands of miles away.
In reality, it was almost 1pm in Tucson, Arizona, when Ritiek Rafi and Ahmad Bahaduri started to greet and take orders from customers in Dari and English inside the only Afghan restaurant in the city.
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12/01/2024 - 11:00
Conservationists fear an expansion of drilling with North Dakota governor Trump’s pick for secretary of the interior and White House ‘energy czar’
Of all Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees so far, Doug Burgum has stood out for appearing to be one of the most conventional.
The billionaire governor of North Dakota – like most picks to lead the Department of the Interior, the largest landowner in the US west – comes from a western state. He is not a conspiracy theorist, he hasn’t been investigated for sex trafficking. Unlike the president-elect’s pick to lead the Department of Energy, he is not a fracking CEO.
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