Few economic and social benefits will come to Africans if processing is all done overseas, says Wanjira Mathai
Africa must take greater control in the industries it supplies with raw materials to lift its people from poverty and seize its own destiny in a low-carbon world, one of the continent’s leading environmentalists has urged.
Wanjira Mathai, the managing director for Africa and global partnerships at the World Resources Institute thinktank, said much more of what the continent produced must be processed and made use of close to where it is produced, if the world is to shift to a low-carbon footing.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
04/24/2024 - 23:00
Illnesses such as dengue and malaria to reach unaffected parts of northern Europe, America, Asia and Australia, conference to hear
Mosquito-borne diseases are spreading across the globe, and particularly in Europe, due to climate breakdown, an expert has said.
The insects spread illnesses such as malaria and dengue fever, the prevalences of which have hugely increased over the past 80 years as global heating has given them the warmer, more humid conditions they thrive in.
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04/24/2024 - 15:22
Proliferation of hubs for online shopping disproportionately sited in low-income neighborhoods or communities of color
Hundreds of mega-warehouses have been built in Illinois for online shopping in recent years and the rise in delivery trucks is polluting neighborhoods already burdened with poor air quality, a new study says.
Two million people in Illinois live within a half-mile of large warehouses, which are disproportionately located in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color.
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04/24/2024 - 13:00
Study confirms Philip Morris International, Danone, Nestlé, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola are worst offenders
Fewer than 60 multinationals are responsible for more than half of the world’s plastic pollution, with five responsible for a quarter of that, based on the findings of a piece of research published on Wednesday.
The researchers concluded that for every percentage increase in plastic produced, there was an equivalent increase in plastic pollution in the environment.
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04/24/2024 - 12:00
Sugarcane biodiversity disappeared as big plantations dominated the sugar trade in Hawaii, but now native varieties are making a comeback
Noa Kekuewa Lincoln remembers when he first encountered native Hawaiian sugarcane in 2004. The fresh stalks, bursting with color, might have sprouted from Willy Wonka’s imagination, not the soil.
Lincoln, a kanaka maoli (Native Hawaiian) expert in Indigenous cropping systems and an assistant professor at the University of Hawaii, said: “I grew up seeing grayish-green cane fields. But these canes are fluorescent pink, bright apple-green striped. They looked like huge cartoon candy canes. They almost don’t look real!”
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04/24/2024 - 11:24
Campaigners fear growth duty will hamper water regulator’s ability to crack down on companies in poor financial state
The Conservatives have pushed through a duty on the water regulator to prioritise growth, which experts have said will incentivise water companies to value their bottom lines over reducing sewage pollution.
Campaigners fear this move will weaken Ofwat’s ability to crack down on water companies as it may force the regulator to consider a company’s financial situation and the impact on its growth if the firm is heavily fined for polluting.
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04/24/2024 - 09:00
The divestment movement has a long history among US student activists, including in the overlapping movements of today
Cameron Jones first learned about fossil fuel divestment as a 15-year-old climate organizer. When he enrolled at Columbia University in 2022, he joined the campus’s chapter of the youth-led climate justice group the Sunrise Movement and began pushing the school in New York to sever financial ties with coal, oil and gas companies.
“The time for institutions like Columbia to be in the pocket of fossil fuel corporations has passed,” Jones wrote in an October 2023 op-ed in the student newspaper directed toward the Columbia president, Minouche Shafik.
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04/24/2024 - 08:49
Newberry county sheriff’s office reassures people siren-like roar is male cicadas singing to attract mates after a decade dormant
Emerging cicadas are so loud in one South Carolina county that residents are calling the sheriff’s office asking why they can hear sirens or a loud roar.
The Newberry county sheriff’s office sent out a message on Facebook on Tuesday letting people know that the whining sound is just the male cicadas singing to attract mates after more than a decade dormant.
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04/24/2024 - 08:23
Gas and coal accounted for just 2.4% of power generation for an hour last week, data shows, amid ‘zero-carbon grid’ plans
The share of Great Britain’s electricity generated by burning fossil fuels plummeted to unprecedented lows this month, ahead of plans to begin running a “zero-carbon grid” for short periods from next year.
Electricity generated by burning gas and coal fell to a record low of just 2.4% for an hour at lunchtime on Monday 15 April, according to an analysis of data from National Grid’s electricity system operator (ESO).
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04/24/2024 - 08:16
British Medical Association says decision to take Dr Sarah Benn off medical register for five months ‘sends worrying message’
Doctors groups are calling for urgent consideration of the rules for medical professionals who take peaceful direct action on the climate crisis, which they say is the “greatest threat to global health”, after a GP was suspended from the register for non-violent protest.
Dr Sarah Benn, a GP from Birmingham, was taken off the medical register for five months on Tuesday by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS), the disciplinary arm of the General Medical Council (GMC), over her climate protests. The tribunal said Benn’s fitness to practise as a doctor had been impaired by reason of misconduct.
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