Ecuadorian ambassador to the UK is hopeful impasse can be overcome at treaty negotiations in Ottawa
As UN talks begin today to agree the first global treaty to reduce soaring plastic waste, the chair of the meetings has said he is confident countries will come together to secure an agreement.
Luis Vayas Valdivieso, the Ecuadorian ambassador to the UK, admitted it would be a challenge to overcome an impasse that has emerged between countries which produce plastic and others that have ambitions to tackle plastic pollution over its whole life. But Valdivieso, who will chair the UN intergovernmental negotiations on a future international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution in Ottawa, Canada, this week, said: “We have to face those challenges and work with them. Compromise is an important word that we need to take into account.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
04/23/2024 - 04:34
04/23/2024 - 04:29
Claire O’Neill, a former climate minister, says PM’s move was to ‘try and create political division and dividing lines’
The UK government’s decision to weaken some of its climate commitments was a “retrograde step” that will set back vital cross-party action to cut carbon emissions, Claire O’Neill, a former Conservative climate minister, has said.
O’Neill, who was known as Claire Perry when she served as a minister under David Cameron and Theresa May, said the rolling back of emission reduction efforts by Rishi Sunak appeared to be a ploy for political advantage.
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04/23/2024 - 03:46
Plea from health officials comes after several snake bite victims arrived at emergency departments with the reptile
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It may sound like common sense – do not take a snake to a hospital.
But Queensland health officials have issued the unusual warning after a concerning rise in snake bite victims bringing the reptile responsible to emergency departments.
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04/22/2024 - 19:00
The Yalmy galaxias is ‘on the verge of disappearing for ever’ and Labor on the brink of failing to meet its zero extinctions target
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Even on its best days, the Yalmy galaxias is hard to find. The small, native freshwater fish is only known to live in a couple of tributaries of the Snowy River in remote and mountainous East Gippsland.
It was last seen in March 2023, when a government survey found 20 survivors. Since then? Nobody knows.
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04/22/2024 - 13:06
Chris Stark says populist response and culture war around the term is inhibiting environmental progress
The concept of “net zero” has become a political slogan used to start a “dangerous” culture war over the climate, and may be better dropped, the outgoing head of the UK’s climate watchdog has warned.
Chris Stark, the chief executive of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), said sensible improvements to the economy and people’s lives were being blocked by a populist response to the net zero label, and he would be “intensely relaxed” about losing the term.
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04/22/2024 - 11:24
Organizers at Columbia, Tulane and the University of Virginia write to attorneys general arguing schools’ investments are illegal
Campus organizers at three universities filed legal complaints on Monday arguing that their schools’ investments in planet-heating fossil fuels are illegal, the Guardian has learned.
The students from Columbia University, Tulane University and the University of Virginia each wrote to the attorneys general of their respective states calling on them to scrutinize their universities’ investments. They accuse their universities of breaching the Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act, a law adopted by 49 states that requires non-profit institutions to consider their “charitable purposes” when investing, and exercise “prudence” and “loyalty”.
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04/22/2024 - 10:00
Results highlight the difficulties government faces in selling energy transition to sceptical public
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Voters have backed Anthony Albanese’s Future Made in Australia plan but are under the misapprehension that renewables are the most expensive form of power.
Those are the results of Guardian’s latest Essential poll of 1,145 voters, illustrating the difficulty for Labor of selling the energy transition to sceptical voters.
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04/22/2024 - 06:39
Historic hearing will receive submissions from people whose human rights have been affected by climate change
Julian Medina comes from a long line of fishers in the north of Colombia’s Gulf of Morrosquillo who use small-scale and often traditional methods to catch species such as mackerel, tuna and cojinúa.
Medina went into business as a young man but was drawn back to his roots, and ended up leading a fishing organisation. For years he has campaigned against the encroachment of fossil fuel companies, pollution and overfishing, which are destroying the gulf’s delicate ecosystem and people’s livelihoods.
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04/22/2024 - 06:28
Trudi Warner was accused of contempt for holding placard reminding jurors of right to acquit based on conscience
A high court judge has thrown out an attempt by the government’s most senior law officer to prosecute a woman for holding a placard on jury rights outside a climate trial.
Mr Justice Saini said there was no basis for a prosecution of Trudi Warner, 69, for criminal contempt for holding a placard outside the trial of climate activists that informed jurors of their right to acquit a defendant based on their conscience.
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04/22/2024 - 04:00
Funds will be targeted at disadvantaged areas to create 200,000 jobs, after last week’s oil and gas lease restrictions in Alaska
Joe Biden marked Monday’s Earth Day by announcing a $7bn investment in solar energy projects nationwide, focusing on disadvantaged communities, and unveiling a week-long series of what the White House say will be “historic climate actions”.
The president was speaking at Prince William Forest Park, in Triangle, Virginia, touting his environmental record and unveiling measures to tackle the climate crisis and increase access to, and lower costs of, clean energy.
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