Environment

• Thursday, May 14th 2009 - 08:20 UTC

  Coral Triangle in risk of disappearance says WWF

  

  If the world does not take effective action on climate change, coral reefs will disappear from the Coral Triangle by the end of the century, the ability of the region’s coastal environments to feed people will decline by 80%, and the livelihoods of around 100 million people will have been lost or severely impacted, warns WWF.

• Monday, May 11th 2009 - 10:28 UTC

  Obama and Bush agree limited protection for polar bears

  

  The US government has opted to retain a Bush-era rule that limits protection for polar bears from the effects of global warming. Environmental groups had been calling for the rule to be lifted, and the US Congress had given Interior Secretary Ken Salazar the power to do so. Mr Salazar said lifting the rule would create “uncertainty and confusion”.

• Monday, May 11th 2009 - 09:01 UTC

  Record floods and drought in “complicated” Brazil

  

  Forty four deaths had been confirmed in northern Brazil's worst flooding in decades, fed by two months of unusually heavy rains in a zone stretching from deep in the Amazon to normally arid areas near the Atlantic coast. In spite of a gradual Sunday retreat of water in some areas the number of homeless climbed to 300.000

• Monday, May 11th 2009 - 07:32 UTC

  UN Environment Program agreement to ban nine persistent organic pollutants

  

  Under of the auspices of the United Nations Environment Program meeting in Geneva 150 governments have agreed to ban the production of nine of the world's most hazardous chemicals.

• Thursday, May 7th 2009 - 08:34 UTC

  Brazil flooded in the north and under severe drought in the south

  

  Brazil rushed aid Wednesday by air, over land and through rapidly rising waters to scores of cities and towns isolated by floods that have killed at least 32 and left nearly 200,000 homeless. However in the south the country is suffering a severe months-long drought which is threatening hydroelectricity generation and agriculture.

• Wednesday, April 29th 2009 - 11:50 UTC

  Massive Antarctic ice shelf breaking up into icebergs

  

  A massive Antarctic ice shelf is breaking up and pieces are expected to float away as icebergs over the course of the next few weeks. Scientists estimate the Wilkins Ice Shelf, which was originally about the size of Northern Ireland, had been in place for several hundred years. But satellite images taken over the past week show it has begun collapsing into the ocean as more than half a dozen similar Antarctic ice shelves have already done, said an article posted Tuesday by the European Space Agency on its website.

• Tuesday, April 28th 2009 - 06:05 UTC

  Fifth year-running march to protest against Botnia pulp mill

  

  For the fifth year running a massive concentration of Argentine environmentalists and picketers marched Sunday across an international bridge linking with Uruguay to protest against a pulp mill built on the Uruguayan side and which has been at the heart of a bilateral political and diplomatic dispute between the neighbouring countries.

• Wednesday, April 22nd 2009 - 12:17 UTC

  Water levels in the world’s main rivers is declining, say meteorologists

  

  Water levels in some of the world's most important rivers have declined significantly over the past 50 years, US researchers say. They say the reduced flows are linked to climate change and will have a major impact as the human population grows.

• Sunday, April 19th 2009 - 04:49 UTC

  Climate change could reverse forests’ carbon absorption functions

  

  Forests' role as massive carbon sinks is “at risk of being lost entirely”, top forestry scientists have warned. The International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) says forests are under increasing degrees of stress as a result of climate change.

• Thursday, April 16th 2009 - 09:55 UTC

  Climate change threatens Antarctica’s emperor penguins

  

  Polar bears, the poster children for Arctic climate change, are getting competition for the title of climate change casualty from the opposite side of the globe. Antarctica’s emperor penguins may face an equally dire fate. Like polar bears, these birds depend on sea ice for breeding and feeding habitat. Also like polar bears, emperor penguins seem unlikely to adapt to the rapid rate of sea ice extent change, according to a National Academy of Science study released by the National Centre for Atmospheric Research.