UNICEF Innocenti's Report Card 17 explores how 43 OECD/EU countries are faring in providing healthy environments for children. Beyond children’s immediate environments, over-consumption in some of the world’s richest countries is destroying children’s environments globally. This threatens both children worldwide and future generations. To provide all children with safe and …
European Union ambassadors were due to meet on Wednesday in an effort to settle a dispute over the allocation of seats to member states on the United Nations' Green Climate Fund (GCF) board, sources close to the matter said. U.N. climate talks in Durban last year agreed on the design …
France's nuclear-safety watchdog ordered immediate upgrades to nuclear reactors to guard against natural disasters, which Électricité de France SA said could require €10 billion, or roughly $13 billion, in additional costs. In a review following last year's Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan, the Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire concluded that no …
Unrest in North Africa has set back in the short term ambitious plans to develop solar energy for use locally and in Europe, but for the longer term the region's abundant sunshine offers huge investment potential, the head of France's Medgrid said on Thursday. The grid alliance's chairman Andre Merlin …
The small western-European country of Belgium currently has two commercial nuclear sites and a total of seven reactors. Nuclear energy accounts for over half of the nation's power consumption, a total of about 45 billion kilowatt-hours per year. Although typically quite fractured, Belgium's political parties have reached a consensus on …
Europe's first exchange for trading wood pellets, used to replace coal in electricity generation, will be launched on November 3 in the port of Rotterdam, Anglo-Dutch exchange APX Endex said in a statement. The global market of wood pellets is growing as a result of world-wide policies to cut CO2 …
A violent storm that lashed an outdoor rock music festival in northern Belgium killed five people, Hasselt mayor Hilde Claes said yesterday. Ten more were seriously injured with three in critical condition, police said, as two stages collapsed, trees were uprooted and hailstones "the size of golf balls" rained down …
Belgiumis keen to provide support to Bangladeshin developing its renewable energy sector for helping the country in solvingits current power crisis. This was revealed on Thursday while newly appointed BelgiumAmbassador to Bangladesh Pierre Vaesen presented his credentials to PresidentZillur Rahman at Bangabhaban here. Welcoming the new envoy at Bangabhaban, the …
Just like our people, every Indian-origin drug will be counted and have its history documented soon. From July, each drug exported will have its packaging adequately laced with bar codes so that at any point during the supply chain or afterwards, if doubts are cast on the quality or efficacy …
Epidemiologic studies indirectly suggest that air pollution accelerates atherosclerosis. We hypothesized that individual exposure to particulate matter (PM) derived from fossil fuel would correlate with plasma concentrations of oxidized low-density lipoprotein (LDL), taken as a marker of atherosclerosis. We tested this hypothesis in patients with diabetes, who are at high …
Population studies suggest that persons with diabetes are more sensitive to the effects of particulate matter (PM) air pollution. However, the biological mechanisms of a possible prothrombotic effect underlying this enhanced susceptibility remain largely unknown. The authors hypothesized that exposure to PM causes prothrombotic changes in persons with diabetes, possibly …
Wind energy is a key solution in the fight against climate change, and the technology is on track to saving 10 bn tons of CO2 by 2020. This means that more than 65% of all emissions reductions pledges tabled by industrialised at the climate negotiations following the Copenhagen Accord could …
Better Place, which is building a global network of charging stations for the electric car industry, expects its e-cars to be significantly cheaper than gasoline-powered counterparts, its CEO was quoted as saying. "(Our partner) Renault has not set prices yet. But the e-car will be 3,000 to 5,000 euros ($4,400 …
A global trading scheme is the most effective means of cutting carbon emissions in the shipping sector, five shipping industry associations said in a study on Wednesday. Shipping and aviation are the only industry sectors not regulated under the Kyoto Protocol, which sets targets for greenhouse gas emissions by rich …
Tuktoyaktuk: The Arctic Ocean has given up tens of thousands more square kilometers of ice on Sunday in a relentless summer of melt, with scientists watching through satellite eyes for a possible record low polar ice cap. From the barren Arctic shore of this village in Canada
The possibility of component replacement and extending the lifetimes of existing plants are very attractive to utilities, especially given lingering public opposition to constructing new nuclear plants, while some governments see them as a way of limiting carbon emissions and power price rises. But economic, regulatory and political considerations have …
Nearly a third of the world's cement industry has united on a strategy to cut global warming gases in a way that will not slow a construction boom in poor countries, backers of the initiative said on Wednesday. The cement sector contributes about 5 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions …
Aircraft and patrol boats will be deployed to prevent over-trawling by European Union fleets when the fishing season for the endangered bluefin tuna opens on Thursday. Prized by sushi lovers but chronically overfished for years, bluefin tuna commands sky-high prices in Asia, particularly in Japan where a single fish can …
