Climate finance committed by major multilateral development banks (MDBs) rose by more than 24% last year compared to 2020, according to this 2021 Joint Report on Multilateral Development Banks’ Climate Finance. The 2021 total financing by MDBs already surpassed the 2025 climate finance goals set at the 2019 United Nations …
A New York state judge on Friday upheld an upstate community's ban on gas drilling, marking the second victory this week for opponents of the drilling method known as fracking. The authority vested in towns and cities in New York to regulate use of their land extends to prohibitions on …
A court in Ecuador has rejected an order by arbitrators that an $18 billion pollution ruling against Chevron should be frozen, but the judges referred an appeal by the U.S. oil company to the country's Supreme Court. A year after the landmark decision against Chevron, a panel working for The …
Diet soda may benefit the waistline, but people who drink it every day may have a heightened risk of heart attack and stroke, according to a new U.S. study. Although the researchers, whose work appeared in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, found that older adults who drank diet soda …
Given the growing interest in landscape urbanism in Indian architectural discourse, this article critically examines the history and impact of its most prominent embodiment, New York’s High Line public park. Landscape urbanism has not contributed to social justice, political emancipation, or ecologically saner designs, as its proponents have argued. Instead, …
Geraldine J. Fraser-Moleketi, Practice Director, Democratic Governance Group, United Nation’s Development Programme (UNDP) has expressed interest in visiting Kerala and learning about the government’s work in the area of democratic governance. “We would be happy to explore areas of mutual collaboration in strengthening South-South learning initiatives and possible partnership with …
An arbitration panel reinforced an order that Ecuador's government seek to suspend an $18 billion court award against U.S. oil company Chevron Corp over pollution in the South American country's rainforest. A year after its original order, the three-person panel, working under The Hague's Permanent Court of Arbitration, told the …
New York City has a plan to keep the subways from flooding. Queensland, Australia, has a plan to keep agricultural lands from drying up. Chicago has a plan to cope with higher temperatures. In the Bay Area, where climate change is expected to cause flooding, shoreline erosion, heat waves, water …
Insurance commissioners in California, New York and Washington State will require that companies disclose how they intend to respond to the risks their businesses and customers face from increasingly severe storms and wildfires, rising sea levels and other consequences of climate change, California’s commissioner said Wednesday. Up until this point, …
A federal court judge on Friday denied a Chevron Corp bid to prevent Ecuadorean plaintiffs from collecting on an $18 billion damages award against the U.S. oil giant over pollution in the Amazon jungle. The oil company in November had asked Manhattan federal court judge Lewis Kaplan to freeze the …
Shanghai claimed this year to be the world’s busiest container handling port. One tradable it doesn’t want mixed into the throughput figures: nuclear and radioactive items. In a joint U.S.-China non-proliferation initiative, officials next week are scheduled to commission and demonstrate a radiation detection system at Shanghai’s flagship Yangshan port, …
The number of children in the United States considered poor rose by 1 million in 2010, the US Census said Thursday, with more than one in five of the youngest Americans now living in poverty. ‘Children who live in poverty, especially young children, are more likely than their peers to …
While the long-term outlook for grape-growers in the Finger Lakes region is favorable, it is less than optimal for skiers and other winter sports enthusiasts in the Adirondacks. Fir and spruce trees are expected to die out in the Catskills, and New York City’s backup drinking water supply may well …
The competitiveness of cities in attracting investments is lately measured based on the focus they lay on environmental sustainability issues and the level of carbon emissions, according to a senior executive of consultancy firm Jones Long LaSalle. Even cities like New York, Tokyo and Shanghai, have focussed on building their …
Several countries and states have set targets for substantially increasing renewable energy (RE) contributions in their electricity grids. As the potential for additional hydro-electricity is limited in the US most future RE penetration is envisioned to be in the form of wind and solar. Our simulations, based on hourly resource …
One of the darkest Halloweens ever loomed for about 3 million households left without power on Sunday by a rare October snowstorm in the Northeast that bedeviled transportation and killed at least eight people. Jack-o'-lanterns peeked through record-breaking snow, the heaviest of which was 31.4 inches measured in Jaffrey, New …
The Bloomberg administration is set to commit $2.4 billion in public and private investment to applying new environmental technology to an old problem: the flow of untreated sewage and storm water into New York City’s waterways. City officials announced on Wednesday that the State Department of Environmental Conservation had tentatively …
In a case of dueling studies, research commissioned by opponents of nuclear power indicates that electricity in New York State would remain reliable and reasonably priced if the Indian Point nuclear reactors were permanently shut down. The findings directly contradict those of experts hired by the Bloomberg administration. The opponents, …
New tests are coming to market that can detect Down syndrome in a fetus using a sample of the mother’s blood, potentially reducing the need for riskier invasive tests while also stirring ethical concerns. Researchers say the new tests may not be reliable enough yet to replace amniocentesis or chorionic …
Two recent studies appear to expose cyclists as a potent urban menace. Bicycle riders pose a danger to themselves and to pedestrians, according to the studies. Bicycle commuters have 2.3 times the black carbon, or soot, in their lungs as do noncyclists, according to a U.K. study whose results were …
Listeriosis cases linked to cantaloupes grown at a farm in Colorado represent the deadliest food-borne outbreak in a decade, and health officials are bracing for additional illnesses. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday said it had confirmed 13 deaths and 72 illnesses centered on cantaloupes grown by …
