In a world of higher electricity demand growth, clean electricity is stepping up to the challenge. Spearheaded by exponential solar expansion, clean power is set to grow faster than demand, marking the start of a permanent decline in fossil generation. 2024 both clarified and consolidated the shape of the global …
Brazil will increase the use of renewable energy, target zero net deforestation and push for low-carbon agriculture as part of its climate proposal, Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira said in an interview. In its proposal to the United Nations climate conference in Paris this year, Latin America’s largest nation will propose …
OSLO: China is poised to overtake the United States as the main cause of man-made global warming since 1990, the benchmark year for U.N.-led action, in a historic shift that may raise pressure on Beijing to act. China's cumulative greenhouse gas emissions since 1990, when governments were becoming aware of …
The objective of this study was to analyze the changes and uncertainties related to water availability in the future (for purposes of this study, it was adopted the period between 2011 and 2040), using a stochastic approach, taking as reference a climate 5 projection from the climate model Eta CPTEC/HadCM3. …
The world’s first commercially planted genetically-modified trees may be approved in Brazil, when officials rule on the safety of a newly engineered variety of eucalyptus. Brazilian-owned company FuturaGene is seeking permission to plant the trees, which it says mature more quickly than their existing counterparts and produce 20 per cent …
Breastfeeding has clear short-term benefits, but its long-term consequences on human capital are yet to be established. We aimed to assess whether breastfeeding duration was associated with intelligence quotient (IQ), years of schooling, and income at the age of 30 years, in a setting where no strong social patterning of …
Brazil and Indonesia paid over $40bn in subsidies to industries that drive rainforest destruction between 2009 and 2012 - compared to $346m in conservation aid they received to protect forests, according to new research Brazil and Indonesia spent over 100 times more in subsidies to industries that cause deforestation than …
There is an increasing focus on the role that public and private resources can play in supporting activities that reduce forest loss as part of wider efforts to address climate change, and ensure sustainable development. This report highlights the role that subsidies play in shaping the investment climate in a …
Clearing forests for palm oil plantations is a "technical" matter that should not get tied up with trade discussions, an Indonesian minister told a land and poverty conference. Growing global demand for palm oil is fuelling rapid deforestation in Indonesia, at a faster pace than in Brazil's Amazon region, making …
The Mayor of Rio de Janeiro has admitted that the city's heavily polluted waterways will not be cleaned up in time for next year's sailing events at the Olympic Games. While bidding to host the 2016 Olympics, the Brazilian city promised a massive clean-up of the Guanabara Bay, which is …
Olympic sailing teams might notice something fishy in the water when they compete in next summer’s games in Rio de Janeiro -- that is, potentially thousands of dead fish, along with piles of trash and raw sewage. Rio de Janeiro’s Guanabara Bay, the venue for next year’s Olympic sailing events, …
Brazil plans to deliver its proposal for limiting fossil-fuel pollution to the United Nations before October as part of a global deal on climate change. The government has “ambitious goals” for the UN conference on climate change that will be hosted in Paris on December, said Carlos Klink, secretary for …
Scientists have bred 30 new varieties of "heat-beating" beans designed to provide protein for the world's poor in the face of global warming, researchers announced on Wednesday. Described as "meat of the poor", beans are a key food source for more than 400 million people across the developing world, but …
On May 19, 2014, the 67th World Health Assembly (WHA) adopted WHO’s “Global strategy and targets for tuberculosis prevention, care and control after 2015”. This post-2015 global tuberculosis strategy, labelled the End TB Strategy, was shaped during the past 2 years. A wide range of stakeholders—from ministries of health and …
Members of Brazil's environmental police force IBAMA and the Para state police inspect logs discovered during "Operation Labareda," a raid against illegal logging, near Novo Progresso in the Amazon rain forest, August 18, 2012. After years of gains against destruction of the Amazon rainforest, Brazil appears to be suffering from …
Five middle-income countries (MICs) which displayed strong economic growth in 2014 – India, Brazil, China, Mexico and Indonesia – account for 363 million, or a half, of the world’s hungry, according to a report released on Wednesday by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). The 2014–2015 Global Food Policy …
Latin America has the planet's largest land reserves for agriculture and had the most rapid agricultural expansion during the twenty-first century. A large portion of the expansion replaced forests, as shown by many local and regional studies. However, expansion varied regionally and also replaced other land covers. Further, it is …
Forests the size of a football field were illegally cleared every two minutes between 2000 and 2012 to supply European consumers with beef, soy beans, leather and palm oil, a campaign group said on Tuesday. The European Union (EU) imports 25 percent of all soy produced on illegally cleared tropical …
The HadGEM2 earth system climate model was used to assess the impact of biomass burning on surface ozone concentrations over the Amazon forest and its impact on vegetation, under present-day climate conditions. Here the researchers consider biomass burning emissions from wildfires, deforestation fires, agricultural forest burning, and residential and commercial …
Exploitation of the extensive polymetallic deposits of the Andean Altiplano in South America since precolonial times has caused substantial emissions of neurotoxic lead (Pb) into the atmosphere; however, its historical significance compared to recent Pb pollution from leaded gasoline is not yet resolved. We present a comprehensive Pb emission history …
One of the largest area studies of forest loss impacting biodiversity shows that a third of the Amazon is headed toward or has just past a threshold of forest cover below which species loss is faster and more damaging. Researchers call for conservation policy to switch from targeting individual landowners …
