Environment | WPN World People News

Aerial view on river landscape in Selous (photographed from helicopter)

German Environmental Minister Barbara Hendricks and Chinese Special Climate Envoy Xie Zhenhua jointly held a press conference at the opening of the Petersberg Climate Dialogue, where the two ministers stressed the importance of implementing the Paris commitments and urged the US to stay in the Paris Climate Agreement.

The Department of Justice, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality on May 17th, announced an agreement with Vopak Terminal Deer Park Inc. and Vopak Logistics Services USA, Inc., that will improve air quality in the Houston area by strengthening air pollution controls and compliance with federal and state clean air laws at Vopak’s chemical storage terminal and wastewater treatment facility in Deer Park, Texas.

The beaches on a remote, uninhabited island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean have the highest amount of plastic debris in the world.

MEPs objected on Wednesday to EU Commission plans to authorise imports of products made from genetically modified maize and cotton which are herbicide-resistant.

The UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, on May 17th, switched on the newly constructed solar plant in Jordan’s Azraq refugee camp. Funded by the IKEA Foundation’s Brighter Lives for Refugees campaign, the solar farm has brought renewable power to a population that lived for two and a half years with only sporadic access to electricity and will contribute to the Jordan national energy strategy to achieve a green economy by 2020.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has awarded $1,686,549 to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to support air monitoring programs. The grant will help TCEQ maintain the state’s monitoring network for fine particulate pollution, known as PM 2.5. Data of actual conditions is key to clean air programs and areas reaching attainment.

Greenpeace has published a new report, “Clearcutting Free Speech: How Resolute Forest Products is going to extremes to silence critics of its controversial logging practices”, presenting the implications of logging company Resolute Forest Products' massive legal attack on its critics, which aims to redefine activism as criminal activity.