Environment | WPN World People News

The impact of the climate crisis on our oceans has far-reaching implications for biodiversity and humankind, requiring an urgent global political response in the next 12 months, a new Greenpeace International report warns. In Hot Water: The Climate Crisis and the Urgent Need for Ocean Protection states the breakdown of the oceans due to fossil fuel usage is rapid and large-scale, already disrupting ecosystem structure and functions across the globe, and resulting in ocean heating, sea level rise, ocean acidification, and deoxygenation.

A Scottish Court has granted Shell’s request for a temporary ban on future protests by Greenpeace International and Greenpeace Netherlands near or on Shell’s oil platforms in the Brent oil field. Greenpeace protested there in October against Shell’s plans to leave parts of four old oil platforms in the North Sea. The storage tanks of three of the platforms contain more than 11,000 tonnes of oil, which will eventually end up in the sea.

Lehigh Cement Company LLC (Lehigh) and Lehigh White Cement Company, LLC (Lehigh White) have agreed to invest approximately $12 million in pollution control technology at their 11 portland cement manufacturing plants in eight states to resolve alleged violations of the Clean Air Act, announced the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Justice. The settlement will reduce more than 4,555 tons of harmful nitrogen oxides (NOx) and 989 tons of sulfur dioxide (SO2) pollution each year.

Some of the world’s best known brands are fuelling climate change by sourcing palm oil and wood pulp linked to Indonesian forest fires, reveals new Greenpeace International analysis.

On December 4, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to not impose burdensome and potentially duplicative financial responsibility requirements for the petroleum and coal products manufacturing industry (the industrial sector that transforms crude petroleum and coal into usable products) because the financial risk to the federal government from those facilities is already addressed by various existing federal and state technical and financial requirements and modern material management practices.

The loss of oxygen from the world’s ocean is increasingly threatening fish species and disrupting ecosystems, a new IUCN report warns. Ocean oxygen loss, driven by climate change and nutrient pollution, is a growing menace to fisheries and species such as tuna, marlin and sharks, according to the report released at the UN Climate Change conference in Madrid on December 7.

Mega-traders Cargill and Bunge are exporting soya from an agricultural estate in Brazil with a long record of violence, illegality, and environmental destruction, a Greenpeace International investigation has uncovered. Cargill and Bunge supply soya to numerous international companies, including fast food brands McDonald’s, KFC, Burger King, retailers and consumer goods brands that promised to eliminate deforestation by 2020.

The World Bank’s recent Sustainable Development Bonds have helped to raise awareness for the importance of combating food loss and waste. Food loss and waste is part of Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 - halving food waste by 2030.

From 2nd Decembe farmers and land managers across England will start receiving their 2019 Basic Payment Scheme money.

All payments are made directly to bank accounts via BACS transfer so farmers should make sure the RPA has the most up-to-date account details. Once a payment has been made a remittance advice is sent in the post, confirming the amount paid. Claim statements will also be sent, explaining how payments have been worked out.

On November 28, the Commission publishes recommendations by a group of experts on how to transform the EU's energy-intensive industries so they help reach EU-wide objectives for a circular and climate-neutral economy by 2050. These objectives were put forward in the Commission's A Clean Planet for All strategy in November 2018.