Environment | WPN World People News

European Commissioners held an orientation debate on the revision of the Commission’s energy and environmental aid guidelines that provide the framework for assessing national state aid measures.

Commenting on the news that the newly formed Government of Norway is considering establishing a mandate for the country’s sovereign wealth fund to invest in renewable energy, WWF said that the move could be an ‘unprecedented shift’ for investments in renewable energy if done at scale.

On Wednesday, national health and environmental groups filed a legal challenge to require the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to update clean air standards that limit emissions from new outdoor wood boilers, furnaces and other similar sources that discharge large volumes of smoke and soot. This review is 17 years overdue, resulting in increased exposure to harmful smoke and soot in communities across the nation despite the wide availability of cleaner technologies.

Costco’s El Camino Real store in South San Francisco, Calif., is recalling 9,043 units (approximately 39,755 lbs.) of rotisserie chicken products that may be contaminated with a strain of Salmonella Heidelberg, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced.

Some of the world’s most iconic global corporations announced commitments to combat climate change at the Climate Savers Power of Power Business Summit in Mexico City, hosted by WWF. The commitments include operations and supply chain emissions reductions and targets for renewable energy.

The Nurek hydro-electric power station on the Vakhsh River in Tajikistan, some 75 km east of Dushanbe, 27 February 2008.

In a decision that will protect public health and ratepayers, the Kansas Supreme Court invalidated the air pollution permit granted to Sunflower Electric Power Corp. by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment in 2010. The permit must be reconsidered by KDHE and all current air pollution regulations must be applied. With new standards in effect since the project was first proposed, the likelihood of the expansion plant legally meeting those standards or finding financial backing for unneeded coal-fired generation are dim.

This September, sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean fell to the sixth lowest extent in the satellite record, which began in 1979. All of the seven lowest extents have occurred in the last seven years, since 2007. Satellite data analyzed by NSIDC scientists showed that the sea ice cover reached its lowest extent on September 13. Sea ice extent averaged for the month of September was also the sixth lowest in the satellite record.

Shale gas extraction could help lower energy bills and reduce Europe's dependence on energy from other countries, but there are concerns about how it could affect people's health and the environment. On 9 October MEPs will vote on whether shale gas exploration and extraction should be subject to mandatory assessments of their impact on the environment. Find out how shale gas drilling works in our infographic.