Environment | WPN World People News

Record-breaking cold will spread across the Midwest and East Coast on Friday, just a day after a blizzard hammered the Atlantic seaboard with deep snow, fierce winds and icy floods.

In the case brought against the Norwegian Government by Greenpeace Norway, Nature and Youth and the Grandparents Climate Campaign for granting new oil licenses to drill in the Arctic, the Oslo District Court has reached a decision on January 4th.

The U.S. Department of the Interior has announced plans to open up 90 percent of America's coastal waters to oil drilling, including off California and Florida, two areas where activists have worked for years to protect marine ecosystems from oil spills.

The Trump administration unveiled its proposed Five-Year Plan for offshore leasing on January 4th. This proposal—which identifies which offshore territories could ultimately be auctioned off to the fossil fuel industry for oil and gas drilling—exposes coastal communities to unacceptable harm.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is providing two Portland-area organizations with over $1 million to reduce harmful diesel emissions from trucks and construction equipment in the Portland metro region.

In a surreptitious move, the government of Bulgaria approved on last Thursday alarming new changes to the Pirin National Park management plan that could allow construction in up to 48 per cent of the park, a World Heritage site home to bears, chamois, wolves and centuries-old pine forests.

Communities in southern Vietnam are bracing for heavy rains and powerful winds this Christmas Day, when Cyclone Tembin is expected to make landfall in the very south of the country.

The U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have reached a revised $6.5 million settlement with StarKist Co. and its subsidiary, Starkist Samoa Co., to resolve federal environmental violations at their tuna processing facility in American Samoa.

China’s nationwide carbon emission trading system, launched on 19 December, marks an important step toward promoting a low carbon transition in the world’s leading emitter of CO2, according to WWF.