Environment | WPN World People News

Repeated droughts around the world have shockingly large and often hidden consequences, destroying enough farm produce to feed 81 million people every day for a year, damaging forests, and threating to trap generations of children in poverty, according to a new report from the World Bank Group.

On October 23, a coalition of conservation groups called on the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (“DEQ”) to enforce the “bad actor” provisions of state mining law by suspending authorizations for two massive hard rock mining projects proposed in northwest Montana’s Cabinet Mountains.

Typhoon Lan struck Japan early Monday with heavy rains and strong winds, leaving at least two people dead before the storm moved back out to sea.

The Commission on Human Rights in the Philippines have called on 47 carbon producers to attend a preliminary meeting in its investigation into their corporate responsibility for climate-related human rights abuses. The companies include ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Chevron, Total, BHP Billiton, Suncor, and ConocoPhillips.

The passage of the Senate budget bill signals a step toward oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and potentially other sensitive Arctic areas.

The legislation, informally agreed on Wednesday evening by Parliament and Council negotiators, will prolong the exemption for intercontinental flights until 31 December 2023, when the first phase of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO)’s Carbon Reduction and Offsetting Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) scheme will kick in. This will prevent legal gaps, as the exemption was due to expire at the end of this year.

A federal judge upheld important protections for some of the last unspoiled areas of the Kootenai National Forest in northwest Montana and the Idaho Panhandle National Forests in northern Idaho, on October 19 .

The Environment and Public Health Committee opposes the European Commission’s proposal to renew the controversial herbicide licence for 10 years. Instead, MEPs say the EU should draw up plans for a phase-out of the substance, starting with a complete ban on household use and a ban in use for farming when biological alternatives (i.e. “integrated pest management systems”) work well for weed control.