Environment | WPN World People News

On July 9, during an official visit by US president Barack Obama, Greenpeace activists unfurled a giant banner in Madrid reading "Yes we can stop TTIP".

Continuing the Obama Administration’s commitment to taking action on climate change and protecting public health, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is taking steps to further reduce emissions of methane-rich gas from municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills. Under the final rules, new, modified and existing landfills will begin capturing and controlling landfill gas emissions at levels that are one-third lower than current requirements, updating 20-year-old standards for existing landfills.

The Bialowieza World Heritage site is Europe's oldest remaining forest filled with ancient trees.

The EU needs a common definition of “normal car use”, says Renault. Diesel engine NOx emissions are the price paid to hit lower CO2 targets, says the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association. But Volkswagen is ashamed of cheating to beat strict US emissions laws. So said contributors to the “triple bill” of hearings in held by the Committee of Inquiry into Emission Measurements in the Automotive Sector (EMIS) on Wednesday and Thursday. Its work will continue after the summer break.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has settled with petroleum exploration and development companies, BP Exploration Alaska and Hilcorp Alaska, for Clean Water Act violations following oil spills on Alaska’s North Slope. BP Exploration Alaska agreed to settle related violations with the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation in a parallel agreement.

Sixty percent of the world’s coral reefs are currently threatened by local activities; 50% of all fish stock in large marine ecosystems (LMEs) are overexploited; 64 of the world’s 66 LMEs have experienced ocean warming in the last decades, according to new alarming figures from global assessments on the state of the world’s high seas and large marine ecosystems presented by Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO.

Air tests in stores of global outdoor brands, Mammut, The North Face, Norrona and Haglöfs, reveal that concentrations of volatile PFCs — hazardous and persistent chemicals that evaporate into the air — are up to 60 times higher in these stores than in an average enclosed room, and up to 1,000 times higher than in outside air. The findings were released on 13 July in a new report by Greenpeace Germany.

“Tests show that toxic chemicals continue to taint the preferred gear of nature lovers,” said Mirjam Kopp, Greenpeace’s Detox Outdoor project lead.

The Selous World Heritage site has lost 90% of its elephants to ivory poaching syndicates.

Representatives from Flint and Detroit, as well as state-wide and national groups, are calling on federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), to review whether the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) and Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) are violating civil rights laws that prohibit actions and policies that discriminate on the basis of race, national origin or disability.