Australia’s ‘failing’ environmental laws will fuel further public health crises, Nobel laureate warns
Bushfires and Covid-19 highlight connection between human health and natural world, states letter by almost 200 doctors and scientists Leading health professionals, including a Nobel laureate and a former Australian of the Year, say the government must put human health “front and centre” in a new generation of environment laws in the aftermath of the […]
The Healers of Chhattisgarh
Indigenous healers in Central India are struggling in the face of legal and environmental challenges. When the Forest Rights Act was passed in India in 2006, it was identified as an ‘act to recognise and vest the forest rights and occupation in forest land in forest-dwelling Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers, who have been […]
Climate Change: More than 3bn could live in extreme heat by 2070
Unless greenhouse gas emissions fall, large numbers of people will experience average temperatures hotter than 29C. This is considered outside the climate “niche” in which humans have thrived for the past 6,000 years. Co-author of the study Tim Lenton told the BBC: “The study hopefully puts climate change in more human terms”. Researchers used data […]
Indonesia pushes Environmental Deregulation after deadly flood and deforestation.
The administration of President Joko Widodo in Indonesia is currently pushing a slate of environmental deregulation policies through proposing over 1,200 amendments to 80 existing laws in parliament. While the government claims that these policies will boost the country’s economic growth, experts are warning that they will threaten to dismantle the already small number of existing […]
Chile to peak emissions by 2025, under strengthened climate pledge
In the midst of a global pandemic, government ministers stressed the need to build a sustainable, resilient economy for the long term. Chile has committed to peaking its greenhouse gas emissions by 2025, in an updated national plan presented virtually to the UN climate chief on Thursday. The plan, by the country currently presiding over […]
Mega-mining threatens Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul
Summary: Jair Bolsonaro’s victory in the 2018 Brazilian presidential election represented a new ultraconservative right-wing rise to power that radically dismantled environmental policies. Brazil’s Minister of Environment has been previously convicted for illegally favouring mining companies. In the southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul alone, there are more than 150 mining projects that may leverage the […]
EU COVID-19 recovery plan must be green and ambitious, say MEPs.
In a debate with Frans Timmermans, the Environment Committee says the EU must remain firm on climate change and the timetable foreseen for the Green Deal. The EU Climate Law will move ahead as planned, whilst the Commission’s proposals on biodiversity and farm-to-fork will be delayed by a few weeks. Last week, in its resolution on EU coordinated action to combat the […]
Supreme Court hands environmentalists a win in water pollution case.
The Supreme Court on Thursday sided with environmentalists by giving a broad reading to the types of water-borne pollution covered by the Clean Water Act. In a 6-3 decision, the justices held that a permit is required for either a direct discharge of pollutants into federally regulated rivers and oceans or its “functional equivalent.” “Suppose, for […]
Carmakers accused of using crises to avert emissions crackdown
The motor industry has been accused by campaigners of trying to use the coronavirus crisis to avert stricter environmental regulation, after correspondence showed carmakers had lobbied the EU to defer impending laws. The European carmakers’ association, ACEA, and other groups representing the supply chain called on the EU to delay implementing regulations because the pandemic […]
Trump administration allows companies to break pollution laws during coronavirus pandemic
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has suspended its enforcement of environmental laws during the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, signaling to companies they will not face any sanction for polluting the air or water of Americans. Polluters will be able to ignore environmental laws as long as they can claim in some way these violations were caused by […]
