Environment

(Reuters) – European Union lawmakers on Thursday approved green finance rules ensuring investments do not prop up polluting industries, requirements they and investors say should also guide spending of hundreds of billions of euros in coronavirus recovery funds. European Union flags fly outside the European Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, December 19, 2019. REUTERS/Yves Herman

(Reuters) – The U.S. Senate on Wednesday passed a major conservation bill that would permanently direct $900 million a year to a long-standing federal program aimed at acquiring and protecting public lands. The 73-25 vote in the Republican-led chamber was a rare bipartisan effort led by Republican Senators Cory Gardner of Colorado and Steve Daines

OUAGADOUGOU (Reuters) – At an open-pit granite quarry in Burkina Faso’s capital, workers’ children play in the rubble while others toil alongside their parents after the coronavirus pandemic closed schools. Neimatou Ouedraogo, 9, carries a bucket of water in Pissy informal granite quarry, since schools closed amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in

FILE PHOTO: A flare burns excess natural gas in the Permian Basin in Loving County, Texas, U.S. November 23, 2019. REUTERS/Angus Mordant/File Photo HOUSTON (Reuters) – Texas as early as this fall could tighten some rules for the controversial practice of natural gas flaring, the head of the state’s regulatory commission said on Tuesday. The

A diver tries to cut a rope from the tail of a whale shark near Koh Tao Island, Thailand June 13, 2020, in this still image obtained from a social media video. Sarakorn Pokaprakarn/via REUTERS THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. MANDATORY CREDIT. BANGKOK (Reuters) – Divers in Thailand have captured dramatic

(Reuters) – Six European Union countries, including Germany, France and the Netherlands, have called for EU legislation and increased funding to support hydrogen, a low-carbon technology in line for cash from the bloc’s coronavirus recovery fund. FILE PHOTO: European Union flags fly outside the European Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, February 19, 2020. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File

GABORONE (Reuters) – Botswana is investigating the mysterious deaths of at least 154 elephants over two months in the northwest of the country, a wildlife official said on Monday, although poaching or poisoning have been ruled out. FILE PHOTO: A young bull elephant is seen in the Okavango Delta, Botswana, April 25, 2018. Picture taken

(Reuters) – Unilever Plc (ULVR.L) said on Monday it will invest 1 billion euros in a fund to invest in climate change projects and reduce to net zero greenhouse gas emissions from all its products by 2039, 11 years ahead of the Paris Agreement deadline. FILE PHOTO: Unilever headquarters in Rotterdam, Netherlands August 21, 2018.

(Reuters) – An earthquake of magnitude 5.6 has struck the Taiwan region early on Sunday, the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said. The quake was at a depth of 20 km (12.43 miles), EMSC said. It was revised from its initial measurement of magnitude 6 and depth of 55 km. Taiwan, a self-ruled island that

(Reuters) – Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue on Friday unveiled what he called a “blueprint” for enabling energy extraction, mining, grazing and logging in federal forests by speeding up environmental reviews and permitting. FILE PHOTO: U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue holds a U.S. flag-themed face mask while speaking about the nation?s food supply chain during

(This June 11 story corrects 7th paragraph to say lawmakers, not regulators, would impose carbon incentives) FILE PHOTO: An inmate hand crew, wearing orange, uses chain saws and hand tools to cut a line through vegetation that is reddened by fire retardant on one side and charred by fire on the other at a wildfire

LONDON (Reuters) – The Scottish government said on Friday it has set up a 62 million pound ($78 million) fund to help the energy industry recover from the impacts of the coronavirus crisis and the collapse in oil and gas prices. The energy transition fund will support businesses in the sector over the next five

FILE PHOTO: The lignite power plants of “Neurath New”, Niederaussem, and “Neurath Old” of German energy supplier and utility RWE are pictured in Neurath, north-west of Cologne, Germany, February 5, 2020. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay/File Photo (Reuters) – Germany submitted its ten-year energy and climate plan to the European Union on Thursday, six months after the deadline

BEIJING (Reuters) – China is building industrial pig farms near its urban areas, reversing years of policies to relocate the livestock over waste concerns, as the government prioritises food security over the environment after African swine fever decimated its herds. Workers and excavators are seen at the construction site of a new pig farm being

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Deforestation of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest was worse than previously reported in 2019, revised government data showed on Tuesday, during the first year of President Jair Bolsonaro, who is keen to develop the forest crucial to curbing global warming. FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO: An aerial view shows a deforested plot of the Amazon

A griffon vulture spreads it wings bearing its tracking tags as it prepares to fly after it was temporarily captured as part of a national project to protect and increase the population of the protected bird in Israel, near Sde Boker in southern Israel October 29, 2019. REUTERS/Amir Cohen CARMEL MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK, Israel (Reuters)