Climate Change & Environment
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Deadly Floods Leave Trail of Destruction across Southern Asia

Heavy monsoon rains have continued to lash much of southern Asia, threatening further casualties and more destruction after a week of lethal floods and landslides.

More than 100 people have died and up to 1 million fled their homes as land from Pakistan to Burma was deluged.

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Stop Burning Fossil Fuels Now there is No CO2 'Technofix', Scientists Warn

German researchers have demonstrated once again that the best way to limit climate change is to stop burning fossil fuels now.

In a “thought experiment” they tried another option: the future dramatic removal of huge volumes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This would, they concluded, return the atmosphere to the greenhouse gas concentrations that existed for most of human history – but it wouldn’t save the oceans.

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World Bank Rejects Energy Industry Notion that Coal Can Cure Poverty

The World Bank said coal was no cure for global poverty on Wednesday, rejecting a main industry argument for building new fossil fuel projects in developing countries.

In a rebuff to coal, oil and gas companies, Rachel Kyte, the World Bank climate change envoy, said continued use of coal was exacting a heavy cost on some of the world’s poorest countries, in local health impacts as well as climate change, which is imposing even graver consequences on the developing world.

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OMG… Greenland’s Ice Sheets are Melting Fast

An urgent attempt to study the rate at which Greenland’s mighty ice sheets are melting has been launched by Nasa. The aim of the six-year project, called Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG), is to understand how fast the world’s warming seas are now eroding the edges of the island’s vast icecaps. Warming air temperatures are already causing considerable glacier loss there, but the factors involving the sea that laps the bases of its great ice masses, and which is also heating up, are less well understood.

Greenland contains vast reservoirs of ice which, if completely melted, would raise world sea levels by more than six meters. However, some influences on its current dramatic melting are poorly understood. Hence the decision to launch OMG, an acronym that the project leader, Joshua Willis, admits he “barely squeezed past the censors”.

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India Retains Monsoon Rain Forecast in Drought Territory

India has retained its forecast for this year's monsoon rains at 88 percent of the long-period average as a strengthening El Nino weather pattern is likely to trim rainfall in August-September to 84 percent, raising fears of the first drought in six years.

In a country where nearly half of farmland lacks irrigation, poor rainfall in the second half of the June-September monsoon season may stoke food inflation and limit ability of India's central bank to cut lending rates.

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Historic Arctic Fort Threatened by Climate Change May be Preserved Thanks to 3D Technology

A historic fort threatened by melting permafrost in one of the most remote locations on Earth might be preserved thanks to 3D technology.

Fort Conger on Ellesmere Island was established in 1875 by British explorers looking for the North Pole.

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UAE a Leader in Green Building, Says U.S. Trade Body

The UAE has been named as one of the top 10 markets for green building space by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).

The USGBC, a not-for profit organisation, oversees the Leed (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) green building rating system.

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Wallasea Island Project Takes Significant Step Forward as Sea Walls Breached

The creation of Europe’s largest man-made nature reserve, which will transform farmland into coastal marshland using material excavated during the Crossrail project, is one significant step nearer completion.

Wallasea Island Wild Coast project is using more than 3m tonnes of material excavated from London to raise part of the Essex island by an average of 1.5m, to create lagoons across 670 hectares of farmland – an area more than twice the size of the City of London – and restore the marshland it once was 400 years ago.

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U.S. Private Sector Vows to Ante up on Climate Finance

Some of the biggest U.S. corporate names lately offered their support - and billions of dollars in green financing pledges - to buttress the Obama administration's quest for a global agreement on combating climate change.

Google, Apple, Goldman Sachs and 10 other well-known companies joined the White House in launching the American Business Act on Climate Pledge, a campaign that the White House said would inject $140 billion in low-carbon investments into the global economy.

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Panama Declares Drought Emergency

Panama's government has declared a state of emergency as it faces a drought that has prompted water restrictions, depleted reservoirs and affected shipping through its bustling canal. 

The government blamed the El Nino weather phenomenon for the major drought. The state of emergency declared Tuesday also sets up a government board tasked with rushing to deliver a water security plan in under four months.

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