Climate Change & Environment
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South Sudan floods leave 75,000 refugees without food: UN

The devastating floods in South Sudan have blocked aid from reaching displaced people, the U.N. said Friday, warning that a camp housing 75,000 Sudanese refugees would receive no food this month.

The world's newest nation is reeling from four consecutive years of flooding, with two-thirds of the country and more than 900,000 people now directly impacted by the floodwaters, according to the United Nations.

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Months after floods, Brazil's Amazon faces a severe drought

Just months after enduring floods that destroyed crops and submerged entire communities, thousands of families in the Brazilian Amazon are now dealing with severe drought that, at least in some areas, is the worst in decades. The low level of the Amazon River, at the center of the largest drainage system in the world, has put dozens of municipalities under alert.

The fast-decreasing river water level is due to lower-than-expected rainfall during August and September, according to Luna Gripp, a geosciences researcher who monitors the western Amazon's river levels for the Brazilian Geological Survey.

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Pandas sent by China arrive in Qatar ahead of World Cup

A pair of giant pandas sent as a gift from China arrived in Qatar on Wednesday ahead of next month's World Cup.

They will take up residence in an indoor enclosure in the desert nation designed to duplicate conditions in the dense forests of China's mountainous Sichuan province. Eight hundred kilograms (nearly 1,800 pounds) of fresh bamboo will be flown in each week to feed them.

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UN chief and Indian PM jointly launch climate action program

The Indian government's flagship program to encourage individual and collective action on climate was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the United Nations Secretary-General on Thursday.

Mission Life, where "life" is an acronym for "lifestyle for environment," is designed to encourage individual behaviors like switching off vehicle engines at traffic lights, turning off taps when not in use and switching to longer-lasting alternatives to single-use plastic bags. The government estimates those actions, if taken on a national scale, could significantly limit emissions, water use and waste.

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UK slams HSBC over 'misleading' climate ads

A British watchdog Wednesday hit out at HSBC for adverts promoting its green initiatives that failed to highlight the bank's contributions to greenhouse gas emissions.

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'Close the windows': Zouk power plant sparks cancer fears

After losing four relatives to respiratory illness, Zeina Matar fled her hometown north of Lebanon's capital where she says a decaying power plant generates little electricity but very deadly pollution.

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Australian floods could inundate or isolate 34,000 homes

Around 34,000 homes could be inundated or isolated in Victoria state as a flood emergency continues across parts of Australia's southeast, an official said Monday.

Victoria is the worst-affected state with some towns experiencing the highest river peaks in decades. The states of New South Wales and Tasmania were also experiencing flooding in an emergency that began last week.

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Poor nations to demand climate justice, finance at UN summit

The chair of an influential negotiating bloc in the upcoming United Nations climate summit in Egypt has called for compensation for poorer countries suffering from climate change to be high up on the agenda.

Madeleine Diouf Sarr, who chairs the Least Developed Countries group, told The Associated Press that the November conference — known as COP27 — should "capture the voice and needs of the most climate-vulnerable nations and deliver climate justice."

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Homes inundated by swollen rivers in Australian floods

Homes were flooded in Melbourne and other cities in Australia's southeast on Friday with rivers forecast to remain dangerously high for days.

About 70 residents were told to leave the suburb of Maribyrnong in Melbourne's northwest, along with hundreds in the Victoria state cities of Benalla and Wedderburn, authorities said. Melbourne is Australia's second-most populous city with 5 million people.

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India's energy future is looking green, report says

India's renewables sector is booming, with the country projected to add 35 to 40 gigawatts of renewable energy annually until 2030, enough to power up to 30 million more homes each year, a report said Thursday.

The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis estimated that India, the third largest energy-consuming country in the world, will reach 405 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity by 2030. It's expected to surpass the government's target of producing 50% of its electricity from non-fossil fuel sources by the end of the decade.

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