Climate Change & Environment
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Clean Up Your Mess, Youth Tell Climate Talks Inside and Out

The generation of young people who will inherit a warmer future is telling the generation that caused carbon pollution to clean up its mess — from both inside and outside United Nations climate talks.

Or better yet, let us do it ourselves, many say.

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Ash From Erupting Volcano Forces Spanish Islanders Indoors

Authorities on the Spanish island of La Palma are telling people who live near an erupting volcano to stay indoors because of a heavy fall of ash that has forced the cancellation of flights and school classes.

The Cumbre Vieja volcano on La Palma, which is part of Spain's Canary Islands off northwest Africa, has been spewing lava, ash and gases for more than six weeks. The eruption has alternately surged and ebbed since Sept. 19.

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4 Latin American nations Create Fishing-Free Corridor in East Pacific

Four Latin American countries have announced that they will expand and unite their marine reserves to create a vast corridor in the Pacific Ocean in hopes of protecting sea turtles, tuna, squid, hammerhead sharks and other species.

The new marine corridor will connect the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador with Colombia's Malpelo Island and the Cocos and Coiba Islands in Costa Rican and Panamanian waters, protecting migratory species from fishing fleets of hundreds of vessels that visit the eastern Pacific each year.

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Leaders Vow to Protect Forests, Plug Methane Leaks at COP26

World leaders have promised to protect Earth's forests, cut methane emissions and help South Africa wean itself off coal at the U.N. climate summit — part of a flurry of deals intended to avert catastrophic global warming.

Britain hailed the commitment by more than 100 countries to end deforestation in the coming decade as the first big achievement of the conference in the Scottish city of Glasgow, known as COP26 — but experts noted such promises have been made and broken before.

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Bangladesh's Villages Bear the Brutal Cost of Climate Change

With each tide, Abdus Satter watches the sea erode a little more of his life.

His village of Bonnotola in southwestern Bangladesh, with its muddy roads and tin-roofed houses, was once home to over 2,000 people. Most were farmers like the 58-year-old Satter. Then the rising seas poisoned the soil with salt water. Two cyclones in the last two years destroyed the mud embankments that shielded the village from tidal waves.

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Biden Uses Trip Abroad to Confront China on Climate

Over five days abroad at two global summits, President Joe Biden showed a new willingness to openly confront China over climate change and its lack of leadership on the global stage.

Biden ended his time at the U.N. climate summit in Scotland on Tuesday by chastising Chinese President Xi Jinping for physically skipping the event and failing to make the level of commitments that roughly 100 other nations did to curb greenhouse gasses. Xi also avoided the earlier Group of 20 summit in Rome, allowing Biden to dominate the conversation as he met with his French, Italian, British and German counterparts.

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UK Announces Funding for Climate and Environment in MENA Region

British Minister for the Middle East and North Africa James Cleverly on Tuesday announced £50m UK funding for the High Impact Partnership on Climate Action (HIPCA).

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) launched HIPCA on 2 November at an event during COP26 in Glasgow.

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COP26 Leaders Vow New Drive to Save Forests

World leaders on Tuesday issued a multibillion-dollar pledge to end deforestation by 2030, a promise met with skepticism by environmental groups who say more urgent action is needed to save the planet's lungs.

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Why It's so Hard for World to Quit Coal

Every day, Raju gets on his bicycle and unwillingly pedals the world a tiny bit closer to climate catastrophe.

Every day, he straps half a dozen sacks of coal pilfered from mines — up to 200 kilograms, or 440 pounds — to the reinforced metal frame of his bike. Driving mostly at night to avoid the police and the heat, he transports the coal 16 kilometers (10 miles) to traders who pay him $2.

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World Leaders Take Center Stage at Climate Talks

It's time for more than 130 world leaders to feel the heat.

They will traipse to the podium Monday and Tuesday at crucial international climate talks in Scotland and talk about what their country is going to do about the threat of global warming. From U.S. President Joe Biden to Seychelles President Wavel John Charles Ramkalawan, they are expected to say how their nation will do its utmost, challenge colleagues to do more and generally turn up the rhetoric.

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