Denmark's coalition government agreed this week to tax livestock owners the equivalent of US$96 per head per year from 2030 due to greenhouse gases produced by animal flatulence, Tax Minister Jeppe Bruus announced. The move on cows, pigs, and sheep is expected to result in a 70% reduction from 1990 levels by the end of the decade on the path to carbon neutrality, Bruus explained. “We will take a big step towards climate neutrality in 2045,” he emphasized. The tax is expected to be approved by Parliament later this year.
The International Maritime Organization, IMO on Friday sealed a deal that sets ambitious emissions-cutting targets. IMO agreed to cut total annual emissions of greenhouse gases “by at least 20%, striving for 30% by 2030” and “by at least 70%, striving for 80%, by 2040.”
Compassion in World Farming is urging world leaders to harness the momentum garnered at this week’s first-ever United Nations Food Systems Summit (UN FSS) to take clear and radical action towards transforming our broken global food system.
Covid-19 pandemic restrictions saw an unprecedented fall in greenhouse gas emissions in the first half of 2020 – larger than during the 2008 financial crisis and even World War II – experts said on Wednesday.
Last year was the hottest in history across Europe as temperature records were shattered by several extreme heatwaves, the European Union's satellite monitoring surface said. In its annual report on the state of the climate, the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said that 11 of the continent's 12 warmest years on record have been since 2000 as greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise.
Air pollution has decreased in urban areas across Europe during lockdowns to combat the corona-virus, new satellite images showed on Monday, but campaigners warned city-dwellers were still more vulnerable to the epidemic. Cities including Brussels, Paris, Madrid, Milan and Frankfurt showed a reduction in average levels of noxious nitrogen dioxide over Mar 5-25, compared with the same period last year, according to the Sentinel-5 satellite images.
Air pollution from nitrogen dioxide has fallen by an estimated 40% in three European cities, according to new satellite data released by the European Space Agency (ESA), coinciding with a widespread lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
Brazil increased the volume of biodiesel blended with diesel sold at the pump to 12% from 11% on Sunday, the latest increase to a biofuels mandate that aims to decrease Latin America's largest economy's dependence on imported barrels.
Major oil companies have approved US$50 billion of projects since last year that will not be economically viable if governments implement the Paris Agreement on climate change, think-tank Carbon Tracker said in a report published on Friday.
More than 500 million people today live in areas affected by erosion linked to climate change, the UN warned on Thursday, before urging all countries to commit to sustainable land use to help limit greenhouse gas emissions before it is too late.