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World’s nations commit to ending plastic waste
The UN has laid the foundation for negotiations to begin on the world’s first legally binding treaty to end plastic pollution. At the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) in Nairobi earlier this...
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Can ‘green corridors’ tackle shipping’s giant carbon footprint?
At last year’s COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, 22 countries, including the UK, US, Germany and Japan, signed up to the Clydebank Declaration, announcing their intention to establish various...
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How plastic is fuelling a hidden climate crisis in Southeast Asia
With sea level rise and ecological collapse threatening its environment and the very existence of its main coastal cities, Southeast Asia is one of the regions most at risk from the impacts of climate...
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Oil slicks cover ocean area twice the size of Turkey, new map reveals
Images of seabirds covered in crude oil might bring home the impact of spills on ocean ecosystems, but oil in the oceans doesn’t always come from newsworthy incidents. Regular discharges from land and...
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Stemming the flow of Indonesia’s plastic pollution
A curved boom, known as Interceptor 001, traps rubbish floating along a drainage canal in North Jakarta. Discarded plastic bottles, food packaging and other debris are scooped up and moved along a...
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The invisible pollution harming the ocean, and us
In the chilly gloom of the Californian seabed, thousands of barrels ooze a banned chemical. Some date back to the 1940s when the first was dumped off the coast. In March this year, researchers found...
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World moves closer to a global plastics treaty
Each year, an estimated 200 tonnes of plastic drifts down the River Seine through Paris and into the sea. It’s a tiny fraction of the 14 million tonnes that tips into the ocean annually. The problems...
View ArticlePlastics treaty edges closer with publication of ‘zero draft’
Marking a key milestone in work towards a legally binding global treaty to end plastic pollution, the United Nations Environment Programme has released a ‘zero draft’ of the treaty text. The draft is...
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Can China’s seaweed blooms be stopped?
“This year’s seaweed control work is officially complete!” In 2023, the smallest amount of seaweed washed up on Qingdao’s beaches since records began in 2007, the local authorities stated on 3 August....
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Oil interests impede plastic treaty progress
In mid-November, hundreds of protestors marched through the streets of Nairobi, led by a ceremonial band. “Let polluters pay the price!” they chanted, while holding bright yellow placards reading...
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In Peru’s Amazon, a complex quest to democratise water
In Peru’s northern city of Iquitos lies the distinctive neighbourhood of Belén. For better or worse, Belén is wed to the Itaya River. Dubbed by some locals as the “Venice of the Amazon”, its wooden...
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How climate change complicates China’s ‘battle for blue skies’
Air pollution levels in China fell a “remarkable” 42.3% between 2013 and 2021, according to this year’s Air Quality Life Index from the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute (EPIC). The...
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Bangladesh is losing its battle with air pollution
Mahmuda Khatun has travelled west from her home in Bangladesh’s Narsingdi district to the capital. She is fighting to breathe. The 50-year-old asthma sufferer found herself in Dhaka’s National...
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A difficult road ahead for treaty to end plastic pollution
In November 2023, delegates from more than 160 nations met in Nairobi, Kenya for the third of five rounds of negotiations to create, by December 2024, a treaty to end plastic pollution. Together they...
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Livelihoods dry up due to pollution in Tonle Sap Lake
Southeast Asia’s largest freshwater lake, the Tonle Sap in northwestern Cambodia, is facing a water quality crisis, forcing villagers who have lived in traditional floating houses to consider making...
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Road salt: Protecting China’s drivers, but at what cost?
In January, potholes began appearing on Dalian’s roads after heavy snowfalls. Residents of the north-eastern Chinese city even reported hearing their chassis strike the highway. The local government...
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Ocean plastic could spread human disease
Images of paradise beaches buried under bottles and ocean animals swimming past carrier bags are the all-too-familiar evidence of how humanity’s addiction to plastic has polluted the marine world. But...
View ArticleBio-briquettes tackle India’s climate, pollution and poverty challenges
Surjeet Kaur is a 38-year-old farmer whose family has tilled land for generations in Patiala district in the Indian state of Punjab. Each year, Kaur and her family together harvest about 90 quintals...
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Light pollution endangers Karachi’s visiting turtles
As Pakistan celebrated independence day on 14 August 2023, the chief minister of Sindh province inaugurated the 5.9 kilometre Mauripur road. Funded by the World Bank, the road rehabilitation is part...
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Solutions sought for Thai oil spills
On 3 September 2023, Thailand experienced its latest major oil spill in the Si Racha district of Chonburi province. The leak originated from a tanker owned by Thai Oil, a subsidiary of the state-run...
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