Environment

KOLKATA/DHAKA (Reuters) – A powerful cyclone that tore through India’s eastern state of West Bengal this week has caused a damage of 1 trillion rupees ($13 billion) to infrastructure and crops, state officials said. A man walks with his bicycle under an uprooted tree after Cyclone Amphan made its landfall, in South 24 Parganas district,

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazilian Environment Minister Ricardo Salles called on the government to push through further deregulation of environmental policy while people are distracted by the coronavirus pandemic, in a video the Supreme Court ordered released on Friday. FILE PHOTO: Brazil’s Environment Minister Ricardo Salles looks on during a ceremony to sign a memorandum of

LAGOS (Reuters) – In a hallway in Lagos, Gbemisola Olowokere taps contentedly on her laptop. The 23-year-old says the corner, underneath a sliver of window, has functioned well as a makeshift office since the coronavirus pandemic forced her to work from home. Gbemisola Olowokere, 23, plugs her phone charger to an extension box unit powered

DETROIT (Reuters) – Floodwaters that breached two dams in central Michigan began to recede on Thursday after displacing thousands of people while spreading to a Dow Chemical plant and an adjacent hazardous waste cleanup site. A satellite image shows the flooded Isabella Street and homes after rising floodwaters unleashed by two dam failures submerged parts

KOLKATA/DHAKA (Reuters) – Rescue teams searched for survivors in eastern India and Bangladesh a day after the most powerful cyclone in over a decade devastated coastal villages, destroying mud houses, ripping out electricity poles and washing away bridges. Men salvage items from a damaged shop after Cyclone Amphan made its landfall, in South 24 Parganas

Matt Davey of the University of Cambridge’s Department of Plant Sciences samples green algae on Lagoon Island in Antarctica. via REUTERS TV LONDON (Reuters) – Antarctica conjures images of an unbroken white wilderness but blooms of algae are giving parts of the frozen continent an increasingly green tinge. Warming temperatures due to climate change are

LONDON (Reuters) – Global carbon dioxide emissions could fall by up to 7% this year, depending on ongoing restrictions and social distancing measures during the coronavirus pandemic, research published in the journal Nature Climate Change showed on Tuesday. FILE PHOTO: Cooling towers and smoke stacks are seen at the coal powered Pocerady power station near

LISBON (Reuters) – One of the many victims of the coronavirus pandemic is likely to be Portugal’s nascent progress in recycling waste, environmental campaigners say. FILE PHOTO: Trucks with garbage are seen at the Recivalongo landfill in Sobrado Portugal, January 8, 2020. REUTERS/Rafael Marchante Portugal, which recycles around 28% of its urban refuse, below the

LISBON (Reuters) – Portugal, which usually attracts huge mounds of rubbish from other European states because of its low waste management fees, has suspended imports of trash until the end of 2020 to protect domestic landfill capacity, the government said on Saturday. FILE PHOTO: Imported waste is seen piled at the port of Leixoes in

FILE PHOTO: Desert locusts are seen on a tree at a ranch near the town of Nanyuki in Laikipia county, Kenya, February 21, 2020. REUTERS/Baz Ratner DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran may use its military for a second year to help fight locusts that have invaded the south of the country, an Agricultural Ministry official was

FILE PHOTO: Flames grow at a wildfire dubbed the Cave Fire, burning in the hills of Santa Barbara, California, U.S., November 26, 2019. REUTERS/David McNew SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) – California has had 60% more wildfires so far in 2020 than last year because of drier weather, Governor Gavin Newsom said on Wednesday, and he promised

LISBON (Reuters) – Portugal will use long-range drones and other surveillance means to reinforce the monitoring of summer wildfires, officials said on Monday, responding to concerns over the country’s readiness to tackle forest blazes during the coronavirus pandemic. FILE PHOTO: Flames of an approaching forest fire are seen near the small village of Gondomil, near

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest rose sharply in April, government data showed on Friday, as the coronavirus outbreak keeps many environmental enforcers out of the field and the country prepares to deploy troops to fight illegal logging. FILE PHOTO: An aerial view shows a deforested plot of the Amazon near Porto Velho,

(Reuters) – Hundreds of Asian giant hornets, an invasive, predatory insect dubbed the “murder hornet,” have turned up in Washington state near the Canadian border, where they pose a threat to humans and the beekeeping industry, state agriculture officials said on Monday. A pair of Asian Giant Hornet caught in a trap by Washington State

MANAUS, Brazil (Reuters) – Vicente Piratapuia, 69, of the Piratapuia tribe had a high fever and could hardly breathe, but he refused to leave his home on the outskirts of the Amazon rainforest’s biggest city. Vanderlecia Ortega dos Santos, 32, a nurse from the Witoto tribe, an indigenous ethnic group, who has volunteered to provide

FILE PHOTO: Technicians work at the newly opened Oilfox S.A. Biofuel factory in San Nicolas, northeast Buenos Aires August 22, 2010. REUTERS/Enrique Marcarian BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Argentine biodiesel exports have ground to a complete halt due to the coronavirus pandemic hammering demand in Europe, the head of the local industry chamber told Reuters. Last

LONDON (Reuters) – Massive programmes of green public investment would be the most cost-effective way both to revive virus-hit economies and strike a decisive blow against climate change, top U.S. and British economists said in a study published on Tuesday. FILE PHOTO: Environmental activists of Swiss Klimastreik Schweiz movement hold banners, as the spread of

FILE PHOTO: People walk by the JP Morgan & Chase Co. building in New York in an October 24, 2013 file photo. REUTERS/Eric Thayer (Reuters) – New York City’s pension fund leader claimed a win on Friday after JPMorgan Chase & Co set a timetable to replace its lead independent director, a former Exxon Mobil

(Reuters) – Wildfires during Venezuela’s dry season are posing heightened risk to crude output this year due to lack of maintenance in state-owned oil company’s PDVSA’s oilfields and fuel shortages leaving firefighters without fuel, according to interviews with a half-dozen workers and other industry sources. FILE PHOTO: Drilling rigs are seen at an oil well

SANTIAGO (Reuters) – Chile said on Thursday it would start reopening its national parks next week to give people a “well-being alternative” after weeks of coronavirus lockdowns. FILE PHOTO: Villarrica Volcano national park is seen at night, following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Pucon, Chile, April 29, 2020. REUTERS/Cristobal Saavedra Escobar/File Photo Agriculture Minister