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☆ French lawmakers approve bill penalizing fast fashion
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-15 | by ( Oscar Holland | Reuters | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Reuters —France’s lower house of parliament on Thursday approved a bill seeking penalties on ultra-fast fashion products, sold by companies like China’s Shein, aimed at helping to offset their environmental impact. All voting lawmakers unanimously approved the bill, which will head to the senate before it can become law. Jade Gao/AFP/Getty ImagesThe bill comes as the French environmental ministry said it would propose a European Union ban on exports of used clothes, in a bid to tackle the worsening problem of textile waste. At the time, the country’s ministry of ecology said that French people throw away 700,000 tons of clothes — two-thirds of which ends up in landfills — each year. Among the world’s most polluting industries, fashion accounts for between 3% and 5% of global carbon emissions, according to consultancy McKinsey’s State of Fashion report.

Persons: CNN Shein, Christophe Béchu, Jade Gao Organizations: Reuters, CNN, Workers, Getty, McKinsey’s State Locations: Zara, China's, Guangdong, AFP, McKinsey’s

☆ Five Armed Haiti Environment Agents Killed in Clash With Police
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-07 | by ( Feb. | At P.M. | ) www.usnews.com time to read: +2 min

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - At least five agents of Haiti's BSAP, an armed environmental agency that in recent years has evolved into a paramilitary body, were killed in a shootout with national police in Port-au-Prince on Wednesday, the police trade union told reporters. Haiti's national police did not immediately respond to a request for more details, or whether there had been any police casualties. Henry, who assumed power after the assassination of Haiti's last president in 2021, last week called on BSAP members to register with the country's environmental ministry in an apparent crackdown against the agency. Henry is expected to give a national address later on Wednesday. (Reporting by Harold Isaac and Steven Aristil in Port-au-Prince; Writing by Sarah Morland and Kylie Madry; Editing by Leslie Adlerby)

Persons: Haiti's, Ariel Henry, Guy Philippe, AyiboPost, Philippe, Jean, Bertrand Aristide, Henry, Harold Isaac, Steven Aristil, Sarah Morland, Kylie Madry, Leslie Adlerby Organizations: PORT, Reuters, Prince, Local Locations: Port, Haiti, U.S

☆ It’s Scorching in Iran, and There’s Less and Less Water to Help
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-23 | by ( Vivian Yee | More About Vivian Yee | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For a month and 10 days of unrelenting summer heat, Sepideh, a physician in southern Iran, and her dentist husband have left the house only for work (and only in the mornings) and for groceries (and only when the fridge is utterly bare). At one point last week, her car’s dashboard thermometer read 57 degrees Celsius, about 135 degrees Fahrenheit. “Only 57 degrees!” she posted. A combination of widening poverty and rising heat is crushing much of southern Iran, where sprawling desert, joined with the humidity of the nearby Persian Gulf, is especially prone to heat waves and droughts intensified by climate change. Although the mercury was lower elsewhere in the country, the misery has still been great.

Persons: Iran’s, Kaveh Madani Locations: Iran, Persian, United Nations

☆ Brazil Is Key to Slowing Global Warming. But Its Carbon Market Has Struggled.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-07 | by ( Paulo Trevisani | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +8 min

With Brazil struggling in its efforts to create a regulated carbon market, the country’s new president is moving to scrap his predecessor’s approach and start anew. Financing carbon-capture projects such as reforestation could also generate carbon credits. For example, a local regulated carbon market could help exporters avoid the carbon border adjustment mechanism the EU plans to charge on some imported products from 2026. Exporters also hope a regulated market would help repair Brazil’s abysmal environmental reputation, a product of its history of deforestation. The da Silva administration plans to have a carbon market operating in a couple of years, Toni said.

Persons: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Jair Bolsonaro, ”, Gustavo Pinheiro, Luiz Gustavo Bezerra, Mayer Brown, Pelerson Penido Dalla Vecchia, Antônio Queiroz, Bezerra, Ana Toni, Silva, Toni, da Silva, Marina Silva, Annie Groth, “, Paulo Trevisani Organizations: Brazil, Climate, Society, Union, Vale, Agence France, group’s, International Chamber of Commerce, EU, Sustainable Business, National Secretariat, Street, Brazil’s Ministry of Development, Industry, Trade, Services, Environmental Ministry, United Nations Locations: Brazil, Paris, Braskem, Brazilian, Pennsylvania, Peru, Dubai

Entrepreneur Luke Iseman said the sulfur dioxide in the balloons would deflect sunlight and cool the atmosphere, a controversial climate strategy known as solar geoengineering. The Mexican government told Reuters it is now actively drafting “new regulations and standards” to prohibit solar geoengineering inside the country. While the Mexican government announced its intention to ban solar geoengineering in January, its current actions and plans to discuss geoengineering bans with other countries have not been previously reported. GLOBAL GEOENGINEERING BANClimate policy experts said Mexico is in a position to help set the rules for future geoengineering research. David Keith, a professor of applied physics and public policy at Harvard University who has dedicated much of his research to solar geoengineering, called Iseman's launch a "stunt."

☆ Panama not willing to expand First Quantum's copper mine operations
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Valentine Hilaire | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Panama will not allow Canada’s First Quantum to expand the area of its existing copper mining operations, the deputy environment minister told Reuters, stressing the government’s opposition to the firm’s request to use more land. FILE PHOTO: A general view of Cobre Panama mine owned by Canada’s First Quantum Minerals in Donoso, Panama December 6, 2022. Panama’s environmental ministry said that, from the $375 million it was requesting First Quantum pay each year, it aimed to use some $11 million on environmental protection around the mine. The government is reviewing requests for mining concessions in the area from other companies, such as Broadway Strategic Minerals Panama and Exploraciones Geologicas. Asked about those requests for concessions, Laguna said the Cobre Panama mine itself was already large enough and authorities needed to concentrate now on mitigating its environmental impact.

☆ Tesla to search for water in quest to expand German gigafactory
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Victoria Waldersee | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

BERLIN, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Tesla (TSLA.O) plans to drill for new water sources to supply an expansion of its electric vehicle plant near Berlin, according to local authorities and water associations, the latest move by the carmaker to jump-start German bureaucracy. A local environmental ministry spokesperson said Tesla was in touch with local authorities but an application had not yet been filed. If the carmaker finds new water sources, it must still apply for the licence to use them, a spokesperson for the local environmental ministry said. It does what it wants, and it'll do the same with the water it finds," said Michael Ganschow, head of local environmental organisation Gruene Liga. "That could take a very long time," said Joachim Schroeder, representative of Spreenhagen, one of the areas Tesla wants to explore – "unless Tesla takes over, of course, and does it at Tesla-speed."

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