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☆ The US is bad at recycling. Making businesses pay could boost the rate to 75% in some states, a study found.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( Catherine Boudreau | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Recycling rates in US states could hit 75% if companies bear the costs, a study found. Recycling rates are high there, and taxpayers don't cover the bill, unlike in the US. The Recycling Partnership said it examined these states because they had the best available data. In most cases, recycling rates could get as high as 75%, de Thomas said. At least 11 others have either introduced legislation or plan to, according to a tally by The Recycling Partnership.

☆ This startup that connects conservation projects with funders just raised $8 million. Check out the 30-slide pitch deck Lemu used to secure the fresh capital.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( Tasmin Lockwood | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A startup hoping to channel more cash into conservation via its app just raised $8 million. Chilean startup Lemu is developing a marketplace that ranks conservation projects on priority and impact. A Chilean startup connecting conservation projects with funders just raised $8 million. It plans to list and rank high-priority and high-impact conservation projects in the hope that the app's users will donate money, or "invest," in them. It will have two ranking features: LemiImpact, a local-level impact ranking based on potential project outcomes, and LemuRank, which is a global ranking of high-priority conservation efforts.

☆ Amazon is shutting down its charity program amid massive companywide layoffs, claiming its 'ability to have an impact was often spread too thin'
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Jordan Hart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Amazon announced that it would "wind down" its AmazonSmile program in February. "After almost a decade, the program has not grown to create the impact that we had originally hoped," the email read. "With so many eligible organizations — more than 1 million globally — our ability to have an impact was often spread too thin." Amazon plans to fully close the program by February 20 and focus its philanthropic efforts elsewhere, per the email. Through the program, Amazon shoppers could visit smile.amazon.com allocate 0.5% of their purchase to a participating organization of their choice for no extra charge.

Zambia has become a test case for the G20-led 'Common Framework' restructuring vehicle launched during the COVID-19 pandemic, but differences with some of its main creditors about the debt relief required means progress has been slow. Its vast swathes of national parks are home or migration routes for some of Africa's most impressive wildlife including lions and elephants. "We will be considering all debt restructuring options that are in the framework (G20 Common Framework)which falls within the DSA (debt sustainability analysis) parameters... and that are acceptable to all parties," the ministry's response added. KAZA conservation areaCOMMON FRAMEWORKWWF's Zambia country head, Nachilala Nkombo, told Reuters that the most recent talks with the government took place last month. Sri Lanka, another Common Framework restructuring country, has said that it would like to do a debt-for-nature swap and with Zambia still hoping to wrap up its deal this year it would likely set a precedent.

☆ Analysis: U.N. nature deal can help wildlife as long as countries deliver
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-22 | by ( Gloria Dickie | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Conservationists praised the deal's ambition, saying it amounted to a Paris Agreement for nature in setting out 23 specific targets against which countries can measure their progress. "This is equivalent to the 1.5 degrees Celsius global goal for climate," said Marco Lambertini, director-general of World Wildlife Fund International. "Otherwise, there is a big risk that the cheapest areas are protected rather than those that matter most for biodiversity." During the talks, delegates discussed whether protected areas should be entirely off-limits to human settlement and development, or if some resource extraction should be allowed if managed sustainably. Canada, one of the world's largest nations, is expanding protected land and marine areas in the Arctic.

[1/3] Members of WWF protest during COP15, the two-week U.N. Biodiversity summit, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada December 7, 2022. REUTERS/Christinne MuschiMONTREAL, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Climate campaigners waved placards and chanted pro-nature slogans on Wednesday as a U.N. summit kicks off in Montreal, bringing together global negotiators for a "once-in-a-decade opportunity" to protect nature. Negotiators hope the two-week event delivers an agreement that ensures there is more "nature" — animals, plants, and healthy ecosystems — in 2030 than what exists now. Global Land Outlook assessment. ($1 = 1.3651 Canadian dollars)Read more:Businesses want COP15 nature summit to deliver clarityU.N. chief urges strong global nature deal to end 'orgy of destruction'Reporting by Allison Lampert and Gloria Dickie in Montreal; Editing by Lisa ShumakerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Rolls-Royce uses hydrogen produced with wind and tidal power to test jet engine
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-02 | by ( Anmar Frangoul | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

The test used a converted regional aircraft engine from Rolls-Royce, with hydrogen produced at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney. LONDON — Plans to reduce the significant environmental effects of aviation took a step forward this week after Rolls-Royce and easyJet said they had carried out the ground test of a jet engine that used hydrogen produced from tidal and wind power. The test, which was carried out at an outdoor site in the U.K., used a converted regional aircraft engine from London-listed Rolls-Royce. "This is a true British success story, with the hydrogen being used to power the jet engine today produced using tidal and wind energy from the Orkney Islands of Scotland," Shapps added. Using hydrogen to power an internal combustion engine is different to hydrogen fuel cell technology, where hydrogen from a tank mixes with oxygen, generating electricity.

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Beyond the headlines from the annual U.N. climate conference, progress in advancing the global climate agenda relies on the behind-the-scenes efforts of technocrats over years. Offsets allow countries or companies to pay others to cut greenhouse gas emissions to make up for their own. But discussions on how to curb those emissions are relatively new within U.N. climate negotiations. The work also deals with food security and the economic impacts of global warming. As the initial mandate expired, countries at COP27 authorised the KJWA work to continue for another four years.

☆ Analysis: COP27 does little for next month's global agenda: nature loss
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-21 | by ( Gloria Dickie | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Many environment ministers and campaigners have said the climate talks should underline the importance of protecting nature to help to limit climate change. The "landmark" target of the draft Montreal deal proposes protecting 30% of the world's land and sea by 2030 - known informally as 30-by-30. The world's wildlife crisis is largely driven by habitat loss, with wild spaces turned into agricultural fields and cities, or degraded by pollution. But climate change poses an increasing threat as temperatures climb, pushing species out of their comfortable ranges. It encouraged parties to "consider, as appropriate, nature-based solutions or ecosystem-based approaches" to climate change.

[1/3] Egyptian Foreign Minister and Egypt's COP27 President Sameh Shoukry attends an informal stocktaking session during the COP27 climate summit, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, November 18, 2022. But with several other sticking points dogging this year's U.N. climate talks, host country Egypt said a final deal was still not expected before the weekend. But it was unclear Friday if all of those countries would accept the EU's offer of a fund to aid only "the most vulnerable countries", rather than all developing countries as they had requested. On Friday morning, the U.N. climate agency published a first official draft of the final summit deal. Some countries, including the EU and Britain, have pushed for the overall deal in Egypt to lock in country commitments for more ambitious climate action.

☆ COP27 climate talks seen as key to success at next month's U.N. nature summit
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( Gloria Dickie | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

"Climate change is one of the big drivers of biodiversity loss," said David Cooper, the deputy chief of U.N.'s Convention on Biological Diversity. "If we don't have successful outcomes in the climate process, then we cannot halt biodiversity loss," Cooper said. "You cannot have a dream of coping with climate change only through the emissions," Virginijus Sinkevičiu, European Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, told Reuters. "If ecosystems are not able to cope, you don't have a success story" in fighting climate change. President Xi Jinping has not attended the climate talks in Sharm el-Sheikh and is also not expected to attend COP15.

For more than 70 days this summer, a marine heatwave cooked the waters of the western Mediterranean. "We've been witnessing marine heatwaves during the last 20 years," said Garrabou, who's also coordinator of the T-MEDNet marine monitoring network. A 2016 marine heatwave along Chile's southern coast caused huge algae blooms that wiped out fish farms and cost the aquaculture industry some $800 million, said scientist Kathryn Smith with the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom. As the world warms, marine heatwaves are expected to become more frequent, according to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Though economists have yet to account fully for the impacts of marine heatwaves, recent experience has many concerned.

☆ Taxation is a blunt instrument, IATA chief Willie Walsh says: 'The carrot is far more effective than the stick'
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Anmar Frangoul | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

watch nowThe aviation industry requires more carrot and less stick going forward to become more sustainable, according to the director general of the International Air Transport Association. "Quite honestly, all of the evidence that we have available shows that the carrot is far more effective than the stick," Walsh replied. Among other things, this would see both maritime and aviation fuels taxed. "So for us, the key to our goal is the use of sustainable aviation fuels — the science there is proven." "What we've got to do is turn what is very low levels of production of sustainable fuels into widespread availability."

☆ Palm oil is in almost everything, and it's devastating rainforests. This Bill Gates-backed company used microbes to create an alternative
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-03 | by ( Catherine Clifford | In Catclifford | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +11 min

Palm oil grows best in the regions right around the equator, so palm oil producers chop down rainforest and clear that felled vegetation by burning it, making it a prime target of conservation organizations like the Rainforest Rescue and the World Wildlife Fund. Palm oil trees grow at the Cikasungka palm oil plantation, operated by PT Perkebunan Nusantara VIII, in Bogor Regency in West Java, Indonesia, on Monday, June 20, 2022. To make its palm oil alternative, C16 Biosciences uses a wild yeast microbe that makes a functional equivalent to palm oil with a kind of fermentation process. Photo courtesy: Cat Clifford, CNBCChemically, the palm oil that C16 Biosciences makes is not identical to the palm oil that is grown in industrial agriculture farms. However, "it contains the same fatty acids, which are the molecular fingerprints of fats and oils, that palm oil does," Heller told CNBC.

☆ Global wildlife populations have sunk 69% since 1970 - WWF report
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-12 | by ( Gloria Dickie | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report, which used 2018 data from ZSL on the status of 32,000 wildlife populations covering more than 5,000 species, found that population sizes had declined by 69% on average. One population of pink river dolphins in the Brazilian Amazon plummeted by 65% between 1994 and 2016, the report said. Its findings were broadly similar to those in WWF's last assessment in 2020, with wildlife population sizes continuing to decline at a rate of about 2.5% per year, Terry said. "Nature was in dire straits and it is still in dire straits," said Mark Wright, director of science at WWF-UK. Still, the wide-ranging declines have prompted desperate pleas for increased support for nature.

☆ Not enough shoppers know about AmazonSmile — it's a program that makes donations to your favorite charity when you shop during Prime Day and beyond
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-11 | by ( Connie Chen | Read More | Read Less | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

AmazonSmile is a program that donates 0.5% of your purchases on Amazon to a charity of your choice. By starting your Amazon shopping at smile.amazon.com, 0.5% of the purchase price from your eligible Amazon purchases go to a charity of your choice. Quick tip: You can also shop AmazonSmile through the Amazon app on your phone. Step 2: Shop as you normally wouldLook for the AmazonSmile logo on the product page to ensure your product is donation eligible. Lauren Savoie/InsiderTens of millions of products are eligible for donations — just look for "Eligible for AmazonSmile donation" on the product detail page.

☆ OpenInvest cofounders share lessons learned from getting acquired by JPMorgan and how fintechs can 'maintain that special sauce' after getting bought
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-10 | by ( Asia Martin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

One of those acquisitions was OpenInvest, a deal JPMorgan announced last June and completed months later in August. But I think that JPMorgan, and maybe others in the space, have learned 'how do we maintain that special sauce," said Levin. Here's three things the OpenInvest cofounders have learned since last year about how best to transition into a bigger organization. Though it's still in the middle of its integration, OpenInvest has already begun to roll out fund reporting to the bank's wealth management businesses. All of those deals seem to have helped the bank streamline certain parts of integration, Murray said.

In an emailed statement, Monica Medina, the U.S. official leading its treaty negotiations, said the country was committed to ending plastic pollution by 2040. Japan's vice minister for global environmental affairs, Hiroshi Ono, said he knew of a proposed coalition on plastic involving the United States but declined further comment. "We don't need a treaty for countries to decide themselves what their national actions should be. We need a treaty that can actually add on top of that," said Eirik Lindebjerg, global plastics policy manager at WWF, calling such an approach a "light touch." Calls for tougher global measures such as those focused on plastic production have also met resistance from the powerful oil and petrochemical firms that make plastic.

☆ Fact Check-Viral video does not show crocodiles ‘invading’ a beach in Brazil, contrary to claims online
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-23 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

A video showing a riverbank full of caimans in the Pantanal region of Brazil has been misrepresented in viral social media posts, with users falsely claiming the clip shows crocodiles crowding a beach in the South American country, leading to panic among locals. Experts said the scene resembles caiman activity in the Pantanal region. More information about the climate conditions in the Pantanal region can be found (here) (here) (here). This clip does not show crocodiles “invading” a “beach” in Brazil. According to experts, the footage shows Yacare Caiman in the interior Pantanal region of Brazil, clustering near a river due to seasonal drought.

☆ Chinese researchers clone an Arctic wolf in 'landmark' conservation project
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( Jessie Yeung | Cnn'S Beijing Bureau | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

"After two years of painstaking efforts, the arctic wolf was cloned successfully. The Arctic wolf, also known as the white wolf or polar wolf, is a subspecies of grey wolf native to the High Arctic tundra, in Canada's northern Arctic Archipelago. Sinogene launched its Arctic wolf cloning project in 2020, in collaboration with the polar theme park Harbin Polarland, it said in a statement posted on the Twitter-like platform Weibo. The company said in its Weibo post that a second cloned arctic wolf is expected to be born soon. The cloned Maya is now living with her beagle surrogate mother, and will later be housed in Harbin Polarland, open to the public.

Sept 20 (Reuters) - The Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance (NZAOA) said on Tuesday that nearly two thirds of its members had set short-term goals to cut portfolio emissions in line with capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius as "the clock is ticking" on climate change. While all have committed to do so by 2050, the group is increasingly asking them to implement shorter-term objectives. "Much still remains to be done," the group wrote as it aims to grow to 200 members, or to $25 trillion in assets by 2025. NZAOA, which works with strategic advisers from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), wants standardised emissions reporting. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterReporting by Juliette Portala; Editing by Simon Jessop and Alexander SmithOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ China lost its Yangtze River dolphin. Climate change is coming for other species next
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-17 | by ( Heather Chen | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

China has been grappling with its worst heat wave on record and the Yangtze, the third longest river in the world, is drying up. Parts of the Yangtze River have dried up from the extreme heat. Experts have also noticed a drastic decline of many native freshwater species of fish, like the now extinct Chinese paddlefish and sturgeon. “The Yangtze is the longest river in China and (all of) Asia and has long been a cradle of civilization. “If there’s anything we can learn from the death of the Yangtze River dolphin, it’s that extinction is forever and we can’t afford to take it lightly.”

Read our review Read Our Review A looong arrow, pointing rightReview: Is the Discover it Cash Back the best credit card for you? If you prefer earning cash-back credit card rewards without paying an annual fee, the Discover it® Cash Back is a great choice. How to earn rewards with the Discover it Cash Back cardTo earn the most cash back with the Discover it® Cash Back, you'll have to activate the rotating bonus categories each quarter through your online Discover account. The Discover it® Secured Credit Card, for example, is geared to folks who are new to credit or rebuilding credit. When you open an eligible new Discover card, you'll be able to take advantage of Discover Cashback Match (called Unlimited Bonus with the Discover it® Miles).

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☆ Discover it Balance Transfer card review: Get an introductory 0% APR on balance transfers for 18 months and earn up to 5% cash back with no annual fee
▼ + stars: | 2021-10-28 | by ( Jasmin Baron | Read More | Read Less | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +23 min

Discover it® Balance Transfer 4.5 /5 A five pointed star A five pointed star A five pointed star A five pointed star A five pointed star 4.5 out of 5 Stars Intro offer Unlimited Cashback Match - only from Discover. Read more: The best Discover credit cardsThe Discover it® Balance Transfer is one exception. With the 0% intro APR on balance transfers, there's an intro balance transfer fee of 3% of the amount of each transfer. After that, a balance transfer fee of 5% of the amount of each transfer applies. Fortunately, all Discover cards, including the Discover it® Balance Transfer, do not add these fees.

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