EU/ERBD News
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Global daily temperature extremes are “virtually certain” to become warmer this century, a panel of about 200 UN scientists said in a draft of their most comprehensive study of weather-related natural disasters to date, Bloomberg reported. The 18-page document said downpours, storm surges and other events could make parts of the planet “marginal”...
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Australia, one of the world’s worst per-capita carbon emitters, approved landmark laws to introduce a tax on polluting industries, The Independent reported. The final senate vote makes Australia only the second country outside the European Union (after New Zealand) to embrace a nationwide carbon-capping scheme. The legislation’s impact will be felt...
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Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant was responsible for the biggest discharge of radioactive material into the ocean in history, Bloomberg News cited a study from a French nuclear-safety institute as saying. The Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety found that the cesium that flowed into the sea in March was 20 times the plant...
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Sixty per cent of the earth’s population currently lives in Asia, but Africa is now the world’s population growth centre, according to the UN’s State of World Population 2011 report. Among contradictory trends, The Australian said, countries experiencing high fertility are unable to develop fast enough and those with an ageing population...
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Final-stage data from a major clinical trial across sub-Saharan Africa has shown that an experimental vaccine halved the risk of children getting malaria, Reuters reported. The results – published in the New England Journal of Medicine – make it likely that the RTS,S vaccine will become the world’s first inoculation to help control the deadly...
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As fears grew that a container ship wedged on a reef off New Zealand may break up, spilling more fuel oil, the ship’s Philippine captain was charged with “operating a vessel in a manner causing unnecessary danger or risk”, Reuters reported. An estimated 300 tonnes of oil have escaped from the “Rena”, some of it washing up on...
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Two ice shelves that existed before Canada was settled by Europeans diminished significantly this summer, one nearly disappearing altogether, the Associated Press reported scientists at Canada’s Carlton and Ottawa universities as saying. The rapid loss, recorded in new research, is considered important as a marker of climate change and underscores...
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Growing anecdotal evidence suggests that climate change is making a strong impact in the Himalayas, even well above the 8,000-metre line, The Observer reported. Scientists are seeking practical solutions to the threat of catastrophic high-altitude flooding from lakes forming at the foot of melting glaciers. Signs of ice melt on the southern approach to Mount...
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Hampered by heavy rain, thick clouds and landslides, rescue workers are searching for more survivors of a 6.9-magnitude earthquake known to have killed at least 100 people in a remote Himalayan region spanning India, Nepal and Tibet, Reuters reported. Most of the confirmed deaths were in India; the quake’s epicentre was in the state of Sikkim....
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Over 17 Million people in Beijing and 100 000 people work on the front line of the waste and recycling industry in the city. Rubbish and Recycling is big business in China and its estimated that the Waste Treatment and Recycling Industry is worth over €14 billion Dollars in China. At the moment the collection of recyclable waste is generally a family...
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