Environment

(Reuters) – The Trump administration on Thursday withdrew the legal justification for an Obama-era rule that forced coal-fired power plants to cut their mercury emissions, saying the cost of compliance far outweighed the public health benefits. FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump arrives for the daily coronavirus task force briefing in the Rose Garden at

A newly-hatched baby leatherback sea turtle makes its way into a sea for the first time at a beach in Phanga Nga district, Thailand, March 27, 2020. REUTERS/Mongkhonsawat Leungvorapan. BANGKOK (Reuters) – Thailand has found the largest number of nests of rare leatherback sea turtles in two decades on beaches bereft of tourists because of

AUCKLAND (Reuters) – The growing green concerns that will be in the spotlight on Earth Day next week are mirrored in a call for an “environmental revolution” by an 18-year-old New Zealand activist looking to take on Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in an election this year. Climate change is shaping up as a major issue

(Reuters) – A bear ambles across a forest glade and a herd of deer stroll down a silent road. At Yosemite National Park in Northern California, coronavirus restrictions mean no tourists – and bolder wildlife. FILE PHOTO: The Merced River flows through Yosemite Valley in Yosemite National Park, California, U.S., March 30, 2019. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/File

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union will step up efforts to control wildlife trading and make factory farming more sustainable, given that both issues have played a role in the coronavirus pandemic, the bloc’s environment chief said on Thursday. “Healthy ecosystems lead to a healthy society and therefore it is not too high a price

AMMIQ WETLAND, Lebanon (Reuters) – With Lebanese confined to their homes by the new coronavirus, migratory birds in the Mediterranean country are winging their way into the midst of quieter city life. A squacco heron (Ardeola ralloides) is pictured in Ammiq Wetland, in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa valley, Lebanon April 14, 2020. REUTERS/Ali Hashisho From flocks

KIEV (Reuters) – Fires around the defunct Chernobyl nuclear plant and elsewhere pushed pollution levels in Ukraine’s capital Kiev to the worst in the world on Friday, giving inhabitants another reason to stay indoors on top of the coronavirus lockdown. FILE PHOTO: A general view shows the New Safe Confinement (NSC) structure over the old

HONG KONG (Reuters) – A zero food waste cafe in Hong Kong is trying to tackle the financial hub’s escalating trash problem by providing meals that are fully compostable, such as vegetables and herb flatbreads, and packaging that is turned into fertiliser. Mana Cafe’s founder Bobsy Gaia poses with a book at his cafe in

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc (SMFG) said on Thursday it would no longer lend to new coal-fired power plants from May 1, a day after peer Mizuho Financial Group Inc said it would stop financing new coal power projects. The policy change comes as the sector faces pressure from activist investors

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The U.S. Forest Service has suspended controlled burns on public lands in wildfire-prone California because of the coronavirus pandemic, upsetting officials who see the program as key to preventing seasonal infernos like those that devastated parts of the state in 2018. FILE PHOTO: A charred landscape is left by a wildfire

FILE PHOTO: Mizuho Financial Group logo is seen at the company’s headquarters in Tokyo, Japan August 20, 2018. REUTERS/Toru Hanai/File Photo TOKYO (Reuters) – Mizuho Financial Group said it will stop financing new coal power projects and end all loans for coal by 2050, handing a victory to the global climate movement and adding pressure

KIEV (Reuters) – A huge fire that tore through forests around the defunct Chernobyl nuclear plant has been put out, Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday, after hundreds of emergency workers used planes and helicopters to douse the flames. FILE PHOTO: Burned trees are seen after a forest fire outside the settlement of Poliske located in

(Reuters) – The death toll from a series of tornadoes that hammered the U.S. South over the weekend rose to at least 18 on Monday as rescue workers and homeowners dug through debris left in the wake of a weather system now threatening the U.S. East Coast. Damaged buildings and vehicles are seen in the

(Reuters) – An earthquake of magnitude 5.3 struck central California on Saturday, the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre said bit.ly/2VoiFID. The quake’s epicentre was 446 km north of Los Angeles and was 10 km below the Earth’s surface. Reporting by Sangameswaran S in Bengaluru; Editing by Bernadette Baum Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest rose in March, government data showed on Friday, indicating that illegal loggers and land speculators have not stopped destroying the forest with the onset of the coronavirus outbreak. FILE PHOTO: Indigenous people from the Mura tribe show a deforested area in unmarked indigenous lands, inside the Amazon

SAN ANTONIO DEL TEQUENDAMA, Colombia (Reuters) – A small zoo in central Colombia has called on its social media followers to come up with names for newborn primates delivered in the current birthing season – and most suggestions are related to the coronavirus pandemic. A spider monkey hugs its baby inside a cage at the