A coalition of leading European environmental groups has cautiously welcomed a “landmark” agreement by lawmakers in Brussels on new rules aimed at curbing a major source of microplastic pollution in…
On a busy morning in November 2024, a dramatic scene unfolded in a supermarket in Banani, Dhaka. Government officials, armed with security personnel, launched a joint operation to crack down…
Sea ice extent is at record, and near record, lows for this time of year in both polar regions, leaving the planet increasingly vulnerable to the cascading effects of global…
Africa’s remaining tropical glaciers are rapidly disappearing as greenhouse gas emissions drive global warming. In the Rwenzori Mountains, a UNESCO World Heritage Site on the border between the Democratic Republic…
Earth’s frozen places — ice sheets, glaciers and permafrost — are melting: A clear sign of climate change and a planet quickly exiting the stable state that gave rise to…
In a lab in Türkiye, researcher Sedat Gündoğdu zooms in on the image of a small red fiber. For the first time on film, viewers are witnessing microplastics in the…
The situation is worse than previously thought In February 2025, three scientific papers were published showing that the climate situation is much worse than the scientific community thought, much less…
Delegates and observers applauded, with caveats, the delayed conclusion of the 16th United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, or COP16, in Rome on Feb. 28. The big takeaway was an…
Ocean-based carbon dioxide removal technology is ramping up, with startups and existing companies racing to develop electrochemical techniques that either remove carbon from seawater or prompt oceans to suck up…
Next-generation geothermal technologies are gaining steam as a source of clean, renewable energy and an alternative to fossil fuels. With demonstration projects across the globe now showing strong potential, enhanced…
In 2022, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres declared that the “lifeline of renewable energy can steer [the] world out of climate crisis.” In saying so, he echoed a popular and tantalizing…
“Just wait till next year!” goes the slogan often attributed to disappointed sports fans. Those same words could equally apply to proponents of an internationally binding U.N. agreement to phase…
“Plastics pollution exacerbates the impacts of all [nine] planetary boundaries,” warns a report published this month in the journal One Earth in the run-up to what could be the final…
CALI, Colombia — Over the past three decades at annual United Nations climate summits like COP29, which is just concluding in Azerbaijan, delegates have hyperfocused on the need for national…
Bottlenose dolphins leapt and torpedoed through the shallow turquoise waters off Florida’s Sarasota Bay. Then, a research team moved in, quickly corralling the small pod in a large net. With…
It’s been clear for some time: We’re in the midst of a rapidly escalating global plastics crisis. More than 11 billion metric tons of virgin plastics were produced worldwide from…
For many years, the North Atlantic Ocean warmed more slowly than other parts of the world. In 2023, that changed — dramatically. Over the last year and a half, North…
Despite gridlocked talks over finance and little advancement on key elements on the agenda, this year’s U.N. biodiversity conference, or COP16, was considered a success for some Indigenous peoples and…
The chances for a stronger international agreement on limits to plastic production may have increased dramatically as the world nears a U.N. deadline for achieving a plastics treaty. The game…
CALI, Colombia — The hunger for new, reliable forms of finance to save biodiverse forests in developing tropical countries was palpable here at a jam-packed event during the COP16 United…
It sounds like a simple solution: Spread some crushed silicate rock atop the world’s vast agricultural lands to absorb atmospheric carbon and thereby tackle climate change at a large scale.…
Mycologists believe the solution to some of our biggest pollution issues is under our feet. Humble fungi are now being used as meat alternatives, eco-friendly leather and to help break…
CALI, Colombia — At COP16, an international conference here on the edge of the Amazon that is devoted to enacting plans to protect forests, oceans and the biodiversity living in…
From Oct. 21 to Nov. 1, Indigenous and local community leaders from around the world will gather at the latest U.N. biodiversity conference, or COP16, which delegates say is poised…
Earth’s climate system continues to rapidly deteriorate, with global temperatures on track to far overshoot 2° Celsius (3.6° Fahrenheit) of warming by the end of the century — a mere…
A controversial experiment to field-test a way to quickly sequester more carbon in the world’s oceans has been pushed back until 2025, according to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).…
For sea ice scientists, September is the time for polar highs and lows. Around mid-month, the Antarctic winter sea ice approaches its highest extent, while the Arctic summer thaw melts…
This is the second of a two-part story. Part one deals with aluminum and steel impacts; Part two explores circular solutions. Aluminum and steel have long been hailed for their…
Two years since global policymakers agreed on the concept of protecting 30% of the world’s land and waters by 2030, there’s still little clarity on how achieving this goal will…
This is the first part of a two-part story. Part one deals with aluminum and steel impacts; Part two explores circular solutions. Aluminum and steel are two metals vital to…
YAQUI VALLEY, Mexico — In June, residents of communities along the Yaqui River found various dead tilapia, carp and catfish floating on the banks of the river. According to Guadalupe…
In the 2020 science-fiction novel The Ministry for the Future, author Kim Stanley Robinson imagines a near-future climate catastrophe in which a deadly heat dome stalls over India, killing millions…
