Beware the brown peril – the abc of ABCs
18 Nov 2008
A three kilometre-thick "brown cloud" of man-made pollution, which stretches from the Arabian Peninsula to China to the western Pacific Ocean, is making Asian cities darker, speeding up the melting of Himalayan glaciers and affecting human health, according to a new United Nations Environment Programme report.
Atmospheric Brown Clouds (ABCs) come from the burning of fossil fuels and biomass, and result in the formation of particles such as black carbon and soot which absorb sunlight and heat the air, experts write in the study released in Beijing.
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Point of no return: a hellish ‘hothouse Earth’ getting closer, scientists say
Fri 13 Feb 2026
The world is closer than thought to a “point of no return” after which runaway global heating cannot be stopped, scientists have said.
China’s CO2 emissions have now been ‘flat or falling’ for 21 months
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China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell by 1% in the final quarter of 2025, likely securing a decline of 0.3% for the full year as a whole.
European Central Bank's green supervision grows teeth, but will banks avoid being bitten?
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After several years of issuing guidance and repeatedly calling on banks to take climate and environmental risk management seriously, the European Central Bank is moving from guidance and expectations to enforcement.
Polymers from earth can make cement more climate-friendly
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The way concrete is made today makes it a major contributor to climate change. The good news is that there are alternatives, and they are gaining attention.
India will use more coal over the next 25 years, report says
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India's coal consumption could more than double by mid-century before plunging sharply as the country shifts toward cleaner energy, long‑term projections published by government think-tank NITI Aayog show.
Yes, climate still matters. Here's how it connects to every other crisis in the world today
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COMMENT: While yes, the details of this or that environmental policy might seem quite trivial in the face of the collapse of democracy all around us, these two things – the climate crisis and the democracy crisis – are deeply interconnected.
Trump is wiping out all climate regulation. Big Oil may regret it.
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For decades, oil majors fought climate regulation. Now, they’re afraid Trump’s extreme rollbacks could leave them on the hook to pay for what they’ve done.
EU to ban destruction of unsold clothes and shoes
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The European Commission has adopted new measures that will require medium and large companies to stop discarding unsold clothing and footwear, in the bloc’s latest move to target textile waste.
A three-year heatwave bleached half the planet’s coral reefs
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More than half of the world’s coral reefs were bleached between 2014 and 2017 – a record-setting episode now being eclipsed by another series of devastating heatwaves.
Why Trump might be onboard with a UN carbon-offset programme for airlines
Thu 12 Feb 2026
The president’s team has backed the rollout of an initiative that calls for the use of sustainable aviation fuel and carbon credits, even as Trump has pulled back from other international emissions-reduction efforts.
