Most recent 40 articles: France24
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Global sea levels jumped due to El Nino and warming climate, says NASA - France24 (Mar 21) |
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Mar 21 · Global average sea level rose by about 0.3 inches (0.76 centimeters) from 2022 to 2023 -- nearly four times the increase of the previous year -- NASA said Thursday, attributing the "significant jump" to a strong El Nino and a warming climate.
Issued on: 21/03/2024 - 19:15Modified: 21/03/2024 - 19:13
The NASA-led analysis is based on more than 30 years of satellite observations, with the initial satellite launching in 1992 and the latest in 2020.
Overall, sea levels have risen by around four inches since 1993. The rate of increase has also accelerated, more than doubling from 0.07 inches per year in 1993, to the current rate of 0.17 inches per year.
"Current ... Read more ...
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France drops renewables targets, prioritises nuclear in new energy bill - France24 (Jan 9) |
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Jan 9 · Critics are deriding as a step backward a new French energy bill that favours the further development of nuclear power and avoids setting targets for solar and wind power and other renewables.
Issued on: 09/01/2024 - 08:26
France, like other EU countries, aims to achieve carbon neutrality in 2050.
The proposed text, which is slated to go before the cabinet early next month and then be submitted to lawmakers, reaffirms France’s commitment to nuclear power to ensure “energy sovereignty”.
The country became a leader in nuclear power generation after the 1973 oil crisis, building over 50 such power plants that produced around two-thirds of the country’s electricity. Read more ...
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McKinsey & Company pushes fossil fuel interests as advisor to UN climate talks, whistleblowers say - France24 (Nov 7) |
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Nov 7 · The world's top management consultancy McKinsey & Company is using its position as a key advisor to the UN's COP28 climate talks to push the interests of its big oil and gas clients, undermining efforts to end the use of the fossil fuels driving global warming, according to multiple sources and leaked documents.
Issued on: 07/11/2023 - 17:45Modified: 07/11/2023 - 17:43
Behind closed doors, the US-based firm has proposed future energy scenarios to the agenda setters of the summit that are at odds with the climate goals it publicly espouses, an AFP investigation has found.
An "energy transition narrative" drafted by the firm and obtained by AFP only reduces oil use ... Read more ...
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Indigenous people and climate change: With the Inuit when the ice melts - France24 (Oct 27, 2023) |
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Oct 27, 2023 · Issued on: 27/10/2023 - 13:16
FRANCE 24 brings you the stories of the people who are on the front lines of climate change. From Kenya to Panama via Greenland and Australia, our reporters James André and Achraf Abid went to meet the Indigenous people who live in harmony with nature and whose daily lives are being turned upside down by global warming. Don't miss our series of four special reports. In this second episode, we take you to Greenland.
It's May 2023 and the remote village of Ittoqqortoormiit, on the east coast of Greenland, is 25 kilometres short of sea ice. Indigenous people who hunt seals and polar bears have abandoned their traditional sled dogs for ... Read more ...
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Indigenous people and climate change: With Kenya's Turkana people, when drought kills - France24 (Oct 20, 2023) |
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Oct 20, 2023 · Issued on: 20/10/2023 - 12:38
FRANCE 24 brings you the stories of the people who are on the frontlines of climate change. From Kenya to Panama, via Greenland and Australia, our reporters James André and Achraf Abid went to meet the indigenous people who live in harmony with nature and whose daily lives are being turned upside down by global warming. Don't miss our series of four special reports. In this first episode, we take you to Kenya.
It's March 2023 in Kenya and the Turkana people are still waiting for rain. They’ve been waiting for five long years. These nomadic herders live in the arid northwest of the East African country. For centuries, their lives have been ... Read more ...
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World warming at record 0.2C per decade, top scientists warn - France24 (Jun 09, 2023) |
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Jun 09, 2023 · d="M428.836-2704.2v-2.955a.845.845 0 0 0-.845-.845h-10.146a.845.845 0 0 0-.845.845v8.455a.845.845 0 0 0 .845.845h10.146a.845.845 0 0 0 .845-.845v-2.959l3.382 3.382v-9.3z"/>World Oceans Day: Kenyan fishermen pay cost of industrial fishing
d="M428.836-2704.2v-2.955a.845.845 0 0 0-.845-.845h-10.146a.845.845 0 0 0-.845.845v8.455a.845.845 0 0 0 .845.845h10.146a.845.845 0 0 0 .845-.845v-2.959l3.382 3.382v-9.3z"/>Climate change: Oceans warmer last month than any May on record
d="M428.836-2704.2v-2.955a.845.845 0 0 0-.845-.845h-10.146a.845.845 0 0 0-.845.845v8.455a.845.845 0 0 0 .845.845h10.146a.845.845 0 0 0 .845-.845v-2.959l3.382 3.382v-9.3z"/>Climate change: World Oceans Day ... Read more ...
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Portugal bets all on renewables after abandoning coal - France24 (Oct 17, 2022) |
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Oct 17, 2022 · Issued on: 17/10/2022 - 08:00
Pego (Portugal) (AFP) – As the UN steps up calls to make the switch to renewable energy to fight the global climate emergency, Portugal is among the first European Union countries to abandon coal.
It will share the lessons it has learned so far at November's COP27 UN climate summit in Egypt.
It has been nearly a year now since smoke has trailed up from the cooling towers of the coal plant in Pego, 120 kilometres (70 miles) northeast of the capital Lisbon.
The lights are off at the station, and the dust gathering on the steel structure attests to the fact that the last coal plant in Portugal shut down in November last year after ... Read more ...
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Five more EU nations to help France combat wildfire - France24 (Aug 11, 2022) |
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Aug 11, 2022 · Issued on: 11/08/2022 - 11:05
As French officials warned Thursday that flare-ups could cause a massive wildfire to further spread in the country's parched southwest, President Emmanuel Macron tweeted that five more European allies are providing help for firefighters battling eight major wildfires across the country.
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne will meet with authorities battling the Landiras blaze south of Bordeaux, and further reinforcements are expected for the 1,100 firefighters on site, the prefecture of the Gironde department said.
Currently eight major wildfires are raging in France and Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, who was also heading to meet ... Read more ...
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World’s glaciers are melting faster than expected, with visible consequences - France24 (Jul 31, 2022) |
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Jul 31, 2022 · Issued on: 31/07/2022 - 16:58
The extreme temperatures Europe has experienced in recent weeks have resulted in an increase in the rate of snowpack melt in the Alpine glaciers. As in many other parts of the world, the consequences are increasingly visible in the Alps, where the glaciers are particularly vulnerable due to their smaller size and thinness.
The Earth is getting warmer, and its ice is melting. For years, images of polar bears grappling with their shrinking homes have been warning us about the melting of the ice caps. Rising sea levels, shifting borders, avalanches, floods – the consequences are clearly visible and there is no need to go all the way to ... Read more ...
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France's unprecedented drought shows climate change is ‘spiralling out of control' - France24 (May 11, 2022) |
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May 11, 2022 · Issued on: 11/05/2022 - 17:17
As global warming accelerates, the spectre of drought haunts France’s once verdant farmland. Even now, before the start of summer, 15 administrative départements have had to restrict water use while farmers warn that the current situation will have an adverse impact on crop yields.
Few people in France are talking about this looming catastrophe – but all the signs of a record drought are there.
“No region has been spared. We can see the earth cracking every day. Yesterday I was at a farmer’s house in the Puy-de-Dôme region [in central France]; he was watering the wheat. If things carry on like this, farmers who can irrigate their crops ... Read more ...
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Crushing climate impacts to hit sooner than feared: draft UN report - France24 (Jun 23, 2021) |
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Jun 23, 2021 · Issued on: 23/06/2021 - 03:14Modified: 23/06/2021 - 03:12
Paris (AFP) –
Climate change will fundamentally reshape life on Earth in the coming decades, even if humans can tame planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, according to a landmark draft report from the UN's climate science advisors obtained by AFP.
Species extinction, more widespread disease, unliveable heat, ecosystem collapse, cities menaced by rising seas -- these and other devastating climate impacts are accelerating and bound to become painfully obvious before a child born today turns 30.
The choices societies make now will determine whether our species thrives or simply survives as the 21st ... Read more ...
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'Doomsday' climate tipping points have wiggle room: study FRANCE 24 - France24 (Apr 22, 2021) |
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Apr 22, 2021 · Issued on: 22/04/2021 - 15:26Modified: 22/04/2021 - 15:24
Paris (AFP)
Global warming thresholds that could tip massive ice sheets into irreversible melting or see the Amazon rainforest shrivel into savannah have "grace periods", giving humanity more time to draw down planet-warming carbon emissions, researchers have calculated.
More than a dozen tipping points triggered mainly by rising temperatures could unleash catastrophic changes in Earth's climate system.
As the Paris Agreement goal of a 1.5 degree Celsius cap above pre-industrial levels slips out of reach, this is potentially very good news -- although no reason to relax -- scientists said.
Ice ... Read more ...
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Lightning strikes to spark more Arctic fires: study FRANCE 24 - France24 (Apr 05, 2021) |
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Apr 05, 2021 · Issued on: 05/04/2021 - 17:02
Paris (AFP)
Lightning strikes inside the Arctic circle may double this century, sparking widespread tundra fires and increasing the risk of setting off the carbon time bomb held within permafrost, new research showed Monday.
The permafrost of North America and Siberia contains enough carbon dioxide to roughly double all the carbon currently in Earth's atmosphere, and there are fears it will melt significantly as temperatures rise.
They then modelled how the strike rate was likely to increase as temperatures rise, using a business-as-usual projection that sees no significant reduction in carbon pollution this century.
They ... Read more ...
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Russian scientists probe prehistoric viruses dug from permafrost - France24 (Feb 16, 2021) |
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Feb 16, 2021 · Issued on: 16/02/2021 - 18:40Modified: 16/02/2021 - 18:38
Moscow (AFP)
Russian state laboratory Vektor on Tuesday announced it was launching research into prehistoric viruses by analysing the remains of animals recovered from melted permafrost.
The Siberia-based lab said in a statement that the aim of the project was to identify paleoviruses and conduct advanced research into virus evolution.
Vektor said the remains were discovered in 2009 in Yakutia, a vast Siberian region where remains of Paleolithic animals including mammoths are regularly discovered.
Maxim Cheprasov, head of the Mammoth Museum laboratory at Yakutsk University, said in a press ... Read more ...
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World missing all targets to save nature, UN warns - France 24 - France24 (Sep 15, 2020) |
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Sep 15, 2020 · Issued on: 15/09/2020 - 16:40Modified: 15/09/2020 - 16:38
Paris (AFP) –
Countries are set to miss all of the targets they set themselves a decade ago to preserve nature and save Earth's vital biodiversity, the United Nations said Tuesday.
Humanity's impact on the natural world over the last five decades has been nothing short of cataclysmic: since 1970 close to 70 percent of wild animals, birds and fish have vanished, according to a WWF assessment this month.
Last year the UN's panel on biodiversity, called IPBES, warned that one million species face extinction as man-made activity has already severely degraded three quarters of land on Earth.
In 2010, ... Read more ...
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French cities and NGOs sue oil giant Total over 'climate inaction' - France24 (Jan 28, 2020) |
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Jan 28, 2020 · Issued on: 28/01/2020 - 16:33Modified: 28/01/2020 - 16:33
A group of French cities and advocacy groups said Tuesday they had filed a lawsuit against oil giant Total, claiming it was not doing enough to limit carbon emissions and prevent climate change.
"We're asking for them to be held accountable, but also for positive and concrete actions for our citizens and territories," Patrick Jarry, mayor of the Paris suburb of Nanterre where the case was filed, told journalists.
It is the first time a French company has been sued for what the NGOs call "climate inaction", based on a March 2017 law that requires large French companies to draw up "vigilance plans" to prevent ... Read more ...
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Planned fossil fuel output swamps Paris climate goals - France 24 - France24 (Nov 20, 2019) |
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Nov 20, 2019 · Issued on: 20/11/2019 - 07:06Modified: 20/11/2019 - 07:04
Paris (AFP)
The world is on track to produce 50 percent more fossil fuels than could be burned without increasing Earth's surface by more than two degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, they said in a major report.
If temperature rise is to be limited to 1.5C, planned fossil fuel production is more than double what can be tolerated.
The 2015 Paris Agreement calls for blocking global warming at well below 2C, and 1.5C if possible.
With only 1C of warming to date, the world has seen a crescendo of deadly heatwaves, flooding, and superstorms made more destructive by accelerating sea level rise. Read more ...
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China adds coal power despite climate pledge: report - France 24 - France24 (Nov 20, 2019) |
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Nov 20, 2019 · Issued on: 20/11/2019 - 06:42Modified: 20/11/2019 - 06:41
Beijing (AFP)
China built enough new plants between January 2018 and June 2019 -- nearly 43 gigawatts worth of capacity -- to cancel out the decrease in the rest of the world, said the US-based Global Energy Monitor.
Another 147.7 gigawatts of coal plants in the country are currently under construction or likely to be reopened, nearly as many as the entire European Union's 150 gigawatts of existing capacity, the report said.
The plants would take China's total coal power plant capacity to 1174.7 gigawatts.
The report attributed China's coal expansion to a two year period in which provincial ... Read more ...
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South Africa to increase coal-fired energy, sparking climate outcry - France24 (Oct 18, 2019) |
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Oct 18, 2019 · Issued on: 18/10/2019 - 17:31
Johannesburg (AFP)
South Africa's government announced Friday that the country would increase its use of coal-fired energy, provoking outrage from climate groups.
Africa's biggest polluter and most industrialised nation was facing rolling blackouts -- in part due to ageing coal plants -- as the government released its energy blueprint for the next decade.
Mineral Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe unveiled the long-awaited Integrated Resource Plan, saying "coal will continue to play a significant role in electricity generation".
The 10-year plan includes increasing the country's current 47,000 megawatts of energy by 1,500 ... Read more ...
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BP or not BP? La Royal Shakespeare Company renonce aux subventions pétrolières - France 24 - France24 (Oct 02, 2019) |
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Oct 02, 2019 · Publié le : 02/10/2019 - 17:10
Londres (AFP)
La prestigieuse compagnie théâtrale Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) a annoncé mercredi renoncer aux aides du groupe pétrolier BP au nom de l'"urgence climatique".
Le mécénat de BP permettait à la RSC, compagnie théâtrale britannique basée à Stratford-Upon-Avon, ville natale de William Shakespeare, de proposer des tickets à 5 livres (5,60 euros) pour les jeunes âgés de 16 à 25 ans depuis 2013.
"Dans un contexte d'urgence climatique, que nous reconnaissons, les jeunes nous disent maintenant clairement que le mécénat de BP crée une barrière entre eux et leur désir de s'impliquer avec la RSC. Nous ne pouvons pas ... Read more ...
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'Generation climate' to occupy huge German coal mine - France24 (Jun 18, 2019) |
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Jun 18, 2019 · Issued on: 19/06/2019 - 05:17
Berlin (AFP)
Thousands of European environmental activists are readying to blockade a huge open-pit coal mine in Germany, backed for the first time by the student climate movement launched by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg.
Protesters in their trademark white overalls will from Friday try to evade police lines and halt the monster machines digging through the moonscape of the 48 square kilometre (18 square mile) Garzweiler mine near Cologne.
The sixth protest of its kind, from Thursday to Monday, comes after Greens parties made strong gains in European Parliament elections and in Germany are for the first time polling ... Read more ...
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Oil industry under pressure to respond to climate change - France24 (Apr 27, 2019) |
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Apr 27, 2019 · Issued on: 28/04/2019 - 05:54
Paris (AFP)
The oil industry, under mounting pressure from environmental activists to react more quickly to counter climate change, has begun to adapt its strategy but is struggling to convince critics it is doing enough.
Last week activists, responding to a call from the Extinction Rebellion group, laid siege to Shell's London headquarters whose windows were smashed.
Several days later hundreds of activists blocked several symbolic sites in France, including the headquarters of oil giant Total.
"They are mastodons whose business model is based on fossil fuels and which don't want to shift one iota because up until now ... Read more ...
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French state faces landmark lawsuit over climate inaction - France24 (Mar 14, 2019) |
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Mar 14, 2019 · Issued on: 14/03/2019 - 14:26Modified: 14/03/2019 - 17:55
NGOs have filed a lawsuit against the French state for doing too little to fight climate change as citizens around the world step up their efforts to force stronger moves to cut carbon emissions.
When French President Emmanuel Macron showed up for a town hall meeting last week in the picturesque provençal town of Gréoux-les-Bains, part of a Great National Debate that has seen him engage with local communities across the country, the star guest from Paris was upstaged by a local schoolboy who, mic in hand, urged him to get serious about saving the planet.
"What do you mean by ecology, since our factories are ... Read more ...
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Trump officially taps former coal lobbyist to lead EPA - France24 (Jan 09, 2019) |
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Jan 09, 2019 · Issued on: 09/01/2019 - 21:11
Washington (AFP)
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday formally nominated Andrew Wheeler, a former coal industry lobbyist, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.
The nomination of Wheeler, who is currently the acting EPA chief, requires Senate confirmation.
Wheeler, 54, has been the interim agency administrator since Scott Pruitt resigned in July amid a flurry of ethics scandals, including over excessive spending of federal funds while in office.
If confirmed, Wheeler is expected to pursue Trump's agenda of rolling back environmental regulations put in place by the Republican leader's predecessor Barack ... Read more ...
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Brazil's Bolsonaro to merge environment and agriculture ministries - France24 (Oct 31, 2018) |
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Oct 31, 2018 · Issued on: 31/10/2018 - 14:43
Brazil's far-right President-elect Jair Bolsonaro will merge the environment and agriculture ministries, an adviser confirmed Tuesday, a move activists have warned could imperil the Amazon rainforest.
"Agriculture and environment will be in the same ministry," lawmaker Onyx Lorenzoni, Bolsonaro's likely chief of staff, told journalists after the president-elect huddled with his top advisers to begin forming his new government just two days after his election.
Bolsonaro, who is backed by Brazil's powerful agro-industrial lobby, had already floated the idea in the past, saying, "Let's be clear: the future ministry will come from the ... Read more ...
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