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France is moving forward with a "Positive Energy" initiative to add solar panels to 621 miles of road. The panels are glued onto the roadway and can handle the weight of six-axle vehicles. This stretch of road could collect enough energy for 5 million people. A Dutch company has already used solar panels on 328 feet of road in Holland.

Using fracking wastewater to de-ice roads in New York City will likely soon be illegal, following a City Council vote to ban the practice. Fracking wastewater has a high brine content, which makes it useful in salinating roads icy roads. The waste also contains benzene, which the EPA says is a human carcinogen.

A Brazilian Senate Commission is quickly, and surreptitiously, moving forward a constitutional amendment (PEC 65) that would end the need for environmental assessment approvals for public works projects in Brazil ranging from Amazon dams to roads and canals, and oil infrastructure.

The EU is considering placing limits on carbon dioxide emissions from commercial trucks, which account for about 25% of the region's road emissions.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that more than 1 million electric vehicles (EVs) were on the road in 2015, including 400,000 in the United States. In order to limit global warming to 2°C or less, the agency says the world will need 150 million EVs by 2030 and 1 billion by 2050, implying a 21 percent compound annual growth rate from now until 2050.

"Without increasing connectivity and basically building wildlife crossings like a tunnel or an overpass, I think the mountain lions here are definitely going to be lost," Park Service wildlife ecologist Seth Riley said.

The natural gas boom that fracking wrought has shaken up the global energy landscape. Now its effects are rippling toward the fuel tanks of U.S. cars and trucks, although a few leaps may be required for natural gas vehicles to go mainstream.

A new maritime fuel regulation from the EPA could crowd roads and increase onshore air pollution, according to a shipping group. The rule requires the use of high-cost, ultra-low sulfur fuels in ships operating within the 200 nautical mile boundary of the North American Emission Control Area (ECA).

The $1.35 billion Quest carbon capture and storage project in Canada being developed by Shell Canada is now half finished. There are 600 workers on the project, scheduled to become operational late next year. When completed, the facility will reduce direct carbon dioxide emissions by 1 million tons per year, "equivalent to taking 175,000 cars off the road," the article notes

What must be done and why consumer goods companies must step up their efforts to meet the 2020 goal of zero deforestation

The savings, in both energy and carbon pollution, can be considerable. At the city's St. Mary's recreation center in the South Bronx, where a solar hot water system provides hot water for showers and the pool, the city is saving $39,000 a year on energy and cutting the complex's carbon footprint by 141 tons a year-the equivalent of taking 27 cars off the roads.

George's Chicken reduced its fleet size by 10 percent, cut road miles by 5 percent, and reported saving $31,000 a year on fuel costs. George's has 250 stores in the Northeast US.

Chinese automakers plan to spend almost $8 billion this year on developing all-electric and hybrid automobiles, an analysis shows. The government is setting targets and offering incentives, believing that "developing new-energy vehicles is the Chinese auto industry's only road to grow from being big to being strong," said Xu Heyi, chairman of Beijing Automotive Group. 

UPS has launched its route optimization software called ORION - this stands for on-road integrated optimization and navigation - which the company expects to save more than 1.5 million gallons of fuel and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 14,000 metric tons by the end of the year. A reduction of just one mile each day per driver over the course of a year saves UPS up to $50 million annually.

Halting deforestation would be equivalent to taking the world's cars off the road. From APP to Wilmar, some brands are turning a new leaf.

Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. new project providing nearly 600 electric charging stations throughout the airport for ground support equipment (GSE) such as baggage tugs, bag ramps and pushback vehicles. Converting the GSE from fossil fuel to electric, each year the project is projected to save $2.8 million in airline fuel costs and 10,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions - the equivalent of taking 1,900 cars off the road.

China plans to remove over 5 million vehicles from roads this year for failing to meet new fuel standards designed to reduce smog. The plan calls for removing 330,000 cars from Beijing and 660,000 from the surrounding Hebei province.

The Coca-Cola Company has partnered with NRG eVgo, a subsidiary of NRG Energy, Inc., to join Governor Jerry Brown's call to have 1.5 million zero-emission vehicles on California's roads by 2025. Coca-Cola will provide electric vehicle (EV) charging at seven of its facilities across California. eVgo will install and manage the charging stations to provide workplace charging for Coca-Cola employees with EVs.

Finally, the fashion industry realizes we cannot continue this trend in a world where the rising population will have to devote more land to food - or even energy. We cannot continue to grow cotton like mad, nor can we endlessly spin fossil fuels into polyester or other synthetic fabrics. The road toward more sustainable fibers will be a long one with plenty of failures and misses, but it is one we need to take. That is, at least, absent a total rethink of how many clothes we really need in our closets - a discussion the large global clothing chains want to avoid.

UPS says that it expects its On-Road Integrated Optimization Navigation (ORION) routing system to reduce by 100 million miles annually the distance driven by its drivers, when fully implemented in 2016.