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Europe is on track to reduce its carbon emissions by 44% by 2050 -- well below the 80% to 95% reduction that experts say is needed to avert catastrophic climate change. That shows the need for long-term planning and more ambitious targets, campaigners say. "This trend shows the nonsense of pursuing only a business-as-usual scenario and underlines the need for coherent long-term policy development," says Adrian Joyce of EuroACE

The paper industry is pushing back against the "paperless" workplace and trying to persuade corporate decision-makers that paper can be greener than you'd think. Sustainably produced paper doesn't harm the planet and is arguably better than technologies that produce electronic waste, industry reps say. "We have to be careful when we pin one product against the other and say it's better. It's a tricky thing to do if you don't have all the data to back it up," says Phil Riebel, president of industry group Two Sides U.S

Swedish denim label Nudie Jeans is touting its 100% organic jeans, which it says need to be washed only once every six months, with the promise that it will repair them for free if users manage to ding them up. "People sometimes say that we'd earn so much more if we didn't have this service. ... Yes, we could, but that's not the point. We think long term," says CEO Palle Stenberg

Mountaintop-removal mining is changing water chemistry and harming fish stocks in the Appalachians, federal researchers say. "We're seeing significant reductions in the number of fish species and total abundance of fish downstream from mining operations," says biologist Nathaniel Hitt.

ExxonMobil is to become the first fossil-fuel giant to report on threats to its oil and gas assets due to possible future regulation of carbon emissions. The move won plaudits from clean-energy campaigners, who say fossil fuels will become economically unviable as governments tackle carbon emissions. "That the largest American oil and gas company is the first to come to the table on this issue says a lot about the direction that energy markets are taking," says Danielle Fugere, president of As You Sow

The Paris climate accord heralds a new era for the global economy, with a wide range of investors and industries now likely to seek ways to avoid carbon risks and adopt less carbon-intensive ways of doing business, experts say. Secretary of State John Kerry says the deal will be a net job creator and sends a powerful message to the marketplace. Nancy Pfund, managing partner of DBL Partners, agrees. "It's very hard to go backward from something like this. People are boarding this train, and it's time to hop on if you want to have a thriving, 21st-century economy," she says. 

Hershey has redesigned its display cases in such a way that by 2025, they will have reduced packaging material by 25 million pounds, the company says. The new display case is a one-piece design with no cover packaging. It also eliminates the center divider. With these and other changes, the cases use 32% less material, Hershey says. The cases also use about 62% less time to open and set up.

Logging emissions is an important step in securing the transparency that China needs to solve its pollution problems, Mr. Ma argues. Among the harmful pollutants are air particles known as PM2.5, which can enter deep into the lungs and even into the bloodstream. In an interview, he talked about the considerable progress he sees in the Chinese government's approach to air pollution, but also how concerns about social unrest continued to constrain discussion of pollution's damage to public health. Before 2013, levels of PM2.5 [the finest and deadliest particulate matter] were not monitored or made public in a single city. Now it's monitored and released in more than 400 cities. China has entered an era when air quality information is released. It's much more transparent. The 11th and 12th Five-Year Plans only referred to "emission reduction targets," so local governments could play games by claiming they had reduced emissions. Now, by saying by what year the PM2.5 must be below a certain amount, it's much harder to fake. The 13th Five-Year Plan is a progressive plan because it says that the public has the right to participate, to monitor, and that it's the public's right to know.

Costa Rica's left-wing opposition looks set to win next month's national elections, and party leaders say one of their first moves would be to cancel the country's pledge to achieve carbon neutrality by 2021. That goal, which is markedly more ambitious than any other country's carbon-reduction target, is no longer attainable, officials say. "We don't think it would be possible to reach carbon neutrality by 2021, because the most important tasks to reduce emissions in the country are yet to be done," said opposition environmental adviser Patricia Madrigal.

A new study reveals that consumers' demand for product transparency is on the rise - overall, they desire more product information and are inclined to be more loyal to brands that provide more detailed insights. About 40 percent say they would switch to a new brand if it offered full product transparency, and 81 percent say they would consider a brand's entire portfolio of products if they switched to that brand as a result of increased transparency.

Last month, the first comprehensive study on global bush meat consumption found that 113 species in Southeast Asia have dwindled to precarious numbers, primarily due to bush meat hunting and trapping. But while this region may be one of the worst affected, the study, published in Royal Society Open Science, reports that bush meat hunting is driving many of the world's mammals to the brink of extinction. "The large mammals are much more threatened than the small ones," says William Ripple, a professor of ecology at Oregon State University and lead author of the study. "This is likely because there is more meat on large mammals."

Turn off your air conditioner and stay cool in your shirt instead. That's the idea behind a new plastic-wrap-like material that Stanford University scientists say could be made into "cool" clothing, the use of which could slash emissions and energy consumption in buildings. If woven into fabric, the wearable cloth could keep humans cool on the hottest of days, eliminating the need to adjust the thermostat or crank up a fan. That could make a dent on a major source of U.S. greenhouse gases, the researchers say.

Levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have surged past an important threshold and may not dip below it for "many generations." The 400 parts per million benchmark was broken globally for the first time in recorded history in 2015. But according to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), 2016 will likely be the first full year to exceed the mark.

Carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, is present at 400 parts per million for the first time ever -- a level that's 44% greater than CO2 levels prior to the Industrial Revolution, says a World Meteorological Organization report. Improvements in the near future could reduce CO2 levels by the 2060s, says WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.

. As is the case with many companies who tout the magic year 2020, Hershey promises it will buy 100 percent responsible and sustainable cacao by the end of that year, and boasts it is ahead of schedule of that goal by having already met it halfway. Hershey also showcases a program that it says helped 31,000 farmers in nations such as Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria, without divulging how - while saying they are learning "information on best practices in sustainable cacao farming." Such a vague disclosure is not going to mollify critics who have long said the global chocolate industry is one that provides indulgences for wealthy citizens at the expense of some of the world's

The Antarctic is warming much more slowly than the rest of the planet, thanks in large part to ocean currents that draw up cold water from the deep oceans. That could largely shield the region from climate impacts until the deep oceans warm up hundreds of years from now, researchers say.

General Motors has created revenue streams worth $1 billion through its waste-reduction and recycling programs while also reducing its risk exposure, says Mari Kay Scott, GM's executive director of global environmental compliance and sustainability. "Sustainability is good for the environment -- it's also really good for business," she says.

Offshore wind is slowly taking off in the US, according to this analysis. Observers say that this trend can be seen in Massachusetts' proposed offshore wind bill, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's plan to hold an offshore wind auction for a tract of space off the coast of New York and Maryland's continued work on the Maryland Offshore Wind Energy Act. Some say these advances and several others could help the nation's fledging offshore wind industry reach critical mass.

A slowdown in the pace of global warming in the early 2000s was likely due to changing aerosol emissions -- and future changes could have the opposite effect and accelerate climate change, researchers say.

HP has committed to powering its global operations with 100 percent renewable energy - and says it plans to reach the 40 percent renewable electricity mark by 2020 - because, as Nate Hurst, HP's chief sustainability and social impact officer says, "both cost-effective and low carbon sources of energy are essential to the future and the growth of HP's business."