Global trade has made it easier to buy things. But our consumption habits often fuel threats to biodiversity - such as deforestation, overhunting and overfishing - thousands of miles away. Now, scientists have mapped how major consuming countries drive threats to endangered species elsewhere. Such maps could be useful for finding the most efficient ways to protect critical areas important for biodiversity, the researchers suggest in a new study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. For example, the maps show that commodities used in the United States and the European Union exert several threats on marine species in Southeast Asia, mainly due to overfishing, pollution and aquaculture. The U.S. also exerts pressure on hotspots off the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and at the mouth of the Orinoco around Trinidad and Tobago. European Union's impacts extend to the islands around Madagascar: Réunion, Mauritius and the Seychelles. The maps also revealed some unexpected linkages. For instance, the impact of U.S. consumption in Brazil appears to be much greater in southern Brazil (in the Brazilian Highlands where agriculture and grazing are extensive) than inside the Amazon basin, which receives a larger chunk of the attention. The U.S. also has high biodiversity footprint in southern Spain and Portugal, due to their impacts on threatened fish and bird species. These countries are rarely perceived as threat hotspots.

Serious labour rights violations have taken place at Brazilian farms linked to some of the largest international coffee certification systems, including Rainforest Alliance and UTZ, according to an investigation by Repórter Brasil. Brazil is the largest coffee producer in the world, with about one-third of all coffee consumed planted in the country. These violations include workers' pay packets being falsely docked resulting in some receiving less than half Brazil's minimum wage, and workers being hired informally and without mandatory medical tests. One farm even promoted its output with a Fairtrade certificate it was not entitled to use.

Rising incomes and high demand for electric and electronic equipment (EEE) in East and South-East Asian countries have resulted in e-waste generation increasing by two thirds during 2010-2015, says a new study published by the United Nations University (UNU). The average increase in e-waste across 12 countries analysed - Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam - was over 60 per cent during the five-year period totalling 12.3 million tonnes.

India is delaying a decision on asking for a dispute settlement panel at the World Trade Organisation against domestic content regulations in renewable energy programmes run by eight states in the US as it is hoping to work out a "mutually beneficial'' solution with the new regime under Republican leader Donald Trump. "New Delhi is still hopeful that it could work out a compromise with Washington on the flexible implementation of the WTO verdict against it in the solar power programme dispute. It may decide not to ask for a panel against US renewable energy programmes if it gets an assurance from the Trump administration on leniency in the solar case," a government official told BusinessLine.

Air pollution contributed to a total of 80,665 premature deaths of adults over 30 years in Mumbai and Delhi in 2015, a two-fold jump from 1995, according to a new study at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. In economic terms, air pollution cost the two cities $10.66 billion (approximately Rs 70,000 crore) in 2015, or about 0.71% of the country's gross domestic product. The study has said the impact on health and productivity as a result of exposure to pollution and the consequent burden of respiratory ailments rose with every passing decade.

Protection of the natural world has been an integral part of Indian culture and heritage. The Constitution of India places responsibilities on the State as well as citizens for protection of nature and the living beings therein. The following two Articles of the Indian Constitution are noteworthy: Article 48A: The State shall endeavour to protect and improve the environment and safeguard the forests and wildlife of the country; and Article 51A (g): Fundamental duty of every citizen to protect and improve the natural environment, including forests, lakes, rivers and wildlife and to have compassion for living creatures. In the face of rapid industrial development, the environmental effects were not given much importance. However, with environmental impacts becoming detrimental for wildlife, biodiversity and people, the Indian Parliament has passed legislation to keep pace with changing demands. The British had passed the Indian Forest Act, 1927, mainly to regulate timber extraction for construction purposes. From production forestry, protection forestry principles were also considered. Later, wildlife (both flora and fauna) were considered essential for sustainable forest management. The Wildlife Act was passed in 1972. The Environment Protection Act was passed in 1986 as an umbrella act to consider environment in its totality. Since then, biological wealth started to be considered as an asset of the country just as other productive assets.

Brazil's conservative National Congress has rushed to pass a wave of legislative initiatives, which taken all together, would dismantle much of the nation's body of law protecting the environment and indigenous people - an effort likely to escalate in 2017. The latest attempt occurred last week, just before the parliamentary recess. The agricultural lobby unexpectedly put forward three bills, known as Decretos Legislativos (PDCs), which are laws promulgated by the President of the Senate over which the country's President does not have the right of veto. If eventually passed, as seems likely, the bills will allow industrial waterways (requiring many dozens of new dams) to be built without the proper assessment of environmental and social impacts. The waterways would be used by agribusiness as a cheap means of exporting soy and other commodities.

China's 13th Five-Year-Plan on Energy Development (Energy 13FYP) might be one of the most anticipated energy blueprints in the world for its far-reaching implications for the carbon trajectory of the planet's largest emitter. On Jan 5, 2017, the National Energy Administration finally unveiled the plan to reporters, with a set of 2020 targets covering everything from total energy consumption to installed wind energy capacity. Before we delve into details of the plan, one thing is worth noting: with the Energy 13FYP, China might have once again raised ambitions for its low-carbon future, highlighting the urgency that this smog-ridden country attaches to moving away from fossil fuels. This time round, policymakers seem even more determined to squeeze out coal's share in the country's energy mix, lowering its 2020 percentage in primary energy consumption from 62% to 58%. The country is also aiming higher for renewables: installed capacity of wind energy and solar energy should reach "more than 210GW" and "more than 110GW", respectively, by 2020; higher than what was declared at the end of 2014.

The euphoria over rise in world tiger population early this year may have been misplaced for India as the official data placed before Parliament shows that 98 tigers died in the country by November 16, 2016, a steep 25 per cent rise over last year when 78 deaths were reported. There are many anti-poaching measures initiated by NTCA which coordinate with state forest departments, but to little avail. In fact, poaching cases increased by more than 100 per cent this year. The figures attribute nearly 30 tiger deaths to poaching this year, which is more than double of last year's figure of 14. Top forest officials that Mail Today spoke with expressed helplessness in their fight against poachers and at times cited "political pressures'' leading to more frequent man-tiger conflict.

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.

Agribusiness giant Olam International has for the first time published a list of the firms it buys palm oil from, part of the company's response to allegations that it is driving forest destruction in Southeast Asia and, more dangerously, perhaps, in West Africa. Almost all of the world's palm oil comes from Indonesia and Malaysia, but as those countries run out of available land, companies like Olam are turning to Africa to expand. In defending itself against the NGOs' allegations, Olam points to the "right to develop" of nations like Gabon, where a third of people live below the poverty line and a fifth are unemployed.

Geochemists from the UK developed a way to take dangerous nuclear waste and turn it into artificial diamonds. These diamonds can generate their own electric current. With a half-life of nearly 5,800 years, these potential diamond batteries could offer solutions to both waste and energy issues.

Washington is suing Monsanto over widespread PCBs contamination, the first U.S. state to take such an action. Gov. Jay Inslee and Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced the lawsuit, filed in King County Superior Court, at a press conference in Seattle on Thursday. According to the Associated Press, Washington is seeking damages on several grounds, including product liability for Monsanto's alleged failure to warn about the dangers of PCBs; negligence; and trespass for injuring the state's natural resources.

But the fact is that the blockchain is building some serious credibility within the world's biggest banks and financial services firms - they helped fuel more than $1 billion in investments between 2014 and 2016. That visibility has given both established and emerging companies the confidence to experiment. In mid-October, for example, Walmart announced a collaboration with IBM and Tsinghua University in Beijing focused on using the blockchain as a mechanism for authenticating food sources and keeping tabs on all sorts of related data - including the originating farm, batch numbers, processing plant information, expiration dates and storage temperatures.

Bees, butterflies and other pollinators are increasingly under threat from human activities and countries must transform their agricultural practices to ensure global crop production can meet demand and avoid substantial economic losses, the United Nations Conference on Biological Diversity heard today. According to the global assessment on pollinators produced by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), 75 per cent of our food crops and nearly 90 per cent of wild flowering plants depend to some extent on animal pollination, which is the transfer of pollen between the male and female parts of flowers to enable fertilization and reproduction. Without pollinators, crops such as coffee, cacao and apples would drastically suffer, and changes in global crop supplies could increase prices to consumers and reduce profits to producers, resulting in a potential annual net loss of economic welfare of $160 billion to $191 billion globally.

Four mechanical engineering students from Nashik have invented a device which is an indicator for the vehicle driver about excessive pollutant levels, while driving. When the engine of the vehicle starts, the sensor fitted in the silencer will sense the exhaust particles and check the limit value. If it exceeds the prescribed limit then a red light will blink as the first indicator, for two hours. Even after the first warning, if there is no change in the limit then there are two more indicators that will blink within a gap of two hours after which the engine will automatically turn off. According to the four inventors, the device will help in tackling the pollution issue, especially in densely-populated and polluted areas.

Since Google declared its 100 percent commitment to renewables back in 2012, it has signed contracts that will help add almost 2.6 gigawatts of wind- and solar-generated electricity to the grid by the time all the projects are completely. While each of those installations has its own timetable for completion, at least 900 megawatts of those projects should come online within the next four to six weeks alone, according to one of Google's energy strategy executives. Over the course of next year, all the clean power that Google is adding to the grid will offset what it's using in aggregate. And moving forward, Google wants to ensure that more of the electricity it actually uses can be traced to renewable generating sources.

The Obama Administration and the Army Corps of Engineers officially denied the easement to cross under Lake Oahe in North Dakota after a many months-long campaign by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and allies against the Dakota Access Pipeline. The Army Corps will undertake an environmental impact statement (EIS) to look at potential alternative routes for the pipeline.

The latest in water contaminates in this trend is a group of chemicals known as Perfluorinated Alkyl Substances, or PFASs (also known as Perfluoro Compounds or PFCs). Originally developed to help repel stains and improve the effectiveness of firefighting chemicals, these substances have leached into groundwater near factories, military bases and other sites where they have been used heavily. Several Granular Activated Carbon (GAC) solutions are available for treatment of PFCs in groundwater. One of the most cost-effective of these options for PFAS removal comes from coconuts: AquaCarb CX enhanced coconut shell GAC. It combines the benefits of an activated carbon with the high micropore structure of coconut shell, with faster kinetics comparable to bituminous coal.

Coral reefs around the globe already are facing unprecedented damage due to warmer and more acidic oceans. If carbon dioxide emissions continue to fuel the rise in temperature, the widespread loss of coral reefs by 2050 could have devastating consequences, according to new research published in the scientific journal PLOS. "Some of the places that have the most to lose... are also among the biggest carbon emitters," Dr Pendleton said. "They really have it in their power to bring down the levels of carbon" they emit into the atmosphere. The researchers acknowledged that further study is needed to more fully understand what is happening to coral reefs around the globe and how that will affect humans.