ChinaDialogue News

A global environmental update

chinadialogue — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 11:59:00 +0000

Japan announced plans to completely phase out nuclear power by 2039 in a policy turnaround prompted by last year’s Fukushima disaster, the worst nuclear accident in a generation, AFP said. Tokyo’s ambitious goal would see the nation permanently shut down the 52 nuclear reactors that once provided the country with 30% of its power and take no steps to build new plants.

American ambassador to China Gary Locke said the US would expand air-pollution monitoring in China and make the results public despite objections from Beijing, according to Radio Free Asia. A twitter feed provide hourly updates on air quality published by the US embassy in Beijing was at the centre of a public row over pollution in China last year and has prompted criticism from the authorities. Locke said the consulates in Wuhan and Shenyang would also start monitoring work, in addition to those in Shanghai, Chengdu and Guangzhou, which already do so.

Reuters reported that China is preparing to order its dominant electricity distributors to source up to 15% of their power from renewable energy including wind but that the industry could take years to fully comply. The quota system will apply to State Grid Corporation of China and Southern Power Grid Company by the end of the year, executives told the news agency.

The man expected to become China’s next leader used his first public appearance in almost two weeks to highlight the country’s food safety problems, reported Xinhua. Xi Jinping said “supervision and punishment” should be strengthened and society mobilised to improve Chinese food safety during a visit to China Agricultural University in Beijing.

The growth in energy consumption in China continued its slowdown in August in line with weaker industrial output, the Global Times said. China’s total electricity consumption grew by 3.6% on the previous year, taking it to 449.5 billion kilowatt hours, according to the latest figures from the National Energy Administration.

Shell abandoned controversial plans to start drilling for oil in the Arctic this year after a final test of its environmental protection equipment failed to meet the standards required to gain a full licence, The Guardian said. The oil giant said a new type of “containment dome” – designed for use in the event of a leaking wellhead – had been damaged during testing.

Meanwhile, a three-man sailing expedition succeeded in navigating the Arctic’s once-frozen Northwest passage, made accessible only because of ice-melt caused by climate change, AFP reported. The crew took their Swedish sailboat Belzebub II through the Canadian arctic in a bid to raise awareness of the impacts of global warming.

A global environmental update

chinadialogue — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 15:36:00 +0000

South China’s Guangzhou city has introduced license plate auctions and lotteries expected to halve the number of new cars on the streets, the New York Times reported. City official Chen Haotian said the new scheme in the country’s third largest city would limit growth but that it was “definitely worth it” for the sake of better public health.

European greenhouse-gas emissions fell by 2.5% in 2011 over the previous year, as a mild winter and growth in renewable energy use offset a rise in coal consumption and economic activity, according to new estimates covered by AFP. The European Environment Agency said the 15 western European economies which preceded the EU’s “big bang” membership expansion were well on track for meeting a collective 8% emissions reduction on 1990 levels by the end of 2012 under the UN's Kyoto Protocol.

US president Barack Obama said “climate change is not a hoax” and recommitted himself to reining in carbon pollution as he accepted the Democratic Party nomination for the tight-fought election in November, AFP said. The statement was a clear rebuttal of taunts from Republican rival Mitt Romney, who suggested in a speech last week that Obama had prioritised environmental issues over American jobs.

China widened its lead over the US in a renewable-energy ranking compiled by consultant Ernst & Young that gauges the attractiveness to investors of wind and solar power projects in those countries, Bloomberg reported. The US, weighed down by “uncertainty over the country’s long-term renewable-energy strategy”, dropped 1.5 points to 66 in the quarterly renewables “attractiveness index” the research said.

Two tea and grain growing areas of China have been listed as UN heritage sites thanks to their traditional agricultural methods, China Daily said. The Puer traditional tea agro-ecosystem in Yunnan province, south-west China, and the Aohan dryland farming system in Inner Mongolia will act as pilot sites for a new programme to recognise globally important agricultural heritage systems.

The energy company exploring for shale gas in the north of England broke the conditions of its planning permission by drilling beyond an agreed time limit and beyond a cut-off date put in place to protect wintering birds, The Guardian reported. The revelation of the breaches by Cuadrilla – which emerged during a trial of anti-fracking protesters – come as concern over the regulation of gas fracking led three of the UK’s biggest environmental groups to write a warning letter to the government.

Twinings tea, Yoplait yoghurt and Nestle vegetable mash sold in Shanghai were among the latest products destroyed or returned by China’s quality watchdog, Shanghai Daily reported. Six Twinings products – totalling more than 1,800 tonnes of tea – failed tests for excessive amount of rare earth elements, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said.

A global environmental update

chinadialogue — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 15:37:00 +0000

China has surpassed the US this year to become the number one in the world for installed wind power generating capacity, reports China.org. China's on-grid capacity reached over 50 gigawatts (GW) to date, according to the State Grid Corporation. This year on-grid wind power capacity under State Grid reached 50.26 GW, an annual growth rate of 87 percent for the last six years.

However China, is still heavily dependent on coal. And tragically this week, 19 miners have been killed and dozens more injured in a gas explosion at a coal mine in China’s Sichuan Province - the latest in a long line of mining tragedies in China. Associated Press says work safety rules are often ignored in coal mines, with 1,973 miners being killed in 2011 in coal mine accidents. It is reported that the State Administration of Work Safety has plans to close down more than 600 small coal mines this year, which are considered to be more dangerous than larger mines.

The Tibetan antelope has become China’s symbol of wildlife conservation, according to Alaska Dispatch. The endangered creature has grabbed the attention of China’s still fledgling environmental NGO community, with local government also adopting tougher measures against the illegal poaching of the sought after creature. Since the antelope's population plunged from more than 1 million in the early 1900s to just 70,000 in 1995, its numbers have stabilized and increased to more than 100,000, according to 2009 field estimates by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), a US-based NGO. Protection of the creature is now becoming symbolic of China’s growing wildlife conservation.

South China's metropolis Guangzhou will begin a pilot garbage sorting program in September, reports ChinaDaily. As reported in chinadialogue recently, the trial will offer a one-month grace period before imposing fines on people who do not follow the regulation on domestic waste sorting management of the city, according to the Guangzhou City Management Committee.

In Shanghai, an electronic food safety map produced by the city's quality watchdog went online yesterday, reports ECNS. It will provide a way for people to easily check whether local food producers have obtained licenses.

Lastly, Government officials in central China's Hunan Province on Saturday denied claims that children in the area were being used as guinea pigs in US-backed research on the effects of consuming genetically-modified (GM) rice. According to ChinaDaily, the response was prompted by a Greenpeace article saying that the environmental protection group had discovered a study backed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture involving feeding genetically modified Golden Rice to a group of 24 children, aged between six and eight, in Hunan.

A global environmental update

chinadialogue — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 14:17:00 +0000

Scientists have calculated Arctic sea ice to be at its lowest level since records began more than 30 years ago, the BBC said. Nasa satellite measurements showed the extent of sea ice is now 4.1 million square kilometres, compared with the previous low of 4.17 million square kilometres in 2007. As sea ice normally reaches its low point in September, this year’s melt is expected to continue to grow.

Shell revealed plans to spend at least US$1 billion a year exploiting China’s shale-gas resources as part of its strategy to expand into the Chinese energy market, Reuters reported. In March, the firm secured China’s first product-sharing contract for shale gas and hopes to be an early success story in the country’s fast expanding natural-gas sector.

More than 74,000 people living in mountainous areas around Beijing will be moved to “safe” sites where there is no risk of flooding or landslides within five years, the city government said, according to China Daily. The first residents will be resettled in 2013 after a series of evaluations on natural-disaster risk, an unnamed official from the city’s rural affairs commission was quoted as saying. The news comes a month after the heavies rainfall in at least 60 years caused severe flooding in the Chinese capital.

At least 85,000 people in Myanmar have reportedly been forced from their homes by severe monsoon flooding, which has submerged hundreds of thousands of hectares of rice fields, The Guardian reported. Weeks of heavy rain are responsible for the crisis, which has primarily impacted the country’s southern delta region, a government relief official said.

Operations have been suspended at a south China coal plant blamed for the poisoning of nearly 200 children found to have excessive levels of lead in their blood, Shanghai Daily said. Ninety-five of the children were found to have blood lead 4.5 times above the safe level in Xingzi town, Guangzhou province, located one kilometre from the power station.

China has announced plans to subsidise carbon-saving efforts of domestic airlines and plane manufacturers, Shanghai Daily said. The government said it will subsidise up to 60% of total investment in emissions reduction, using fees collected from passengers for the Civil Aviation Development Fund, which is expected to raise 15.4 billion yuan this year.

The carbon storage capacity of protected forests in West Africa has increased despite the region suffering a 40-year drought, a study covered by the BBC suggests. A team of British and Ghanaian researchers found the trees in these areas favoured species able to cope with drier conditions, challenging former findings that drought leads to less carbon being stored.

Australian officials are considering ending the ban on killing great white sharks after five swimmers were fatally attacked in a single year, The Guardian said. Western Australia’s state minister of fisheries, Norman Moore, has asked central government to clarify the status of the species, which has been on the protected list since 1999.

A global environmental update

chinadialogue — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Leaked radiation from the Fukushima nuclear plant has caused mutations in butterflies, according to new research, Press Association reported. Scientists at Japan’s University of the Ryukyus said dented eyes, stunted wings and other changes provided the first evidence that radiation from the stricken nuclear site had caused genetic changes in living organisms. However, a separate study released this week found very low levels of radioactivity in people living near the Fukushima plant during the disaster.

Risk analyst Maplecroft said developing economies in Asia, including India and the Philippines, face the greatest financial risk from natural disasters, in a new report covered by the BBC. The authors, who based their rankings on nations’ economic activity and exposure to natural hazards such as floods, droughts, earthquakes and cyclones, added that 2011 was the most expensive year on record for natural disasters, costing US$380 billion, largely thanks to the Japanese earthquake.

Officials in Chongqing, south-west China, said 79,000 residents in the region’s mountainous areas were facing temporary water shortages because rainfall in the megacity had seen a 20% to 60% year-on-year drop since June, Xinhua reported. Drought relief teams have been urged to store water from expected torrential rains and channel it to affected areas.

Federal judges in Brazil ordered that construction of the world’s biggest new hydroelectric project, the Belo Monte dam, be suspended until indigenous groups are properly consulted, The Guardian said. Though it may prove temporary, the judgement was celebrated by activists as a damming verdict on government attempts to rush through the Amazon project, which is a cornerstone of the country’s plans for cleaner energy.

The Asian Development Bank urged China to impose taxes on resource extraction and carbon pollution as a route to more sustainable economic growth, Global Times said. Analysts at the Manila-based lender also recommended offering tax cuts to companies to offset investments in pollution-control equipment and taxing luxury goods in a new report.

Shanghai asked for US$1.6 million in compensation from the owner of a Netherlands-flagged cargo vessel which spilled more than 100 tonnes of fuel into the sea near the city’s coast after colliding with a Chinese ship in June, Shanghai Daily reported. The spill contaminated water in the Nanhui and Hangzhou Bay area, said officials, who are holding the ship pending a settlement.

A new research institute to protect endangered Chinese white dolphins was launched in Guangxi, south China, according to Xinhua. The organisation, a project of the regional department of science and technology and the State Oceanic Administration, will focus on protecting the white dolphin and other rare species, as well as marine ecological monitoring and pollution prevention.

German researchers claimed to have found evidence that European-produced biodiesel fails the EU’s own sustainability tests, The Guardian said. The two experts from Friedrich Schiller University said eight out of 10 tests they carried out on locally produced rapeseed biodiesel fell short of the 35% greenhouse-gas savings promised.

A global environmental update

chinadialogue — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 14:42:00 +0000

Chinese petrochemical company Sinopec agreed to clean up tiny plastic pellets that have washed up onto Hong Kong beaches and started to kill fish in fish farms after six containers fell off a freighter during the region’s worst typhoon in 13 years, The Guardian reported. The firm said it had set aside US$1.28 million for the clean up and would spend more if necessary, as environmentalists warned the pellets could absorb pollutants and impact the food chain.

Operators of China's first carbon capture and storage demonstration project in Inner Mongolia told Xinhua they had sealed off more than 40,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide in the past 15 months. Senior engineer Shu Geping said the project had confirmed China as the first country able to carry out the process of capturing carbon dioxide and storing it in saline aquifers from start to finish.

South China’s Guangzhou city announced plans to allocate 10% of its yearly quota of licence plates to alternative energy vehicles, including electric and hybrid cars, according to China Daily. The policy, which will see 1,000 “green” vehicles coming onto the road each month if successful, is the latest update to local regulations released in July that limit the number of auto number plates granted each year.

A senior Chinese health official announced that new rules on food packaging will come into force next January in a bid to improve public health, China Daily reported. Su Zhi said that standard nutritional information would be included on food labels so as to provide people with the necessary information to maintain a balanced diet and reduce the risk of chronic disease.

Kunming city triggered controversy by reportedly considering levying a 10-yuan per day “pollution fee” on tourists checking in at any hotel in the Dianchi Lake drainage basin, China Daily said. An article in Beijing Youth Daily argued it was unfair to make visitors pay for the treatment of the south-west Chinese lake, which continues to worsen each year despite clean-up investment of 23.9 billion yuan.

Manila, capital of the Philippines, suffered severe flooding following torrential rainfall said to be worse than Typhoon Katsana which devastated the region in 2009, The Guardian reported. Fifteen deaths have been reported so far, while tens of thousands of residents were evacuated from the city.

US researchers warned that parasites are likely to become more virulent because of climate change after a new study showed frogs suffer more infections from a fungus when exposed to unexpected swings in temperature, Reuters said. The tiny organisms that cause diseases like malaria may be more nimble at adapting to climatic shifts than the animals they live on, the scientists said.

Martin Fleischmann, the chemist who in 1989 claimed to have achieved “cold fusion”, setting the world alight with hopes for cheap and practically limitless energy, died aged 85, the BBC reported. His results could never be replicated and the idea of fusion in normal laboratory conditions is now almost completely discredited.

Manila, capital of the Philippines, suffered severe flooding following torrential rainfall said to be worse than Typhoon Katsana which devastated the region in 2009, The Guardian reported. Fifteen deaths have been reported so far, while tens of thousands of residents were evacuated from the city.

US researchers warned that parasites are likely to become more virulent because of climate change after a new study showed frogs suffer more infections from a fungus when exposed to unexpected swings in temperature, Reuters said. The tiny organisms that cause diseases like malaria may be more nimble at adapting to climatic shifts than the animals they live on, the scientists said.

Martin Fleischmann, the chemist who in 1989 claimed to have achieved “cold fusion”, setting the world alight with hopes for cheap and practically limitless energy, died aged 85, the BBC reported. His results could never be replicated and the idea of fusion in normal laboratory conditions is now almost completely discredited.

A global environmental update

chinadialogue — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 15:59:00 +0000

Hong Kong’s elderly and sick were told to stay indoors to avoid the health effects of smothering pollution as the region recorded its worst air quality in two years, The Guardian reported. The pollution levels, caused largely by coal-burning, heavy traffic and factories in the Pearl River delta, have been surpassed only once, in March 2010, when a sandstorm in northern china covered Hong Kong in dust.

The US commerce department said Chinese firms had been illegally selling wind-turbine towers below the cost of production and will have to pay import duties of 21% to 73%, in a preliminary ruling on an antidumping case brought by four American manufacturers, The New York Times said. It is the fourth decision this year in favour of US solar and wind suppliers and is likely to exacerbate mounting cleantech trade tensions between the two countries.

A US senate committee passed a bill that will allow the country’s airlines to refuse to comply with the European carbon tax on aviation emissions,Reuters said. The EU has extended its emissions trading scheme to cover air travel and plans to impose charges from April next year, but a group of countries including the US and China remain opposed. The Guardian also noted that this week’s two day meeting in Washington of countries against the scheme failed to secure a joint declaration.

Shanghai environment officials said they will tighten regulation of working practices in lead battery manufacturers from next month to protect the public from poisoning, Shanghai Daily reported. Under new rules, all lead-related processing will have to be carried out in separate, enclosed workshops, while pollution limits will be brought in line with the strictest limits globally, the city’s environmental protection bureau said. The news follows an incident in February in which 49 children were found to have high levels of lead in their blood.

More than 85% of reefs in Asia’s “coral triangle” are directly threatened by human activities such as overfishing, coastal development and pollution, a new report covered by AFP warned. The World Resources Institute study said the threat was significantly higher than the global average and urged the six countries that share the marine zone to do more to combat destructive fishing and run-off from land.

A top NASA scientist said the extreme summer heat seen in countries including the United States in recent years cannot be anything but a product of manmade global warming, CNN reported. In a new study published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, James Hansen said the likelihood of such temperatures occurring had risen from less than one in 300 between the 1950s and 1980s to closer to one in 10 today.

More than a million people were evacuated from their homes in eastern China following storms, floods and mudslides caused by Saola, the ninth typhoon of the year, Xinhua reported. Extreme weather also continued in the north-eastern province of Liaoning, where 10,000 houses collapsed and 17,000 more were damaged.

Hong Kong’s elderly and sick were told to stay indoors to avoid the health effects of smothering pollution as the region recorded its worst air quality in two years, The Guardian reported. The pollution levels, caused largely by coal-burning, heavy traffic and factories in the Pearl River delta, have been surpassed only once, in March 2010, when a sandstorm in northern china covered Hong Kong in dust.

The US commerce department said Chinese firms had been illegally selling wind-turbine towers below the cost of production and will have to pay import duties of 21% to 73%, in a preliminary ruling on an antidumping case brought by four American manufacturers, The New York Times said. It is the fourth decision this year in favour of US solar and wind suppliers and is likely to exacerbate mounting cleantech trade tensions between the two countries.

A US senate committee passed a bill that will allow the country’s airlines to refuse to comply with the European carbon tax on aviation emissions, Reuters said. The EU has extended its emissions trading scheme to cover air travel and plans to impose charges from April next year, but a group of countries including the US and China remain opposed.The Guardian also noted that this week’s two day meeting in Washington of countries against the scheme failed to secure a joint declaration.

Shanghai environment officials said they will tighten regulation of working practices in lead battery manufacturers from next month to protect the public from poisoning, Shanghai Daily reported. Under new rules, all lead-related processing will have to be carried out in separate, enclosed workshops, while pollution limits will be brought in line with the strictest limits globally, the city’s environmental protection bureau said. The news follows an incident in February in which 49 children were found to have high levels of lead in their blood.

More than 85% of reefs in Asia’s “coral triangle” are directly threatened by human activities such as overfishing, coastal development and pollution, a new report covered by AFP warned. The World Resources Institute study said the threat was significantly higher than the global average and urged the six countries that share the marine zone to do more to combat destructive fishing and run-off from land.

A top NASA scientist said the extreme summer heat seen in countries including the United States in recent years cannot be anything but a product of manmade global warming, CNN reported. In a new study published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, James Hansen said the likelihood of such temperatures occurring had risen from less than one in 300 between the 1950s and 1980s to closer to one in 10 today.

More than a million people were evacuated from their homes in eastern China following storms, floods and mudslides caused by Saola, the ninth typhoon of the year, Xinhua reported. Extreme weather also continued in the north-eastern province of Liaoning, where 10,000 houses collapsed and 17,000 more were damaged.

A global environmental update

chinadialogue — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 14:53:00 +0000

Chinese officials cancelled a planned waste pipeline project in eastern China’s Jiangsu province after concerns about its potential pollution impacts triggered a mass protest, Xinhua said. Just weeks after a similar demonstration in Shifang city prompted local authorities to ditch a planned copper factory, around 1,000 protesters marched through Qidong city shouting slogans against the pipeline, which would have connected a Japanese-owned paper mill to the sea.

The official death toll of the floods that hit Beijing after the heaviest rain in 60 years climbed to 77 as more bodies of people killed by drowning, electric shock and debris were retrieved from the waters, China Daily said. Torrential rains continued to ravage other parts of the country, including Liaoning province, where 12,000 people were forced to leave their homes after heavy downpours which caused six levee breaches in the coastal city of Dalian.

More than 40,000 residents of Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces were also relocated as the year’s first flood peak hit the middle reaches of the Yellow River, again due to the extreme weather, Xinhua reported.

Violent storms also ripped through the eastern United States, killing two people and leaving more than 130,000 homes and businesses without power, the latest extreme weather to hit the country, Reuters said. More than 900 flights were cancelled after winds of 70 miles per hour blew through the region.

The New York Times covered a new study suggesting strong summer thunderstorms that pump water high into the upper atmosphere pose a threat to the protective ozone layer above the United States. Writing in the journal Science, Harvard University researchers said storms which send water vapour high into the stratosphere could set off ozone-destroying reactions and that the risks could grow if climate change increases the frequency of such events.

Scientists have discovered a rift the size of the Grand Canyon concealed under the Antarctic ice sheet, which they believe is contributing to ice melt and sea-level rise, AFP reported. Researchers using radar to explore the topography of the shrinking West Antarctic ice sheet, which they think is responsible for about 10% of climate-change induced sea-level rise, found the rift, which is 1.5 kilometres deep, 10 kilometres wide and 100 kilometres long.

Shanghai officials urged owners of skyscrapers with glass exterior walls to thoroughly examine the condition of their buildings thanks to concerns that the high temperatures and typhoons of the city’s summers could cause such structures to crack, Ecns.cn reported. The local government imposed strict limits on the use of glass curtain walls, which have been widely used in the city since the 1980s, last February.

Seven nations were told they could be stripped of their rights to trade tens of thousands of wildlife species after UN conservation delegates agreed to penalise them for lacking tough regulations or failing to report on their wildlife trade, The Guardian reported. Comoros, Guinea-Bissau, Paraguay, Nepal, Rwanda, Solomon Islands and Syria must draw up new legislation or submit their missing reports by October 1 to avoid sanctions

A global environmental update

chinadialogue — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 16:36:00 +0000

Freak weather patterns in some of the world’s vital food-producing regions, including the US drought and flash floods in Russia, could trigger a global food crisis and spark political and social unrest, The Guardian warned. Global food prices have risen dramatically against the backdrop of the worst American drought in 50 years, and analysts predict further increases will hit developing countries particularly hard.

China could be set to make a £35 billion (US$54 billion) investment in Britain’s nuclear sector following talks between Chinese power chiefs and UK officials according to The Guardian. The British government has reportedly held discussions with an arm of China National Nuclear Corporation over plans to build five new nuclear reactors in Wales, Gloucestershire, Essex, Lancashire and Durham.

Ex Japanese prime minister Yukio Hatoyama joined a mass rally outside his former residence protesting the decision to restart two nuclear reactors turned off after Fukushima, AFP reported. The politician told thousands gathered outside the current leader’s home that politics had “strayed far from the people’s wishes”. Meanwhile a new government-commissioned report on Fukushima heaped fresh criticism on plant operator TEPCO and the Japanese nuclear regulator, saying both preparation and response to the disaster were “inadequate”, CNN said.

Vietnam, Laos and Mozambique came last in a WWF ranking of countries based on their efforts to prevent illegal animal trade, Reuters reported. Publishing its “wildlife crime scorecard”, the campaign group urged African and Asian nations to do more to enforce existing laws, but praised China for its efforts slowing the trade in tiger and rhino parts.

China unveiled a more detailed programme for developing the seven “strategic industries” identified in its 12th Five Year Plan to help turn the country from a low-cost manufacturing base into a producer of high-value goods, Xinhua reported. Top officials said the value-added output of these industries, which include alternative vehicle cars, biotechnology and energy-saving technologies, will account for around 8% of China’s GDP by the end of 2015.

China’s manned deep-sea research vehicle Jiaolong returned to land after a six-week mission which took it to a record depth of 7,062 metres in the west Pacific, proving China’s ability to explore the ocean floor, China Daily said. The submersible’s next outing will be to investigate the seabed’s changing environment between April and May. China also plans to establish a deep-sea research base in the coastal city of Qingdao by 2015.

Images from a NASA satellite showed that an iceberg twice the size of Manhattan has broken off the Petermann Glacier in northern Greenland in a process known as “calving”, the BBC said. While no single event of this kind can be ascribed to climate change, scientists have raised concerns about the extent and speed of changes to the glacier in recent years.

A global environmental update

chinadialogue — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 16:15:00 +0000

America’s department of agriculture declared a natural disaster in more than 1,000 drought-stricken counties across 26 states, the largest such declaration in US history, The Guardian reported. It is hoped the move will speed relief to farmers and ranchers hit by extreme heatwave conditions in the mid-western corn belt, the south-east and much of the south-west, which has also been struck by wildfires.

Rising seas could put 87,000 square kilometres of China’s coast under water by 2050, according to the latest annual report on the country’s change in sea levels, reported in the China Daily. The State Oceanic Administration said seas along China’s coast had risen by an average of 2.7 millimetres every year between 1980 and 2011, a higher rate than the world average.

China’s State Council set a target of producing and selling 500,000 “green” vehicles a year by 2015, and selling five million by 2020, China Daily said. The blueprint for a new generation of environmentally friendly cars outlined generous subsidies for consumers and manufacturers of electric and hybrid vehicles, with the aim of reducing dependence on imported oil and cutting emissions.

The European Commission published plans to tighten limits on how much carbon dioxide new cars can emit, saying millions of tonnes of greenhouse-gas emissions could be avoided as a result and Europe’s fuel bill slashed, according to Reuters. The proposals would see introduction of a binding target to limit CO2 to an average of 95 grams per kilometre for cars, a goal industry representatives described as “extremely challenging”.

Nearly 76% of sewage generated in south China’s Guangdong province last year was dumped untreated in local rivers, a government report cited in China Daily found. More than 9.5 billion tonnes of industrial and domestic wastewater was discharged directly into rivers, threatening the health of residents along their banks, according to research published in the Bulletin of Guangdong’s Water Resources.

America urged China to open talks with south-east Asian nations in a bid to ease friction over rival claims to the potentially oil-rich South China Sea, Reuters reported. Speaking at a regional forum in Cambodia, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton called for all-party dialogue to address tensions which have escalated this year as the six countries who claim the territory search deeper for energy supplies.

Technology giant Apple rejoined environmental ratings scheme EPEAT a week after quitting the programme following a flurry of complaints from customers, the BBC said. The firm left the green registry, which it helped to set up in 2006, after releasing a laptop that will be hard to recycle, making it unlikely to secure the scheme’s top rating. Apple published a letter describing the move as a “mistake”.

South Korea hinted it could back down on a controversial plan to resume whaling for "scientific research", attacked by critics as commercial whaling in disguise, the BBC reported. An official said the country may consider other ways to study whales without killing them.

Technology giant Apple rejoined environmental ratings scheme EPEAT a week after quitting the programme following a flurry of complaints from customers, the BBC said. The firm left the green registry, which it helped to set up in 2006, after releasing a laptop that will be hard to recycle, making it unlikely to secure the scheme’s top rating. Apple published a letter describing the move as a “mistake”.

South Korea hinted it could back down on a controversial plan to resume whaling for "scientific research", attacked by critics as commercial whaling in disguise, the BBC reported. An official said the country may consider other ways to study whales without killing them.