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中国与世界，环境危机大家谈 WHERE CHINA AND THE WORLD DISCUSS THE ENVIRONMENT

主页 home > 新闻 news > 世界最新环境资讯 A global environmental update
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December 16, 2009

A global environmental update

The European Union urged the world’s major polluters to set new long-term goals to fight climate change, according to Agence France-Presse.

British prime minister Gordon Brown warned that failure to reach a global deal in Copenhagen may trigger an economic disaster equivalent to the combined effects of the two world wars and the Great Depression, Reuters said.

The company in charge of a California project to extract vast amounts of renewable energy from deep, hot bedrock has abandoned the effort, The New York Times reported. The move followed Switzerland’s shutdown of a similar project because of earthquakes produced.

NASA satellites have “weighed” the water lost by California’s heartland since 2003 and found that two river basins supporting the agricultural Central Valley have lost over 30 cubic kilometres of water, the BBC said.

Australia plans a major pest-eradication programme on sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island, where mice and rabbits are endangering native flora and fauna, Reuters reported.

A Czech zoo is to transfer four endangered Northern White rhinos to a Kenyan reserve in a last-ditch attempt to ensure the survival of the species, said Agence France-Presse.

Saudi Arabia has halted the export of tonnes of high-quality sand used in building projects in the Persian Gulf region, according to Green Prophet. From remote desert areas, Saudi sand is expensive to transport to cement companies that mix it with gravel and other materials that go into making high-grade concrete.

Signs of what could be a previously unknown ancient civilisation are emerging from beneath the felled trees of the Amazon, New Scientist said. From the air, some 260 giant avenues, ditches and enclosures have been spotted along the Brazil-Bolivia border.

Japanese researchers say they have found a way to make plant leaves absorb more carbon dioxide, in an innovation that may help ease global warming and boost food production, according to Agence France-Presse.

The Boeing aircraft company completed the first test flight of its 787 Dreamliner, heralding an era of plastics-based aircraft that promise to save airlines millions of dollars in fuel costs, according to Reuters.

Natural gas under Turkey’s Marmara Sea close to Istanbul could provide advance warning of an earthquake that experts believe will hit the city, Agence France-Presse quoted researchers as saying.

The impacts of climate change have worsened almost every year since 1980, Reuters reported, citing a study that distils global warming into a single number.

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