New research has tracked biomass industry carbon emissions, finding that U.S. wood pellet production, transatlantic shipping, and U.K. and E.U. pellet burning, plus a loss of stored forest carbon, combine in substantial unreported emissions.
The recently issued Kunming Declaration from the High-Level Segment of the United Nations Biodiversity Conference lays the foundation for the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) to be negotiated next year.…
I was texting my Scandinavian friend who works for a donor agency, informing him about my plan to write about the role of donors in the global sustainability agenda when…
SINGAPORE — Putting a value on nature could be the key to getting the trillions of dollars in investments nature-based solutions need to successfully tackle the climate crisis, experts said…
SINGAPORE — As companies and countries work toward a net-zero future, voluntary carbon markets have a crucial role to play, but curbing emissions is still most important, business leaders said…
A group of philanthropic organizations has come together to pledge $5 billion for the creation and expansion of protected areas across the planet, one of the largest private investments ever…
“I believe that those who used to buy soursop juice will stop buying it,” says José Marcondes Puyanawa. “They will stop buying it because they have it in their own…
A new study promises to give Africa’s mountain forests a leg up in the eyes of climate scientists. They store nearly 150 metric tons of carbon dioxide per hectare, according…
Mongabay joins a noted forest ecologist in Olympic National Park to experience its magnificence and significance as a bastion of biodiversity and a carbon storehouse; protection of these vanishing U.S. and Canadian ecosystems is vital, say scientists.
The EU and the forestry industry say burning wood to make energy is carbon neutral and cleaner than coal. But critics say biomass is a disaster for forests, biodiversity and the climate. Mongabay reviews the evidence on both sides.
The great drought and megafires that the Amazon experienced in recent years caused the death of 2.5 billion trees and vines in the Lower Tapajós River Basin, one of the…
On one of the first dry, hot days of summer, Rachel Langley walks past farmhouses and tractors, heading for the edge of the Colne Estuary in Essex, U.K. She’s on…
Is harnessing the storage power of soils the global carbon solution we have been searching for? Understanding soil-formation and function is a first step to finding out.
New agri-technologies and traditional farming practices done right could combine to offer significant benefits and hope for the global environment and health.
Global energy and commodities trading house Hartree Partners has pledged to channel more than $2 billion of private sector investments toward creating new carbon credits. Under the threat of climate…
In 2019, Norway committed to pay $150 million to Gabon to protect its forests under the Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI). After independent verification of the country's deforestation rates in…
The climate in the Amazon has been changing over the last few decades. The average temperature in the basin rose about 1º Celsius (1.8° Fahrenheit) between 1979 and 2018, with…
The biomass industry says that burning wood to make energy is carbon neutral. Environmentalists say biomass is a disaster for forests, biodiversity and the climate. Mongabay reviews independent scientific evidence on both sides.
Though Shell, Chevron and others have abandoned the quest for the Holy Grail — a revolutionary algae biofuel that could be scaled up to replace oil — ExxonMobil continues the search; but is it all just greenwash?
Combining to hamstring Mexico’s climate-friendly biodiesel industry: a lack of regulatory support, a president favoring fossil fuels, competition from other industries for used cooking oil, and a crime network.
Biogas may play a key role in the global renewable energy transition, helping communities and nations meet multiple U.N. Sustainable Development Goals and their pledged Paris Agreement emissions cuts.
SINGAPORE — Singapore is launching a carbon trading marketplace focused on nature conservancy projects, a move that could protect at-risk tropical forests in the region while unlocking a ready source…
In lead up to EU forest biomass “carbon neutrality” decision, European Commission Exec. VP Frans Timmermans argues in favor of forest conservation, while also favoring burning wood to make “transition” energy.
Nature-based solutions to tackle the climate crisis, specifically through the global carbon market, are attracting major public and private investment. Yet, according to new research by the NGO Rights and…
To stay within planetary boundary safe limits, we must protect soils by conserving global habitat and revamping industrial agribusiness — and do it fast.
The satellite’s eye view from high above northern Peru in mid-2013 laid out a stark reality: Ecologist Matt Finer and his colleagues were watching “blow by blow” in a series of…
The US, China, UK, EU, Japan, South Korea, Canada and others upped their climate ambitions at Joe Biden’s Earth Day Leaders Summit on Climate, but activists pointed to duplicitous policies on forest biomass, coal, and more.
Last fall, the ruling New Democratic Party promised to defer cutting BC’s last old-growth, but the NDP has so far failed to act and may be embracing the province’s old policy: forestry first; nature and planet a distant second.
More than a decade after the Planetary Boundaries framework was first proposed by top scientists, we are no closer to changing our destructive trajectory — but 2021 gives us three opportunities to act.
The Netherlands has voted to stop issuing new subsidies for the burning of forests to generate heat. Though a small win for critics who say biomass is not carbon neutral, the vote could influence a June EU biomass review.
