JAKARTA — Indonesia has signed another seemingly landmark pledge at the COP26 climate summit underway in Glasgow, this time to phase out its use of coal, the dominant source in…
The Glasgow climate summit is failing to address the danger of burning forests to make energy — a practice classified as carbon neutral, though science shows that its emissions exceed that of coal per unit of energy produced.
International forest and climate experts have released a “playbook” for ecosystem restoration with a set of 10 principles that they say, if followed, could be a game-changer. The Political Ecology…
More than 100 scientists have issued a letter urging U.S. President Biden and Congress to remove provisions promoting logging, forest biomass and fossil fuels from the multitrillion-dollar infrastructure and reconciliation (Build Back Better) bills.
The Glasgow Declaration on Forests pledges to end deforestation by 2030. But critics say there’s a catch: Will natural forests continue being cut, and land converted to plantations, causing CO2 emissions to rise and biodiversity to fall?
With humanity emitting more carbon skyward, nature-based climate solutions — and their ecosystem carbon storage capacity — are put at risk by agribusiness and extraction industries. Will world leaders act in time to conserve forests?
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s new 10-year plan for electricity generation maintains the country’s heavy reliance on coal and will hinder stated efforts to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, experts say. The…
Cooking with firewood, diesel and gas all add to climate change and is harmful to health. So innovators have launched solar cookery enterprises that could transform Mexico’s fossil fuel-dependent businesses.
On Oct. 22, 2020, three gunmen shot 63-year-old Fikile Ntshangase dead in her house in Ophondweni, in northeastern South Africa. One year since Ntshangase’s killing, the provincial police are still…
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.
Americans love their polar bears. The largest land carnivores in the world, these massive, powerful beasts are fierce, fearless and very much threatened. It’s the threatened aspect of their story…
JAKARTA — A court in Jakarta has found the Indonesian government, including President Joko Widodo, negligent in a citizen lawsuit filed against the poor air quality in the capital. In…
Since it launched in December 2019, the RenovaBio program from Brazil’s energy ministry has been betting on increased use of biofuels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In addition to establishing…
JAKARTA — Experts have panned Indonesia’s vision for achieving net-zero carbon dioxide emissions, which consists of continuing to burn coal while hoping that untested carbon capture technology will stop the…
KISUMU, Kenya — First light finds Edikite Ochieng' Otieno waist-deep in weeds on the banks of Lake Victoria in western Kenya. A nearly unbroken mat of water hyacinth covers the…
China and the United States account for nearly half the world's carbon dioxide emissions from energy, while the two countries' resource consumption is among the biggest threats to global biodiversity.…
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.
BROOME, Australia — A cool breeze blows through the savanna country east of Broome, a small town on the far north coast of Western Australia, Australia's largest state. This time of year is known as Barrgana by the…
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 Lower Sesan 2 hydroelectric scheme was completed in northeast Cambodia in 2018. The reservoir flooded 300 square kilometers (116 square miles) upstream of the confluence of the Sesan and…
Update: On Aug. 10, the village governments of Naboay and Malay publicly released resolutions opposing the hydroelectric project, citing concerns about the project's potential impacts on the Northwest Panay Peninsula…
Conservationists are calling on electric car and technology companies to disassociate from deep-sea mining, an emerging industry that promises to procure the minerals necessary for battery storage applications, but that…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s plan to phase out coal is a mere rebranding of an existing timeline to decommission aging plants, with no meaningful shift toward actually quitting the fossil fuel,…
A Canadian company may become the first to receive a license to mine the deep Pacific after the island nation of Nauru triggered a last-resort procedure to expedite the creation…
The waters of Lake Victoria — the world’s largest freshwater tropical lake — are clogged by water hyacinth that harm the fishery, economy and health. Locals are combatting the invader by turning it into biofuel.
"My husband would go to the neighbor's barn two or three times a week to get pig manure. He'd throw it in the biodigester and we were able to cook…
Demand for manganese in China is having a huge impact on the other side of the world: for the Indigenous Kayapó people in the Brazilian Amazon. The metal is essential…
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.
An Australian mining company hoping to build a vast open-cut rare earths and uranium mine on a mountain in southern Greenland has told shareholders it will persist with the project…
JAKARTA — The rapid development of electric vehicles looks set to overtake the biofuel infrastructure that Indonesia is investing heavily in, and could render the country’s alternative-fuel model redundant, new…
