Science & Tech

China will prohibit the use of six hazardous substances in passenger vehicles from 1 January 2016. A mandatory standard is being implemented as part of a 10-year national sustainability plan, which includes improving the environmental record of car manufacturers. The standard, GB/T 30512-2014: Requirements for prohibited substances in automobiles, will apply to car parts for passenger cars containing fewer than ...

Addis Summit creates a Technology Facilitation Mechanism including a multi-stakeholder forum to discuss technology issues, including risks and opportunities of emerging technologies for the UN’s 2015–30 Sustainable Development Goals. UN Member-States meeting in Addis July 13-16 in the third conference on Financing for Development have agreed to establish a UN Technology Facilitation Mechanism that will include an interagency task team ...

The Technical Task Force on the African Regional Space Programme (TTF-ARSP) . This was declared at the end of its meeting held on 10 June 2015 in Geneva, Switzerland on the margins of the 17th Congress of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). The Task Force is an initiative coordinated by the African Union (AU), the African Ministerial Conference on Science ...

The two-week long Triple Conference of Parties (Triple COPs) to the UN Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm (BRS) Conventions appeared to have failed in its objective of “translating science into action” as it closed in the early hours of 16 May (CW 6 May 2015). Many of the decisions up for adoption – which were supported by the vast majority of ...

Currently, only three countries are producing shale gas through hydraulic fracturing (fracking) on a commercial scale: the United States, Canada, and China. But as several other countries undertake shale resource exploration efforts, a key question remains: What are the impacts of shale gas mining on local economies and the environment? In the Worldwatch Institute’s latest Vital Sign, Research Fellow Christoph ...

The Swiss pilots of Solar Impulse 2 unveiled the flight path they plan to take on their 35,000 kilometre around the world journey ahead of take-off from Abu Dhabi. Solar Impulse 2 will take-off from Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, in late February or early March and return by late July or early August 2015. The route includes ...

Provision of adaptation support and resilient building for the most vulnerable and developing countries must be prioritised at the ongoing climate change talks in Lima, Peru, says UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon. He therefore wants tangible progress made by the 20th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP20) to the UNFCCC in solidifying the climate finance regime. The Secretary-General describes the ...

  Minister of Environment, Laurentia Laraba Mallam, has commended French oil and gas giant, Total, over its determination to be the first multinational oil corporation to stop offshore gas flaring in Nigeria. Speaking through her Press Secretary and Deputy Director Information, Ben Bem Goong, from far away Cancun, Mexico, while participating in the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Assembly, the minister ...

Experts have underlined the need for a well-coordinated mechanism that would ensure the eventual incorporation of sound chemicals management priorities and recommended activities in the Vision 20/2020 document. They likewise observed that the endeavour is essential to attaining the millennium development goals (MDGs). Besides the overlapping of organisational responsibilities at the national, regional and local levels, they are however worried ...

West Africa is home to about 317 million people. Communities in the sub-region and the entire sub-Saharan Africa depend strongly on rainfall where 65 percent of the labour force and 95 percent of the land is devoted to agriculture. Scientists portend that if the Five-Sigma Model relative to climatology occurs, Africa may be faced with a monsoon that will affect ...