[posted by Benjamin Haas on The Guardian, January 16, 2018] The Iranian oil tanker Sanchi sank off the coast of Shanghai on Sunday, after a week of burning and sending plumes of smoke hundreds of metres into the air. Only three bodies of the 32 sailors were recovered. The ship was carrying 136,000 tons, or about 1 million barrels, of oil, that now threatens to pollute some of China’s most important fishing waters. What was Sanchi...

[posted on The Conversation, January 9, 2018] The Vietnamese Mekong Delta is one of Earth’s most agriculturally productive regions and is of global importance for its exports of rice, shrimp, and fruit. The 18m inhabitants of this low-lying river delta are also some of the world’s most vulnerable to climate change. Over the last ten years around 1.7m people have migrated out of its vast expanse of fields, rivers and canals while...

[posted by Alister Doyle on Reuters, January 11, 2018] Global warming is on track to breach the toughest limit set in the Paris climate agreement by the middle of this century unless governments make unprecedented economic shifts from fossil fuels, a draft U.N. report said. The draft, of a report due for publication in October, said governments will also have to start sucking carbon dioxide from the air to achieve the ambition of...

[posted by Jonathan Watss on The Guardian, January 10, 2018] Ecuador’s state oil company has begun drilling the first of 97 planned wells inside a new field of the Yasuní national park, one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. The opening of the Tambococha-2 well has triggered fierce criticism from conservationists, who say President Lenín Moreno is backtracking on a promise to protect the Amazon and pay greater heed to the opinion...

[posted by Karen Savage on Climate Liability News, January 10, 2018] New York City is suing five major oil companies, becoming the latest in a growing number of municipalities attempting to hold the industry accountable for damages caused by climate change. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio will announce in a press conference Wednesday afternoon the suit against BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Royal Dutch Shell, the five...

Contestazioni territoriali ambientali: presentato il XII Rapporto dell’Osservatorio Nimby forum

[su ARPAT] In Italia, nel 2016, sono state 359 le infrastrutture e gli impianti oggetto di contestazioni ambientali, in aumento del 5% rispetto all’anno precedente. Relativamente alle nuove contestazioni, nel 2016 si aggiungono ben 119 opere, +7.2% rispetto al 2015. I settori più criticati sono il comparto energetico (56,7%), che comprende gli impianti per la produzione di energia elettrica da fonti fossili e rinnovabili, ed il...