Climate Change & Environment
Latest stories
Three Filipinos dead in UAE floods

Three workers from the Philippines have died in heavy flooding in the United Arab Emirates, Filipino officials announced, as the desert country struggled on Friday to recover from record rains.

W140 Full Story
Barcelona to get floating desalination plant to help fight drought in northeastern Spain

Spain's drought-stricken region of Catalonia will install a floating desalination plant to help the city of Barcelona guarantee its drinking water supply, regional authorities said Thursday.

Barcelona already relies on Europe's largest desalination plant for domestic use to compensate over three years of below average rainfall that have led to a historic drought made worse by climate change.

W140 Full Story
Climate change concerns grow, but few think Biden's climate law will help

Like many Americans, Ron Theusch is getting more worried about climate change.

A resident of Alden, Minnesota, Theusch has noticed increasingly dry and mild winters punctuated by short periods of severe cold — symptoms of a warming planet.

W140 Full Story
Giving a second life to fashion's deadstocks

At the Nona Source showroom in northern Paris, designers pick through luxurious textiles with ornate names: curly alpaca, geometrical macrame guipure, silk diamond cloque Jacquard.

What makes them really exotic, however, is that they all come from "deadstocks" -- the leftovers designers discard when they have finished with a roll of fabric.

W140 Full Story
Emirates airline again halts local flight check-in as UAE recovers from record rains

Long-haul carrier Emirates said Friday it would again halt local check-in for passengers traveling on its flights as the wider United Arab Emirates tries to recover from record-setting rains this week.

Emirates said the order would go through the entire day into early Saturday.

W140 Full Story
Lebanon poised for a clean energy revolution: Don't miss Middle East Clean Energy 2024!

Lebanon is at a crossroads. With a growing demand for clean energy solutions and a booming clean energy sector, the country is primed to lead the way in a sustainable future. At the heart of this movement is the Middle East Clean Energy exhibition & conference, returning for its much-anticipated 3rd edition on May 8th to 10th, 2024, in Beirut.

This landmark event, established as Lebanon's first and only Clean and Renewable Energy Trade Fair, offers a unique platform for businesses, innovators, and industry leaders to come together, showcase their expertise, and forge a path toward a greener tomorrow.

W140 Full Story
European court decision shows that safe climate is a human right

Having a safe climate is becoming more of a human right globally with this week's European court decision that says countries must better protect people from climate change, something warming-hit residents of the Global South long knew, said former Ireland President Mary Robinson.

Robinson, who was the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, praised Tuesday's mixed court decision as precedent-setting and change-triggering. The European Court of Human Rights sided with Swiss senior women saying their government wasn't doing enough to protect them from climate shocks, but dismissed similar complaints from Portuguese youth and France's mayor on technical grounds.

W140 Full Story
Climate change's economic bite will hit about $38 trillion a year by 2049

Climate change will reduce future global income by about 19% in the next 25 years compared to a fictional world that's not warming, with the poorest areas and those least responsible for heating the atmosphere taking the biggest monetary hit, a new study said.

Climate change's economic bite in how much people make is already locked in at about $38 trillion a year by 2049, according to Wednesday's study in the journal Nature by researchers at Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. By 2100 the financial cost could hit twice what previous studies estimate.

W140 Full Story
Here's why experts don't think cloud seeding played a role in Dubai's downpour

With cloud seeding, it may rain, but it doesn't really pour or flood — at least nothing like what drenched the United Arab Emirates and paralyzed Dubai, meteorologists said.

Cloud seeding, although decades old, is still controversial in the weather community, mostly because it has been hard to prove that it does very much. No one reports the type of flooding that on Tuesday doused the UAE, which often deploys the technology in an attempt to squeeze every drop of moisture from a sky that usually gives less than 4 or 5 inches (10 to 13 centimeters) of rain a year.

W140 Full Story
UAE struggles to recover after heaviest recorded rainfall ever hits desert nation

The United Arab Emirates struggled Thursday to recover from the heaviest recorded rainfall ever to hit the desert nation, as its main airport worked to restore normal operations even as floodwater still covered portions of major highways and roads.

Dubai International Airport, the world's busiest for international travel, allowed global carriers on Thursday morning to again fly into Terminal 1 at the airfield.

W140 Full Story