Negotiators reached a historic deal at a U.N. biodiversity conference early Monday that would represent the most significant effort to protect the world’s lands and oceans and provide critical financing to save biodiversity in the developing world.

The global framework comes on the day the United Nations Biodiversity Conference, or COP15, is set to end in Montreal. China, which holds the presidency at this conference, released a new draft on Sunday that gave the sometimes contentious talks much-needed momentum.

Nations have agreed to protect a third of the planet for nature by 2030 in a landmark deal aimed at safeguarding biodiversity.

There will also be targets for protecting vital ecosystems such as rainforests and wetlands and the rights of indigenous peoples.

The agreement at the COP15 UN biodiversity summit in Montreal, Canada, came early on Monday morning.

The summit had been moved from China and postponed due to Covid.

Countries have pledged to protect 30 per cent of the world's lands, seas, coasts and inland waters by 2030 as part of a new deal that aims to halt declines in nature.

Measures agreed at the UN Cop15 conference in Montreal also include a pledge to increase the flow of finance to developing nations to care for nature to $20 billion (£16.5 billion) by 2025 and at least $30 billion (£24.7 billion) by 2030.

The federal government on Monday announced another $325 million for agricultural projects that are intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The latest list of 71 recipients for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Climate-Smart Commodities program primarily involve small and underserved farmers and ranchers. The payments follow $2.8 billion awarded in September to 70 projects, mostly larger-scale efforts backed by universities, businesses and agricultural groups.

Thank you for carefully rinsing, sorting, and recycling your plastic containers — but plastic is trash and trying to recycle it is futile, Greenpeace said in late October. Greenpeace and other environmental groups have been warning about the petroleum and chemical industry's "greenwashing" of plastic recycling for years, while those chemical companies insist we're just on the cusp of a major breakthrough that will make recycling and reusing plastics feasible and cost-effective. 

Jan Dell, the outspoken recycling critic and thorn in the side of the plastics industry, wants the American public to face facts.  

Those grocery-bag drop-off boxes, she says, are glorified trash bins. That swirly recycling symbol on coffee lids and granola pouches is more fantasy than fact. Clear plastic bottles are recyclable: green ones are not.  

“You walk in a Walmart and see all these single-use Halloween decorations,” Dell said. “All that will be in a landfill the week after Halloween.” 

Even Greenpeace has finally acknowledged the truth: recycling plastic makes no sense.

This has been obvious for decades to anyone who crunched the numbers, but the fantasy of recycling plastic proved irresistible to generations of environmentalists and politicians. They preached it to children, mandated it for adults, and bludgeoned municipalities and virtue-signaling corporations into wasting vast sums—probably hundreds of billions of dollars worldwide—on an enterprise that has been harmful to the environment as well as to humanity.

Negotiators from the European Union reached a deal that would effectively ban sales of gas-powered cars beginning in 2035.

The deal was reached on Thursday by negotiators from EU member countries, European Parliament, and the European commission.

By 2035, the new law states that carmakers must cut their CO2 emissions by 100%, rendering it impossible to sell cars that are gas-powered.

Jan Huitema, a lead negotiator for the European Parliament, said that the deal is "good news."

Most American voters say they want more government and industry protection from toxic chemicals, a new poll has found.

Not only do the 1,200 respondents to the survey overwhelmingly want assurances that consumer products are free from harmful chemicals, but they are also willing to pay more for that reassurance.

The global aviation industry, a major contributor to greenhouse gases, is aiming to reach net zero emissions by 2050. But the “net” in that commitment is misleading consumers and creating legal risks for airline companies, a new study has found.