At the Our Ocean Conference in Greece, the European Union demonstrated its strong engagement for international ocean governance by announcing 40 commitments for action for 2024. These actions will be funded by €3.5 billion from various E.U. funds, including €1.9 billion for sustainable fisheries in Greece, Spain, Cyprus, Poland, and Portugal.
E.U. pledges €3.5 billion to protect world’s oceans Read more
Nigeria has become the first country to roll out a “revolutionary” five-in-one vaccine against meningitis, the World Health Organization has announced. The Men5CV vaccine offers a powerful shield against the five major strains of the meningococcal bacteria that cause the disease. Known by the brand name MenFive, it provides broader protection than the vaccine currently used in much of Africa.
Nigeria becomes world’s first country to introduce ‘revolutionary’ meningitis vaccine Read more
A massive subsidy program to help Indian households install rooftop solar panels in their homes and apartments aims to provide 30 gigawatt hours of solar power to the nation’s inventory. The scheme, called PM-Surya Ghar, will provide free electricity to 10 million homes according to estimates, and the designing of a national portal will streamline the process of installation and payment.
India approves massive $9 billion rooftop solar plan Read more
Commonly called “forever chemicals,” PFAS are synthetic chemicals found nearly everywhere — in air, water, and soil — and can take thousands of years to break down in the environment.
The EPA has stated there is no safe level of exposure to PFAS without risk of health impacts, but now it will require that public water utilities test for six different types of PFAS chemicals to reduce exposure in drinking water. The new standards will reduce PFAS exposure for 100 million people, according to the EPA, and prevent thousands of deaths and illnesses.
The government will pay for the most widely used methods to avoid pregnancy, such as IUDs, contraceptive pills, hormonal implants or the day after pill, for the nine million Canadian women of reproductive age, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said at a press conference. “Women should be free to choose the contraceptives they need without cost getting in the way. So, we’re making contraceptives free,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said.
Canada to make contraception for women free Read more
Seven coal-fired power stations in Germany were shut down over Easter as the need for the power declined, power generators RWE and LEAG say. Five had been taken out of the reserve by the German government to cope with a shortfall in gas supplies through the winter, and a further two had been allowed to continue operating after their scheduled shutdown date, the companies said.
Germany shuts down seven brown coal power stations at end of winter Read more
Among the changes, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will reinstate a decades-old regulation that mandates blanket protections for animals and plants newly classified as threatened. That means officials won’t have to craft specific plans to shield each individual species while protections are pending, as has been done recently with North American wolverines in the Rocky Mountains, alligator snapping turtles in the Southeast and spotted owls in California.
Biden administration restores threatened species protections in the U.S. dropped by Trump Read more
Slovakia stopped production at its last coal-fired power plant this week. Its electricity will now come almost entirely from nuclear and renewable sources. Slovakia originally slated its coal phaseout for 2030 but has now expedited this to mid-2024, when it will join Belgium, Austria, Sweden and Portugal as Europe’s coal-free countries.
Slovakia plans to be coal-free by 2024, six years earlier than originally planned Read more
Judges overseeing a high-profile human rights trial in Argentina have convicted 11 former officials of crimes against humanity, in the South American nation’s first case to focus on the former military dictatorship’s overlooked practice of committing sexual violence against transgender women.
After Cyprus and Malta, Croatia is the third E.U. member state to recognize the crime of femicide, which is defined as the killing of a woman or girl, in particular by a man and on account of her gender. The legislation will also increase the prison sentence for rape from one to five years to three to eight, and victims will have the option to give testimony via videocall rather than attending in person.
Croatia approves law to criminalize femicide Read more
