Labor to propose new environmental laws to enforce biodiversity and conservation

• A Labor government would bring in new federal environment laws and strong independent agencies including a national environment protection authority (EPA) to enforce them, under a draft policy platform signed off by the ALP national executive.
• Developed by a 60-member policy forum chaired by the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, and the outgoing party president, Mark Butler, the platform is the basis for debate at Labor’s national conference in Adelaide next month.
• The central environmental proposals include a new environment act, a science-based EPA to oversee development decisions and a national environment commission to develop legally binding plans and standards for protection.
• Clean Energy Finance Corporation signals it may accelerate reinvestment
• The platform document says the new laws and institutions would allow a comprehensive approach to biodiversity and conservation, replacing a regime that fails to protect the health of the environment.
• “It will reflect Australians’ expectations that environmental protection is essential and ensure an effective and efficient national approach to the management of matters of national environmental significance,” it says.
• While not everything in the platform is guaranteed to become legislation, the draft document is a significant win for the Labor environment action network (Lean), an internal advocacy group that has run a 15-month campaign for reforms to protect nature.
• As revealed by Guardian Australia as part of the Our Wide Brown Land series, ALP branches from every state and territory backed a Lean motion calling for strong national environment laws and an independent agency akin to a “Reserve Bank for environmental management”. By January, 250 party branches had passed the motion. Lean says it has since increased to 456.
• The draft platform rejects handing development approval powers to states and territories, a Coalition push Labor has in the past supported. It says any existing agreements in the area would be cancelled.

Singapore must do more to protect environment, guard against climate change: PM Lee

• Singapore must do more to protect the environment as the threat of climate change becomes increasingly serious both locally and globally, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Saturday (Nov 3). 
• Speaking at the launch of Clean and Green Singapore Carnival at Wisma Geylang Serai, Mr Lee said Singapore must take steps to protect itself against the adverse effects of global warming.
• Singapore has already felt the effects of extreme weather, from recording the warmest year on record last year, to a cold spell where temperatures dropped to 21 degrees Celsius earlier in January.
• In his speech, Mr Lee cited a recent United Nations report which warned that temperatures could increase by 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels in the next 12 years.
• "We must do our part to contribute to global efforts such as the Paris Agreement to slow down climate change and at the same time we must take timely and concrete steps to protect ourselves against the adverse effects of climate change."
• Many countries in the region, including Singapore, are also vulnerable to rising sea levels due to long coastlines and low-lying areas.
• Mr Lee said the authorities have raised low-lying roads near coastal areas at East Coast and Katong. He added that the upcoming Changi Airport Terminal 5 will be built on a higher platform than the existing terminals.

Equip small farmers for sustainable growth,rubber industry told

Equip small farmers for sustainable growth,rubber industry told, Source-The hindu

• Small holders are resource poor and passing through hard times.
• As the global value chain is towards sustainable future,the biggest challenge is to equip smallholders.
• Economic viability of rubber cultivaton is under threat.
• The small farmers may be forced to look for alternative livelihood.
• Low rate of replanting, retention of uneconomic old trees, abandonment of mature trees, technology stagnation etc are signs of stress for farmers.
• This will result in low yields.
• A decline in average yield increases the cost of production of natural rubber.

'Test tube trees':An insurance policy against extinction.

'Test tube trees':An insurance policy against extinction. Source-BBC news

• A tiny oak trees emerges from test tube in the laboratory.
• Raised using technique pioneered in fertility labs, it is the product of new effort to preserve the seeds of wild plants.
• This has been stored in bomb proof,flood proof and radiation proof vaults.
• It aims to save world's plants from extinction.
• The goal is to store atleast 75% of threatened plant seeds by 2020.
• This technique is know as cyropreservation.
• Cryopreservation involves removing the plant embryo from the rest of the seed, then freezing it at very low temperatures in liquid nitrogen. 
• This is invention is done in Kew's Millennium Seed Bank at Wakehurst in West Sussex.

People would change their consumption habits to help the climate, study finds

A new study has found that people would change their consumption habits to help the climate—even if this would have implications for their personal lives and shopping habits—and that this could play a significant role in helping the UK to reduce its carbon emissions.

Government projections currently show that the UK will significantly exceed future legally binding carbon reduction targets. To date, climate policy has focused on the efficiency of vehicles and buildings, but how products are made and consumed also has a huge impact on emissions. Strategies that aim to reduce demand for materials and products will be essential to limit rising global temperatures.

Impact of mercury-controlling policies shrinks with every five-year delay

Mercury is an incredibly stubborn toxin. Once it is emitted from the smokestacks of coal-fired power plants, among other sources, the gas can drift through the atmosphere for up to a year before settling into oceans and lakes. It can then accumulate in fish as toxic methylmercury, and eventually harm the people who consume the fish. What's more, mercury that was previously emitted can actually re-enter the atmosphere through evaporation. These "legacy emissions" can drift and be deposited elsewhere, setting off a cycle in which a growing pool of toxic mercury can circulate and contaminate the environment for decades or even centuries.

Ozone hole modest despite optimum conditions for ozone depletion

The ozone hole that forms in the upper atmosphere over Antarctica each September was slightly above average size in 2018. Colder-than-average temperatures in the Antarctic stratosphere created ideal conditions for destroying ozone this year, but declining levels of ozone-depleting chemicals prevented the hole from as being as large as it would have been 20 years ago. Chlorine levels in the Antarctic stratosphere have fallen about 11 percent from the peak year in 2000. This year's colder temperatures would have given us a much larger ozone hole if chlorine was still at levels. The annual ozone hole reached an average area coverage of 8.83 million square miles (22.9 square kilometers) in 2018, almost three times the size of the contiguous United States. It ranks 13th largest out of 40 years of NASA satellite observations. Nations of the world began phasing out the use of ozone-depleting substances in 1987 under an international treaty known as the Montreal Protocol. The 2018 ozone hole was strongly influenced by a stable and cold Antarctic vortex—the stratospheric low-pressure system that flows clockwise in the atmosphere above Antarctica.