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1. Weak EU air pollution standards risk thousands of lives, says report71,000 deaths across Europe and more than 2m child asthma

sufferers likely as a result of draft EU air pollution limits

that favour industry, study finds

Weak draft EU rules for coal plant emissions could result in 71,000

deaths and €52bn (£37bn) of health costs across Europe in the

decade to come, according to new research published on

Wednesday.

A Greenpeace investigation earlier this year found that the coal

standards would be more lax than those in China, and the Guardian

was able to corroborate claims by the green group that industry

had helped to write the pollution rules.

The new study commissioned by Greenpeace and the European

Environment Bureau analysed the impacts of the watered-down

rules, and found that nearly 1,000 deaths and £500m of health

costs a year are likely in the UK alone. But it said they could be

prevented with technologies such as selective catalytic convertors.

Without these, thousands more cases of cardiac and respiratory

illness that disproportionately affect children are foreseen by the

study.

The paper forecasts a surge in asthmatic symptoms affecting over

2m children aged between five and 19, as well as 200,000 new

cases of acute bronchitis among 6-12 year olds.

Christian Schaible, a policy manager for the European

Environmental Bureau said: “The commission is opting for the

cheapest techniques to reduce emissions but the health effects

alone will be far more costly than the money saved by coal plant

operators. These effects will also be felt by many thousands of

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European citizens, particularly children, in ways that money cannot

quantify.”

The cost of installing plant technologies such as activated carbon

injections to abate mercury emissions – associated with IQ loss in

children – would be less than €0.02 per kilowatt hour, Schaible

said.

The report’s findings emerged from a modelling study by an

independent consultant to the European Environment Agency,

which was then combined with emissions data.

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The paper compared draft European commission emissions

standards for pollutants such as nitrogen oxide (NOx), sulphur

dioxide (SO2), particulate matter (PM2.5) and mercury against the

best available techniques.

The EU’s proposed new limits are currently awaiting examination

by an EU working group later this year. After that, they are

expected to be formally adopted within the bloc’s industrial

emissions directive in 2016.

The updated directive would cut NOx and SO2 emissions by around

70% and 50% respectively. But the most effective technologies

could deliver more than twice as much, according to the study.

“Proposed emission limits for mercury are so lenient that an

estimated 85% of European plants are already in compliance and

will not have to invest in retrofitting,” the report says.

The Guardian has previously revealed that despite claims by the UK

to the contrary, energy industry representatives repeatedly

and forcefully pushed for weaker pollution limits at meetings in

Brussels.

Doug Parr, Greenpeace UK’s chief scientist, said: “EU leaders have

completely failed to stand up to the energy industry’s pervasive

lobbying for weak air pollution limits. If these lax rules are adopted,

hundreds of thousands of UK and European citizens will pay the

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consequences for their political leaders letting polluting industries

off the hook.”

2. Vietnam cities told that driving down pollution is a matter of car-sharingNam Nguyen is using profits from his taxi firm to spur action on

choking traffic in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh cit

Although two-thirds of Vietnam’s population live in rural areas, its

two major cities, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, are increasingly

choked by traffic and pollution. By some estimates, Hanoi is the

most polluted city in south-east Asia, with concentrations of

carcinogenic particles often measuring twice the recognised safe

levels. The pollution is made worse by a huge annual increase in

numbers of cars and motorcycles, while public transport remains

inadequate. “Ride-sharing is a very new concept, not only

in Vietnam but also in Japan, China, Korea,” says Nam Nguyen,

founder and chief executive of Di Chung, a Hanoi-based ride-

sharing website that received a Seed award in 2013.

In the three years since Di Chung’s creation, Nguyen has run up

against various daunting obstacles, not least the hesitancy of the

public to accept ride-sharing: “At first I tried to learn the model

from European platforms like carpooling.co.ukand BlaBlaCar, but it

doesn’t easily work here. We are not as open with strangers as

Europeans are.” Private vehicles are a source of pride for many

Vietnamese urbanites, who consider cars indicators of success and

rely on them to visit their families in the provinces.

Faced with these challenges, Nguyen’s ambition grew. “In the

beginning I intended to make a free network where people could

share vehicles and contribute to protecting the environment,” he

says, “but I realised I must form a business model to build it up.”

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Nguyen quit his banking job in 2014 and designed another arm of

Di Chung: a taxi-sharing service whose profits could support the

social enterprise he initially imagined. “That’s our main revenue

stream now, it’s a business solution to contribute to a social issue.”

This profitable sideline has allowed Di Chung’s ride-sharing

network to continue to grow, amassing 30,000 members and

counting, though Nguyen confesses that he has staked much of his

own money to keep the vision alive.

“In emerging countries like Vietnam you cannot depend on

government support,” he says, “and with limited resources, to turn

a very new concept into an easy service for people to accept is not

easy.” He is envious of the UK government’s support for social

enterprise, and hopes that, with the help of accolades like the Seed

award, he will be able to campaign in future for parking discounts

and insurance breaks for ride sharers.

In the meantime, his confidence remains undented: There are plans

for a student-specific wing of Di Chung, tailored to individual

universities, and Nguyen has already visited Malaysia and the

Philippines with a view to extending his template beyond Vietnam.

Most importantly, he hopes to extend his membership and

acclimatise Vietnamese commuters to the idea of Di Chung as a

“convenient and environment-friendly” alternative to private

transport. “It might take three or four more years, but we don’t

want to live in a dirty city any more.”

3, Brazil struggles with drought and pollution as Olympics loom largePollution in Guanabara Bay, where Olympic sailing and

windsurfing contests are scheduled to be held, is so bad that

competitors have described it as an ‘open sewer’

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Amid what is normally considered the rainy season, Brazil, the

home of the Amazon River, is suffering from a historic, punishing

drought.

In a country accustomed to ample water supplies, neighbors are

turning against neighbors and hoarding water as taps run dry while

businesses close andprotesters take to the streets. Some have even

speculated that São Paulo, one of the world’s largest cities,

is failing.

The costs of a drought are many – water rationing, fines for

consumption and constraints on agriculture and industrial

production. But for Brazil, a water shortage also leads to another

problem: more than 75% of Brazil’s power comes from

hydroelectric sources, making it second only to China in reliance on

hydroelectric power.

The water crisis is pushing Brazil to take extreme measures to save

water even as low water levels are decimating its hydropower

supplies, leading to rolling power cuts across the country.

With its rainforest, favelas and megacities, Brazil is a huge piece of

the puzzle for many of the world’s biggest sustainability goals, and

the country has loomed large in environmental discussions since it

held the Rio+20 climate talksin 2012.

Water courses through many of Brazil’s biggest sustainability

challenges. Not only does water rationing exacerbate the divide

between rich and poor in the highly stratified country, but water

pollution and water quality issues are threatening the country’s

next turn on the world stage: the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro,

which arrive just two years after the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

Pollution in Guanabara Bay, where Olympic sailing and windsurfing

contests are scheduled to be held, is so bad that competitors have

described it as an “open sewer”. More than 40 tons of dead

fish have been removed from a lake slated to host the rowing

contests.

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Preparations for the Olympics are suffering from widespread

dissatisfaction after last year’s FIFA World Cup. The massive

investments to build stadiums and host as many as a million

football tourists for the soccer blowout sparked large protests from

city residents left out of the economic boom, who complain they are

payinghigher costs of living without seeing increased services.

Brazil is in many ways an island nation unto itself – it’s practically

its own Portuguese-speaking continent amid the sea of Spanish

Latin America. But it also faces challenges that are familiar across

the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries: social

inequality, human rights, energy, water, and climate change are all

taking a toll on the country’s present and future.

Add to these the importance of caring for the Amazon rainforest –

the “lungs of the planet”, which stores more carbon dioxide than

anywhere else on Earth – and it becomes clear why social and

environmental progress in Brazil is at least as important as its

economic growth.

Deforestation in the Amazon Basin has long been a thorn in Brazil’s

side. Not only do numerous human rights and indigenous peoples’

rights threats arise from deforestation, but researchers

recently directly connected Amazonian deforestation to the horrific

drought in southern Brazil.

Fortunately, there is some good news. Over the past decade, Brazil

has lowered its carbon dioxide output more than any other country

through a historic effort to slow forest loss: it reduced deforestation

18% last year. Now, other countries are trying to follow Brazil’s

lead in the war on tropical deforestation.

Why Brazil's megadrought is a Wall Street failureAmy Larkin

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 Read more

During Cop 20, the UN climate change conference in Lima last

year, Brazilian authorities announced a plan to develop a

monitoring system in partnership with the Amazon Cooperation

Treat Organization. Around $8m will be spent in satellite data

analysis, training, and equipment to be used for monitoring

deforestation in all seven countries that are part of the group.

Brazil’s megacities also have become home to many of the

innovations and disruptions taking root in the US and Europe.

Startups working under the banner of the sharing economy such as

Uber and Airbnb have found a home in Rio and São Paulo. The B

Corporation social and environmental business certification

launched in Brazil in 2012 as Sistema B, and just two years later

became the home of the world’s first publicly traded B Corp as

cosmetics maker Natura earned Sistema B certification.

While environmental stewardship is a less-than-common

commitment among large Brazilian companies or multinationals

doing business in Brazil, the country is host to a thriving social

entrepreneurship sector. A number of social entrepreneurship

funds operate across Brazil, bankrolling small operations to fight

poverty, inequality, and expand educational and economic

opportunities among the poor and disadvantaged.

Brazil casts a big shadow across South America, despite its

continental size and generally inward focus. As Brazil’s

development bank invests in more projects across its borders, it

brings the promise of more economic opportunity to its less-

wealthy neighbors – but also the risk of stepping on toes and

stirring anti-Brazilian anger. Road-building projects in Guyana and

Bolivia, a mining project in Argentina, and Brazilian emigration into

Paraguay for agricultural projects have all recently incited

opposition from neighboring governments and citizens.

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Just as Brazil weighs heavily across Latin America, it too lives in

the shadow of China. Economically, the mid-2000s were Brazil’s

golden years. The nation averaged a healthy 4% growth, propelled

by high exports – particularly to China – as well as a spike in

domestic consumption. During these boom times, Brazilians saw a

bright future just over the horizon. Then came the 2008 global

market crash.

As their export partners slowed their demand, Brazil’s economy

followed suit: in 2009, the economy shrank for the first time since

1992, sending shockwaves throughout the country.

The rise and fall and rise again of Brazil’s economy is taking place

during what may turn out to be the pivotal moment in the global

environmental movement. As Brazil responds to extreme drought,

high-stakes deforestation, and pollution and human rights

challenges, and as the country steps up to the world stage for the

Olympics, its decisions will ripple not only to neighboring countries

and the BRICs, but throughout the world.

One example of this economic muscle-flexing is the recently

proposed development of a new BRICs-led global development

bank. Offered as an alternative to the World Bank and IMF, the

New Development Bank proposed by China, Russia, India, Brazil

and South Africa would emphasize sustainable development around

the world without the punishing restrictions required by World

Bank loans. While the aim of the NDB is to free BRICs and other

developing economies from the status quo, observers caution that if

the bank truly wants tochange the course of sustainable

development it must put human rights and the environment at the

center of its charter.

Government, business, environmental and civil leaders will be

watching closely to find out whether the country will end up being

a model for sustainable development or a cautionary tale.

Siri Srinivas and Ana Athayde contributed reporting to this article.

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4. For the youngest and oldest, air pollution may have serious health consequencesThe effect of air pollution on climate change is well-

documented, but two new studies show that it may also pose

surprising dangers to public health

On Wednesday, California Governor Jerry Brown announced

an ambitious plan to reduce the state’s carbon emissions. His

proposal – which would cut emissions by 40% below 1990 levels

within the next 15 years – is aimed at curbing the potentially

catastrophic effects of global warming, such as rising sea levels and

super droughts. But while air pollution is bad for the planet, two

studies released this week show that it’s also having a detrimental

effect on public health.

One report, released on Wednesday, studied the impact of air

pollution on fetal development. Researchers found that women who

were in their final stage of pregnancy during the 2008 Beijing

Summer Olympics – when China drastically cut down on air

pollution – gave birth to heavier babies than those born during the

same period a year earlier or later.

According to the study, babies of women who were in their eighth

month of pregnancy during the event, which was held in August

2008, were – on average – 23 grams larger at birth compared to

those born in 2007 and 2009. There weren’t any significant

differences in weight for babies of women who were in their first

seven months of pregnancy during the games.

The study credits cleaner air for the bump. Beijing, which the

study’s authors described as “one of the most heavily polluted cities

in the world”, was forced to combat air pollution as a condition for

hosting the Olympics. The city temporarily closed down factories,

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halted construction, and reduced the number of cars on the road.

As a result, air pollutants like nitrogen dioxide and sulfate

decreased between 18% and 59% during the 47 days of the games,

the report found.

“The results of this study demonstrate a clear association between

changes in air pollutant concentrations and birth weight,” David Q

Rich, an epidemiologist with the University of Rochester Medical

Center and lead author of the study, said in a statement. “These

findings not only illustrate one of the many significant health

consequences of pollution, but also demonstrate that this

phenomenon can be reversed.”

Growing old on smog

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But smog isn’t just putting society’s youngest members at

risk: another study has found that long term exposure to air

pollution can lead to premature aging of the brain.

The report, published in the May issue of Stroke, analyzed data on

943 men and women over the age of 60. It found that those exposed

to a form of pollution called PM 2.5 – a fine particulate matter that

enters the lungs and blood – had smaller total cerebral brain

volume, a sign of brain atrophy. People naturally lose cerebral

brain volume as they get older, but these findings indicate that air

pollution may speed up the process.

“The results suggest that exposures to air pollution may be

associated with subtle but potentially harmful effects on the aging

brain,” said Elissa H Wilker, the study’s lead author, and a

researcher at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Wilker added that more studies are needed to investigate the

effects of long term exposure to air pollution over time. But with 3

million deaths worldwide each year attributed to air pollution, Jerry

Brown’s push to reduce carbon emissions is more pressing than

ever.

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5. A round-the-world scientific expedition will use drones to study plastic pollutionScientists circumnavigating the globe on a spartan racing

catamaran will spend the coming year deploying drones to collect

better data on plastic pollution

Race for the Water, a Swiss marine research expedition focused on

plastic pollution, last week announced its plan to collect and

analyze samples of plastic found on the world’s most remote island

beaches. Over a trip of 40,000 nautical miles, the crew will use

drones to conduct its work. Those drones will fly over beaches to

collect information on how much plastic has collected there.

In the coming year, the team hopes to collect information that

could stem the flow of plastic debris into the world’s oceans. By

creating a repeatable research protocol, it hopes to address three

research needs laid out by the Honolulu Strategy, an international

framework for addressing global marine plastic pollution adopted

in 2010 by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration (NOAA) and the United Nations. These include:

standardized research protocols for marine debris, repeatable and

comparable studies, and data-based solutions.

The use of drones could be helpful for NOAA, according to Nancy

Wallace, the director of the agency’s marine debris program.

Wallace says she needs a time-lapse look of micro debris on the

beaches and that right now the only way to get it is to have people

comb beaches and count – a costly and time-consuming affair.

Sending drones to perform the task instead would save time and

money, in addition to providing more data.

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Funded primarily by Marco Simeoni, a Swiss entrepreneur turned

environmental crusader, Race for the Water is also determined to

inject a spirit of adventure into an otherwise depressing issue. “We

say OK, this is a problem we have to solve together, let’s make it an

adventure,” Servan-Shcreiber says. “It’s about being human and

facing problems together. That’s why we like [our] boat.”

The boat is a racing catamaran that Servan-Schreiber describes as

“incredibly uncomfortable,” with no toilet onboard, no lighting in

the hallways, two bunk beds for six people, and only two small gas

burners for preparing food. It’s not a logical choice for such an

expedition, but that’s the point.

“These guys have to wear mining lights on their heads to walk

down the hallway, and Marco never believed the boat could make it

around the world – he gets sea sick on it constantly, but he’s

sticking with it,” Servan-Schreiber says. “These guys are really

gladiators for the environment, and the expedition is a great human

story.”

Beaches versus blue water

While several groups have taken to the seas to both raise

awareness and gather information about plastic pollution –

including 5 Gyres, Project Kaisei, Plastiki, Algalita and the

Clean Oceans Project – one of the issues spotlighted in the

Honolulu Strategy is the fact that each research expedition tends to

employ different protocols, and there is often quite a bit of time

between samples taken, which makes it difficult to both compare

the results of various studies, and to replicate the results of any one

study. 

In some ways, that inconsistency is just the nature of the beast, or

rather, the ocean. In addition to the fact that each expedition needs

to find funding – for tools, boats, staff, and laboratory analysis –

most have also focused on collecting samples from the open ocean,

which is challenging, especially when weather and currents don’t

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cooperate. 5 Gyres has run more expeditions more frequently than

most organizations, and has documented the presence of

approximately 268,000 tons of plastic in all five of the world’s

ocean gyres (large circular networks of ocean currents), and

maintains an updated map of global plastic pollution. Still, co-

founder and research director Marcus Eriksen says he’s had

challenges over the years collecting data on various boats in every

ocean condition imaginable.

By focusing on beaches rather than the open water, and using the

drones to go back frequently and map changes over time, Servan-

Schreiber hopes Race for the Water may be able to close the

research gap.

“We think going to the islands gives us a very good way to study

the five gyres without having to do the same as everybody else and

get samples from blue water,” he says. “We think what we find on

the beach, we’ll find in the water. And the good thing about the

islands is that we can come back again and again and get a sense

over time of how the problem is evolving.”

Finding solutions

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The team plans to send samples to a lab in Lausanne, Switzerland –

Race for the Water’s home base – to determine which chemicals

have accumulated in the plastic and at what levels. The fact that

plastic in the ocean attracts and accumulates chemicals is well

established, but the Lausanne lab will attempt to pinpoint how this

process happens over time, and what level of chemical toxicity

should be expected in the world’s oceans over time. That’s

important because fish and birds consume microplastics, which can

poison not only the animals, but also the humans who eat them. 

It’s even a concern for people who might consider themselves fairly

removed from the ocean ecosystem, Servan-Schreiber explains.

“This week I’m in Miami and last week I was in Rio, and every

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beach I go to, all over the world, there are tiny bits of plastic in the

sand,” he says. “And yet kids are playing on it and it’s shocking, in

a way, that we are letting kids play on beaches that are actually

contaminated.”

Over time, plastic on beaches could potentially leech not only the

chemicals used to make the plastic in the first place, but also any

additional chemicals accumulated in the ocean. While short term

exposure has not indicated any health issues related to ocean

plastic, Servan-Schreiber points out that we don’t know what long

term exposure may do.

Servan-Schreiber says the team rejected the idea of recycling the

plastic they collect because recycling marine plastic pollution

requires a lot of fresh water to clean off the salt, making it

inefficient and wasteful. Instead, the team is focusing its energy on

identifying large-scale solutions. Cigarette butts, for example, are

coated in plastic and thus never break down – they make up more

than 40% of the debris found on beaches. “So maybe that’s an

argument for e-cigarettes,” Servan-Schreiber says.

Plastic bottle caps are another issue. Although beverage bottles are

ubiquitous, their caps tend to be a bigger issue because they are

colorful and just the right size for birds, fish, and marine mammals

to eat. So the Race for the Water team is looking at whether a new

sort of top could be designed for plastic bottles.

They are also finding inspiration at home in Lausanne, where a

factory in the middle of the city burns plastic debris to generate

energy. The factory is equipped with a filter that keeps any related

toxins out of the air.

“We have to find ways to make value out of marine debris,” Servan-

Schreiber says. “It could sound good to recycle it, but it isn’t. Once

we looked at it, turned out burning it to create electricity and heat

is probably the best option. But that’s just one of the ideas out of

this, and we’re just at the beginning.”

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Ultimately, the goal is to find viable solutions and put as many of

them in place as possible.

“Because plastic never goes away, at some point, the beaches will

be more plastic than sand,” Servan-Schreiber says. “So it’s better

to realize that very early and try to mitigate the problem.”

6. California governor calls for drastic reduction in gas emissions by 2030Jerry Brown pushes beyond state’s previous target, as well as

Obama’s national plan, to get carbon dioxide output 40%

lower than 1990 levels in next 15 years

California would aggressively reduce greenhouse gas emissions by

2030 under a plan announced on Wednesday that steps up the

state’s previously established target, which has cut emissions partly

by forcing companies to pay for their carbon pollution.

Governor Jerry Brown’s executive order is loftier than a federal

goal that also aims to curb global warming, but it gives the state

more time to achieve it. Brown’s plan lacks specifics, but he

previously has cited increasing renewable electricity sources,

reducing petroleum use in vehicles, doubling the energy efficiency

of existing buildings and make heating fuels cleaner as ways to

reduce emissions.

Brown set a target of reducing emissions to 40% below 1990 levels

over the next 15 years and called it the most aggressive benchmark

enacted by a government in North America.

“With this order, California sets a very high bar for itself and other

states and nations, but it’s one that must be reached – for this

generation and generations to come,” Brown said in a statement.

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President Barack Obama announced a plan earlier this year to cut

carbon dioxide emissions by 26% to 28% by 2025, with 2005 levels

as the starting point.

California has already moved on its environmental goals, partly

through a program that puts a monetary value on carbon emissions.

In 2006, then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the state’s

landmark global warming law, and Brown has aggressively

enforced it. It called for reaching 1990 emissions levels by 2020

and 80% below that by 2050.

The state’s cap-and-trade program, launched nearly three years

ago, offers one of the few real-world laboratories on how to reduce

carbon emissions. It expanded this year to fine companies that

produce gasoline and other fuels, prompting predictions that

consumers will see a spike in prices to cover the costs.

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Brown said on Wednesday that climate change would factor into

government planning, and he ordered state agencies and

departments to implement measures to reduce emissions. He also

called for the state to identify how climate change will affect

infrastructure and industry and what actions California can take to

reduce the risks of climate change.

The order aligns California’s greenhouse-gas reduction targets with

those of leading international governments ahead of the United

Nations climate change conference in Paris later this year. The

European Union has set the same target for 2030.

The latest proposal comes just months after Brown, at his

inauguration, challenged the nation’s most populous state to

increase renewable energy use to 50% in the next 15 years.

Brown’s action comes amid aggressive efforts aimed at fighting the

state’s historic drought, which has been California’s primary

environmental concern in recent months.

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The governor’s order was praised by climate researchers and

politicians, including the former New York mayor Michael

Bloomberg.

“California’s 2030 goal to reduce carbon emissions is not only bold,

it’s necessary – for the economy and our future,” Bloomberg said in

a statement released by Brown.

Despite being a political hero to the environmental movement in his

first stint as governor in the 1970s, Brown has received harsh

criticism from conservationists for his refusal to ban hydraulic

fracturing, or fracking, for oil.

David Braun, a member of a group called Californians Against

Fracking, said the governor’s goal was commendable but

insufficient.

“To really address climate change in a meaningful way, Brown must

ban fracking and other oil drilling methods that endanger our

communities’ health, our water and the environment,” the group

said in a statement on Wednesday.

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