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A number of developments related to environment took place this past week. Here are Down To Earth’s top 10 green stories on the week that was:
The Greater Horn of Africa is likely to get heavy rains from October-December 2023, said the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC) in its forecast.
For most of August 2023, Rishikesh in Uttarakhand held the record as the wettest town in the country. Between August 1 and August 25 the town received 1,901 millimetres of rainfall, according to Vineet Kumar Singh, a research scientist at the Typhoon Research Centre of Jeju National University in South Korea.
The 140+ members of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) have gathered at Bonn, Germany for the body’s 10th plenary. On agenda is the scientific assessment report on “Invasive Alien Species and their Control”, which is set to be released to the public on September 4, 2023.
For the first time, the United Nations has emphatically recognised and affirmed children’s rights to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment in a new guidance on children’s rights and the environment, with a special focus on climate change.
India is the world’s second most polluted country where fine particulate air pollution (Particulate Matter 2.5) shortens an average Indian’s life expectancy by 5.3 years, according to the Air Quality Life Index (AQLI) report for 2023 by the University of Chicago.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has called for increased investments in Africa to control and eliminate neglected tropical diseases.
Paris health authorities sprayed insecticides August 31, 2023 in public spaces in the city’s southeast like gardens and trees, which are breeding grounds for mosquitoes. This was done to check the spread of disease-carrying tiger mosquitoes found to be rapidly expanding in Europe. Experts have linked their proliferation to climate change.
Experts have claimed that protocol was not followed after a sharpshooter from the Karnataka Forest Department was trampled to death by an injured wild elephant in the state’s Haasan district on August 31, 2023.
The rate of depletion of groundwater in India during 2041-2080 will be thrice the current rate with global warming, according to a new report.
Farmers in Karnataka’s Mandya district have expressed deep discontent at the state government complying with directives of the Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA) to release Cauvery river water to Tamil Nadu. The decision, which mandates the release of 5,000 cusecs of Cauvery water for a 15-day period, has sparked fierce opposition from the local farming community.