Pollution

"Azerbaijan, host of this year's United Nations COP29 climate summit, will upgrade its national emissions-cutting target ahead of the November event, a senior official said on Tuesday."

"Flowing down the Mississippi River, the excess fertilizer that washes off vast swaths of farmland fuels a persistent “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico and threatens drinking water supplies upstream. Yet despite more than a quarter-century of federal effort and billions spent on potential solutions, experts say the watershed is “not even close” to its targets for fixing the problem."

"The oil industry withdrew its $40 million campaign to kill a historic law to protect neighborhoods from oil drilling’s toxic effects, but is threatening to challenge the measure in court."

"Companies have spent decades obstructing efforts to take on the plastics crisis and may have breached a host of US laws, a new report argues."

"The Environment Agency is refusing to provide campaigners with details of potential conflicts of interests with water companies held by its directors across England."

"The putrid smell of burning garbage wafts for miles from the landfill on the outskirts of Jammu in a potentially toxic miasma fed by the plastics, industrial, medical and other waste generated by a city of some 740,000 people. But a handful of waste pickers ignore both the fumes and suffocating heat to sort through the rubbish, seeking anything they can sell to earn at best the equivalent of $4 a day."

"Almost 400 water systems serving nearly a million Californians don’t meet state requirements for safe and reliable drinking water supplies — and fixing them would cost billions of dollars."

"Pots and pans, soda cans, skyscrapers, laptops, even solar panels — all these things share a common ingredient in aluminum. The material is ubiquitous and useful, but the process of making and recycling it is a major source of planet-warming pollution."

"Water pollution levels in Paris' River Seine remain much higher than allowed for bathing, data showed on Friday, one month before the Olympics in which the capital's landmark waterway is meant to be one of the swimming venues."

"A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., has refused to block a new federal rule requiring Denka Performance Elastomers to dramatically limit the release of chloroprene, a likely cancer-causing chemical, within 90 days or shut down its LaPlace plant."