The city of Hangzhou in eastern China was once described by the Italian explorer Marco Polo as the, “finest and most splendid city in the world”. Today it is once again on the map thanks to a range of initiatives to cut air pollution and increase the livability of the city.
When Chakravorty, a 31-year-old journalist at the Indian Express, discovered that plastic pollution is so pervasive that it affects our food supply, he was shocked.
“I was staggered to say the least,” he explains. “I felt that writing about the issue was not enough, so I decided to embark on a plogging journey—a combination of jogging with picking up litter.”
Coral reefs provide food and livelihoods for hundreds of millions of people around the world, support more than a quarter of all marine life, and protect communities and coastlines from natural disasters—and if urgent action is not taken, we risk losing them forever.
CS Grewal, a powerfully-built man of 54, sporting a long grey beard, red turban and curved Shepard’s stick cuts a striking figure as he walks purposely across the land on the edge of his seven-acre organic vegetable farm in the state of Pubjab in northern India.
On a cool and cloudy January day in the Chinese coastal city of Xiamen, tens of thousands of men and women pounded the streets in the first IAAF Gold Label road race of 2019. But this was a competition with a difference -- heavy on sustainability, light on single-use plastics and the first international marathon to join UN Environment’s Clean Seas campaign.
23 January 2019, Singapore – Heads of state, ministers and
Since Arpit Dhupar, founder of Chakr Innovation, won the Young Champions of the Earth prize for Asia and the Pacific region, his start-up has come a long way.
Every day, hundreds of thousands of pieces of lost or abandoned fishing equipment haunt the world’s oceans, killing indiscriminately and endangering marine life and livelihoods.
As it drifts, this ghost fishing gear takes on a life of its own; trapping fish, entangling all kinds of animals from seabirds and turtles to dolphins and whales, and snagging or smothering coral reefs.
A recent spell of especially soupy air has Bangkok scrambling to disperse dangerous pollutants and protect residents against dire health impacts.
The government has reacted quickly, clamping down on heavily polluting vehicles, deploying police and military to inspect factories and incinerators, shutting schools to protect children, and even deploying cloud-seeding planes to force rain and clear the air.
Monish Siripurapu’s air cooling system may be based on the design of a beehive but the Indian innovator’s inspiration did not come while he was striding through fields of flowers. He was actually in a stifling hot factory in New Delhi, where he was doing some design work.
