Latest news with #island
BBC News
6 hours ago
- Business
- BBC News
Nearly half of Jersey's carbon goals behind schedule
Nearly half of Jersey's goals to become carbon neutral are behind schedule, according to a new report from the island's Carbon Neutral Roadmap (CNR) was published in 2022 and set out 32 policy areas designed to help the island prepare for net zero, with phase 1 due to be completed by the end of six months to go, 13 of Jersey's CNR goals are behind schedule or at risk, with one further target cancelled Minister Deputy Steve Luce said things were moving "in the right direction" but "the pace of this change must accelerate if we are going to meet our goals within the agreed timeframe". 'Stark reminder' Luce said the report served as "a stark and important reminder that there is still a long way to go in tackling the climate emergency".He said "subsidies and incentives alone" would not be sufficient to keep the island on track to reach net zero emissions by 2050."Decisive action such as restricting the importation of fossil fuel vehicles and heating systems" was needed, he added. The CNR goals measure progress on initiatives in areas such as transport, heating and roadmap does not measure Jersey's progress on reducing carbon emissions is aiming to cut emissions by 68% compared to 1990 levels by 2030 and to net zero by emissions had only fallen 48% by 2023 - putting the 2030 target at risk, the report delayed areas included home-heating incentives, carbon offsetting and updating by-laws.
Bloomberg
7 hours ago
- Politics
- Bloomberg
How Pacific Island Nations Took on Big Polluters and Won
In 2019, a group of law students from Pacific island nations set in motion a case that made it to the world's highest court: The International Court of Justice. The students wanted answers to two important questions: what responsibility do countries have to stop climate change? And if countries don't stop polluting, will they have to pay for the damages?
Al Arabiya
13 hours ago
- Politics
- Al Arabiya
Puerto Rico declares emergency and activates national guard over water outages
Puerto Rico's governor declared a state of emergency on Wednesday and activated the National Guard after thousands of homes were left without water. Nearly 180,000 customers were affected at the peak of the outage late last week. As of Wednesday, nearly 3,000 customers were still without water, including nearly a dozen hotels, according to Gov. Jenniffer González. The problem has angered many on the island of 3.2 million people, especially because the state water and sewer authority has declined to name the company responsible for damaging a main water line while repairing a road last week. Municipal officials have set up water distribution points and have gone home-to-home to distribute drinking water, with the National Guard now expected to help with those duties. 'As long as I have 11 hotels without water and residents without service, of course, we have an emergency,' González said. The governor also named a special coordinator charged with stabilizing the water system, investigating the water and sewer authority, and determining how the incident occurred. He is expected to issue a report in the next 10 days. González said that the water and sewer authority's executive director, who has come under fire, would remain in that position. Before the widespread incident occurred, dozens of communities across Puerto Rico had long experienced issues with water supply.
The Independent
13 hours ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Puerto Rico declares emergency and activates National Guard over water outages
Puerto Rico's governor declared a state of emergency on Wednesday and activated the National Guard after thousands of homes were left without water. Nearly 180,000 customers were affected at the peak of the outage late last week. As of Wednesday, nearly 3,000 customers were still without water, including nearly a dozen hotels, according to Gov. Jenniffer González. The problem has angered many on the island of 3.2 million people, especially because the state water and sewer authority has declined to name the company responsible for damaging a main water line while repairing a road last week. Municipal officials have set up water distribution points and have gone home-to-home to distribute drinking water, with the National Guard now expected to help with those duties. 'As long as I have 11 hotels without water and residents without service, of course we have an emergency,' González said. The governor also named a special coordinator charged with stabilizing the water system, investigating the water and sewer authority and determining how the incident occurred. He is expected to issue a report in the next 10 days. González said that the water and sewer authority's executive director, who has come under fire, would remain in that position. Before the widespread incident occurred, dozens of communities across Puerto Rico had long experienced issues with water supply. ____
The Sun
18 hours ago
- Science
- The Sun
Mysterious record-breaking snake that vanished for DECADES finally found after creature spotted ‘hiding under a rock'
A RECORD-breaking snake lost to science for nearly two decades has finally resurfaced on the island of Barbados. The Barbados threadsnake - the smallest snake in the world - was rediscovered under a rock during an ecological survey in March. The tiny reptile can coil itself to the size of a coin, and had been on a global list of 4,800 lost plant, animal and fungi species compiled by biodiversity organisation Re:wild. The Barbados Ministry of the Environment and National Beautification had been searching for the threadsnake and several other native reptiles for more than a year. 'Barbados threadsnakes are blind snakes, so they're very cryptic,' said Connor Blades, a project officer with the Ministry of Environment in Barbados, who helped rediscover the threadsnake. 'They're quite rare also, it seems. There have only been a handful of confirmed sightings since 1889, so there are not many people who have ever seen it, unfortunately.' The small serpent is at the limit of how small a snake can be, measuring only about three to four inches long when it is fully grown. Experts have long known that the Barbados threadsnake was an elusive species - with each confirmed sighting having several decades between them. The threadsnake also closely resembles the Brahminy blind snake, also known as the or flowerpot snake - which makes identifying them difficult. Scientists often need a magnifying glass to tell them apart. The Barbados threadsnake reproduces sexually and females lay a clutch of only one egg, while the Brahminy blind snake can produce fertile eggs without mating - a phenomenon called parthenogenesis. 'I began to look over the snake and it was clear to me that I really needed to take it to a microscope to get a proper look at it,' added Blades. 'The morphological differences between the threadsnake and blind snake are really difficult to tell by eye, particularly because it was the first threadsnake we had seen, so we weren't familiar with the species yet.' Meet the army of snake hunters prowling Brit holiday island for 7ft serpents 'leaving tourists too scared to go in sea' Blades, alongside Justin Springer, Caribbean programme officer for Re:wild, were looking under rocks for any signs of tiny threadsnakes during the survey in March. One rock trapped under a tree root caught their eye. 'I was making a joke and in my head I said, 'I smell a threadsnake,'' said Springer. 'I just had a feeling, but I couldn't be sure because we turned over a lot of rocks before that and we saw nothing.' To their surprise, they found a tiny threadsnake. 'When you are so accustomed to looking for things and you don't see them, you are shocked when you actually find it,' added Springer. 'You can't believe it. That's how I felt. You don't want to get your hopes up too high.' The snake was then taken to the University of the West Indies and examined under a microscope to confirm its identity before being returned to its forest in central Barbados. It had all the characteristics of a threadsnake - pale orange dorsal lines running from its head to tail, eyes located on the side of its head, a rostral scale on its nose and no gland lines on its head. The CBER project is set to continue surveying the island to better understand the threadsnake's habitat range. This way it can design conservation actions to protect it. The most recently found threadsnake was found in the forest, which only cover a small area of Barbados. Some 98 per cent of the island's primary forest has been cut down for agriculture over the past 500 years. 'It's an important reservoir for biodiversity on the island,' said Blades referring to the forests where the threadsnake was found. 'If the threadsnake population isn't very dense, I'm worried about their ability to find mates—particularly if their habitat is under threat and being degraded.' 2
