Environment

Coca-Cola Amatil Indonesia and beachwear brand Quiksilver have signed an agreement with Indonesian flag-carrier airline, Garuda, to co-operate on reducing rubbish along the coast of Bali.

WWF has withdrawn from a controversial wetlands housing project being planned by Cheung Kong Holdings, one of Hong Kong’s biggest property developers. The NGO says it is no longer confident that plans for Fung Lok Wai project, which is located near the Mai Po Marshes – a critical sanctuary for migratory wetland birds – would meet conservation objectives.

In the face of mounting criticism, China has completed the first draft of a Soil Protection Law, but it is doubtful that it will be included in the State Council’s legislation plan until 2014 at the earliest.

South Korea is paving the way for the introduction of a carbon price potentially as high as USD90 a tonne for many of the country’s key industries, according to a new report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) and Ernst & Young.

This multi-layered environmental question keeps on being asked, seemingly with few answers that translate into action. With the Center for Biological Diversity estimating that 40 per cent of the world’s ocean surface is now littered with plastic waste, this issue must be addressed and urgently. We need to focus on the issue in a new way, and in doing so create new opportunities. Plastic waste creates large, expensive and unnecessary impact on society because of its ecological impact. Ecosystems give us everything we need to live – air, water, energy and food.

Hundreds of people have taken to the streets of the Chinese city of Kunming to protest against the planned production of a chemical at a refinery, in the latest show of concern over the effects of rapid growth on the environment.

The World Bank has agreed to loan Vietnam’s Da Nang city USD202.5 million to support its Sustainable City Development Project. The funds will be used to help improve the city's drainage systems and arterial roads, upgrade the public transport system and enhance the city government's urban management capacity. World Bank Country Director for Vietnam Victoria Kwakwa told the Vietnam News that she hopes that the project will create a good model for a "green city" and sustainable urban development to inspire similar development in other cities across Vietnam.

A majority of the world’s largest companies are either failing to report their greenhouse gas emissions or doing so incorrectly according to a new study from the Environmental Investment Organisation (EIO), a UK-based climate change and finance think tank. Looking at carbon emission reports covering 2011 – the most recent year where a full set of data is available – the EIO found that only 37 percent of the world’s largest 800 companies are reporting complete data and correctly adopting the basic principles of greenhouse gas emissions reporting. Just 21 percent had their data externally verified.

Southeast Asia’s Greater Mekong sub-region – a biodiversity hot spot – risks losing more than a third of its remaining forest cover within the next two decades if governments fail to boost protection, value and restore natural capital, and embrace green growth, warns a new WWF report. WWF’s analysis reveals the Greater Mekong has retained about 98 million hectares of natural forest, just over half of the region’s land area, but further rapid loss is expected if current deforestation rates persist. Between 1973 and 2009, the five countries of the Greater Mekong lost just under one-third of their remaining forest cover.