Environmental developments worldwide in April 2022

By Burak Bir

ANKARA (AA) – A number of reports on climate change and its growing impact were released in April along with encouraging initiatives and pledges for environmental protection.

A list of environmental developments, reports and events compiled by Anadolu Agency is as follows:

April 1:

- The majority of Turkish society is in favor of renewable energy, which is beneficial for economic development and increasing life quality, according to new research by Konda Research and Consultancy.

April 4:

- Most people globally, or some 99% of the world's population, breathe air that exceeds World Health Organization (WHO) air quality limits, new data shows, says the UN agency, calling for a world less dependent on fossil fuels.

April 6:

- Solar and wind are now the cheapest and best tools to reduce global emissions, which need to fall by 24 gigatons by 2030, the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirms.

April 7:

- The British government announces plans to put nuclear power at the center of its new energy strategy despite criticisms from opposition parties and environmental activists.

April 12:

- Clean energy spending out of state economic recovery packages in response to the COVID-19 crisis accounts for only 4%, or $710 billion, of the total $18.2 trillion mobilized to rebuild economies, according to the International Energy Agency's (IEA) Sustainable Recovery Tracker.

- Around 280 million people are on the brink of starvation in the world, says the head of the World Food Program (WFP).

April 13:

- Millions of refugees and displaced people in East Africa are facing a “desperate future” due to a “toxic cocktail of conflict, climate shocks and COVID-19, combined with spiraling costs of food and fuel,” warns UN agencies.

April 14:

- Floods that sweep parts of South Africa’s eastern coastal province of KwaZulu-Natal cause immense damage, leaving hundreds in desperation.

- Major international financial institutions call for urgent action on food security amid the Russia-Ukraine war.

April 19:

- South Africa declares a national state of disaster following devastating floods in eastern KwaZulu-Natal province which claim hundreds of lives and leave a trail of destruction.

April 20:

- As India reels under severely hot weather conditions, the country's environmentalists are worried by reports of forest fires in various states.

- US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says high food prices could force at least 10 million more people into poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to early estimates.

April 21:

- From 1990 to 2020, the world lost 420 million hectares of forestland – an area roughly 10 times that of the US state of California and nearly five times larger than the size of the country of Turkiye, say Turkish scientists.

April 22:

- On occasion of Earth Day, Amnesty International Argentina launches a campaign to push the country's Congress to approve a bill to "regulate, protect and conserve" Argentina's biodiverse wetlands, which have been pushed back for a decade.

April 23:

- Twitter announces that it will ban advertisements that deny scientific consensus on climate change.

April 26:

- British multinational energy and services company Centrica is building its first solar farm, an 18-megawatt (MW) plant in South West England, in partnership with Essex-based Push Energy.

April 27:

- Millions of Californians are set to face biting water restrictions that will affect residents across the US's most populous state as it battles a drought now in its third year, according to the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

- Turkiye's General Directorate of Forestry is deemed worthy of the Institutional Achievement Award by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean (PAM).

April 28:

- Russia’s war on Ukraine worsens the food security crisis in African countries, according to a Human Rights Watch report.

- European Union member states, China and other countries have paid Russia an estimated €63 billion for fossil fuels since the beginning of the war two months ago, new data shows.

April 29:

- Climate change could pose a whopping blow of as much as CAN$2.8 trillion ($2.18 trillion) to the Canadian economy by the year 2100, according to a report from the Institute of Sustainable Finance.

April 30:

- India cancels more than 600 passenger trains, diverting them to carry coal to power stations in the wake of rising power demand and a shortage of coal in the country.