During the ’70s, the ozone layer has started to degrade as a result of pollutant emissions. According to the online report that was performed by the United Nations, the huge hole in the ozone layer might be utterly cured from the 2060s—and even in some regions of the world, it could be by approximately 2030.

Roughly a few dozen years ago, we decided that our world’s ozone layer was declining as a result of the widespread use of CFCs. If we didn’t make timely reforms in this area, we could not support our civilization.

Paul Newman, a NASA scientist and UN Special, was among those who led the UN’s Ozone Watch.

We’re at the turnaround point.

Hazardous chemicals, known as chlorofluorocarbons and hydrofluorocarbons, may be found in aerosol cans and refrigerators, in their use, the chemicals release chlorine into the stratosphere, where it breaks down ozone molecules. It’s particularly notable in Antarctica, which has a large hole that formed during the eighties.

This year celebrates “32 Years and Healing” success, since marked on September 16th, as a recognition when the world came together on World Ozone Day. 
The positive effects of effective lessening of our planet’s CO2 emissions were fully tied to regenerating ozone. Thanks to this, around 135 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide were avoided from 1990 to 2010.

The ozone-depleting substances present on earth today cause higher volumes of ultraviolet radiation, causing toxic chemicals to harm agriculture as well as the forest lands, and increasing skin cancers.

The Canadian government developed the treaty, which was later ratified by the full United States, in 1988. The Montreal Protocol was the first treaty to receive universal ratification.

When we come together as a human race to prevent global issues, we can make a difference.

Source:
www.goodnewsnetwork.org
news.un.org
www.sdentertainer.com
gizmodo.com

by Andrea Germanos

Seventeen states on Wednesday sued the President Donald Trump administration over its recent move “to eviscerate” the Endangered Species Act.

“As we face the unprecedented threat of a climate emergency, now is the time to strengthen our planet’s biodiversity, not to destroy it,” said California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who’s leading the coalition. “The only thing we want to see extinct are the beastly policies of the Trump Administration putting our ecosystems in critical danger.”

#BREAKING: We’re suing the Trump Administration over their rollback of the #EndangeredSpeciesAct

The only thing we want to see extinct are the Trump Administration’s beastly environmental policies. https://t.co/gIdtwko2aX #StopExtinction #ProtectWildlife pic.twitter.com/eHmJssNATz

— Xavier Becerra (@AGBecerra) September 25, 2019

The suit (pdf), brought by 17 states and the District of Columbia and the City of New York, was filed in the District Court for the Northern District of California. It comes a month after the administration finalized a series of rollbacks to the law—a move Mass Audubon President Gary Clayton called “another example of the Trump administration’s continuing war on the nature of America.”

As Jonathan Hahn explained at Sierra magazine last month, the new regulations, which are set to take effect Thursday,

significantly weaken the process for listing and enforcing Endangered Species Act protections and inject economic and potentially political considerations into that process where none had existed before. They will bring to an end automatic protections for threatened species, make it easier to delist species (by raising the bar for what evidence is required to show that a species is threatened or endangered), and limit the ways in which climate change can be factored into listing decisions in “the foreseeable future”—essentially removing climate change as a consideration just as the global climate crisis is accelerating.

According to the new lawsuit, the new rules “violate the plain language and purpose of the ESA, its legislative history, numerous binding judicial precedents interpreting the ESA, and its precautionary approach to protecting imperiled species and critical habitat.” The legal action also accuses the Trump administration of failing “to consider and disclose the significant environmental impacts of this action in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act.”

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, who joins with Becerra and Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh in leading the leagal action, wrote on Twitter Wednesday: “The Trump Administration wants to eviscerate the Endangered Species Act. We won’t let them threaten our environment just so oil and gas companies can make a quick buck.”

The Trump Administration wants to eviscerate the Endangered Species Act. We won’t let them threaten our environment just so oil and gas companies can make a quick buck. We’re suing. pic.twitter.com/ZuUGZYnVTO

— Maura Healey (@MassAGO) September 25, 2019

The other states involved in the suit are Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.

They aren’t the first group to launch a legal challenge to the administration’s weakening of the ESA, as a coalition of environmental and animal advocacy groups filed suit (pdf) last month.

“We’re coming out swinging to defend this consequential law,” Becerra said in his statement, “humankind and the species with whom we share this planet depend on it.”

Originally published by Common Dreams

Officials say that Ethiopia plants over 350 million trees within a 12-hour span, potentially breaking the world record for the most trees planted in one day.

Based on AP report, prime minister Abiy Ahmed created the initiative to help restore Ethiopia’s landscape, which experts say is being eroded by deforestation and climate change.

At the Gulele Botanical Garden in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a historic tree planting campaign was launched earlier this week. Over 350 million trees were planted in an attempt to combat deforestation and climate change.

The final goal of the green campaign is for four billion saplings to be planted.

The Prime Minister even urged civil servants to take part and shut down offices.

The goal was in the course of a 12-hour time span to get 200 million seedlings planted. By the completion of the event, Ahmed was in the process of tweeting that they had achieved the goal of their Equal Access For Ethiopians (EATO) project, which aimed to plant over a million seedlings across Ethiopia in merely six hours.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who celebrated the city’s tree planting events, gave credit on the successful completion of the overall goal to those in charge of the event.

Why Ethiopia plants million of trees?

Drought as well as other scarcity-related phenomena, including the deaths of up to two million of wildlife, occurred in the country in 2017. Ethiopia is among the nations most affected by drought. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations revealed that as of 2018, only 4 percent of the nation was covered in forest. Ethiopia was one of the 20 other countries invited to join the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative in 2017.

Although 70% of the nation’s wooded areas were established in the early 20th century, just 4% remain today.

Officials were accountable for counting the number of trees planted by volunteers.

A representative of the UN Economic Commission for Africa and representative to Ethiopia, UN Environment Programme’s Liaison Office to Africa Union Commission, attended the tree planting event, as well as other United Nations Agencies and various international organizations, and whose support for this ambitious action was crucial.

“We’re halfway to our goal,” Ahmed tweeted before encouraging the citizens to “build on the momentum.” With this extra push from Ahmed, Ethiopians well exceeded their expectations.

Four billion indigenous trees to be planted is the ultimate goal for around 1,000 different sites across the country.
The record for the maximum number of trees planted in a single day belongs to India, where thousands of volunteers planted over 50 million trees in 2016.

The government, private businesses, and the United Nations, the African Union, and the Diplomatic Corps found themselves in near-simultaneous lines for the production of trees.

“Afforestation is the most effective climate change solution to date and with the new record set by Ethiopia, other African nations should move with speed and challenge the status quo,” said Juliette Biao Koudenoukpo, Director of UN Environment’s Africa Office. She added:

“Africa has what it takes to spearhead this global push and as the most affected and vulnerable continent, climate change mitigation must be the topmost priority in the coming days. We at UN Environment are taking the lead in helping to build capacity for nations and people to apply themselves to afforestation and climate change mitigation strategies,”

Forests cover about 30% of our planet’s landmass, but ever since humans started cutting down trees, the “lungs of the world” have been disappearing at an alarming rate. Deforestation has led to severe damage to the environments of many wildlife species, weather patterns, and climate change.

The UN Environment Programme is currently working to decrease deforestation and increase forest cover throughout the world. Mitigating climate change by African countries’ commitments and contributions to the achievement of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration is crucial.