Carbon Emissions

France bans short-haul flights to cut carbon emissions

The law came into force two years after lawmakers had voted to end routes where the same journey could be made by train in under two-and-a-half hours.

The ban all but rules out air travel between Paris and cities including Nantes, Lyon and Bordeaux, while connecting flights are unaffected.

Critics have described the latest measures as "symbolic bans".

Laurent Donceel, interim head of industry group Airlines for Europe (A4E), told the AFP news agency that "banning these trips will only have minimal effects" on CO2 output.

PIF urges China to 'take lead' in reducing carbon emissions

Dame Meg Taylor was speaking at a Pacific Island development forum hosted by China in Samoa this week.

Countries needed to be more ambitious than meeting Paris Agreement targets, she said, and China could be an "important ally" by taking the lead in "escalating its ambition level and its commitments" under the Paris Agreement.

"To just meet our Paris targets is no longer enough," she said at the third China-Pacific Island Countries Economic Development and Cooperation Forum.

New UN report cites huge positive policy potential to cut greenhouse gas emissions

 “Science tells us that there is one path for us to be able to have a stable planet and a safe stable economy, and that is to get onto a below 2 degree path – that is fundamental – and policy is actually following science as it should,” said Christiana Figueres, the Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, speaking to reporters in Bonn, Germany.

Less than two weeks away from the UN climate conference in Paris, widely known as COP21, she announced that 168 countries, covering almost 90 per cent of global emissions, have now submitted their national climate targets, known as INDCs.