
-
Trump tariffs spark fears for Asian jobs, exporting sectors
-
Stocks and dollar sink, havens rally as Trump tariffs fan trade war
-
Runners fly to North Korea for first post-Covid Pyongyang Marathon
-
Hamilton rubbishes claims he's lost faith in Ferrari
-
Nintendo Switch 2 sparks excitement despite high price
-
Sri Lanka's crackdown on dogs for India PM's visit sparks protest
-
S Korea police raise security levels ahead of impeachment verdict
-
China vows 'countermeasures' to sweeping new US tariffs
-
Trump jolts allies, foes and markets with tariff blitz
-
France says EU to target US online services after Trump tariffs
-
Tsunoda vows to bring 'something different' after Red Bull promotion
-
Verstappen not happy with Tsunoda-Lawson Red Bull swap
-
Experts accuse 54 top Nicaragua officials of grave abuses
-
Remains of 30th victim of Los Angeles fires found
-
EU to target US online services after Trump tariffs: France
-
How Trump's 'liberation day' tariffs will impact China
-
Malaysia suspends search for long-missing flight MH370
-
Search for long-missing flight MH370 suspended: Malaysia minister
-
Europe hits out at Trump tariffs, keeps door open for talks
-
Myanmar's junta chief to head to Bangkok summit as quake toll surpasses 3,000
-
Lawson vows to prove he belongs in F1 after shock of Red Bull axing
-
Australia sweats through hottest 12 months on record: official data
-
Livestock theft is central to jihadist economy in west Africa
-
South African artist champions hyenas in 'eco-queer' quest
-
Danish PM in 'unity' Greenland visit amid US takeover threats
-
Taiwan says US tariffs 'highly unreasonable'
-
Lawson says ruthless Red Bull axing was 'tough to hear'
-
Heat humble Celtics for sixth straight win, Thunder roll on
-
Trump escalates trade war with sweeping global tariffs
-
Japan says US tariffs 'extremely regrettable', may break WTO rules
-
South Koreans anxious, angry as court to rule on impeached president
-
Juve at in-form Roma with Champions League in the balance
-
Injuries put undermanned Bayern's title bid to the test
-
Ovechkin scores 892nd goal -- three away from Gretzky's NHL record
-
Australian former rugby star Petaia signs for NFL's Chargers
-
China says opposes new US tariffs, vows 'countermeasures'
-
Athletics world watching as 'Grand Slam Track' prepares for launch
-
Heat humble Celtics for sixth straight win, Cavs top Knicks
-
Quake-hit Myanmar's junta chief to head to Bangkok summit
-
New Spielberg, Nolan films teased at CinemaCon
-
Shaken NATO allies to meet Trump's top diplomat
-
Israel's Netanyahu arrives in Hungary, defying ICC warrant
-
Shiny and deadly, unexploded munitions a threat to Gaza children
-
Stocks tank, havens rally as Trump tariffs fan trade war
-
Altomare hangs on to tie defending champ Korda at LPGA Match Play
-
Paraguay gold rush leaves tea producers bitter
-
Health concerns swirl as Bolivian city drowns in rubbish
-
Syria says deadly Israeli strikes a 'blatant violation'
-
Financial markets tumble after Trump tariff announcement
-
Starbucks faces new hot spill lawsuits weeks after $50mn ruling

Is planting trees to combat climate change 'complete nonsense'?
Bill Gates is emphatic: "I don't plant trees," he declared recently, wading into a debate about whether mass tree planting is really much use in fighting climate change.
The billionaire philanthropist was being probed on how he offsets his carbon emissions and insisted he avoids "some of the less proven approaches."
The claim that planting enough trees could solve the climate crisis is "complete nonsense", he told a climate discussion organised by the New York Times last week.
"Are we the science people or are we the idiots?"
Gates' polemical pronouncements made headlines and prompted criticism from backers of reforestation (planting trees in damaged forests) and afforestation (planting in areas that were not recently forest).
"I have dedicated the last 16 years of my life to making forests part of the climate solution," wrote Jad Daley, head of the American Forests NGO.
"This kind of commentary can really set us back," he said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Mass tree planting schemes have been gaining ground for years as a way to suck carbon from the atmosphere at scale.
Even notoriously climate change-sceptical US Republicans have introduced legislation to support planting a trillion trees worldwide.
But Gates is far from alone in doubting the benefits of such ambitious plans.
A group of scientists warned on Tuesday that mass tree planting risks doing more harm than good, particularly in tropical regions.
That's primarily because it can replace complex ecosystems with monoculture plantations.
"Society has reduced the value of these ecosystems to just one metric -- carbon," the scientists from universities in Britain and South Africa wrote.
Carbon capture is "a small component of the pivotal ecological functions that tropical forests and grassy ecosystems perform," they said in an article in the Trends in Ecology and Evolution journal.
Jesus Aguirre Gutierrez, an author of the paper, pointed to examples in southern Mexico and Ghana, where once diverse forests "have now transformed into homogenous masses".
This makes them "highly vulnerable to diseases and negatively impacts local biodiversity," the senior researcher at the University of Oxford's Environmental Change Institute told AFP.
- 'Not just running around planting' -
Major tree planting commitments often involve agroforestry or plantations, where the trees will eventually be felled, releasing carbon.
And they are dominated by five tree species chosen largely for their timber and pulp value, or growth speed.
Among them is teak, which can overtake native species, "posing additional risks to native vegetation and the ecosystem", said Aguirre Gutierrez, who is also a Natural Environment Research Council fellow.
Other critiques include the lack of space globally for the many proposed mass planting projects and the risk of competition between smallholder agriculture and planting.
Misclassification of grassland and wetland as suitable for forest and planting poorly adapted or cared-for seedlings have also been problems highlighted by scientists.
So does planting trees really have no value?
Not so fast, says Daley, whose American Forests organisation says it has planted 65 million trees.
It's Gates' premise that is wrong, Daley said.
"Literally no one is saying... that forests alone can save our environment," he told AFP.
He argues that critics ignore carefully calibrated projects involving native species in areas that need reforestation and focus instead on a few poorly conceived schemes.
"This broad brush critique has ignored the fact that much reforestation is driven by the loss of forests that won't regenerate without help."
"We are not just running around planting trees wherever we feel like it to capture carbon."
There are efforts to bridge the gap between critics and proponents, including 10 "golden rules for restoring forests", proposed by Britain's Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Botanic Gardens Conservation International.
They advise avoiding grasslands or wetlands, prioritising natural regeneration, and selecting resilient and biodiverse trees.
But they start with a rule that perhaps everyone can agree upon: protect existing forests first.
"It can take over 100 years for these forests to recover, so it is crucial that we protect what we already have before planting more."
O.M.Souza--AMWN