France to ban plastic packaging for most fruit and vegetables in January 2022
France’s environment ministry expects that the measure will prevent more than one billion useless plastic packaging items per year.
Europe
Norway hopes to boost body image with retouching law
In Norway, images that have been altered to change a person’s appearance must now be labelled as retouched under new amendments to the country’s marketing act.
Access to a healthy environment, declared a human right by UN rights council
According to World Health Organization, 24% of all global deaths, roughly 13.7 million deaths a year, are linked to the environment, due to risks such as air pollution and chemical exposure.
Turkey ratifies Paris Agreement, becoming the last G20 country to join
Turkey’s parliamentarians on Wednesday unanimously approved the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, which aims to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels.
Seven nations launch initiative to end new coal power
The Compact calls on nations to halt the construction of unabated coal-fired power generation projects by the end of this year. Initial signatories include Sri Lanka, Chile, Denmark, Germany, Montenegro, France, and the U.K.
Aberdeen University decides to divest from fossil fuels
The move, coming just weeks away from the U.N. COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, makes the university, which lies in the heart of Europe’s “oil and gas capital”, the 90th in the U.K. to commit to divestment.
London’s largest private taxi company to go all electric by 2023
Addison Lee operates London’s largest private taxi fleet with more than 4000 cars in service. It says all of them will be electric by the end of 2023 and it will provide over 20,000 emissions free rides per day.
Scottish Highlands to be transformed by major rewilding project
The Affric Highlands initiative will involve planting trees, restoring peat bogs, connecting wildlife habitats and restoring river corridors over 500,000 acres.
Scotland becomes the world’s first country to require LGBTQ+ history in schools
While the new curricula were created, in part, for students to get a more well-rounded education, the Scottish government also hopes they will reduce bullying.
Switzerland overwhelmingly reaffirms marriage equality in national referendum
Final figures are reflecting that nearly two of every three Swiss voters supported the measure, despite conservative efforts to stoke outrage and overturn the law.