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Blue Carbon, a carbon trading company based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has emerged as a major winner at the global climate change conference (COP28) just concluded in Dubai. It has struck deals across Africa that give it the right to control forestry activities by local communities.

Three workers at Starbucks Japan formed the company’s first labor union in the country on November 1. This came after the company refused to accept demands for higher wages during a collective bargaining session in August. Starbucks Union Japan has invited employees at other Starbucks stores across Japan to join them.

The United Auto Workers union announced a historic strike against the “Big Three” U.S.

Toyota published advertisements for its Hilux SUV vehicles by depicting them driving through rugged nature scenes. Activist groups Adfree Cities and Badvertising lodged a complaint with the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) on the grounds that the ad encouraged behavior “grossly prejudicial” to environmental protection. The ASA then banned the ad from being used in the UK.

Ana Clara Benevides Machado morreu no dia 17 de novembro em um show da Taylor Swift no Rio de Janeiro, onde a sensação térmica estava em 60ºC graus.

Ana Clara Benevides Machado died November 17th at a Taylor Swift show in Rio de Janeiro, after heat index temperatures reached a scorching 59.3 degrees Celsius (138.74 Fahrenheit).

Cobre Panamá, the largest open pit copper mine in Central America, is operated by Toronto-based First Quantum Minerals. After some 250,000 people in Panama took to the streets to protest against corruption and environmental damage at the mine, Panama’s supreme court declared that First Quantum’s contract to operate the mine unconstitutional, causing it to be shut down.

Qantas Airways fired 1,700 ground staff in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic and replaced the workers with outside contractors to cut costs. The Transport Workers’ Union took the airline to court over violations of the Fair Work Act, which protects employee rights. After three years, the Australian High Court ruled that Qantas’s action was illegal.

Palm oil and rubber plantation company Socfin has been accused of land grabbing in Cambodia, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Activists targeted the Bolloré Group (Socfin’s second biggest shareholder) to demand change, resulting in the company being placed on a watchlist by Switzerland’s largest public pension funds.

Timber giant Samling is one of the biggest logging companies on the island of Borneo in Malaysia. After SAVE Rivers, a local NGO, posted articles critical of the company’s lack of consultation with local Indigenous communities, the company sued for defamation in 2021. After two years of local and international pressure, Samling finally withdrew the US$1.05 million lawsuit.

Private sector projects to solve the climate crisis have soared in the last decade: green energy options from British Gas and NextEra; Tesla electric cars; panels from JinkoSolar in China; and Siemens wind turbines in the North Sea. Yet how many truly mark a departure from business-as-usual by industry?

Oxford University holds regular career fairs for students to meet privately with prospective employers. The university also claims to be committed to net zero and to be sustainable.

Navigator CO2 Ventures proposed to build a 2,000 kilometre pipeline to transport carbon dioxide from ethanol plants to be stored underground in southern Illinois. Environmentalists, farmers and landowners joined forces to oppose the Heartland Greenway pipeline which was canceled after it was denied a construction permit by the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission.

Krill - tiny pink shrimp-like crustaceans that live deep in the ocean - are being harvested at an alarming rate by Aker BioMarine, a biotechnology company, to be sold as fish farm feed, pet food and dietary supplements, according to “Krilling Antartica,” a new report by the Bob Brown Foundation.

John Durnell was diagnosed with cancer after using the Roundup weedkiller for over 20 years. He sued Roundup manufacturer Monsanto in St. Louis, Missouri.

ExxonMobil wants to restart oil drilling off the coast of Santa Barbara, California. It plans to transport the crude oil to inland refineries in Santa Maria and Pentland by truck. Environmentalists fought the proposal citing the history of oil spills from trucks and pipelines in the region. Local government officials and courts recently ruled in their favor.

Health insurance giant Cigna has been sued for using a secret computer algorithm to systematically deny thousands of medical reimbursement claims in a matter of seconds, allegedly without a doctor ever opening the patients’ files. The algorithm was first uncovered by investigative reporters at ProPublica and The Capitol Forum.

In the 1980s, the UK government deregulated and privatized bus systems all over the country under a belief that greater competition would introduce greater efficiency. However the opposite happened - prices rose and service quality declined.

Residents of Makhasaneni, KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa, are escalating their fight to stop Jindal Africa’s plans to build a $2 billion iron ore mine project that threatens to displace as many as 3,000 people and severely impact the local environment.