Biden vows to cut US CO2 emissions in half
The US president, Joe Biden, pledged to reduce America’s carbon emissions by 50%-52% of 2005 levels before 2030. That is double the commitment Washington made under the Paris climate agreement (which Donald Trump rescinded). Biden made the pledge during a virtual Earth Day summit attended by 40 world leaders, where he warned that “time is short”. Biden stated: “This is the decade that we must make decisions to avoid the worst consequences of the climate crisis.” Sources: CNBC, DW, The Guardian, Marketwatch and NPR.
Musk outlines $100m carbon prize
The billionaire founder of SpaceX and Tesla, Elon Musk, presented details on the competition (that he announced in January) offering $100m in prize money for technologies that remove carbon dioxide from Earth’s atmosphere or oceans. Sources: AAP and Reuters.
Last modified on Thu 22 Apr 2021 11.57 EDT
A UK-based Swedish multibillionaire family known for their philanthropic donations to literature, libraries and other arts, have become the target of angry protests in Berlin over the eviction of a community bookshop from a counter-culture neighbourhood.
The bookseller Kisch & Co, which has operated for the last 24 years from a historic building on one of the main thoroughfares in the Kreuzberg district of Germany’s capital, was told on Thursday by a criminal court to vacate its premises.
The building’s owners were represented via video link in court by a Frankfurt-based law firm, which in turn was acting on behalf of the Luxembourg-registered Victoria Immo Properties V SARL, which bought the property for more than €35m in 2019.