American firms pledge USD$140 billion to support Obama’s climate action plan
Apple, Coca-Cola and Walmart are among 13 American multinationals that have put forward $140 billion of new low-carbon investment in an announcement at the White House. The companies have expressed their support for President Obama’s Climate Action Plan to cut six billion tonnes of carbon pollution by 2030 at a White House event hosted by Secretary of State John Kerry. The businesses have signed up to an American Business Act on Climate Pledge, voicing strong support for the Paris climate change talks which will be held in December. The group aims to demonstrate a commitment to climate action, with collective investment of $140 billion in low-carbon technologies and plans for more than 1,600 megawatts of renewable energy. Other companies launching the Climate Pledge include Bank of America, Cargill, GM, Goldman Sachs, Google, Microsoft, Pepsi-Co, and UPS. (Edie)
Technology & Innovation
Facebook and other tech giants expand Internet access to millions in Africa
Nearly two years ago, Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, announced an ambitious effort to connect the world’s poorest people to the Internet. The Internet.org app, which Facebook has been trying to persuade phone carriers to offer for free, gives users access to services including Facebook and Wikipedia, as well as news and weather. The app was introduced in Zambia about a year ago, and has added another 16 countries since. Despite being criticised on net neutrality grounds, tens of millions of people have accessed the Internet through it, and as of May, more than nine million of those newcomers have become regular paying users of Internet services, the company says. The next stage, according to Chris Daniels, vice president of Internet.org, is to vastly expand the number of carriers who offer the service. (NY Times)
Musk, Wozniak and Hawking urge ban on warfare AI and autonomous weapons
Over 1,000 high-profile artificial intelligence (AI) experts and leading researchers have signed an open letter warning of a “military artificial intelligence arms race” and calling for a ban on “offensive autonomous weapons”. The letter was signed by Tesla’s Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Professor Stephen Hawking along with AI and robotics researchers. The authors argue that AI can be used to make the battlefield a safer place for military personnel, but that offensive weapons that operate on their own would lower the threshold of going to battle and result in greater loss of human life. Should one military power start developing systems capable of selecting targets and operating autonomously without direct human control, it would start an arms race similar to the one for the atom bomb, the authors argue. (The Guardian)
Waste
Recycling project targets industrial waste around Beijing
Six provincial regions have jointly launched a resource recycling project to handle industrial waste in areas surrounding the Chinese capital of Beijing. Under the project, planners aim to develop an industry able to recycle 20 million tonnes of resources each year. By 2017, 400 million tonnes of industrial solid waste will be disposed of annually after the implementation of the project, with the industry’s output value reaching 220 billion yuan (USD$35.4 billion). The project will help foster new economic growth, alleviate environmental and resource restrictions and promote regional coordinated development, said Mao Weiming, deputy head of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). In 2014, Beijing and the five provincial regions surrounding it produced more than 70 percent of the country’s industrial waste. (Eco-Business)
Health
FDA wants more detail about sugar on food labels
Food labels should contain more detail about how much sugar is in a product, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said Friday. It has proposed a rule to require that food labels not only say how much sugar is in a product, but what percentage the sugar adds to the daily recommended intake. The reasoning is that when sugars are added to foods and beverages to sweeten them, they add calories without providing additional nutrients. Packages in the US already tell people about the percentage of sodium, fat, cholesterol and fibre in foods. But they just give sugar content in grams, not in terms of daily recommended intake. The FDA also proposes to change the current footnote on the Nutrition Facts label to help consumers understand the percent daily value concept. (NBC News)
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