00:03France's Minister for Ecological Transition, Monique Barbu, will remain in her post despite
00:08her opposition to a bill allowing beharming pesticides to come back into use. She had
00:14submitted her resignation earlier on Wednesday, but President Emmanuel Macron rejected it.
00:19The minister will stay due to the urgency to address the consequences of climate change,
00:24her office said. On Tuesday, Parliament passed the government's Emergency Agriculture Bill on the
00:31conditional reintroduction of certain pesticides authorized in the European Union but banned in
00:36France. The outgoing minister criticized the bill and said the reversal was one environmental setback
00:42to many. The law gives France's Health and Safety Agency the authority to conditionally authorize
00:49the use of acetamiprid and Fupiradifuron. The bill's supporters say that sugar beet and hazelnut
00:56farmers need the insecticides which have been forbidden in France since 2018 and 2019. Barbu
01:02noted that acetamiprid was banned using the scientific evidence available at the time.
01:08Last year, France passed another bill allowing use of the pesticide but it was struck down after strong
01:14public protests.
01:21A massive blaze that tore through southern France is largely contained officials have said. France has so
01:28far seen a record area burned by wildfires by mid-July. Firefighters have been battling near daily
01:34outbreaks across the country in recent weeks.
01:51The wildfires are also raging in other areas across Europe including in Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece.
01:58In Spain, over 600 firefighters and troops and 29 aircraft tackled on Tuesday for a sixth day, a massive
02:06wildfire north of Madrid. Much like the rest of Europe, Spain has seen back-to-back heat waves which
02:12further complicate firefighting efforts. Scientists warn that human-caused climate change is the cause of
02:18more frequent and intense heat waves, while also creating conditions for sudden and destructive storms.
02:51wildfires emit black carbon
02:54sometimes called such. It's very small particles of partially combusted material and we breathe them
03:01in and then they're so tiny some of them that they can get through our lungs and into our bloodstream.
03:07So there's the obvious respiratory impact that can happen quite quickly so asthma but there's also
03:13longer-term implications like lung cancer or once these particles get through into the bloodstream they
03:19can affect every single organ causing heart attacks, strokes and over the long term even dementia.
03:41For people who live in the vicinity that won't be affected by the fire itself on the ground but
03:47will be affected by the air pollution. What we need is for authorities to warn them that it's coming so
03:52that if they can move they can choose to evacuate and if they can't do that to make sure that
03:58they stay
03:59inside, have air purification if they can and really try and prevent breathing this pollution in.
04:19Climate change and air pollution and wildfires is a really vicious circle. We know that air
04:24pollutants are emitted at the same time as greenhouse gases that's causing higher temperatures which
04:30is causing more wildfires which is causing more air pollution like black carbon that's then heating
04:35the planet more. So we really need to tackle other causes of air pollution as well as the wildfires
04:41to start bringing the temperatures down.
04:59The European Union's Food Safety Agency has reduced the safe daily intake level of TFA, the so-called
05:06forever chemical that is found widely in drinking water. The EFSA said the updated values were based on
05:14new evidence that showed TFA changes level of a hormone produced by the thyroid gland that plays an
05:21important role in regulating the body among other effects. TFA are used in a variety of products from
05:29kitchenware and medical devices to defense and clean energy equipment. But their usage may carry risks
05:35to people and the environment including wildlife. According to the EFSA, TFA can form when PFAS
05:43substances break down, including from certain active substances in pesticides. TFA can then end up in
05:50groundwater, soil and food crops, it says. EU members are required to monitor PFAS levels in drinking water,
05:58while other monitoring programs track PFAS levels in food.
06:04The environmental health is connected with human health because the consumption of seafood, for example,
06:11fish that we ingest, the microplastics that they ingest will end up in our body. Microplastics have
06:16effects on ecosystems. Ecosystems, they provide services to us, so they are important for us as well.
06:36First of all, we need to take samples. So there are different techniques for this. What we usually use
06:41is a manta net. So this is a net that floats at the surface of the ocean and thousands of
06:47liters of water
06:48will go through it and all the microplastics will be retained in the net. And so we then recover those
06:52microplastics and we bring them to our labs. So first there is a processing step that we need to do
06:57to get rid of the organic material. And then in the next step we go towards the analysis of the
07:01sample.
07:02The technique that we use makes use of a fluorescence coloration, so a fluorescent dye. So we stain the
07:07particles and then we use machine learning to identify particles based on their coloration. And then we also
07:13do a check with the FTIR. So that's a spectroscopy based method to validate particle identity.
07:33It's a screening method meant for monitoring of microplastics. And so we start from a training data
07:39set for the model in which we have seven of the main polymers included. So the ones that are most
07:44most often found at sea. Of course, if you want to study very specific polymer types, you would need
07:49to adapt the model, which you can do. But so we target the most common ones. And of course, it's
07:54not a
07:54chemical analysis, so it's a screening. So you would need to do a validation always of a subset of particles.
08:08It is important to know how many plastics there are present at sea, because we want to assess the
08:14term, the trends over longer periods. So it's very important that we have continuous data and to
08:19identify hotspots, for example, areas of concern where there might be risks, where not. And then of
08:25course, also, it's important to know the composition of your sample. For example, the size of the microplastics
08:30has an impact, has an influence on the environmental impacts, also different polymer types, shapes, and so on.
08:40Rising energy and fertilizer prices are likely to continue contributing to global food inflation,
08:45the United Nations warned in its latest report threatening progress against global hunger.
08:51According to the food security report, global hunger has eased modestly,
08:55but more than 500 million people could still face chronic hunger by 2030.
09:00International Fund for Agricultural Development President Alvaro Lario warned that geopolitical
09:05tensions and potential shipping disruptions, including surrounding the Strait of Hormuz during
09:09the Iran war, could leave an additional 9 to 18 million people facing hunger.
09:14Ongoing conflicts, including Russia's invasion of Ukraine, remain the biggest drivers of higher
09:19energy and input prices, hitting small-scale farmers relying on diesel fuel.
09:24This comes as the average global cost of a healthy diet jumped to 4.28 purchasing power parity dollars
09:30per day, up from 3.44 in 2021. Roughly a third of the global population cannot afford a healthy diet,
09:38with the share rising to 77% in low-income countries.
09:42With Africa emerging as the epicenter, the continent has overtaken Asia as the region with the largest number
09:49of hungry people, where nearly 60% of the world's undernourished could live by 2030.
09:55Food and Agricultural Organization Director General Kyu Dongyu stressed that ending hunger requires
10:01political commitment and sustained investment to strengthen agri-food systems against ongoing crisis.
10:11The European Union is preparing to accept new tariffs the United States is expected to impose
10:18in the coming days over forced labour, according to the European Commission.
10:23Despite considering the new duties unjustified, the Commission said its priority was to ensure tariffs on
10:30EU goods remain below the 15% cap agreed under the EU-US trade deal in July 2025.
10:38Meanwhile, the White House justified its actions by arguing that insufficient efforts to curb trade
10:44in goods produced using forced labour were harming US commercial interests.
10:50The current US tariff regime expires on Friday, and one US trade official said on Tuesday that
10:56implementation of forced labour duties was imminent. As part of its efforts to replace the current
11:03regime, the US trade department launched an investigation into forced labour in global supply
11:09chains, which is due to be concluded in the coming days. In early June, the Commission defended its
11:15regulations, saying it had strict rules against products made with forced labour. The Trump administration
11:21imposed 10% duties on its global trading partners last February after a US Supreme Court ruling declared its 2025
11:31tariffs illegal.
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