Everything to know about the environment this week

China aims to produce up to 200,000 tonnes of carbon-free green hydrogen a year by 2025, as well as working to develop a more widespread industry over the longer term.

Bosnia plans to invest $2 billion in renewable energy projects over the next five years, but will keep coal-fired power plants online despite objections from the European Union.

A new study has found that birds are laying their eggs earlier in the year as a result of climate change. It suggests further evidence of climate change disrupting animal and plant life cycles.

In Germany, 48% of people would support a weekly car-free Sunday, a poll in mid-March showed.

The United Nations has pledged that early-warning weather monitoring will cover everyone on the planet in the next five years. "Half of humanity is already in the danger zone," UN Secretary-General António Guterres said. And yet "one-third of the world's people, mainly in least-developed countries and small island developing states, are still not covered by early-warning systems".

The World Bank has issued the world's first wildlife conservation bond, raising $150 million to help efforts to increase the black rhino population in South Africa. The five-year "rhino bond" will pay investors returns based on the rate of growth of black rhino populations at South Africa's Addo Elephant National Park and the Great Fish River Nature Reserve, the bank said.

Waters off Australia face more frequent and severe marine heatwaves that threaten the Great Barrier Reef, a report warned last week. It comes as a UN team visited the reef to establish whether the World Heritage site should be listed as "in danger".

The Conger ice shelf has collapsed in Antarctica, according to satellite data. The shelf, which had an approximate surface area of 1,200 square kilometres, collapsed following record high temperatures in the region, reports the Guardian.

No country met World Health Organization (WHO) air quality standards in 2021, a new survey has shown. The survey covered pollution data in more than 6,000 cities and showed that smog levels even rebounded in some areas after dipping because of COVID-19 lockdowns.

The WHO recommends that average annual readings of small and hazardous airborne particles known as PM2.5 should be no more than 5 micrograms per cubic metre, saying that even low concentrations cause significant health risks.

But only 3.4% of the surveyed cities met the standard in 2021, according to data compiled by IQAir, a Swiss pollution technology company that monitors air quality. As many as 93 cities had PM2.5 levels at 10 times the recommended level.

"There are a lot of countries that are making big strides in reduction," said IQAir Air Quality Science Manager Christi Schroeder. "China started with some very big numbers and they are continuing to decrease over time. But there are also places in the world where it is getting significantly worse."

Biodiversity loss is an overlooked threat to the global financial system, according to a new report. Central banks need to increase their understanding of the issue and establish supervisory expectations for commercial banks to tackle it, the authors warn.

While climate change has shot up the agenda, the related issue of lost biodiversity has been neglected even though it too can have a major economic impact, a report by the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) and the International Network for Sustainable Financial Policy Insights showed.

"We are eroding this biodiversity at a pace that is severely damaging the natural ecosystems that provide us with food, water and clean air," said Ravi Menon, Head of NGFS, a group that includes the world's top central banks. "This in turn could pose significant risks to economic, financial and social stability."

"Central banks and bank supervisors should therefore build capacity to understand the issue and assess the risk related to biodiversity loss," the NGFS said.