Articles by Grist staff

Brazil: Nuts! to Biopirates

Two Brazilian states recently passed laws requiring foreign researchers to sign contracts and pay “bioroyalties” on any income they gain from the use of local plants. A national version of the law, which would also require foreign researchers to have local partners, is close to passage in the Brazilian Congress. Brazil is one of a […]

Mexico Is a Leading Light

A $23 million project that introduced energy-efficient lightbulbs to two Mexican cities has become the first to be verified as actually reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. The pilot project took place under U.N. guidelines and Trygve Larsen of Det Norske Veritas, the Norway-based international verification foundation that certified the effort, said it can serve as a model […]

How's the Air Up There?

Canada could significantly influence U.S. policy by pushing the U.S. to clean up air pollution that blows across its northern border, American enviros said yesterday at a conference held by Ontario’s Medical Association. Fifty percent of Ontario’s air pollution originates in the U.S., said Jason Grumet of the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management. […]

China Dolls Up Its Industry

A $420 million grant to China will help the nation protect the ozone layer. Some $200 million of the money, which comes from a multinational fund set up in 1987 as part of the Montreal Protocol, will be used to help 200 firms upgrade their equipment and clean up ozone-depleting industrial products. China reduced its […]