Plans to build the world's largest solar power plant have been scrapped after the Australian govt's commitment to clean energy questioned.

In our view the policies announced will not be enough to constrain, let alone halt, degradation of waterways until they hit the rather lax bottom lines the Government has stipulated, writes Gareth Morgan and Geoff Simmons.

Energy Minister Simon Bridges is defending a $240,000 bill for taxpayers to wine and dine 11 oil executives during the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

The National Policy Statement (NPS) for freshwater may not have razzmatazz, but it arose from that exercise in consensual collaboration called the Land and Water Forum.

Australia's decision to repeal its levy limiting fossil-fuel pollution makes it the first nation to turn back from a market approach to fighting global warming.

India's ambition to skip a generation of electricity technology starting with solar panels on telecommunications towers is being hampered by dust and urban sprawl.

The Green Party has dismissed the new bottom lines as "weak" and argues the measures mean rivers will only have to be clean enough for wading or boating.

Two years ago the International Agency for Research on Cancer categorised diesel exhaust fumes as class one carcinogens in the same category as asbestos, arsenic and cigarette smoke.

Auckland Mayor Len Brown has seized on pollution from diesel buses as ammunition for early government funding of a $2.86 billion underground railway.

Not long after the Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 was declared missing, the world's attention was focused on a remote, poorly known area of the Eastern Indian Ocean as the possible location of the lost aircraft.

A chemical company and its engineering partner have been named winners of two Government-backed environmental awards for making big energy savings and cutting pollution.

Air quality in New Zealand has continued to improve over the past decade, but winter smoke from wood and coal burners is still seeing safety guidelines breached in some parts of the country.

High pollution readings indicate air at the bottom of Auckland's Queen St valley risks failing World Health Organisation standards designed to prevent respiratory and heart disease.

A damning report on stormwater practices at Auckland Council is being suppressed because some officers do not want to confront home truths, says councillor Chris Darby.

Dame Anne Salmond asks; "Is the headlong pursuit of short-term prosperity at the expense of our waterways a rational choice, or is it a foolish, deluded gamble."

Aman from China's pollution-choked north has become the first person to attempt to sue the Government for failing to protect its citizens from the effects of toxic smog.

Millions of lives will be unnecessarily lost to rising rates of respiratory disease and lung cancer.

Like so many iconic American products, Los Angeles smog is now being made in China.

The equivalent of the population of the Wellington region dies each year in China because of air pollution, according to the country's former Health Minister.

Veteran New Zealand oilman Rob Jager says he can understand concern over deep water drilling off New Zealand's coast.

NZ rivers and swimming spots will increasingly be polluted by algae and contain fewer fish as the dairy boom continues, an environmental watchdog has warned.

In the last of a three-part series, Young New Zealander of the Year and CEO of the Sustainable Coastlines Charitable Trust ,Sam Judd, discusses the United Nations Environment Programs’ Global Partnership on Marine Litter.

A Greenpeace-commissioned report shows dramatic blow-out effects of a deep-sea oil spill, but the industry says it's "science fiction".

Every day, millions of tons of inadequately treated sewage, industrial and agricultural waste enters the world's waterways, writes Sam Judd.

Sam Judd writes that perhaps the biggest environmental problem we currently face is the contamination of our waterways by nutrients.