Greta Thunberg and friends file legal complaint to the UN

Washington: A group of 16 children from five continents, including Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, have filed a legal complaint against five countries in a bid to force legal changes to amplify the fight against climate change.

Climate activist Greta Thunberg is joined by other children from around the
world in her push for action from five of the world's biggest carbon emitters.

It comes after millions of people marched in two Global Climate Strikes that bookended the United Nations' Global Climate Summit. Thunberg delivered a fiery speech at the summit which attracted international attention, and a mix of praise and condemnation from Australian commentators.

The five countries named in the complaint are Argentina, Brazil, France, Turkey and Germany.

"They were named since they are the highest emitters that have ratified the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, on which the complaint is built," Thunberg said in a tweet on Tuesday, adding that the United States, China and Saudi Arabia have not ratified the treaty.

Read the story from The Age by Joshua Bote - “Greta Thunberg and friends file legal complaint to the UN.”

Climate change could be paused by planting trees, researchers say, as they map out available land

Planting trees to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere seems like a no-brainer in the fight against climate change.

Australia is one of six countries that together hold
around 50 per cent of the world's tree planting potential.

But until recently it's not been clear how much land we'd need to make a tangible difference to warming, and whether we'd need to reclaim farm and residential land to do it.

Now new research published today in Science estimates there's enough suitable unused land on the globe for reforestation to store around 205 gigatonnes of carbon.

That's enough to buy us about 20 years in the fight against climate change, according to researcher Jean-Francois Bastin from the Institute of Integrative Biology in Zurich.

Read the story from ABC News by Nick Kilvert - “Climate change could be paused by planting trees, researchers say, as they map out available land.”