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EU Approves €107m German Public Support for Greener Buses

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It will enable the retrofitting of diesel buses used for public transport in around 90 municipalities.

6,000 Climate Activists Block 5 London Bridges, Demand Urgent Action

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On Saturday, More than 6,000 climate activists shut down five bridges in Central London. The protest, organized under the banner of Extinction Rebellion to call for urgent action on climate change, was the first to intentionally block the bridges “in living memory,” the group reported.

The mood was festive as demonstrators from around London held the bridges—Waterloo, Blackfriars, Southwark, Lambeth and Westminster—from around 10 a.m. to well into the afternoon. Extinction Rebellion had been building to Saturday’s “Rebellion Day” since it launched itself into the public consciousness a little over two weeks ago by blocking traffic outside London’s Parliament Square. The group hopes to pressure the government into increased climate action by using non-violent civil disobedience. Eighty-two were arrested during Saturday’s demonstration, BBC News confirmed.

Foto: pixabay

“Because the last two governments have rolled back significant policies which would have helped the UK reduce its carbon dioxide emissions,” Margot Gibbs, a 30-year-old journalist from North London, told EcoWatch when asked why she was there. “And because a massive change is required.”

Specifically, the group is calling for the UK government to institute policies that will allow the country to reach carbon neutrality by 2025, and to create a “Citizens’ Assembly” to oversee those radical changes.

Saturday’s protest wrapped up at 5:30 p.m. with a tree-planting ceremony in Parliament Square, according to Extinction Rebellion. A crowd of around 3,000 watched as an apple, plum and evergreen tree were planted just outside where the UK government meets. But that isn’t the end for the growing movement. Organizers are calling for people to join them back at the square next Saturday for “Rebellion Day 2.

Source: Eco Watch

‘Majority of Global Firms to Step up Efficiency Spending’

Johnson Controls says businesses want to reduce their carbon footprint, save money, boost energy security and enhance their reputation.

More than half of global organisations are planning to increase their energy efficiency spending in the next year.

That’s according to Johnson Controls, which has conducted a survey of nearly 2,000 facility and energy management executives from across 20 countries.

It revealed 57% of organisations in the US and 59% of global organisations are looking to increase investment in energy efficiency measures in the next year, with many of these organisations planning to increase spending on smart building measures at a greater rate than more traditional efficiency measures.

Building controls improvements were cited as the most popular investment for the next 12 months among US organisations, with 68% of respondents planning to implement such measures.

Building system integration also saw a 23% increase in respondents planning to invest in 2019, the largest increase of any measure in the survey.

Photo-illustration: Pixabay

Tesco and WWF ‘to Halve Environmental Impact of Shopping’

Photo-illustration: Unsplash
Photo-illustration: Unsplash

Tesco and WWF have teamed up and committed to halve the environmental impact of shopper’s baskets within a year.

The four-year partnership between the nation’s largest retailer and the environmental organisation aims to eliminate food and packaging waste while encouraging customers to buy more sustainable products.

Research conducted by the two organisations reveals nearly 80% of shoppers want supermarkets to offer more responsibly sourced, sustainable food.

The supermarket and environmental body want to help educate the 59% of the public that say they are confused about which foods are sustainable and dispel the myth believed by 75% of shoppers that cost was a barrier to going green.

Tanya Steele, the WWF’s UK CEO, said: “Demand for food poses one of the biggest dangers to our planet. It’s the leading cause of deforestation, destroying countless habitats and threatening wildlife to the point of extinction.

“We have the power to not only stop but to reverse the damage, if we act now. That is why we are delighted to be partnering with Tesco, to help create a food system that doesn’t cost the Earth.”

Source: Energy Live News

Diesel Pollution Stunts Children’s Lung Growth, Major Study Shows

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Pollution from diesel vehicles is stunting the growth of children’s lungs, leaving them damaged for life, a major study has found.

The research, conducted with more than 2,000 school children in London, is the first such study in a city where diesel pollution is a significant factor, and has implications for cities around the world. It also showed that charges to deter polluting trucks from entering the city did reduce air pollution a little but did not reduce the harm to children’s lungs.

Photo-illustration: Unsplash

The World Health Organization classifies air pollution, which causes 7 million early deaths every year, a global public health emergency. Ninety per cent of children around the world breathe unsafe air. Growing children are especially vulnerable to toxic air and previous research has linked it to low birth weights, cot deaths, obesity and mental health problems.

Most urban areas in the UK have illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) pollution, and the government has suffered three legal defeats over the inadequacy of its plans. The latest government action plan, which environmental lawyers called “pitiful”, revealed air pollution was even worse than previously feared.

“We are raising a generation of children with stunted lung capacity,” said Prof Chris Griffiths, at Queen Mary University of London, who led the research team. “This reflects a car industry that has deceived the consumer and central government, which continues to fail to act decisively to ensure towns and cities cut traffic. The public very much wants better air quality, and they are right.”

The study, published in the Lancet Public Health, found the capacity of children’s lungs was reduced by about 5% when NO2 pollution was above legal levels. Lung capacity peaks at age 18, then declines, Griffiths said. “If your lungs are already smaller than they should be as you enter adulthood, then as they decline with age you’ll be at higher risk of an early death,” as well as at a higher risk of lung diseases, he said.

The researchers said doctors should consider advising parents of children with lung problems to avoid living in high-pollution areas if possible, or to limit their exposure.

“This new study reveals the terrible legacy of successive governments’ failure to act over illegal levels of air pollution,” said Andrea Lee, at environmental lawyers ClientEarth. A new, stricter ultra low emission zone (ULEZ), which will extend the low emission zone (LEZ) charge that applies to polluting trucks to cars, will begin London in April 2019, but Lee said: “Action is also needed at a national level.”

“We need ministers to implement emergency measures to tackle pollution around schools and nurseries and fund the move to cleaner forms of transport, not wash their hands of the problem and leave it for local government to sort out,” she said.

Samantha Walker, at Asthma UK, said: “It is disappointing that theLEZ in London has not helped to improve children’s lung capacity and shows that a piecemeal approach to reducing air pollution does not work.”

The new research tested the lung capacity of eight- to nine-year-old children from 28 primary schools across east London between 2009 and 2014. It began just after LEZ charges began and continued after the rules were tightened in 2012. Air pollution was reduced by an average of 1-2μg/m3 at the roadside, but at the end of the study the annual average was still about 70μg/m3, far above the 40μg/m3 legal limit.

Referring to the stunting of lung growth and asthma symptoms, Griffiths said: “It is disappointing that we didn’t see an impact.” But he said it was critical public health policies were evaluated to test their effectiveness, and that the work has informed the design of the stricter ULEZ.

The results of the study would apply to many cities, Griffiths said: “Air quality in London is bad, but it is similarly bad in other UK cities and cities across Europe, and of course in India and China it is notoriously bad.”

The Guardian revealed in 2017 that hundreds of thousands of children were being exposed to illegal levels of air pollution from diesel vehicles at schools and nurseries across England and Wales, with the poorest neighbourhoods most severely affected.

The new research has “many notable strengths”, including detailed air pollution measurements and high quality data on the children’s respiratory health, according to a commentary in the Lancet Public Health by Hanna Boogaard and Annemoon van Erp, at the Health Effects Institute in Boston, US.

But they noted it was not possible to include control groups in the study and that the NO2 reductions were quite small, making it harder to link air pollution to stunted lungs. Nonetheless, a statistically significant link was shown. Evidence from California suggests it is a causal link, because children’s lung damage there reduced as air quality improved between 1994 and 2011.

Source: Guardian

Supermarkets Still Produce Thousands of Tonnes of Plastic Bags

Photo-illustration: Unsplash
Photo-illustration: Unsplash

Big supermarkets are producing billions of single-use plastic bags each year despite charges that are designed to reduce their use by the public.

The UK’s 10 leading supermarkets, including Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Morrisons, Waitrose, Co-op and Aldi, continue to put plastic bags into their shops three years after the introduction of 5p charges under EU law.

Data gathered by Greenpeace and published on Thursday reveal that the supermarkets are putting 810,000 tonnes of single-use plastic packaging on to the market every year. The figures confirm a Guardian investigation that showed that leading supermarkets refuse to be open about the amount of plastic they put on to the market.

A survey of the top 10 supermarkets by Greenpeace revealed that they are putting 1.1bn single-use plastic bags, 1.2bn plastic produce bags for fruit and vegetables and 958m reusable “bags for life” on top of the 810,000-tonne plastic footprint.

Iceland, followed by M&S, had the highest consumption of single-use plastic bags. Tesco had the highest sales of “bags for life” and Lidl, Sainsbury’s and Tesco the highest use of plastic produce bags relative to market share.

In 2015, the UK adopted an EU directive into law and introduced 5p charges for plastic bags. A 30% reduction in plastic bag littering was recorded this year, environmental scientists said.

But the Greenpeace report said more action was needed given the continued production of single-use bags on such a scale. “A significant increase to the price of bags, or ending sales completely, should help drive further reductions,” it said. The report added that some retailers were exploring reusable produce bags.

Some countries have gone further than a bag charge: France has banned single-use plastic bags at the checkout and in loose food sections.

The report by Greenpeace and the Environmental Investigations Agency said supermarkets were still not doing enough to reduce their plastic footprint.

Read more: Guardian

Why Are Wildfires Getting Worse?

Photo-illustration: Unsplash

California is currently in the grips of its deadliest wildfire while two others rage, in what has been its worst wildfire year on record.

Photo-illustration: Unsplash

The Camp wildfire in the north of the US state has burned through more than 50,000 hectares and is the most deadly in California’s history.

The Camp fire has achieved the grim milestone of breaking an 85 year-old record, having already surpassed the 31 deaths recorded in the 1933 Griffith Park wildfire.

Further south, two wildfires near Los Angeles – the Woolsey fire and Hill fire – continue to blaze, tearing through neighbourhoods in Malibu and Calabasas.

These three wildfires combined have forced more 300,000 people from their homes across California.

This mass evacuation and the deadly nature of the Camp wildfire is partly due to California’s huge population growth: there are now 40 million people living in the state, double the number in 1970.

And many more are living in wildfire-prone areas. According to research published earlier this year, the total number of homes and land developed in areas of the US prone to wildfire has increased by nearly 1350% since 1940.

Burning bigger

Wildfires have always been part of California and several other US states’ natural ecology.

However, while significant population growth can help explain rising death tolls, it cannot address the growing severity and frequency of wildfires.

This year the US has not only suffered its most deadly wildfire with the Camp fire; it has also suffered from the biggest wildfire in its history.

The Mendocino Complex fire raged from July to September and destroyed 459,000 acres (185,750 hectares).

California’s seven biggest wildfires ever have all occurred since 2003, with 12 of the 15 biggest fires occurring within this period too.

The Californian state government itself links the increasing size and frequency of wildfires with climate change, estimating that the average area burned statewide by wildfires could increase by 77% by 2100.

Other research says the acreage in California suffering from wildfires could increase by up to 150% by 2039 due to climate change, with wildfires across the US as a whole increasing by 500%.

Source: World Economic Forum

Spain Targets 100% Renewable Electricity by 2050

Photo-illustration: Unsplash
Photo-illustration: Unsplash

Spain has set out ambitious plans to switch to 100% renewable electricity by 2050.

Under the proposals, the government aims to install at least 3GW of wind and solar power capacity every year over the next 10 years.

The news comes after the government recently recently scrapped the 7% solar tax to make it easier for consumers to install their own panels

The nation is also targeting a complete decarbonisation of its economy – it hopes to slash 90% of greenhouse gas emissions by the middle of the century compared to 1990 levels.

It also intends to ban new licences for fossil fuel drilling and fracking wells and improve energy efficiency by 35% by 2030, going beyond the EU’s 32.5% goal, with government and public sector authorities only able to lease buildings that have almost zero energy consumption.

The sale of new cars with petrol or diesel engines could also be banned by 2040.

Source: Energy Live News

Forget Flying Reindeer – Lapland’s Airports Are Switching to Renewable Diesel

Photo-illustration: Pixabay

Finnish airport operator Finavia is now powering its vehicles with fuel made from waste.

Climate Change Is Making Hurricanes Even More Destructive, Research Finds

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Hurricane rainfall could increase by a third and wind speeds boosted by up to 25 knots if global warming continues.

Climate change worsened the most destructive hurricanes of recent years, including Katrina, Irma and Maria, by intensifying rainfall by as much as 10%, new research has found.

This situation is set to worsen under future anticipated warming, however. Researchers found that if little is done to constrain greenhouse gas emissions and the world warms by 3C to 4C this century then hurricane rainfall could increase by a third, while wind speeds would be boosted by as much as 25 knots.

“Climate change has exacerbated rainfall and is set to enhance the wind speed,” said Christina Patricola, who undertook the study with her Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory colleague Michael Wehner. “My hope is that this information can be used to improve our resilience to the kinds of extreme weather events we are going to have in the future.”

The research, published in the journal Nature, used climate models to see how factors such as air and ocean temperatures have influenced hurricanes. Projections into the future were then made, based upon various levels of planetary warming.

The findings suggest that enormously destructive storms have already been bolstered by climate change and similar events in the future are on course to be cataclysmic.

In a world where temperatures were 3C warmer on average, Hurricane Katrina, which resulted in nearly 2,000 deaths when levees breached near New Orleans in 2005, would’ve been even worse, with around 25% more rainfall. Cyclone Yasi, which hit Australia in 2011, would have had around a third more rain, while the deluge during Gafilo, a huge storm that killed more than 300 people in Madagascar in 2004, would have been 40% more intense.

Jennifer Francis, a hurricane expert at Rutgers University, said: “This study adds exclamation points to the already clear message that we must slow global warming by conserving energy and switching from fossil to renewable fuels while preparing for more extreme weather to come.”

Hurricanes, or cyclones as they are known in the Pacific region, draw their strength from warmth in the upper layers of the ocean, while their rainfall is influenced by the amount of moisture in the atmosphere. Climate change, driven by human activity, is creating more favorable conditions for stronger hurricanes, with recent research finding that storms are intensifying more rapidly than they were 30 years ago.

Last year was the costliest hurricane season on record for the US, with $306.2bn in damage caused by a trio of category four storms – Harvey, Irma and Maria – which, respectively, drowned parts of Houston, rattled most of Florida, and decimated Puerto Rico. Two further major storms this year, Michael and Florence, caused widespread damage and dozens of deaths in Florida and North Carolina.

“Five or 10% more rain can make a big difference, the carrying capacity of stormwater systems in a town or city can be breached with that amount of extra rainfall,” said James Elsner, an atmospheric scientist at Florida State university.

Elsner said the study follows previous findings showing the climate change “fingerprint” on hurricanes. “There’s still discussion over the size of the affect but it’s clear,” he said. “We need to connect the dots after storms more than we have in the past. We know climate change is having an affect, the only real question is how much.”

Source: The Guardian

Harley Davidson Turns the Tables and Sparks a Livewire

The famed motorcycle manufacturer has announced its first electric motorbike will enter production next year.

Source: Energy Live News

UK Government Selects 50 Young Environment Ambassadors

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The announcement is part of the 2019 ‘Year of Green Action’ aimed at encouraging more people to be involved in projects to improve the natural world.

The UK Government has chosen 50 young people who are involved in green projects across the UK as environment ambassadors.

Photo: Pixabay

The announcement is part of its 2019 ‘Year of Green Action’, a year-long drive to encourage more people from all backgrounds involved in projects to improve the natural world.

The #iwill4nature initiative, part of the #iwill campaign which aims to embed social action into the lives of 10 to 18-year olds, was also formally launched yesterday.

Among the environment advocates are two teenage sisters Amy Meek and Ella Meek who founded Kids Against Plastic to reduce single-use packaging – the group will encourage more young people to get involved in green projects through their schools, youth organisations or local communities.

Another teenager Emily McDonald has also been made an ambassador after she founded a Bio-Eco Society at her school, bringing together peers to take positive action against climate change.

Defra Minister Lord Gardiner said: “Our children and young people have a huge role to play in ensuring the next generation is motivated and equipped to protect the precious natural world.

“It was inspiring to meet this group of young ambassadors who are so passionate about environmental protection and I look forward to seeing all they achieve over the coming year.”

Source: Energy Live News

Oil, Gas Majors Spending 1.3% of Investment on Green Energy

Foto: Opština Kanjiža

New research suggests European firms are investing more on low carbon energy compared to their rivals in the US and Asia.

Top oil and gas companies invested only around 1.3% of their total capital expenditure this year on clean energy.

Photo-illustration : MunicipalityKanjiža

That’s according to new research, which adds companies in Europe are spending the most amount on low carbon energy compared to their rivals in the US and Asia.

Across the 24 oil and gas majors analysed by environmental non-profit company CDP, European firms accounted for 70% of current renewable capacity and nearly all projects under development – Equinor, Total, Shell and Eni have been ranked at the top spots for leading the low carbon transition.

Shell plans to spend between $1 billion (£0.77bn) and $2 billion (£1.6bn) per year on clean energy technologies out of its total budget of $25 billion (£19bn) to $30 billion (£23bn).

Norway’s Equinor has pledged 15% to 20% of its budget on renewable energy by 2020 while Total has spent around 4.3% of its budget on green energy since 2010.

However, it suggests US-based companies have not embraced renewables in the same way “with less domestic pressure to diversify”.

A total of 15 firms have set climate targets, with Repsol, Shell and Total said to be the most ambitious and 10 companies are involved in carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) projects, collectively accounting for 68% of current global capacity.

Efficiency, however, remains an issue in the industry – the report states companies are losing 3.3% of their natural gas production on average through flaring, venting and methane leaks, worth almost $5 billion (£3.87bn) at the current gas price.

Luke Fletcher, Senior Analyst at CDP said: “Low carbon technologies and regulatory change is disrupting the established order of the energy industry. The shift to a low carbon economy presents the question of what role oil and gas companies will play in this transition and what their strategic options are in the more immediate and longer term.

“With improved efficient, lower costs and higher prices, free cash flow for the sector is at its highest level since the first quarter of 2012. However, companies are now facing increasing scrutiny from investors to look beyond the current cycle and deliver value in the long term. As well as diversifying into clean energy assets, oil and gas companies are shifting focus to multi-staged developments and shorter cycle opportunities to improve their capital flexibility and resilience for the changes ahead.”

Source:Energy Live News

Circular Economy

Photograph: Pixabay

Have you ever strolled around the park and asked yourself where all the leaves that have covered the ground only a few months ago went? Or how the hell the sunflower shells that you have showered the soil around the bench with disappeared just like that after some time? When Barry Commoner, the creator of the four laws of ecology, said that everything had to go somewhere, and everything was connected to everything else because nature knew best, he thought of the organic matter that included leaves and sunflower. If you eat a banana and you throw its peel in nature, after a while it will come to its decomposition and in the end, it will completely vanish, just like leaves and sunflower. It is understood that that would not be the act reflecting the culture and a good upbringing, but it would not contaminate the environment permanently.

Photograph: Pixabay

However, if you throw an empty plastic bottle, it is not going to resolve in nature. You cannot pick up the plastic from the tree like you can do with a banana. The plastic is not the organic material which is going to be decomposed by the enzyme (even though the scientists did discover the artificial one which could do that by accident). It is the material which is not the part of a circular system of nature and therefore it represents an intruder whose subsidence leads to permanent pollution. Just imagine how much orange rind, watermelon, potato and food remains are thrown out along with these plastic bottles, cardboard packing, burnt bulbs and emptied batteries. I believe that it is going to sound like I am emphasizing but the responsible services in the public utility company City Sanitation gave estimates that the landfill in Vinca receives 1.500 tons of different waste. If Belgrade alone produces this much trash, it is inevitable not to think how much junk is produced daily in our country as a whole.

Photograph: Pixabay

Produce-use-recycle-reuse– that is the shortest and the simplest explanation of circular, or green, economy. During the second decade of the 21stcentury, the waste has become one of the world’s biggest strategical resources which are being used as an important energy source. While some countries (such as Norway) are processing sludge to get biogas, we are still having huge difficulties cutting out the use of plastic bags. And that is our big problem! There are no major shifts either in the sorting of waste or recycling, although both could be a source of income. Let’s take the example of the glass packaging that is thrown out of the restaurants and cafes all over Serbia each day. Instead of being converted to profit, the glass ends up at the unregulated landfills. Due to the overall bad situation in this area and the lack of infrastructure capacity, Serbia is even forced to import it from neighbouring states. On the other side, there is not a single compost facility in Serbia that would process green, organic waste and produce exceptionally significant bio compost for agricultural land. Bio-compost would lead to reduced use of artificial fertilizers and, consequently, to even more reduced soil contamination.

Photograph: Pixabay

In other words, the waste that is all around us, both in nature and wild landfills, remains unused. As it cannot circulate naturally, it is necessary to enable it with additional human effort. That effort, on the one hand, opens up the possibility of employment and gaining financial profit and on the other hand, leads to less pollution of the environment. It is the fact that our environment is polluted, but we should not worsen the current state but to improve it. That means that even though we undoubtedly must generate trash, we should not increase it but use it again through a sustainable and more importantly economically cost-effective system. That is why we should add the element of earnings to the previously mentioned definition. In that case, it goes like this: produce-use-recycle-reuse-earn. And that would be the essence of the circular economy itself.

Radomir Jovanovic

This article was published in the new issue of the Energy portal Magazine on CIRCULAR ECONOMY, September-November 2018

Global Report Highlights Australia’s Renewables Potential Amid Mixed Signals for Coal

Australia singled out for possible hydrogen boom, but also forecast to increase coal production.

Australia is singled out as a country with strong potential for new hydrogen production facilities in the latest World Energy Outlook, which paints an uncertain future for coal exports and strong projected growth for solar power.

Photo-illustration: Pixabay

The new stocktake from the International Energy Agency (IEA) says in resource-rich countries such as Australia, hydrogen facilities could be built to sit alongside solar photovoltaic and wind facilities. The report says under such a set-up, Australia “could provide nearly 100m tonnes of oil equivalent of hydrogen, equivalent to 3% of global gas consumption today.”

But the report also finds Australia is the only export-oriented country projected to ramp up coal production significantly over the next 20 years, with some signs the international coal market was more resilient than had been expected.

Globally, coal made a comeback in 2017, but how long it remains in the mix is a function of decisions governments make about scaling back carbon emissions and driving the transformation to renewables, the report finds.

It says a slump after 2014 prompted some analysts to conclude coal was now in terminal decline, but in 2016 coal prices started to rebound, demand increased in 2017 and prices continued to rise into 2018, leading to sustained profits for coal producers.

It says the recent trends suggest coal demand “could be more resilient than some expect, especially among developing economies in Asia” – but what happens next is “highly contingent on how policies evolve”.

The coal comeback is a mixed picture. Coal demand is under pressure in advanced economies “due to low electricity demand growth, strong uptake of renewables-based capacity and, in the United States, the availability of inexpensive natural gas” – but there has been a rise in demand in China and India.

While both countries are also pursuing renewables, “robust growth in electricity demand” in India will create a near doubling in coal-fired power output to 2040, and India will import more coking coal to service demand in the iron and steel industries.

The report predicts India will overtake Australia and the United States in the early 2020s to become the world’s second-largest coal producer behind China. It also notes that investment in new coal-fired power plants in 2017 was at its lowest level in a decade, and there was a 50% drop in investments in China, with Beijing promising to reach a peak in CO2 emissions by 2030 or earlier.

Tim Buckley, the director of energy finance studies at Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis Australasia, said the outlook for Australian industry depended on whether governments delivered on policies to address climate change or not.

But he noted that under both the new policy and sustainable development scenarios considered by the IEA, Australia’s coking coal and thermal coal exports would face challenges. “Solar and wind are the largest two sources of new capacity globally,” Buckley said.

“The vast majority of that is happening in the Asia Pacific, which is exactly where our thermal coal industry says it’s going to get 400m tonnes of new growth.”

The report says the electricity sector is experiencing its most dramatic transformation in a century, and the increasing cost-competitiveness of solar photovoltaic will push its installed capacity beyond that of wind before 2025, past hydropower around 2030 and past coal before 2040.

The report posits three scenarios – new policies, current policies, and sustainable development – as points of reference about the speed of the transformation between now and 2040. Buckley said if the sustainable development scenario was achieved to meet the 1.5C goal of the Paris agreement, demand for coking coal would drop by a third by 2040.

“This report shows they are not taking into account the massive structural change and deflationary nature of renewable energy,” he said.

“The best way of preparing for transition is to have a plan and develop industries that are not in long-term decline, be that tourism, education, agriculture, wine or renewable energy.”

Source:The Guardian

Africa Tunes in to Solar TV

Developer Azuri says the technology provides not just entertainment but also education and community bonding.

Photo-illustration: Unsplash

Solar TVs are boosting education rates and community engagement across off-grid areas of Africa.

That’s according to Azuri, which says its solar TV is having a strong positive impact for families without reliable access to energy – in certain parts of Kenya, 80% of homes don’t have access to electricity.

The firm says solar TVs offer not only entertainment but also important social benefits such as access to news services and important information regarding vaccines.

It claims televisions are the second most-desired off-grid appliance, with only solar lighting being ranked more highly.

Its system offers a 24-inch display, satellite channels, an LED lighting system, a rechargeable radio and torch and mobile phone charging.

Around 60% of customers with school age children reported seeing their children improve their reading, writing and speaking skills.

Source: Energy Live News