Wind and solar benchmarks for a 1.5°C world
This report presents a detailed methodology for determining the amount of wind and solar capacity that is required for a country to align with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C temperature goal. While the focus
Germany
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Bring on the solar revolution
We have heard all about Al Gore's inconvenient truths on climate change. Now comes an extremely convenient truth from his German counterpart. Social Democrat MP Hermann Scheer, who has been dubbed more revolutionary than Greenpeace, says the great unspoken truth is how painless it will be to convert the world to renewable energy, especially solar power. So much so that the Kyoto protocol is a waste of time that makes what is easy and cheap seem hard and expensive.
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New mesh gives net gains against mosquitoes
Get a good night's sleep: bed nets designed to stop mosquitoes in their tracks are undergoing large-scale trials in India and Tanzania. The German firm BASF has developed a polymer mesh whose cross-linked structure can retain a pyrethroid insecticide inside it for 25 washes, yet still allows enough of the chemical to diffuse to the surface to "knock down" nearly all the mosquitoes that land on it.
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Germany, France Near A Deal On Car Emissions - Source
Germany and France are close to an accord on reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from cars that could pave the way for the introduction of European Union-wide limits, a government source said on Thursday. Germany is concerned that planned EU rules which would cap emissions at 120 grammes per km on average from 2012, and introduce fines for non-compliance, will put its luxury automobile industry at a disadvantage.
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Fin Soup Threatens Survival Of Ocean Sharks -Study
Overfishing partly caused by booming demand for shark fin soup, a delicacy in some Asian countries, is threatening the existence of 11 kinds of ocean sharks, an international study showed on Thursday. The fish, often seen as ferocious sea predators, suffer from largely unregulated fishing for their valuable fins, said the report into 21 species of sharks and rays living in the open oceans. The experts who wrote the study, organised by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, also urged governments to quickly impose catch limits.
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Germany Unveils Plan For New Wildlife Areas
Germany outlined plans on Tuesday to extend the world's "protected areas" to conserve natural habitats and appealed to industrialised states to donate cash to aid developing nations meet the costs. Germany, president of a UN Convention on Biological Diversity in Bonn, announced its "Life Web Initiative" on the second day of the May 19-30 meeting and said it aimed to create a greater number of protected zones and better coordinate them. About 4,000 delegates have gathered in Bonn to try to agree on ways to slow the rate of loss of plant and animal life.
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Lawmakers Back Watered-Down "Green Crime" Law
European Union lawmakers backed a watered-down law on "green crime" on Monday that would make dumping toxic waste or illegally transporting hazardous materials a criminal offence throughout the bloc. The draft law obliges the EU's 27 member states to treat and punish as criminal acts a list of nine offences ranging from harming protected plants or species to unlawful trade in ozone-depleting substances. But it does not set EU-wide sanctions to the dismay of environmentalists who doubt it will have much impact.
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Climate Change Hitting Bird Species, Shows Study
One in eight of the world's birds are at risk of extinction as climate change puts birds under great pressure, a leading conservation group warned on Monday. The population of rare birds such as the Floreana mockingbird of the Galapagos Islands or the spoon-billed sandpiper, which breeds in north-eastern Russia and winters in south Asia, has declined sharply and they could go extinct, the International Union for Conservation of Nature said in a report.
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Stranded in suburbia (editorial)
By Paul Krugman I have seen the future, and it works. O.K., I know that these days you're supposed to see the future in China or India, not in the heart of "old Europe." But we're living in a world in which oil prices keep setting records, in which the idea that global oil production will soon peak is rapidly moving from fringe belief to mainstream assumption. And Europeans who have achieved a high standard of living in spite of very high energy prices - gas in Germany costs more than $8 a gallon - have a lot to teach us Americans about how to deal with that world.
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"Herculean Task" To Safeguard Biodiversity-Germany
The world faces a Herculean task to safeguard animal and plant life from climate change and pollution, German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said at the opening of a UN biodiversity conference on Monday. UN experts say human activities including greenhouse gas emissions mean the planet is facing the most serious spate of extinctions since the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago. One species disappears roughly every 20 minutes, they say.
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World's largest offshore wind farm in the works
British utility Scottish Southern Energy Plc(SSE) will build the world's largest offshore wind farm and has awarded $3 billion in contracts to US engineer Fluor Coip and Germany's Siemens AG. Despite industry doubts about the viability of offshore wind .SSE said it would build the farm off Britain's east coast. Work would begin on the 504 mw Greater Gabbard project shortly and power generation would startin2011. The utility added it had bought Texas-based Fluor's 50%stake in the projectfor40 million pounds.