This overview sets the scene for the various modules in the Renewables 2024 Global Status Report Collection. It provides high-level trends on the status of renewables in the wider fossil fuel-dominated energy system in the context of global challenges such as climate change, development goals and the geopolitical landscape. Urgent …
Transporting materials into the stratosphere that can reduce the amount of sunlight hitting the Earth could lower the effects of global climate change, a new study has found. Researchers from the US found that the basic technology to transport solar geoengineering materials in the atmosphere exists and could be assembled …
A controversial idea to brake global warming, first floated by the father of the hydrogen bomb, is affordable and technically feasible, but its environmental impact remains unknown, a trio of US scientists say. Sowing the stratosphere with particles to reflect the Sun and cool the planet is possible with current …
Climate change mitigation commitments and basic carbon-cycle science both require reliable information on carbon dioxide emissions. Uncertainties in energy data and carbon dioxide emissions estimates are particularly important when they involve large emitters.
Future greenhouse-gas emissions need to deviate from a fossil-fuel intensive scenario to avoid dangerous climate change, and this implies feedback links between climate change and societal actions. Research shows that the global growth of new renewable energy post-1990 represents an annual climate–society feedback of ∼ 0.25% per degree increase in …
Reliable statistics are important for both climate science and international negotiations about emission-reduction targets. However, China is often questioned in terms of its data transparency and accuracy. Now researchers have compiled the carbon dioxide emission inventories for China and its 30 provinces for the period 1997–2010, and found a 1.4 …
Agricultural expansion and deforestation contribute to approximately 17% of global greenhouse-gas emissions. The fate of cleared wood and subsequent carbon storage as wood products, however, has not been consistently estimated. Now research fills this gap and shows that 30 years after forest clearance the percentage of carbon stored in wood …
Agriculture is highly sensitive to climate variability and weather extremes. Various impact studies have considered the effects on global food production and prices of projected long-run trends in temperature, precipitation and CO2 concentrations caused by climate change. But an area that remains underexplored is the impact on food prices that …
Key World Energy Statistics from the IEA contains timely, clearly-presented data on the supply, transformation and consumption of all major energy sources.
This roadmap explores the potential improvement of existing technologies to enhance average fuel economy of motorised vehicles and provides recommendations to reduce the average fuel economy of road motorised vehicles by 30% to 50% by 2030. This roadmap explores the potential improvement of existing technologies to enhance the average fuel …
Carbon and Water Footprints first analyses the origins of the carbon and water footprints. It makes a detailed exploration of the similarities and differences of aspects such as definition, methods of measurement, spatio temporal dimensions, components, and entities for which the footprints can be calculated. Carbon and Water Footprints then …
Facts and Trends: Forests, forest products, carbon & energy is a new report developed by the WBCSD Forest Solutions Group and NCASI. The report is highlighting the key role forests and forest products play in furthering sustainable solutions in a resource constrained world. It also underlines their necessity for a …
The transportation sector accounts for approximately one-fifth of global final energy consumption and will account for nearly all future growth in oil use, particularly for road vehicles. The right policy mix can allow countries to improve the fuel economy of road vehicles, which in turn can enhance energy security and …
This report provides a reassessment of the human and economic costs of the climate crisis. The reassessment is based on a wealth of the latest research and scientific work on climate change and the carbon economy, research that is assimilated as a part of this report. The main finding of …
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies are estimated to have spent at least US$105 billion subsidizing fossil-fuel consumption in 2010. This estimate excludes consumption subsidies in developed members of APEC and subsidies for fossil-fuel production in all economies, which the GSI estimates could be worth more than US$100 billion per year …
Developing countries need to transition to a low-carbon transport sector now to avoid locking themselves into an unsustainable and costly future, says a report by the World Bank. According to "Turning the Right Corner: Ensuring Development Through a Low-carbon Transport Sector", technical progress will take too long to fix the …
The Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has released a report analyzing and summarizing some of the major issues related to biofuels and biodiversity on the basis of the best available scientific information. The report highlights the complexities behind the topic, noting opportunities for biofuels to contribute to …
The cement industry is a major source of CO2 emissions, accounting for about 5 per cent of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Securing reductions in these emissions is critical if wider targets for emissions cuts—including the reductions of 80–95 per cent by 2050 set out in the EU roadmap and the reduction …
The Conference of the Parties (COP) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) first turned its attention to geoengineering at its ninth meeting in 2008, in the context of ocean fertilization. The COP then requested Parties to ensure that ocean fertilization activities do not take place until there is an …
This report discusses the role of ICT in the smart grid with a view of energy efficiency, with the ultimate goal of hindering climate changes. This is done by starting from the consideration that ICT equipment consumes energy too, and this extra energy consumption could be quite significant. This leads …
A fifth of animals without backbones could be at risk of extinction, say scientists. Almost 80% of the world's species are invertebrates, meaning they lack a spinal column. Reviewing over 12,000 species known to be threatened, biologists found that freshwater ones are most at risk. Researchers urged for comprehensive studies …
