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 …
If some climate scientists are to be believed, planting forests in the far north may increase global warming. Growing forests do lock up carbon dioxide, but during winter they soak up solar energy that would otherwise have reflected by the snow-covered tundra. "It's a paradox. With northern forests, the reduction …
The fatuous Indian elite must also be the most crooked elite in the world. When it comes to linking trade with environment on issues that affect the marauding rich industrialists of the country, you will hear everyone, from the prime minister downwards to the ministers of commerce and finance, shouting …
mirrors orbiting outer space; giant reflectors between the Earth and the Sun; trillions of helium balloons in the air. Does this read like a sci-fi script to you? These are some of the rather elaborate solutions to counter the rising carbon dioxide ( co2 ) levels in the atmosphere. These …
the Chilean government is considering a proposal made by an Australian oceanographer and a Japanese engineering company to fertilise the ocean with nitrogen. This would enhance the ocean's capacity to absorb carbon dioxide ( co 2 ), the greenhouse gas mainly responsible for global warming. The idea of piping nitrogen …
IF you are a twelve or thirteen-year-old school child in Kansas, USA one of your text-books is to be doctored by fundamentalists. The modified sections are on historical geology and palaeontology. Chapters on fossils, and oil and gas deposits are to be deleted. For the young of Kansas, the history …
THE great compressed natural gas (CNG)-diesel debate has touched new, abysmal levels of absurdity! Consider the choice before us. On the one hand we have the noisy, foul-smelling, poison-belching diesel engines that choke our cities and their citizenry in noxious fumes and clouds of suspended particulate matter. On the other, …
there is fresh evidence that the ozone layer over the uk and northern Europe is thinning. Scientists are worried by the depletion which was previously thought to be a problem largely confined to the southern hemisphere. Meteorological readings taken in the stratosphere over the Arctic show that in six of …
Global warming is caused by the use of fossil fuels, common examples being burning coal in power stations, running automobiles, etc. What would you then call an instrument that ends up subsidising this same energy economy, making it cheaper, and therefore, even more attractive. And what if the instrument, like …
growing air pollution is posing a serious threat to human, plant and animal life. Suspended particulate matter emitted from mobile and stationary combustion sources, mining and a whole lot of other activities have biological and health effects. There is no doubt that some particles are indeed hazardous. However, the degree …
the concentrations of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide ( co 2 ), methane and nitrogen in the atmosphere have been steadily rising over the last few decades. This is likely to go up unabated. These gases are increasing at the rate of 1.5 parts per million per year and, …
the German capital of Berlin is today showing what the future of energy may look like. When the German government moved from Bonn to Berlin in 1991, it was proposed that solar power should be featured in the form of photovolataic ( pv ) facades in the governmental quarter. One …
South Korea, the world's 11th largest emitter of carbon dioxide ( co 2 ), is coming under increasing pressure from other countries in the world, especially the us , to reduce its carbon emissions. With international negotiations on climate change, under the mantle of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, gaining momentum, …
the Earth has already witnessed the warmest era some 14.5-17 million years ago during the Miocene period. Referred to as the "Miocene Climate Optimum", it is regarded as the warmest era in the last 35 million years. Fossil evidence suggests that the mid-latitude temperatures were as much as 6 degree …
the existing belief that planting trees to absorb carbon dioxide ( co 2 ) is an alternative to reducing fossil fuel emissions is slowly losing ground. Now, scientists are predicting that carbon sinks
Today , those who claim that climate change does not exist are fooling themselves. Especially after 1998 went on record as the warmest year of the century and natural disasters claimed 50,000 human lives, resulting in losses exceeding us $90 billion. So, by that logic, at least five of the …
environmental experts in industrialised nations feel that it will be impossible to achieve an international target to cut greenhouse gas emissions to levels recorded in the early 1990s by 2008-12, according to a worldwide survey released in Tokyo recently. A total of 597 people in 82 countries working for their …
A research team looking into the economic value of resources in the Mae Yom National Park in Phrae concluded that the Kaeng Sua Ten dam, that was planned for the area, is not worth building. Khunying Suthawan, who led the research, said the estimate took into consideration the "use' and …
imprints of a bygone era left on rocks indicate that life on Earth was disturbed five times. They also suggest that all was well and then, suddenly, half or more of the species that were around simply vanished. However, after a million years or two, new creatures evolved to fill …
