Ojok Okello is transforming his destroyed village into a green town where social enterprises responsibly harness the shea tree
The village of Okere Mom-Kok was in ruins by the end of more than a decade of war in northern Uganda.
Now, just outside Ojok Okello’s living-room door, final-year pupils at the early childhood centre are noisily breaking for recess and a market is clattering into life, as is the local craft brewery, as what has become Okere City begins a new day.
Continue reading...Call comes at event hosted by UK government, which is under pressure over planned coalmine in Cumbria
All planned coal projects around the world must be cancelled to end the “deadly addiction” to the most polluting fossil fuel, the UN secretary-general António Guterres said on Tuesday.
Phasing out coal from the electricity sector is the single most important step to tackle the climate crisis, he said. Guterres’s call came at the opening of a summit of the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA), a group of governments and businesses committed to ending coal burning for power.
Continue reading...Analysis by transport group says battery electric vehicles are superior to their petrol and diesel counterparts
Fossil fuel cars waste hundreds of times more raw material than their battery electric equivalents, according to a study that adds to evidence that the move away from petrol and diesel cars will bring large net environmental benefits.
Only about 30kg of raw material will be lost over the lifecycle of a lithium ion battery used in electric cars once recycling is taken into account, compared with 17,000 litres of oil, according to analysis by Transport & Environment (T&E) seen by the Guardian. A calculation of the resources used to make cars relative to their weight shows it is at least 300 times greater for oil-fuelled cars.
Continue reading...Report says country set to cut carbon emissions by 54% compared with 1990 levels, not 70% as planned
The Danish government’s efforts towards meeting the country’s ambitious target of reducing emissions by 70% by 2030 have been judged “insufficient” by the body tasked with monitoring its progress, with measures so far announced only likely to take it a third of the way.
In its first annual status report, the Danish Council on Climate Change said new laws, inter-party agreements and initiatives announced since the country’s climate law came into effect last June would reduce emissions by the equivalent of 7.2m tonnes of CO2 by 2030, which is only enough to reduce Denmark’s emissions by 54% compared with 1990 levels.
Continue reading...Bitcoin mining – the process in which a bitcoin is awarded to a computer that solves a complex series of algorithm – is a deeply energy intensive process
It’s not just the value of bitcoin that has soared in the last year – so has the huge amount of energy it consumes.
The cryptocurrency’s value has dipped recently after passing a high of $50,000 but the energy used to create it has continued to soar during its epic rise, climbing to the equivalent to the annual carbon footprint of Argentina, according to Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, a tool from researchers at Cambridge University that measures the currency’s energy use.
Continue reading...Joe Biden will hold his first bilateral meeting with the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, on Tuesday, the White House said on Saturday.
Related: Alberta leader says Biden's move to cancel Keystone pipeline a 'gut punch’
Continue reading...UN report offers bedrock for hope for broken planet, says António Guterres
Humanity is waging a “senseless and suicidal” war on nature that is causing human suffering and enormous economic losses while accelerating the destruction of life on Earth, the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, has said.
Guterres’s starkest warning to date came at the launch of a UN report setting out the triple emergency the world is in: the climate crisis, the devastation of wildlife and nature, and the pollution that causes many millions of early deaths every year.
Continue reading...As the climate crisis worsens, Andrés Manuel López Obrador plans to buy nearly 2m tons of thermal coal from small producers
The men on the midnight shift smoked cigarettes and cracked jokes in the glow of their helmet lights as they prepared to go underground. They were loading safety equipment and coils of pipe onto wheelbarrows, in readiness for a second shift due to start working later that week.
“We’re reactivating the industry,” said Arturo Rivera Wong, who had just taken on 40 more workers at the mine he owns in the scrublands of the border state of Coahuila.
Continue reading...Ogale and Bille villagers say Shell oil operations have caused severe pollution including to their drinking water
Two Nigerian communities can bring their legal claims for a cleanup and for compensation against the oil company Shell and its Nigerian subsidiary in an English court, supreme court judges have said.
In what lawyers said was a “watershed moment” for the accountability of multinational companies, on Friday the court overturned a decision by the court of appeal, and ruled that the cases against Shell could proceed.
Continue reading...Growing opposition to the lifting of mining protections in Alberta has forced the Canadian province to backtrack
To the east of the Bluebird Valley ranch, the grasslands of the Canadian prairies extend beyond the horizon. To the west, the fields rise, and then sharply erupt into the Rocky Mountains.
Cattle graze the 3,600 hectares (9,000 acres) of the Bluebird, an hour south-west of Calgary, and on hot summer days rancher Jolayne Gardner’s children jump into the chilly waters of a creek that threads the rolling hills.
Continue reading...Energy watchdog’s Fatih Birol says shift away from coal in key regions needs to be made a global priority
Dependency on coal in key parts of the world is preventing a global green recovery from taking off, and the shift away from coal needs to be made a global priority, the head of the world’s energy watchdog has said
Coal still forms a key part of China’s energy system, and plans are in train for further coal-fired power plants in the country. India is also heavily dependent on coal, and despite increasing its renewable energy generation has shown little sign of reducing its use of the fossil fuel.
Continue reading...Biggest ever survey finds two-thirds of people think climate change is a global emergency
The biggest ever opinion poll on climate change has found two-thirds of people think it is a “global emergency”.
The survey shows people across the world support climate action and gives politicians a clear mandate to take the major action needed, according to the UN organisation that carried out the poll.
Continue reading...President has vowed to rejoin Paris agreement, cut fossil fuel reliance, and invest in low-carbon growth
Joe Biden’s pledges of strong action on the climate crisis have buoyed international hopes that 2021 can be a breakthrough year, resetting the world on a greener path to net zero greenhouse gas emissions.
Climate experts cheered the inauguration of the new US president, who has vowed to rejoin the Paris agreement, rethink US reliance on fossil fuels, and devote hundreds of billions of dollars in stimulus spending to low-carbon economic growth.
Continue reading...Exclusive: first factory production means recharging could soon be as fast as filling up petrol or diesel vehicles
Batteries capable of fully charging in five minutes have been produced in a factory for the first time, marking a significant step towards electric cars becoming as fast to charge as filling up petrol or diesel vehicles.
Electric vehicles are a vital part of action to tackle the climate crisis but running out of charge during a journey is a worry for drivers. The new lithium-ion batteries were developed by the Israeli company StoreDot and manufactured by Eve Energy in China on standard production lines.
Continue reading...Indigenous communities say planned Øyfjellet turbines will interfere with migration paths
Indigenous reindeer herders are bringing a legal action against a proposed wind power project that would be one of the largest in Norway.
The Sámi herders from Nordland county are accusing the Øyfjellet windfarm constructors of breaking licensing agreements which stipulated that construction would not interfere with reindeer migration paths.
Continue reading...Supporters insist that storage technology is not a costly mistake but the best way for UK to cut emissions from heavy industry
Engineers and geologists have strongly criticised green groups who last week claimed that carbon capture and storage schemes – for reducing fossil fuel emissions – are costly mistakes.
The scientists insisted that such schemes are vital weapons in the battle against global heating and warn that failure to set up ways to trap carbon dioxide and store it underground would make it almost impossible to hold net emissions to below zero by 2050.
Continue reading...Wood pellets are sold as a clean alternative to coal. But is the subsidised bioenergy boom accelerating the climate crisis?
Kalev Järvik stands on a bald patch of land in the heart of Estonia’s Haanja nature reserve and remembers when he could walk straight from one side of the reserve to the other under a canopy of trees.
Järvik has lived in the Haanja uplands in the southern county of Võru for more than 10 years. His closeness to the forest has shaped his life as a carpenter and the fortunes of the surrounding villages, with their handicraft traditions – a substitute for farming on the poor arable land. Upcountry, travel literature promotes the region to city dwellers, promising its ancient woodlands as a place to rest and reinvigorate the mind.
Continue reading...With plans for satellite launches and investment in space-based solar, can the UK become a space super power?
In 1969, a British engineer was invited to the White House to meet President Nixon. His name was Francis Thomas Bacon and he had developed the fuel cells used on Apollo 11. Known now as Bacon fuel cells, these power sources consume hydrogen and oxygen to produce water, heat and, in theory, a continuous supply of electricity.
His invention was considered so integral to the success of the Apollo mission that Nixon told him, “Without you Tom, we wouldn’t have gotten to the moon.”
Continue reading...The crisis poses a deadly threat to some sectors and creates opportunities for others. We examine how they will fare in 2021
Coronavirus has changed lives and industries across the UK, accelerating fundamental shifts in behaviour and consumption that were already on their way. Debates about home working, preserving local high streets and the ethics of air travel were bubbling away before coronavirus rampaged across the world, but the consequences of the worst pandemic in more than a century have either settled those arguments or boosted the momentum behind certain lifestyle changes. Here we look at how those debates have been changed – or resolved – by Covid-19.
Continue reading...Danish company plans to fit ships with small nuclear reactors to send energy to developing countries
Floating barges fitted with advanced nuclear reactors could begin powering developing nations by the mid-2020s, according to a Danish startup company.
Seaborg Technologies believes it can make cheap nuclear electricity a viable alternative to fossil fuels across the developing world as soon as 2025.
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