China’s greenhouse gas emissions will exceed U.S. emissions by 50% in 2015
China’s greenhouse gas emissions are continuing to grow at an alarming rate. In 2010, emissions were 20% higher than the United States’ but by 2015, emissions could top 50% higher, according to Ye Qi, the director of the Climate Policy Initiative and professor of environmental policy at Tsinghua University. Despite China aggressively reducing energy intensity and building renewable energy capacity, total energy use has grown dramatically. ”There... Read More
Urbanized: A film about the design of cities
Half of the world’s population now lives in cities. By 2050, it is estimated that this ratio will grow to over 75%. Put another way, 3.5 billion people live in cities now. Global population is project to reach 9 billion by 2050. That means that cities will need to the housing and infrastructure to absorb upwards of 2.5 billion people within the next 30 years. It is a staggering thought, and one of the great challenges of our time. An excellent... Read More
Rising Global Food Prices and Political Instability
World food prices hit a record high in January – the highest since the FAO began monitoring in 1990. Some experts are saying that the popular protests across the middle east are in part due to these rising food prices. A drought in China that has damaged the winter wheat crop, and flooding in Australia has caused food prices to spike are partly to blame. Rising food prices were to blame for riots across the globe in 2008. With a rising global... Read More
Dalai Lama Says to Focus on Climate Change, not Politics in Tibet in Leaked U.S. Cable
In August 2009, the Dalai Lama told the US Ambassador to India that the political goals surrounding Tibet should be put on hold for 10 years and instead be refocused on addressing climate change. The leaked cable states: The Dalai Lama argued that the political agenda should be sidelined for five to ten years and the international community should shift its focus to climate change on the Tibetan plateau. Melting glaciers, deforestation, and increasingly... Read More
Solar PV Production in China Heats Up
China is rapidly becoming the world’s leading manufacturer of renewable energy products. China is now producing 35-45% of the planet’s photovoltaic (PV) solar panels, though over 95% of these panels are exported. The Chinese government is now looking into preferential pricing policies (such as a feed-in tariff) to promote solar energy deployment domestically. Check out this informative video on solar photovoltaic (PV) production in China... Read More
Weekly gRound-Up: 2/13/10
China Reveals Extensive Pollution Survey China recently released a comprehensive new pollution survey, which took two years and 570,000 staff to complete, and puts China ahead of other developing countries in having a detailed map of who is polluting and where. Government officials speculated that the detailed census suggests that pollution may peak sooner rather than later. Read the story here. Asian Carp Threatens Lake Michigan Introduced in the... Read More
Enter the Green Dragon: China Moves to Dominate Clean Energy Economy
China has been rapidly building up its renewable energy production and investing in sustainable energy while the U.S. continues to stall and take small incremental steps. Failing to assess the stakes of the global sustainable energy race could be a costly missed opportunity for the U.S. economy. Residents walk pass a group of solar power panels in Shenyang (Source: AFP & Google News) It is easy to be impressed by the pace and robustness with which... Read More
Recap of Obama’s State of the Union Address: Environment and Energy Roundup
President Obama discussing clean energy during the state of the union. Source: whitehouse.gov Going into his first State of the Union address to Congress, I was curious to see if Obama would scale back initiatives that he has placed at the center of his agenda in the face of the US’ fiscal problems. I wanted to highlight and provide commentary of his points relevant to Project Groundswell – namely energy, climate change, and transportation. Obama’s... Read More
Wind Power Accelerating in China
China takes the lead in wind energy development from ClimateWorks on Vimeo. In the past three years, China has emerged as a world leader in the development of renewable energy as a part of its growing efforts to combat climate change and create new jobs in clean technologies. In October, ClimateWorks traveled to China to get a sense of the scale of wind power development and talk to some local experts about China’s goals for reducing pollution... Read More
Tuvalu and Goliath
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference in Copenhagen is now 5 days old. As expected, the gathering of 193 country delegates and a combined 16,500 international negotiators, NGO representatives, activists, and journalists at the Bella Center is showcasing some of the most difficult political and economic challenges facing the global community today. Given the importance of curbing climate change from unabatedly... Read More
Weekly gRound-Up: 11/21/09
The US and China Unveil Clean Energy Collaboration During President Obama’s visit to China, the two countries presented a comprehensive strategy for collaborative efforts focused on clean energy and low carbon technologies. Read some analysis by Julian Wong at Climate Progress and at his blog, the Green Leap Forward. South Korea Pledges Aggressive Emission Cuts South Korea laid out voluntary plans to reduce greenhouse gases 30% of current levels... Read More
Weekly gRound-Up: 11/14/09
Prospects at Copenhagen: No Deal, No time President Obama announced that the prospects of securing a binding agreement on climate targets at Copenhagen was not possible given the time remaining to the conference in December and the challenges that still remained in negotiating a deal amongst the parties. Read more at the Guardian. Moving Species? As local and regional climates change in the near future, many plant species are unlikely to naturally... Read More
Countdown to Copenhagen (part 2)
In the introductory post of this series, I briefly discussed the need to shed light on a few areas that, in my view, are encouraging signs of things to come – of the possibilities in a post-Kyoto world. First off, as anyone who carefully follows both the scientific and political developments surrounding climate change will likely lament, optimism can be a rather vexing enterprise. Political progress is slow and tedious, and what we increasingly... Read More
