The US president has made the easily debunked claim that there are no wind farms in China Continue reading… The Guardian
Tag: Energy
Will China own the green energy future? – podcast
The conflict in the Middle East has sent energy prices soaring, and for countries that import a high proportion of their fuel, it’s a reminder of the perils of energy dependence. As the recipient of almost 90% of Iran’s crude oil, China knows this only too well. Which partly explains why the country spent the last decade heavily investing in clean power. To find out what else could be driving the strategy, Madeleine Finlay speaks to senior China correspondent Amy Hawkins. And energy correspondent Jillian Ambrose reflects on how China’s…
A Europe of clean, green cities and resurgent industry is a fantasy – unless we get really creative | Hans Larsson
“Bitterfeld, Bitterfeld, where dirt falls from the sky,” went a popular saying. Located in the intensely industrialised Chemical Triangle of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), in the 1980s Bitterfeld became known as the dirtiest town in Europe. Its chemical industry and lignite mines dumped toxic waste in waterways, and the air carried a concentrate of sulphur dioxide some 40 times today’s levels. Europe would soon be rattled out of its postwar reliance on heavy industry, in favour of cheap imports from abroad. In the last days of the GDR, environmental…
US sanctions, power cuts, climate crisis: why Cuba is betting on renewables
Intense heat hangs over the sugarcane fields near Cuba’s eastern coast. In the village of Herradura, a blond-maned horse rests under a palm tree after spending all Saturday in the fields with its owner, Roberto, who cultivates maize and beans. Roberto was among those worst affected by Hurricane Melissa, which hit eastern Cuba – the country’s poorest region – late last year. The storm affected 3.5 million people, damaging or destroying 90,000 homes and 100,000 hectares of crops. “Many of us lost everything,” he says. “Fortunately, we have received some…
The Guardian view on Donald Trump and the climate crisis: the US is in reverse while China ploughs ahead | Editorial
Devastating wildfires, flooding and winter storms were among the 23 extreme weather and climate-related disasters in the US which cost more than a billion dollars last year – at an estimated total loss of $115bn. The last three years have shattered previous records for such events. Last Wednesday, scientists said that we are closer than ever to the point after which global heating cannot be stopped. Just one day later, Donald Trump and Lee Zeldin, the head of the US Environmental Protection Agency, announced the elimination of the Obama-era endangerment…
Green energy sector drove more than 90% of China’s investment growth last year, analysis finds
China’s clean energy industries drove more than 90% of the country’s investment growth last year, making the sectors bigger than all but seven of the world’s economies, a new analysis has shown. For the second time in three years, the report showed the manufacture, installation and export of batteries, electric cars, solar, wind and related technologies accounted for more than a third of China’s economic growth. Despite the chilling effect of Donald Trump’s tariffs and support for fossil fuels, the new data highlighted the continuing momentum behind the shift towards…
Coal power generation falls in China and India for first time since 1970s
Coal power generation fell in China and India for the first time since the 1970s last year, in a “historic” moment that could bring a decline in global emissions, according to analysis. The simultaneous fall in coal-powered electricity in the world’s biggest coal-consuming countries had not happened since 1973, according to analysts at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, and was driven by a record roll-out of clean energy projects. The research, commissioned by the climate news website Carbon Brief, found that electricity generated by coal plants…
US attack on Venezuela will decide direction of South America’s vast mineral wealth
The US’s first overt attack on an Amazon nation last weekend is a new phase in its extractivist rivalry with China. The outcome will decide whether the vast mineral wealth of South America is directed towards a 21st-century energy transition or a buildup of military power to defend 20th-century fossil fuel interests. Although this onslaught was ostensibly aimed at one corrupt dictatorship in a miserably dysfunctional country, the ramifications are far wider. Venezuela’s oil is the obvious – but not the only – objective. When the former Guardian journalist Seumas…
‘A shift no country can ignore’: where global emissions stand, 10 years after the Paris climate agreement
Ten years on from the historic Paris climate summit, which ended with the world’s first and only global agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions, it is easy to dwell on its failures. But the successes go less remarked. Renewable energy smashed records last year, growing by 15% and accounting for more than 90% of all new power generation capacity. Investment in clean energy topped $2tn, outstripping that into fossil fuels by two to one. Electric vehicles now account for about a fifth of new cars sold around the world. Low-carbon…
John Kerry urges Australia to take ‘hard-nosed’ approach with world’s biggest fossil fuel-producing countries at Cop31
Australia’s government, which will preside over the next UN climate summit, should gather the world’s 25 biggest greenhouse gasemitting countries and push them to draw up a roadmap to end the era of fossil fuels, former US secretary of state John Kerry has said. Only by “hard-nosed” confrontation with fossil fuel producers, and reducing their consumption in major economies, would the world be able to tackle the climate crisis, he said. Australia’s climate change and energy minister, Chris Bowen, has been given the role of “president of negotiations”, even though…