Most global governments have failed to act on the 2023 UN pledge to triple the world’s renewable energy capacity by the end of the decade, according to climate analysts. The failure to act means that on current forecasts the world will fall far short of its clean energy goals, leading to a continued reliance on fossil fuels that is incompatible with the target of limiting global heating to below 1.5C. A report by the climate thinktank Ember found that only 22 countries, most within the EU, have increased their renewable…
Tag: Greenhouse gas emissions
Caught between a fossil fuel past and a green future, China’s coal miners chart an uncertain path
Gazing over the remains of his home, Wang Bingbing surveys a decades-old jujube tree flowering through the rubble, and the yard where he and his wife once raised pigs, now a pile of crumbled brick. In the valley below, a sprawling coalmine is the source of their dislocation: years of digging heightened the risk of landslides, forcing Wang and his family out. To prevent the family from returning, local authorities later demolished their home. “We really didn’t want to leave,” Wang’s wife, Wang Weizhen, says ruefully. Wang’s life is the…
EU’s proposed 2040 emissions target signals its retreat as leader on climate action
For most of the past 30 years, the EU has led the world on climate action. The bloc had the deepest reductions in greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto protocol; the first climate laws came from EU member states; the first emissions trading scheme, in 2005; and the Paris agreement in 2015. At times when other major countries – the US, Japan, Canada, China and India at various points – have stepped back, the EU has often stepped forward. There would be no Paris accord had the bloc not won…
There’s a Race to Power the Future. China Is Pulling Away.
ChinaSolar in Shanxi Province Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times U.S.Oil in California J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times Lithium-ion batteries China$65 bil.United States$3 bil.Asia$21 bil.Europe$26 bil.Africa$2 bil.Americas$17 bil.Oceania$1 bil. Solar panels and modules China$40 bil.United States$69 mil.Asia$11 bil.Europe$20 bil.Africa$2 bil.Americas$6 bil.Oceania$1 bil. Electric cars China$38 bil.United States$12 bil.Africa$281 mil.Oceania$3 bil.Europe$26 bil.Asia$14 bil.Americas$8 bil. Crude oil China$844 mil.United States$117 bil.Asia$50 bil.Americas$16 bil.Oceania$799 mil.Europe$52 bil.Africa$359 mil. Natural gas China$3 bil.United States$42 bil.Asia$13 bil.Europe$22 bil.Africa$3 mil.Americas$11 bil. Coal China$1 bil.United States$15 bil.Africa$718 mil.Americas$3 bil.Asia$8 bil.Europe$5 bil.Oceania$16 thou. ChinaElectric car…
‘Climate is our biggest war’, warns CEO of Cop30 ahead of UN summit in Brazil
“Climate is our biggest war. Climate is here for the next 100 years. We need to focus and … not allow those [other] wars to take our attention away from the bigger fight that we need to have.” Ana Toni, the chief executive of Cop30, the UN climate summit to be held in Brazil this November, is worried. With only four months before the crucial global summit, the world’s response to the climate crisis is in limbo. Fewer than 30 of the 200 countries that will gather in the Amazonian…
Starmer calls for ‘lower temperature’ in trans debate as Badenoch says he must admit he was wrong about defining women – UK politics live
From 1h ago Starmer urges MPs to ‘lower the temperature’ in trans debate, as Badenoch challenges him to admit he was wrong about defining women Kemi Badenoch also wishes people a happy St George’s Day. And she says, being married to a Catholic, she knows how much the Pope meant to people. Does the PM accept that, when he said a trans woman was a woman, he was wrong. Starmer says the supreme court ruling has brought clarity. He sets out the principles he is applying. And he says it…
John Kerry: ‘I Feel Deeply Frustrated’
When former Secretary of State John Kerry stepped into a newly created post as America’s top climate diplomat in 2021, the reputation of the United States abroad was, in his words, “in the crapper,” and the pathway to meeting the world’s climate goals looked, to most, very narrow. Kerry, now 80, is stepping down this week to take a role on the Biden re-election campaign. In the last three years, the climate landscape has changed in two big and contradictory ways: The goal the world set in Paris in 2015…
Growth in CO2 emissions leaves China likely to miss climate targets
China is off track on all of its core 2025 climate targets, despite the fact that clean energy is now the biggest driver of the country’s economic growth, analysis has found. After years of extraordinarily rapid growth, China is now grappling with a slowdown that is causing ripples internally and internationally. The government has supercharged the growth of the renewable energy industry but it has imultaneously poured stimulus funds into construction and manufacturing, and continues to approve coal power. China’s total energy consumption increased by 5.7% in 2023, in the…
Shell Sees Demand Surging for Liquefied Natural Gas
Shell, Europe’s largest energy company, forecast on Wednesday that global demand for liquefied natural gas, which has been a lifeline for Europe after Russia cut off pipeline gas supplies, will surge by around 50 percent over the next 15 years. The main source of growth is expected to be in China, which will switch from coal to gas in industry to cut emissions, Shell said. The fuel, which is chilled to minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit and transported on specialized ships, has become a significant moneymaker for Shell as part of…
Post-Brexit watchdog ‘ready’ to investigate flood of cheaper Chinese electric cars
The head of Britain’s post-Brexit trade watchdog has said it is ready to follow Brussels in launching an investigation into Chinese companies flooding the market for electric cars, but the government has not asked it to do so. Oliver Griffiths, the chief executive of the UK’s Trade Remedies Authority (TRA), which advises the government on trade defence, said it was keeping lines of communication open with ministers and had been in close contact with the car industry. “We’ll be ready to go if anyone does come to us,” he told…