First and foremost I would like to wish you all a happy new year 2008. Hope this year will be great for you and full of good news in environmental topics.
I begun this blog a year ago and wrote last year 200 articles and plan to write the same amount this year, so have no fear you will have plenty of things to read this year too.
2007 was a formidable year for climate change mitigation and environmentalism. You will find below a selection of the biggest news.January
2007 was off with a good start as in the US, President Bush became finally aware of energy scarcity and the European Union was preparing itself to take strong measures on climate change.
The climate experts from the IPCC begun their first meeting of the year in Paris to release their evaluation report on climate change.
February
After their meeting, the IPCC people released their 4th Summary for Policymakers which brought a lot of interesting yet worrying data. In the meantime, a new report mentioning Record pollution in China was published.
March
That month began the International Polar Year which was due to launch several events to study these regions, heavily struck by global warming. The winter that just finished was the hottest ever recorded with extreme events worldwide.
Other good news, Brazil begun to be aware of the threat climate change represents there and the EU pledged itself to use 20 percent of renewables for energy by 2020.
April
The biggest headlines that month was the second IPCC meeting which focused on the impacts and adaptation to climate change. Further news concerned developing countries as according to an article by the IHT they would be the most struck by climate change.
I wrote two articles based on my personal reflections. The first one was on housing insulation, a most important topic. The second article was on the possible actions one can take to decrease greenhouse gases emissions.
May
I tackled that month the stabilization wedges theory, an interesting work to fight global warming. I learned that according to recent research that peak oil is near.
I begun at that time writing articles in French with a resume of a part of my master’s thesis. IPCC published the third part of its report, this one focusing on the solutions to climate change.
June
Hydroelectricity is vital for Brazil, and this was exemplified in a news which reported the possible construction of new dams in Brazil.
I also mentioned that month the Green Wall of China and that EU greenhouse gases emissions decreased in 2005.
July
Climate change is reaching dangerous point and air pollution kills thousands every year in China. The good news of this month was the fact that the Aral Sea is back.
August
India planted ten millions of trees in a single day and the third generation of solar PV panels are on their way and will bring an increased yield. Meanwhile, extreme weather events are occurring worldwide.
September
The countries from the Asia Pacific region (APEC) agreed on climate change and Mexico plans to invest three billion USD in wind energy.
I wrote a long article in French on the greenhouse gases emissions due to the various energy sources. I will make a translation of it one of these days.
October
Coal burning is a major contributor to climate change and I wrote an article on the clean alternatives. UNEP issue strong warning on environment and in France, a green revolution took place via the Grenelle de l’Environnement.
The Nobel Peace Prize went to the IPCC for their tremendous work and to Al Gore.
November
Australia ratified Kyoto and took part in Bali talks and this is a major shift as this country was averse to climate change mitigation until recently. The last part of the IPCC report was released and the conclusion is that we have to act NOW !
The International Energy Agency urged governments to act strongly on energy efficiency in order to solve climate change and energy crises.
December
EU can meet and go beyond its Kyoto targets and my opinions on housing were reinforced by the fact that the low-carbon revolution starts at home.
Over a billion trees have been planted in 2007 according to the UNEP and major Asian electricity producer committed itself to decrease its CO2 emissions.