Asia

South Korea confirms its 2020 climate targets

According to RTCC : ”  South Korea remains on course to meet its target of a 30% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 (…) It says the total reduction in climate warming greenhouse gases will be equivalent to 233 million tonnes. “ ” Specifically, the country plans transportation emission cuts of 34.3%, 26.9% in …

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Climate change dries up lakes in China and California

If you think climate change is a threat only to a distant future, please read on. In California, the situation is critical as to the Weather Channel : ” California’s reservoirs are severely depleted due to the ongoing widespread drought conditions “ ” As of Jan. 21, 2014, 67 percent of California was in extreme drought, …

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India is building the world’s largest solar plant

According to Business Insider, India is building the world’s largest solar plant in the northwestern desert state of Rajasthan. The project is due to deliver 4,000 MW of capacity for a price of 280 billion rupee ($4.4 billion, 3.2 billion euros). Current installed capacity in India is at 2,000 MW. By 2022, 22 GW, or eleven times …

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Extreme poverty is decreasing

According to Courrier International, the rate of people living under extreme poverty  – less than $1.25 a day – has been halved in the past two decades. This spectacular progress can be partly explained by the impressive economic growth in Asia. As an example, Bangladesh – which for many years had the title of world’s …

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The fortune at the bottom of the pyramid

While reading Richard Branson’s latest book, Screw Business As Usual, I came across an interesting concept : the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid. The term refers to the basic goods and services to sell to the poorest people. To a report from the World Resources Institute quoted in Branson’s book,  the Bottom of …

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Is China growing too big to breathe ?

I really appreciate reading Thomas L Friedman’s articles in the New York Times. His latest piece – Too Big to Breathe? – just nails it on how putting economic growth before anything else is endangering us all. There the acclaimed author of Hot, Flat and Crowded writes about how Harbin – a 10-million inhabitants city in China …

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Death, devastation and climate discussions

Today’s two main topics are closely related, and this albeit they are taking place thousands of kilometers apart. The first one is of course the Typhoon Haiyan / Yolanda that left death and devastation in its wake in the Philippines. To CNN, the Guardian and many other sources, at least 10,000 people have perished. As …

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World hunger keeps on decreasing

According to the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) , there are currently one hungry person out of eight on this planet. This represents 842 million people, or around twelve percent of the global population. While this is still a whole lot of people and way too much of them, this is an important decrease …

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The Fukushima horror story goes on

Safe and clean nuclear energy seems everyday further away as the horror story of the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan unfolds. Each passing year seems to bring its flow of bad news. As the New York Times notes : ” Problems at the plant seemed to take a sharp turn for the worse in July …

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Latest news from China

I originally wanted to write a post only on how the People’s Republic of China is willing to quadruple its solar PV capacity by 2015.  But given other news from there got my attention, I thought it would be better to present them all. First thing first : the Chinese government is not messing around …

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