Ahead of the Paris climate talks in December, most countries are unveiling their climate goals and Australia unveiled their own and they are the weakest of the wealthiest nations with 20% reduction by 2030 against 1990, to be compared with 32% from the United States and a minimum of 40% for the European Union.
Deniers stating that climate change is a threat for the distant future forget that air pollution from coal fired plants, industry and vehicle exhausts are just a huge threat to our present as well.
The drought that is affecting Brazil so much is also undermining Uruguay and its large dependance on hydro energy ( 74 percent of local electricity ). The current alternative to hydro is oil. So the country will invest $2.6 billion ( 2.3 billion euros ) in wind energy in the next couple of years.
And these are huge steps in the right direction for both renewable energy and afforestation. This bode well for the upcoming IPCC climate talks that will take place late this year in Paris.
As I am writing my 1800th article in eight years I would like to take some time to reflect on our common climate / energy situation, Corporate (Social) Responsibility and my own life.
I was right earlier on when I stated that it was up to us after the Lima Minima. Companies, cities and communities need to act on climate change and luckily they do as the United Nations reported recently.
Ikea will invest and spend a billion euros ( over $1.10 billion) in renewable energy sources and other climate change related projects. This is an excellent example of Corporate Social responsibility.
Last year I was reporting that we were 6.5 million people working in the Renewable Energy Industries. If I have – temporarily – left it, many more have joined as now this figure reaches 7.7 million people.
As odd as it might seem, oil prices at $60 are not making it any easier for Big Oil and the likes. The Financial Times published two articles on how coal, oil and gas are through tought times. Let us review them here.
In the past few weeks different news from China made me feel hopeful for our common climate and civilization. Indeed, the country’s coal consumption has started to decrease, with a 2.9 percent cut in 2014.
